← Biohack-it
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- [00:00]
A
Hi, guys, and welcome back to another episode of biohackit. So today's guest is somebody I consider a really dear friend, Darshan Shah.
- [00:06]
B
That's a great question.
- [00:07]
A
He's a CEO and founder of Next Health. And the things that he's done with Next health, they're in 30 different locations. They've become a global company. And in this episode, we really dive into GLP1's the benefits and non benefits of it. We talk about peptides and the deregulation of peptides and what's going to be put back on the market. We talk about stem cells, the future of health and where it's going.
- [00:25]
B
People with gingivitis have higher levels of Alzheimer's, so this makes total sense. Now. You have poor dental hygiene and you have gingivitis. Your body is constantly inflamed, causing more inflammatory biomarkers, and that can lead to inflammation in your brain. The one health food that I see all the time that people are completely bamboozled by are these protein bars.
- [00:43]
A
Thank you. Thank you. And we also talk about the fact that only 6.8% of Americans are actually metabolically healthy. And what does that mean for the rest of the population? I really hope you enjoy diving into this episode as much as I enjoyed recording it. I wanted to talk to you about. A lot of people probably come into Next Health or you've been treating patients for so long and they come and say, I have a clean lifestyle. But yet they're sewing so high in chronic inflammation. Their homocysteine is really up. Their other chronic markers that are up. What, what does that typically come down to?
- [01:24]
B
You know, there's a few different reasons, and I think there's a lot of invisible markers of inflammation that people don't even realize exist. Okay, so let me give you like a few of them. Just as an example. One of them you mentioned, homocysteine. A lot of people have a defect in their methylation pathways. This is the MTHFR gene, but also a few others in that same methylation pathway. Now, when you cannot methylate, it means that you're unable to activate certain vitamins, hormones, etc. And this can lead to inflammation. And so homocysteine is a result of this defect in this pathway. So people with high homocysteine levels, yes, they have more inflammation, they get more cardiovascular disease. And the solution there is to actually get them methylated B vitamins. So you get them activated B vitamins to bypass this methylation pathway. That's one reason. Another reason people have Hidden inflammation. And this is something I see all the time. Time. And it kind of connects the dots here. So stick with me here. So when people say gut health is a lot of the reason that we get inflammation is because 90% of our immune system lives in our gut.
- [02:34]
A
Right.
- [02:35]
B
Symptomatically, you're not going to feel a problem with your gut barrier until it's like, been there for a long time or it's really bad. So when people have high levels of inflammation, they feel like they're doing fine. I sometimes go looking in their gut. And the corollary to that too is that our gut starts in our mouth. Actually, the mouth is the first kind of entry point of our gut. And people with dental disease or an oral microbiome that's off can also have high levels of inflammation. And in fact, this kind of connected the dots for me because one of the weird statistics out there is that people with gingivitis have higher levels of Alzheimer's. And so this makes total sense now. Like if you have poor, poor dental hygiene and you have gingivitis, your body is constantly inflamed, causing more inflammatory biomarkers and that can lead to inflammation in your brain.
- [03:27]
A
So having said that, and kind of thinking about that for a second, what are some immediate steps somebody can take to improve their microbiome in oral microbiome immediately?
- [03:35]
B
Yeah. So first thing is just look at your toothpaste that you're using. Is it something that has a lot of toxins in it? Scan your toothpaste label with an app like Yucca and find a non toxic version of just toothpaste. That's one, one thing. Another one is to make sure you're flossing twice a day. There's a new kind of floss out there that has two strands on the floss instead of just one. That works a lot better than regular floss. And definitely go see your dentist and do your cleanings twice a year preferred.
- [04:02]
A
It's amazing to see all this information coming out and like, let's say two decades ago we didn't have any information on how important the oral microbiome is.
- [04:11]
B
Yeah. In fact, you know, for a long time people were using those like Listerine. And they still give it to you
- [04:17]
A
at the hotel, by the way.
- [04:18]
B
Do they really? Oh my God. Yeah. Don't use that. Kills your oral microbiome. Yeah. It might make your breath smell better for this minute, but in the long term it actually is making things a lot worse. There is one other thing that people can do to improve their risk of getting cavities. And that is to use xylitol gum instead of regular gum with sugar in it. Xylitol is actually a sugar that kills the bacteria that cause dental caries. So that's another thing you can do is buy xylitol gum.
- [04:48]
A
And so a lot of people walking in, they're coming in for high inflammation. You're checking all these different markers, you're checking the oral microbiome. And then what are some immediate steps you can tend to give people that tends to cut down that inflammation in a dramatic way.
- [05:01]
B
It's all the lifestyle things. You know, you got to do high intensity exercise, you got to be out there Moving, getting your 8,000 steps in a day, sleeping better is really helpful for inflammation. And then what's going to be your biggest kind of driver of lower inflammation is to just completely cut out all the ultra processed foods and go to like more of a Mediterranean style diet. You know, there's, there's diets out there that are named that you can look into, but really is all they're doing is cutting out ultra processed food as much as possible.
- [05:34]
A
And when it comes to a lot of people, like we were talking about it last night at the supper club, you know, Rhonda was basically saying that women, when we get older, she's seen that people who are perimenopausal, menopausal, living more in a little bit more of a calorie deficit is actually doing women a lot of good. So do you see that with female patients in your practice or is it, it's, it's, you know, individualized?
- [05:56]
B
Yeah, I, I would just say that, you know, being in a calorie deficit is different from person to person. Right. It depends on how are you getting to that calorie deficit. Some people are just, you know, eating less calories overall, and that means they're activating less protein and they're losing muscle mass. So that's where things can get a little bit dangerous. So I don't necessarily believe fully that a calorie deficit is related to inflammation levels is are you getting that calorie deficit? That is more important. And so when you're cutting out calories, the first thing you want to cut out, once again, is the ultra processed food calories. Secondly is a snacking on ultra processed food calories. Thirdly is minimizing carbohydrates more than protein and more than fiber sources. So it could help. But I think maybe the benefit is coming from she's cutting out calories in the right way, which is cutting out carbohydrates and ultra processed food and then
- [06:52]
A
increasing things like, you know, strength training, increasing how many steps she's getting in, which is adding to the overall health benefits. I always see health as a, as you have a stool with all these three different legs on it and all the different legs have to stay in place in order for you to balance. Correct?
- [07:06]
B
Yeah.
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A
Right. If you knock out one, it's still not going to work. So if you're into calorie deficit and you're listening to this, but you're not getting enough sleep and you're constantly stressed out and you have a high cortisol response and it's not going to help you with the inflammation.
- [07:17]
B
Right? Absolutely right. Yeah.
- [07:19]
A
Also being like, for people who want to be the CEO of their biology, what are the first steps of diagnostic testing they should get done and start their journey with.
- [07:29]
B
So diagnostic testing, like, as you know, there's thousands of biomarkers out there that you can test. You can go really down the rabbit hole. But there's a few critical biomarkers that just like a CEO, like when you're managing your business, there are millions of data points, but you know that there's some critical ones. Number one is revenue and sales, number two is like, what's our profit?
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A
Right.
- [07:49]
B
Your body has the Same kind of KPIs or key performance indicators of your body for metabolic health. That includes two biomarkers, hemoglobin A1C and fasting insulin level. To me, those are critical for cardiovascular health is apob LP and triglyceride levels and triglyceride to HDL ratio. Really important for inflammation is highly sensitive C reactive protein. And also the one that you mentioned, homocysteine hormones, testosterone and estrogen for men and women. So I think, you know, having some of these critical ones, it's probably like 10 or 15, can be incredibly impactful. In fact, if you want a list of these, I actually put a free resource on my website. It's@drshaw.com biomarkers and it's a free guide to. Here are the critical biomarkers, here's how often you want to measure them and what is the optimal range because right. Optimal is so much more important than when things become in disease state and how to get optimized. And so this guide can give your listeners all of it.
- [08:53]
A
You came from such an impressive background of being like a, you know, a surgeon. You were essentially performing surgeries, you were in practice, all that stuff. What was a pivotal point that you said, you know, I'm going to step up from this medical system and go more towards functional.
- [09:05]
B
Yeah, it was really my own health journey because, you know, despite being a surgeon and like, really, really well educated in the field of like western medicine, I myself got sick. And so by that, I mean, I was 50 pounds overweight, I had three chronic diseases, so I had high blood pressure, I had a cardiovascular disease and also diabetes. And then I developed an autoimmune disease on top of all of this. And so when all of that came together and I literally felt the worst I'd have ever felt in my entire life, I decided that I wanted to be healthy. Like, I. This can't be my future.
- [09:38]
A
And you're like, I'm supposed to be the guy with all the answers.
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B
Right, Right. But my answer is just like most of western medicine come like too much too late. Right. It's like surgery or pharmaceuticals. And I was on 10 different medications all at the same time.
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A
It's insane.
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B
And yeah. And so when they wanted to start adding more medic medications now for my autoimmune disease, I'm like, no, no, this cannot be the way. So then I decided to get healthy. Found out like a medical school. We don't really have the knowledge of how to stay healthy and get healthy. It's more the knowledge of how to like treat disease. Right. And so I went out there and took nutrition courses because I knew nutrition was a big part of my problem. And from there I learned about functional nutrition and then functional medicine. And that's when my eyes opened up. I was like, I, oh, I have to fix my hormones, I have to reduce inflammation, I have to get my gut right. All of this is part of the journey of health. And so once I started doing that on myself in eight months, literally I lost 45 pounds, got off like 8 of my prescription medications, Autoimmune disease wiped away.
- [10:42]
A
How long ago was this?
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B
This was when I was 10 years ago, my early 40s.
- [10:47]
A
Yeah, you shouldn't have all of this stuff going on at such a young age.
- [10:50]
B
Yeah, but a lot of people do, you know, and just because I was stressed out, I was working hard. I was working 14, 16 hour days and you know, I didn't take many breaks now, sedentary and ate garbage. And it happens to a lot of us, you know, but functional medicine turned it around like eight months and it was turned around.
- [11:07]
A
And you've never had to go back to, onto any of those medications and stuff ever again.
- [11:11]
B
No, no. Yeah, it was once I figured out like, here's what I need to do with my lifestyle. It prevents you from being on these medications. Yeah.
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A
So spring cleaning looks a little different in my house these days. It's not just about organizing my closets. It's about what I'm actually bringing into my space. Especially as someone who cares deeply about my metabolic health and lowering overall toxin burden load. I've been using Branch Basics for almost five years and it's just one of those swaps that totally makes sense to me. I used to have a whole cabinet of different cleaners all with ingredients I couldn't even pronounce. And the more I learned about hormonal health and environmental toxins, the more that started to bother me. So I switched. What I love is that everything is built around one powerful concentrate. I dilute it to clean my kitchen, bathrooms, laundry floors, even produce and makeup brushes. It's plant based and mineral based, fragrance free and made safe certified, which means it's screened against known and suspected harmful chemicals that we do not want in our homes or in our bodies. It feels aligned with how I live. I'm not extreme about everything, but I am intentional. And this is one of those small shifts that adds up day in and day out. If you're doing a reset in your home, I really encourage you to look at what's under your sink too. Branch Basics is available@target.com, target in store, Amazon and of course branchbasics.com youm can get 20% off at branchbasics.com with code biohackit20 which is B I O H A C K I T20. After you purchase, make sure you tell them you heard about them from our show because a clean home should actually feel clean also for your body. Men and women's biology tends to be so different. So given your practice and your own experience and kind of what you see at Next Health as well, a lot of young guys and I have a lot of guy friends that tell me about this. They're getting diagnosed with having really high blood pressure. We talked about this earlier and how blood pressure can be an indicator for people being more susceptible to developing Alzheimer's later in age. Yeah, the telltale sign. Same thing with having really high cholesterol. So what do you guys do to mitigate that and what are some telltale signs that they may not be looking at their physiology, their biology, maybe their lifestyle that they could adjust to move off medication?
- [13:29]
B
Yeah. So look, I think that whenever you look at when you're On a prescription medication, the first thing that most people do is like they think they're going to be on it for life. And we need to change that mindset. You don't need to be on prescription medications for life. That doesn't mean don't listen to your doctor and just stop what you're taking. Absolutely not. But work with a functional medicine practitioner and your doctor to potentially at least minimize a dose or reverse the need for these medications. And I've seen it happen hundreds if not thousands of times that people get off prescription medications once they get healthy. So your question, what are the key drivers? So number one thing I would say is fixing their metabolic health. There's a really good piece of technology we have right now to help people fix this. It's called the continuous glucose monitor.
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A
Right.
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B
So anyone who has a hemoglobin A1C, which is that marker metabolic health, three month average of your glucose, that's 5.5 or above, I tell them, let's get you a CGM continuous glucose monitor for at least two to four weeks and let's have you learn how your body metabolizes different foods and how you can reformat your eating habits to reverse your metabolic disease and get your metabolic health in the right place again and get it optimized. What does optimal mean? 5.2 or less on hemoglobin A1C. Now if they're, if there's someone who's pre diabetic or diabetic, I have them wear the continuous glucose monitor until we get them. Not pre diabetic or diabetic. Sometimes that can take six months or a year, but it's worth having that continuous data feedback.
- [15:05]
A
Yeah, that's insane to see that if you make these lifetime changes, you tune in, you do the diagnostics, you can mitigate so many, like major health conditions that may come up later. And we have the technology, the data, the researchers suggest and show now in real time that in six to eight months of doing a certain protocol, changing your diet, getting the sleep in, maybe supplementing with the right hormones or whatever, maybe you can make major differences.
- [15:30]
B
Absolutely. And it's so critical to understand that like once you start getting the basics right, you can actually reverse chronic disease. And so there's a really great book by Jeffrey Bland, it's called Disease Delusion. And you know, we, he talks about how we have all these thousands of diseases out there that we've put names to and each one of them just seems so permanent. But if you really look back at the root causes of why we get these diseases, there's really about eight of them. And once you can fix those eight root causes, many diseases go away. You know, and so having that mindset shift can be very powerful.
- [16:06]
A
It's also insane to me to know the data now says that only 6.8% of Americans are metabolically healthy. I believe that means half of us in the industry are not even metabolically healthy.
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B
I know.
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A
Think about it like it's such a small percentage of us who are actually metabolically healthy and able to mitigate a lot of these things. We need the additional support and the resources to now really keep ourselves in shape.
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B
Right, right, absolutely.
- [16:29]
A
Last night we were also talking about, and we discussed it this morning on Vibrance Podcast, a little bit about stem cells. So stem cells have become. People are talking about, you know, the, the guidelines, will they be removed? They can be life changing. You know, we talked about adipose to tissue stem cells. So can we break down the different types of stem cells? What's your take on them, and when should they really be added to someone's protocol?
- [16:50]
B
Yeah, so I'm going to answer that question a little bit backwards. When should they be added to someone's protocol? So it's really important before you seek out any kind of advanced technology and longevity medicine, whether it be stem cells or exosomes or peptides, you got to get your basics right first. You're just wasting your money and your time putting any of this stuff in your body when your body's not fully
- [17:13]
A
optimized to start with, which means it's very inflamed, essentially.
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B
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Just means that you're not going to get the benefit out of it. So if you're metabolically unhealthy, if you're inflamed, even if your hormones are off, like, all these things need to be taken care of first. Now, say you got all your functional parameters down, you're pretty healthy, you feel really good.
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A
Right.
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B
And now you want to do the next thing, then stem cells can be an option for you to consider. Now, there's one caveat to that, and those are people with, like, severe joint issues. I've seen stem cells really help people that have worn down their joints. And people are researching stem cells for other conditions, but these are mostly being done in, like, research laboratories and research hospitals. If you are a candidate for stem cells and you want to, like, see what's next in your journey, then there's different categories of stem cells. The two big categories are, number one, the ones you get from your own body. And number two, the ones you can get from somewhere else, the ones you get from your own body either come from your fat or for your bone marrow. So it involves doing a little procedure on you like a small liposuction or a bone marrow biopsy to get the stem cells out. The ones you get from somewhere else come from the donated umbilical cords. So, you know, when the baby's born, there's a placenta and umbilical cord that comes out with it is usually either thrown away or gets donated. Some people save the cord blood for the stem cells for the future, but a lot of that can be donated and then they're purified from there. Now what are the difference? Like, should you use your own or should you use these donated cord blood cells? And what I would say is the ones you get from your own, they have you. You are going to have a procedure that has some recovery with the donated ones. You don't have that with the ones you get from your own. It's your same old stem cells.
- [19:00]
A
I was going to say the age you are as the age you are, if you're inflamed, the stem cells. Best quality.
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B
Exactly. And so you don't necessarily pack the same punch as brand new stem cells from a baby that was just born right from their, from their umbilical cord. So I think, you know, those are the considerations there. And so I really, in my practice, I really like using mesenchymal cells from the umbilical cords. And that's. It's just so much easier for people to do too.
- [19:24]
A
And where do you see the research going now? If we had better reg, like open regulations to study it beyond what pharma allows us to study it for.
- [19:32]
B
Yeah. So, you know, unfortunately in the United States, pharma has really put a block on stem cell research because they fund the fda. And the FDA said the minute you take a stem cell out of someone and you do anything to it is now a drug. And so now we can't do any type of manipulations to stem cells at all. So it's kind of like a block in the research. However, other countries, like you were telling me, actually Dubai is really in the forefront. Yeah.
- [19:57]
A
Dubai is going to be moving forward with that and they're really allowing in research and they're gonna, you know what they're doing what I love about it, they're centralize everything. So they're like, it's not going to be a free for all. You're going to come in there's going to be guidelines put in, there's going to be research put in. We're going to centralize everything under our thing. But they're studying it for longevity. They're not studying it for a specific condition. And then what's fascinating about that is it opens it up for the researchers. And scientists really apply to different fields of medicine.
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B
Exactly, yeah.
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A
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- [21:23]
B
So you already see a lot of innovations coming from places like Japan, where they have these muse cells, which are special stem cells that are actually regenerative. And so I'm really excited. I'm just now learning about them. And, you know, I think we're going to see in the next 10 years massive advancements in the technology around stem cells. Another thing that's really transformative that we talked a little bit about last night is the application of Yamanaka factors. Right. Do you want to talk about that a little bit?
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A
100%.
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B
Yamanaka factors are four proteins that were discovered by Dr. Yamanaka, and he won a Nobel Prize for this. He's a Japanese scientist. Of course not reg. You know, his research was not regulated to death, and so he was actually able to do some real research. And when you apply Yamanaka factors to any cell. So I could take like, you know, a cell from your skin, a cell from your liver, or whatever, apply these four factors, they will take that cell and bring it all the way back. A pluripotential stem cell.
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A
Amazing.
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B
It's crazy to think how this can happen. Right? So forever. We thought that once you take a pluripotential stem cell, which is basically like a stem cell that your embryo has, it turns into all these different organs. Once it's differentiated into a certain kind of stem cell, like a mesenchymal stem cell or hematopoietic, it had to stay that way. And that's not true. We can actually rewrite the genetic code. And take a stem cell back to his most youthful and brand new state, which is mind blowing. Here's a problem. I don't want to inject you with Yamanaka factors because then you just turn into like a big bowl of, of of pluripotential stem cells. Right. Or the way that really happens in biology is you develop tumors. Right. So another company in San Francisco called Retro Biosciences, I've been reading a lot about, they figured out how to modify these Yamanaka factors to only take the cells back to a certain degree to where they're more youthful, but not all the way back to ploy potential. That is going to be massively innovative. Right. Because now we can control how youthful we make a cell. And they're already in drug trials in Australia right now as we speak. And they're doing, they're launching many more drug trials where they're creating drugs using this technology. And that's going to be another game changer in this field.
- [23:49]
A
But with the FDA regulations and everything going on by when do you think they'll allow companies like this to come in and actually enhance what's currently being offered? Because the FDA in the US is like the wild, wild west. Like, it's like, you know, they're like, this is for your best good, but they're like you're only allowing things that don't offset your pharma model at the same time. That's where I think, like the lobbyists are in bed with the medical system and that's where we're all getting screwed on the outside.
- [24:14]
B
Yeah. But what I will say is that I think people know they're not just limited to getting stuff in the United States anymore.
- [24:20]
A
You know, Costa Rica, Dubai, you have Cabo.
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B
People are making massive medical cities that are truly innovative that the United States won't allow it. And say you're someone and you have severe Ms. Right. And you know that there's a curative therapy out there.
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A
Right?
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B
Right. You'll 100% leave the United States to go get it if they don't allow it in the United States. And so there really needs to be a rethinking of this model for 2026, because we are going to develop therapies that are outside of the pharma model.
- [24:49]
A
Right.
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B
It's 100% happening. And by we, I mean humanity. Right. Because humanity is not going to wait for a pharma company to cure these deadly diseases. They waited too long already. They haven't been successful. So look, pharma is Great. They solved a lot of problems through temporizing subscription drug therapy.
- [25:07]
A
That's why people who are already sick and we want to build.
- [25:09]
B
Yeah.
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A
Move away from the sick care system and we want to focus on a healthcare system.
- [25:13]
B
Exactly.
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A
Our healthy individuals who don't even end up in that system.
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B
That's exactly right. And so the world's not going to wait. Humanity is not going to wait. It's going to happen whether the FDA decides it's okay or not. And so, you know, it's. It's really exciting to see the innovation that's happening from places like, you know, Japan, Dubai, all over the world, Singapore, everywhere.
- [25:32]
A
And even like things like in Costa Rica, they have a lot of the stem cell facilities now, people going down to get stem cells. Same thing with Kabul. So my cousin in Dubai has Ms. He has been misguided on treatment, doesn't really know what to do. And even in America, he came, saw the best doctors here, no real guidance was given. So there is a stem cell facility. They have head offices, obviously, Miami, but they only do stem cells, obviously, in Cabo and Costa Rica. He's going in for a clinical trial where they're going to take him in as a patient and run a trial, essentially do a paper around him to see how he responds with this Ms. With certain dosing of stem cells over a certain time, the dosing is going to be adjusted around him. They're mixing two different types of stem cells. They can put him on a proper protocol and then see how his body actually reacts to it.
- [26:15]
B
Yeah.
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A
And it's fascinating that he has to fly all the way here, out all this side to even get something like this done because America's not offering that for him.
- [26:24]
B
Yeah, it's just all regulatory stuff. And I think, you know, as we know, it takes a long time for these politics to work themselves out.
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A
And sometimes they don't even do that.
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B
Yeah. And so it's just. We just got to wait and see what happens. But. But thank goodness, like United States. Not the only place in the world to get medical care anymore.
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A
Right.
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B
Other places.
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A
Let me tell you about a very special event that's taking place May 17th in Miami. So if you're into health and wellness and you're in Miami, you need to know about this event. You walk into sacred space, one of my favorite spots in Miami. And the morning begins with a conversation that every woman deserves to have as part of her life. And most never even get access to. Dr. Natalie Crawford, a double board certified OBGYN and reproductive endocrinologist and Dr. Jess Shepard, board certified OBGYN and Women's Health expert. And Jess Berman, who is the CMO of one of my favorite supplement companies, Body Bio, in the same room talking openly about everything that affects us as women. Our hormones, our fertility, chronic inflammation, cellular health and our longevity. Just women in a room finally talking about what matters. Then we go deeper. Each doctor leads her own personal workshop, Hands on interactive learning morning with a Q A at the end. The kind of session that you're really empowered and educated on all things regarding your health, your body, your hormones and everything in between. In the afternoon you have a beautiful farm driven lunch and then you get to sit down with both of these doctors one on one. You get your book signed and we close the day together over mocktails in a room full of women who showed up for themselves and wanted to educate and empower themselves. You also get to go home with a thousand dollar goodie bag, a gift from us. But more than that, you go home knowing exactly what your body needs and why it needs those things. So that is going to be your Sunday. Doors open at 10am and we go until 4pm the link is in my bio and I hope to see you all there. And people have the ability to fly. They're educated on it, they're doing their research. They're like, well, if we can't get this here, we're going to go get it somewhere else. Same thing I've seen with certain medications in Europe. You can just buy them over the counter. They're not like registered this week, but over here they're 10 times the price there you they have to be done under prescriptions. A lot of people when they travel on their summer holidays are now picking stuff from French pharmacies or Spanish pharmacies along the way. We also spoke earlier about, I just want to bring it up. So we talked about how, you know, we had Bobby Kennedy go and Joe Rogan talk about the 14 peptides they're going to delist and allow back into the system. So I want to educate the audience because so many people ask us about peptides and I'm like, firstly, that's not the place that you should be starting. But also where should people be buying their peptides?
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B
Yeah, it's a great question. So when, you know, Robert Kennedy went on Joe Rogan, he made a declaration like we're going to put peptides on the approved list.
- [29:01]
A
Yeah.
- [29:01]
B
Now that has not happened. Let's be very clear. Like he has to go through all the politics to make that happen too. And he's going to go up against the FDA on this, Right? Hopefully it does happen. Why? Because peptides also fall into two categories. One is research grade peptides that people are buying off the Internet without any prescription. Okay. And let's be clear, they're research grade because someone's bought a giant vat from China for, you know, 500 for a VAT and they just scoop it into these little jars and sell it to you online. There's zero regulation probably, you know, who knows what's in the vial. And secondly. Yeah, right, exactly. And so the other group is what's called compounded peptide. So these are made in compounding pharmacies where they're under some regulation, 503 regulation it's called. And they are held to a certain standard of making drugs. Okay. This is also like, you know, compounding pharmacies, there's thousands of them. And so there can be variability and quality there as well. But definitely a move in the right direction because once the FDA says these can be compounded, the gray area or black market goes away completely.
- [30:09]
A
Right.
- [30:10]
B
Now does this mean that it says as the same quality as, you know, five billion dollar pharma company can make, like, you know, Tirzepatide or Margiano? No, it could be variable as well. But there's still a lot better policies and procedures in place around producing peptides at a 503 compounding pharmacy. So for some of these peptides that people are looking for, I would definitely go to a medical practitioner that's found the best compounding pharmacy and has sourced their peptides from there. And those are the what is they're prescribing you.
- [30:41]
A
So for example, with Next Health, you guys have 30 locations and growing, you obviously a global company now as well. At what stage when someone walks into your practice, you obviously do all the baseline diagnostic testing which we will go over in a minute. But at what stage if somebody's like, I want to try peptides, in what stage of that, like journey. Journey. Would you even put them on peptides?
- [31:00]
B
Yeah. So like I said, we have to have make sure the base is good. However, there's certain peptides that we can do a lot earlier. Those are number one, GLP1 peptide. Right. Because people use GLP1s to get healthy and so those will start a lot earlier. Also there's one called BPC157, sometimes combined with TB500 as well. So yeah, BPC157 is amazing orally at healing gut and also it could be useful in post surgical healing now, unfortunately, because once again, you know, there's not a billion dollar pharma company making these. No one can afford the studies to show this. But there's enough, enough data out there anecdotally and also with some studies that are being done that show that they work and we've used them very successfully in our practice. Accelerate healing from surgery or gut healing as well.
- [31:48]
A
And then for anybody listening, BPC157 is one of the only ones that survives the oral kind of ingestion microbiome. So it's the only one that makes it to your stomach in one piece, is digested through a lot of other ones. I don't believe in taking peptides, patches. A lot of people try to do peptide patches. I'm like, I don't know what you think about that. But the bioavailability is not really there. Nasal peptides, that's another thing that came out again, I was like, what's the bioavailability on this?
- [32:13]
B
So, yeah, you know, each and every one of these need to be studied. I would say the nasal ones that might be good are like C Max, which is, you know, you're trying to get into the brain through that crib perform plate above your nose. So that might be beneficial, but who knows how much is absorbed, like when you spray a lot of these peptides. So there's a lot to be worked out there for sure.
- [32:33]
A
What do you think about David Sinclair's research coming out now that he's saying basically we can age like 50 or 70% of, you know, aging in cells over the next like decade. And he's gone into human clinical trials now, right? Yes, he's approved them.
- [32:46]
B
Yeah. So he's using the Yamanaka factors as well to reverse aging. Right. Now the, the trial he's doing is on the optic nerve, I think, or, or the eye, where is, you know, damaged nerve cells in the eye and trying to get vision back. Right. And so I think anything. He's one of many scientists doing a lot of incredible research out right now.
- [33:06]
A
Right.
- [33:06]
B
And you know, we'll get the results back very soon. And once there's proof of concept, like, okay, David Sinclair's work is working, Retro Biosciences is working in Australia now.
- [33:19]
A
You have enough data points in the
- [33:20]
B
pool and then you just start trying more and more things. Right, Right.
- [33:23]
A
So D going back to Nexa, when somebody walks into the practice for the first time. Right. Your practitioners are so well equipped to create that baseline. So you Always want to look at somebody's baseline to then check improvements from. Right. So two things. What is a baseline diagnostics that you guys run? And two, you talked me through some of the AI that you built in, which is actually patient facing, which is really interesting. So can we dive into that?
- [33:45]
B
Yeah, I'd love to. So, you know, first of all, when you get your blood test done, your biology is not just what's going on in your blood. There's so much more going on with your biology. Our baseline blood test involves the same thing we talked about earlier, those inflammatory markers, metabolic health markers, hormone markers, etc. So there's about, about 50 or 60 blood markers that we get. But then we also get physical markers of how your body is doing. So VO2 masks for your cardiovascular fitness, we do grip strength for your strength. We are also taking blood pressure. That also measures your arter real health. We look at your balance and your mobility and then we do cognitive testing as well. And this gives us a much fuller picture about what's going on with your body and nex health. We don't just practice longevity medicine, we also do functional medicine. And functional medicine involves a lot of like understanding your history, your symptomatology, and so we do an extensive questionnaire as well. And then we get a really good full picture. Now there's some patients that also go the next level and do like an executive physical with us, which is where we do full genetics, we do a full body mri, we scan their heart, and we go even deeper into their biomarkers using a lot of testing that vibrant provides, like the urine toxin test. And that gives us even a more robust picture. That gives us the most robust picture that we have of your biology. Now this is a lot of data points, thousands. Now with AI, we can put all of that data into the AI and it will draw connections and conclusions based on the data. We always have a medical practitioner involved in looking at what, you know, the AI has come up with. But a lot of the times now the medical practitioner is like, oh, I didn't think of that. Or right, that's a really good connection. I didn't think of that one either. And so we always have a medical practitioner in the loop just to make sure of the safety of the data. And by safety, I mean like no hallucinations. But, you know, at the end of the day, using AI has become a major unlock.
- [35:48]
A
Having heard you talk about diagnostic testing, you've performed over 20,000 surgeries. Looking back at your medical career, how many of those surgeries could have been avoided had you had all the diagnostic testing you're doing now with your patients at Next Health.
- [36:03]
B
I mean, if use early enough, 80 to 90% of surgeries.
- [36:06]
A
Really? That high?
- [36:07]
B
Yeah.
- [36:08]
A
Wow. So if you look back at all the people you had to open up, you're like, man, if I had the tools that I'm giving to patients now at next, at that stage of my career, 80, 90 could have been avoided.
- [36:19]
B
A lot of surgeries performed nowadays for the results of chronic disease. Okay. So cancer, in my opinion, is the result of an accumulation of a lot of damage from chronic disease. We do it. I do a ton of cancer surgery. I did a ton of cancer surgery for 25 years. You know, people are getting cancer younger and younger, and they're getting more and more aggressive forms of cancer. Yeah. It's because of our level of toxic exposure that we don't know about, our level of metabolic health abnormalities that no one knew a lot about until recently. And, you know, inflammation same. All of these. All of these is too much, too late.
- [36:56]
A
Yeah.
- [36:56]
B
Like, you would wait until someone came in with symptoms and they're like, I feel terrible before you did any blood tests, you know. And so now using these markers earlier, we can spot disease decades before it turns into a surgical problem. Now, obviously, you need surgery for emergencies. If you get hit by a bus, you know, you gotta go to surgery
- [37:18]
A
for western medicine in society. Yeah, but maybe not the way we used to look at it to be
- [37:22]
B
the first point, a lot of surgery is done for orthopedic damage. Right. A lot of orthopedic damage is just from moving wrong and working out wrong, or not building strength or losing muscle mass or losing bone mass over time, which can also be avoided. Yeah, there's so much surgery that can be avoided if you just focus on the right things early enough.
- [37:42]
A
So talking about inflammation and how that's a major lever when it comes to chronic disease. At Next Health, you have and, you know, it's all over your social and people love it. You have this treatment called tp, Therapeutic Plasma exchange. And people post up their big bags and you can see the junk at the bottom. So can we walk people through tpe? And then I'm going to talk about another modality that people also like to bring up, which is A and pheresis. And talk about the difference in the two.
- [38:05]
B
Yeah, for sure. So for people that don't know, TPE stands for Therapeutic Plasma exchange. And basically what we're doing, you come into our office, we put you on a Nice comfy chair. We put one IV in your left arm and one IV in your right arm, and we form a circuit with a machine. And so what we do is we remove your blood from one arm, we put it through a giant centrifuge, and then we re inject your red blood cells, which carry oxygen into your body because you need those. Obviously, what we remove is an entire bag. And this is the pictures. You see people opening up these 3 liter bags of yellow fluid. That's your plasma. That is a liquid portion of your blood. Now, the liquid portion of your blood is where all of this stuff lives. Your toxins, your inflammatory mediators, your high cholesterol levels. All of that stuff is accumulating your plasma. And when you remove it, it gives your body a break from all of these damaging substances inside of your body. It's basically like an oil change for your body, allows your physiology to catch up. And then we replace that big bag of plasma with fresh new fluid with albumin. And that albumin is a really important protein because that can go through your biology, your body, and. And it's kind of like a mop. It mops up all of the toxins and damaged proteins and cells in your body and brings them to your liver and kidney for elimination. So that's how the whole process of TPE works. TPE has been approved since the 1970s. So it's been around forever. 50 years. Very safe procedure compared to other procedures. And transformative. Like there's studies showing slowing of the rate of progression of Alzheimer's, reversal of biological age factors, removal of cardiovascular risk factors.
- [39:47]
A
So much really goes on.
- [39:48]
B
Yeah.
- [39:48]
A
And then we talked a little bit earlier about also the other device that I mentioned, which is called apheresis. So that doesn't remove the plasma essentially from your body. There's just filtering out. It's a filter, essentially.
- [39:59]
B
Filter. Right. So same kind of thing. Like you get hooked up to two IVs, runs your blood through a filter. And these filters are supposedly supposed to remove some of these items as well. However, it's not a complete removal. Right. Because filtering, you can't get everything out. But also useful in certain cases if you're going after something very specific. However, there's a little bit of a problem where we don't have really good studies showing how much these filters are really removing. So the companies probably have done studies. I'm sure they have, because they built the devices, but. But there's nothing out there. Well, there's not a lot out there publicly showing. So, you know, we just have to kind of like wait and see what research comes out. The filters are all brand new, pretty much, and so they've only been around for a few years. So just kind of trying to wait and see what happens out of the research. Yep.
- [40:47]
A
When it comes to tpe, how many treatments do you need to do? Is it like you have to do one day on, one day off and do two back to back or just one is good per quarter?
- [40:55]
B
Everyone is so different. It just depends on what you're going after. Like, if you're going after. For someone who has Alzheimer's, you almost want to do two a week for like six weeks.
- [41:03]
A
Two a week for six weeks. Would you leave the. The.
- [41:06]
B
Some people do, yeah.
- [41:07]
A
You have to leave it in there, right? Because I say taking that in and out would be so painful.
- [41:11]
B
Yeah. Some people leaving like a port and they leave it in there. Yeah. And then, you know, if you're just doing it for longevity purposes, like for me, I do it once a quarter.
- [41:18]
A
Okay. And have you done like your own diagnostic testing before? You've done TP and after and seen some drastic results?
- [41:24]
B
Yeah, drastic results, Yeah. I mean, you can see it in
- [41:27]
A
your own inflammation, brain fog, sleep.
- [41:30]
B
This is what I love about, like N of one medicine. I love this whole concept of N of one because we have the data now on your body, how every intervention is working.
- [41:39]
A
Correct.
- [41:40]
B
So we collect your data, we do an intervention, and then we see with the same data points that it work or not. If it didn't work, then why would we keep doing it? Right. And so I've measured my toxin levels prior and post most 30 to 50 reduction in my toxin levels. Wow. Cholesterol levels, same thing. And this lasts a long time. So I pick quarterly because I see a lower level for three to four months. And so that's how I write that number.
- [42:04]
A
And what is the price for something like that? For. For next health, like patients, whether they want to come in one off or they actually want to become members. Because I know you have a membership program as well.
- [42:12]
B
Yeah, it's.
- [42:13]
A
It's.
- [42:13]
B
Right now, it's an expensive procedure because
- [42:15]
A
that album's very expensive. And you told me this morning, albumin. Majority of the albumin around the world is manufactured in the US is provided
- [42:22]
B
by the US Right, exactly. And so it's about $8,000 right now for one of these procedures. But I'm hoping, you know, with some volume, we can get better and better pricing albumin and get the price down.
- [42:33]
A
And normally, typically, how many of Your patients who are coming in to be members, at what stage of their protocol are you putting them on this? Is it like fixing the baseline health and then kind of jumping them to this, or is it from day one?
- [42:45]
B
Yeah. So this is like a little bit of one of those technologies that, like, we know it can also be useful in people that are suffering right now.
- [42:51]
A
Okay. So if some immediate relief.
- [42:52]
B
Yes. Yeah. So if you're suffering from a lot of inflammation from an autoimmune disease, if you're suffering from symptoms of long Covid, if you're suffering from high levels of cholesterol. Yeah. It can be used instantly in those types of situations.
- [43:07]
A
Offset that.
- [43:08]
B
Yeah, yeah. To look at, seeing how it works for you. But otherwise, if you're just doing. For longevity, obviously you have to optimize everything else first. And this is used kind of at the end of the protocol.
- [43:19]
A
I also want to dive a little bit into, because we spoke about it last night, hrt. So we talk a lot about HRT for women, but we don't really talk about HRT that much for men in the same way. Right. And we're just saying that women should start, like, when they're perimenopausal, like early, you know, anywhere from mid your mid-30s, you start testing. It's obviously bio individual. You should start getting on it. When it comes to men's health, what is the stance on hrt?
- [43:41]
B
Yeah. It's so funny how this HRT thing kind of went. Right. Like, first it was just like bros in the gym using.
- [43:45]
A
Exactly. And now we're like, all women need
- [43:48]
B
it, you know, and then the woman conversation, like, blew up the last few years, which is amazing. And thank God for that. I think it's going to save so many women from, you know, Alzheimer's and heart disease and osteoporosis and.
- [44:02]
A
Yeah. Just everything when it comes to aging. Because I think women, men, don't realize it's not that you lose your cycle when you stop menstruating and you're not having a cycle regularly and your hormones are not functioning, your body slowly thinks it's dying.
- [44:14]
B
Yeah.
- [44:15]
A
So in order to keep yourself going for longer and mitigating, a lot of major Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, osteoporosis, heart disease, cardiovascular disease, all of this stuff can be offset.
- [44:25]
B
Right.
- [44:25]
A
By now supplementing with bioidentical, not synthetic hormones.
- [44:29]
B
Yeah, exactly. It's so true. And so I think, you know, definitely, like, there needs to be a lot of focus on this conversation because still less than 10 10% of women that are menopausal are on hormones right now. And so we really got to fix that situation. But I do think that we start. Need to have the conversation again about male hormones, because male hormones have typically been also kind of shut down when you ask your doctor about it, because there were some misinterpreted studies around male hormones causing heart disease, and those are not true. And we also have new studies showing not only true. Yeah, yeah. It's protective against heart disease. Secondly, there's another misconception about male hormone therapy and cancer of the prostate. We also now know for a fact that male hormones, testosterone in particular, help protect you from prostate disease. Okay. Now, if some people were to get a prostate cancer, we'd have to test and see if it's sensitive to hormones. We normally stop people on testosterone, but there's even some urologists that put people on testosterone while they have breast cancer. Yeah, yeah. Because it does not shown. You know, like every case is individual.
- [45:39]
A
Right.
- [45:39]
B
But urologists are definitely looking, letting people stay on testosterone while they're watching prostate cancers. Absolutely. So that. That's all just to say that hormone therapy can be very safe for men as well. Obviously, you don't want to overshoot. Suit was optimal, in my view, because
- [45:57]
A
it stops your own production of testosterone as well. Right.
- [45:59]
B
No matter what is going to stop your own production. Testosterone.
- [46:01]
A
Oh, it is, yeah. What if you. Isn't there something you can pair the testosterone with? It's not coming to me right now, but that helps, like mediate that.
- [46:08]
B
Yeah. So you can either take it with hcg.
- [46:11]
A
Yes.
- [46:12]
B
Which helps keeps your natural production going and. Or a pill call. And Clomiphen.
- [46:18]
A
Yes.
- [46:19]
B
Now what I would say is, is you probably don't even need that if you're over 50. You're done having children. Right.
- [46:24]
A
Okay.
- [46:25]
B
Because the exogenous testosterone is going to take care of all of the needs of testosterone after. After, you know, you decide to stop having kids. Right. So a lot of people just need to just talk to a really skilled hormone replacement doctor and figure out what's going to work for them. But for men, it's really important to know you're done having children, because the main thing is taking exogenous testosterone will shut off your sperm production because you're not going to make any more sperm.
- [46:53]
A
Right.
- [46:53]
B
And therefore you will not have children. And so, yeah, you got it. And instead you want to do something like enclomiphen, which pushes your natural testosterone and your natural sperm production.
- [47:03]
A
We always talk about women like you know, kind of like banking their eggs and doing egg freezing and stuff. I don't, I don't know why more men don't want to freeze their sperm. Younger and younger, because you're never going to have the 20 year old sperm or 30 year old sperm. So men have been taught in society that you can have kids basically at any age. It's absolutely fine. But now we know that there's more DNA fragmentation and men's sperm also ages, but we are not still in society saying that, hey guys, you should go freeze your sperm. It costs nothing for Usly to do it. And why don't they do it?
- [47:32]
B
Yeah, you know, it's, it's an interesting question because I think that it just has not become as part of the normal speaking conversation.
- [47:40]
A
Yeah.
- [47:41]
B
What happens with men is that even if you get older, you can still have children. They, you're right, there is damage to the DNA and specifically there's methylation patterns that occur to the DNA and the sperm that are of an older individual. So you'd want to like get your younger sperm for sure. But I think for women, because it is like once you lose your egg, you're done, like you're never going to have kids again. For men it can be different. Like they can take in clomiphen, they can push their natural sperm production forward. They could potentially have children even up to like, you know, old ages.
- [48:11]
A
Right.
- [48:11]
B
So I think that's why there's not a lot of conversation around it. And I just think there needs to be a lot more research around young sperm versus old sperm.
- [48:19]
A
Right.
- [48:19]
B
We definitely know the young sperm are more moto and they can impregnate a woman much easier than older sperm can. But what about the DNA? What is the difference in the DNA? And does that really lead to, you know, a fetus not being as healthy as it could be with younger DNA?
- [48:35]
A
I think they're showing like with older, older sperm that essentially with more fragmentations, they're more likelihood to have more genetic diseases, more likelihood of that, more miscarriages for sure, because miscarriage, 50% percent of that is kind of down to the male sperm. Something also we didn't know a few years ago. You know, that's kind of part of kind of newer research coming out. But we focus so much on women's women putting away, testing their fertility, putting away the eggs. But we don't give that much intention to men's health when it comes to fertility. And if you've listened to this podcast and you are a guy and you haven't had kids. It is really important to also take care of your baseline health because just how women's bodies age, so do yours. And if you want to have kids later in life, you have to start doing the work now.
- [49:13]
B
Absolutely. And there's so much research around down. You know that sperm and that egg, when they meet each other, they've, they have the locked in DNA.
- [49:23]
A
Right.
- [49:23]
B
Of the habits that the mom and the dad have been living under for the last few months and years. Right. So we know that women that have unhealthy lifestyles, a lot of that gets in. Men that have unhealthy lifestyles, a lot of gets passed on to the kids through the methylation patterns of the dm.
- [49:44]
A
We also talk about your genes aren't your destiny, but your environment might be. So with this whole conversation, we were talking about this at dinner last night as well. Environmental toxins are taking center stage. Especially if you're living in America, right? Yeah, because of our air, food, all of it, you know that it, it's just so fragmented over here. So when it comes to again going back to like next and when you get patients in through the door, you're treating patients, how are you walking people through how to eliminate those environmental toxins and mediate against those, those.
- [50:12]
B
Yeah, that's a great question. And so you know, I have, I have a lot, I, I get answered these questions like all the time. And so whenever something I'm answering over and over again, I put it into a guide.
- [50:23]
A
Yeah.
- [50:23]
B
And so I have another guide.
- [50:25]
A
I want this guide. Yeah.
- [50:26]
B
Dr. Shaw.com toxins.
- [50:28]
A
These are things that people need to know about.
- [50:30]
B
They absolutely need it. Okay, so let me break it down for you. I like to use what's called the Pareto principle. What are the 20% of the actions that you can do to get you 80% of the results? Here they are. Let's break it down. Air, water, food and skin. That's the four places we get toxins. Air, the places you spend the most time, usually your work environment and your bedroom. If the air is clean outside, open the windows. If it's not, or you just can't open the windows because the weather won't permit it. Get a high quality air purifier in those areas. Okay. Secondly, your water, always drink your water out of glass or metal bottle and make sure it's purified. And by that I mean either through reverse osmosis as my primary choice or secondary through a filtration. But reverse osmosis, definitely the the gold standard, thirdly is your food. Stay away from ultra processed food and food and packaging. Eat organic as much as possible. If you can't get organic food, look at the Environmental Working Groups EWG.org list of the Dirty Dozen and avoid those foods. And fourth, and this is like a hidden source is your cosmetics. So women on average use 12 different products. Men on average use eight different products. These are usually laden with endocrine disrupting and immune disrupting chemicals inside of it that we know cause physiological consequences. And we're just slathering ourselves with this.
- [51:50]
A
Right.
- [51:51]
B
Every day in the shower, after the shower, scan those products with an app like Think Dirty or Yucca and then you will understand like what toxins are in your product and how dangerous it is. And these apps are really good about giving you a replacement product due. So you just change it and then you're done. Like you don't change your soap every week.
- [52:10]
A
You change it once and then you're buying it. You're buying it.
- [52:12]
B
Right.
- [52:13]
A
Can you do a men's personal care product guy next? That's a great idea because do you know how many of us have like our brothers, our friends, people's husbands, partners that you're just like, you know, please just go buy all these products. That's you're going to be our next guy that you're going to release and you're going to text it to me for a.
- [52:28]
B
You got it.
- [52:28]
A
You can send it to the community. Yeah, exactly. We're deploying it to all the men in my life being like, this is what you need to buy. Because women, we're a little bit more savvy, we'll do more research. We also drive a lot of the longevity space because we're the biggest consumers of the products, the treatments, the protocols, everything. So women are like the first kind of point of acquisition. Men, because they're a little bit more complacent and they're just like, whatever, I'm just going to use this I've been using for 20 years. They barely bother. And I think men need to start focusing on them because our skin is our biggest organization. Yeah, we all have our health to take care of. And yes, women do on average use more personal care products, but the men also need to start configuring, reconfiguring what they're actually putting on their body and skin.
- [53:04]
B
1,000% agreed. Yeah, it's, it's a real, it's a real problem. And I think this is why men have lower and lower testosterone levels.
- [53:11]
A
Right. I was just going to say that.
- [53:13]
B
Yeah.
- [53:13]
A
Nowadays it's like the, literally I was at dinner the other day with a friend and I was like, I don't know if chivalry is just dead. You just don't see men taking charge and leading. And that's why a lot of relationships, relationships are falling apart. Right. Divorce reads also through the roof because women are overcompensating because they're feeling that men can't lead them. They're not decisive. They're not like essentially the front of the household anymore. And you have these women who are then burnt out, exhausted, living out of design. Their nervous systems are unregulated. So I feel like society is upside down.
- [53:41]
B
Yeah.
- [53:41]
A
Also down to not having defined gender roles, but also because men's testosterone levels aren't what they used to be even 20 years ago.
- [53:48]
B
Exactly. It's so bad right now.
- [53:50]
A
The decline has been really bad. And I think with, you know, things like their personal care products, even boxer shorts.
- [53:55]
B
Yeah.
- [53:55]
A
They have such high levels of toxins in that.
- [53:58]
B
Terrible. I know, it's so bad right now. Yeah. It's a huge problem and it needs to be fixed. And it's. I think the chemicals we're putting on our body and then we're exposing ourselves to is a big.
- [54:09]
A
And in our, in our homes and kitchen care and personal. The home care products that we're using.
- [54:13]
B
Exactly. And so that's why this 52 week guide, what I did was I put 52 tips on there. Some of them are harder than others. Like, you know, installing a reverse osmosis filter. That's going to take.
- [54:23]
A
Yeah, of course it takes a minute.
- [54:24]
B
So every week you pick one thing. Some of them are super easy that you can just do instantly.
- [54:29]
A
Okay.
- [54:30]
B
And in 52 weeks it'll completely detoxify your life by about 95%. And so it's just, it's just doing it one time for a lot of
- [54:38]
A
this stuff and then it comes, becomes a repeat pattern.
- [54:41]
B
Yeah, yeah.
- [54:42]
A
With everything going on, healthcare, everything that you have access to, obviously you're, you know, one of the main personalities in the space. You're at all these incredible events, summits, you're a keynote speaker. Speaker. What is the one thing about the future of medicine that's really exciting you that you think will be revolutionary to our health?
- [54:57]
B
That's a great question. You know, I really think that the access to your own data and then having an artificial intelligent computer, basically your phone constantly telling you like, hey, you need to do this, do this differently. You might Want to go to bed now? You might want to, you know, know, consider changing that food choice to another food choice. I think these little nudges are what's going to nudge us in the right direction with our health. So that's going to come first, I think revolutionary what's going to happen is these Yamanaka factors we talked about. I think we're also going to have lots of peptides develop through artificial intelligence as well that are very specific, that'll achieve specific goals. And between, you know, the advancements in stem cells as well, I think medicine is going to look completely different in 10 years than it does.
- [55:48]
A
Yeah. And then looking at all this research for scientists like David Sinclair, if they're actually able to reverse your essentially cells in that way by 50 to 70%, then chronic disease wouldn't exist in the same way. But then what does that do to the state of humanity? What happens to the thing of, you know, we get, we are born, we age and then eventually we die. So then what does that do from a spiritual aspect, I wonder?
- [56:11]
B
Well, I think that, you know, not getting chronic disease is going to improve our health span, of course, and that's a win win for everybody.
- [56:20]
A
Right.
- [56:20]
B
But whether or not you get chronic disease, you're still going to die. Okay, but, yeah, but what I will say, I mean, there are people that are incredibly healthy, that the maximum age of life is 120.
- [56:31]
A
Okay. And that's the oldest documented person on earth so far.
- [56:35]
B
Exactly, exactly. And what I'm trying to say there is there needs to be some or other shift scientifically to add years to 120. Right. Now that might come in the form of like Sinclair's research, Yamanaka factors, etc, like if we can really figure out how to reverse the cells aging completely.
- [56:55]
A
Right.
- [56:55]
B
And be able to distribute that to every cell in your body now that's a game changer. Okay, so I think that we're not there yet yet. The, you know, science is making progress. The founder of Nvidia said a few months ago when he was asked on stage, what is the most exciting thing that is happening right now in biology? So I'm actually going to answer your question, what Jason, Jason Wang said. He said that we're coming to a place where human biology will become an engineering problem. It's no longer going to be super random, where we'd have no idea of what works and what doesn't work, work. We're going to be able to replicate the entire human biological system in a computer and be able to Mass test interventions and create new interventions based on the computing model. Basically like how we put up a skyscraper now. Right. Like a computer designs. The whole thing gets put up perfectly and it's done. We're going to be able to do that with the human body utilizing AI. And so he said that's the thing he's most excited about because that will solve, solve almost all of the issues of not just disease, but also at a cellular level, why do we age? And that's going to be revolutionary. And we're coming close.
- [58:10]
A
I mean, big pharma is going to have to find another job.
- [58:12]
B
Then a lot of people, A lot of, A lot of.
- [58:15]
A
A lot of people are going to be out of. Are going to work.
- [58:18]
B
Yeah, but that's good. It's a good thing. You know, people aren't dying and suffering.
- [58:21]
A
And that's what I think we need more of. We need to work in the mindset of being like preventative medicine is the new form of medicine. So now when, you know, you think about functional medicine, alternative medicine. No, this is form medicine we should be practicing because we want to stay out of the traditional healthc care system which is treating only the sick people.
- [58:39]
B
Yeah. And you know, I think a lot of people are confused because they're like, do I do functional medicine? Integrative medicine, lifestyle. And so at Next Health we have this model we call medicine 4.0.
- [58:50]
A
Yeah.
- [58:50]
B
Medicine 4.0 is four verticals in medicine that everyone needs to focus on to achieve optimal health and to prevent chronic disease and also to just feel awesome all the time. Time. Those are, number one, lifestyle medicine, which is getting the basics right of nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress management.
- [59:08]
A
Right.
- [59:08]
B
Number two is functional medicine. These are areas traditionally ignored by the western medical system, which is your gut health, your hormone health and your detoxification systems. Then is preventative medicine, but done at a hyper preventative level. So right now in western medicine is too much, too late, all the time. Time. If you use a lot of the technology a lot earlier, you can prevent dying of cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's or neurodegenerative disease, and also cancer with much more certainty. Right. And then lastly is longevity medicine. That's the fourth vertical and that's using all of these newer technologies, stem cells and exomes.
- [59:47]
A
Yeah. The fun stuff that you throw in
- [59:49]
B
later, you put those four things together, it's extremely powerful to avoid disease, to feel awesome and do that until something really crazy comes out.
- [60:00]
A
Right.
- [60:01]
B
Because the goal is when something really crazy comes out, you still want to be alive. And you still want to be healthy
- [60:06]
A
and experience it and have the ability to live through that.
- [60:08]
B
At least have the choice. Like, if someone says, I'm gonna add 10 more years to your life, you're not going to do it if you're in a wheelchair. And you can, of course, because you're
- [60:15]
A
like, that's not how I want to continue living.
- [60:17]
B
Yeah.
- [60:17]
A
I always. That's another thing with the. With the space and especially with the biohackers. Right. They're like, we want to live to 200, 250. I'm like, it's not about living to that much. It's how long do you have a quality of life? Independence, bodily independence on your brain, on your body, on all of those things. The minute you're in a wheelchair or you're dependent on somebody. I don't want to live till 200. Yeah, right. It's till I have independence on myself is how long I want to live.
- [60:41]
B
Yeah. You want your health span to match your lifespan, no matter what. And then I'll also add to that one more thing, like, how are you living today? Today. Okay. You wasting your time today? Because why do you want to add that back into the rest of your life?
- [60:53]
A
Yeah.
- [60:53]
B
Right. If you're plopped down in front of Netflix all day long, you know, Netflixing, you can.
- [60:58]
A
You know what I mean? There's no there. And that's where it comes down to the question of purpose.
- [61:03]
B
Yeah.
- [61:04]
A
Everybody needs to have some sort of purpose. And it doesn't. My purpose doesn't have to be like somebody else's, but they have to have a why. And that why is going to give them that quality of life as well. What are you extending your life for?
- [61:15]
B
Right, Right. If you have purpose at every moment you live in, the moment is actually much. It kind of expands life. Right?
- [61:22]
A
Right.
- [61:22]
B
Time is so relative to what you're doing within that time period. That makes a huge difference. So living with purpose obviously expands the moment that you're in right now.
- [61:31]
A
Right. Amazing. Darshan, I've loved having you on the show, and I'm so glad we met. We met three years ago at Eat Amonia.
- [61:38]
B
Yeah.
- [61:38]
A
You were one of the keynotes there, and you came to a dinner that I was throwing, and I'm so happy to be able to finally do this with you in Austin.
- [61:45]
B
I love it.
- [61:45]
A
Everything you've built with Next has been amazing. Seeing you expand into these 30 plus clinics and, you know, technology that you're integrating in, and just your own personal journey has been so inspirational to Me. So thank you for coming on to biohacket.
- [61:58]
B
Well, you're also an inspiration to me, Iman. So you are putting together another aspect of longevity we didn't really get to talk a lot about, which is community. You create the most beautiful communities and I've been so honored to be a present at your dinners and just be part of your world. So thank you so much.
- [62:14]
A
You're an extension to, like, my family now, so.
- [62:16]
B
Oh, I love it. Thank you. You. I feel the same.
- [62:18]
A
Amazing. I have your rapid fire questions. Let's go over it. Okay, Daran, if you were stranded on a desert island and only could take one functional lab, what would it be?
- [62:30]
B
One functional lab.
- [62:31]
A
And if you were going to be on a desert island, you're like, I could only go in with one lab to know how to survive that island.
- [62:36]
B
Ah, okay. If I could only go with one lab and I'm stranded. I just always want to know what my fasting insulin level is.
- [62:44]
A
Okay.
- [62:44]
B
I just gotta say metabolically healthy. I feel like it's that foundational to overall health and preventing chronic disease.
- [62:52]
A
That's a really good one because I think that is the baseline of why so many people are sick these days. What is the one health food you see most often causing massive inflammatory spikes in your patients?
- [63:05]
B
That's a great question. So the one health food that I see all the time that people are completely bamboozled by are these protein bars. Bars.
- [63:13]
A
Thank you. Thank you. It's just bar for lunch. And I'm like, David, why did you have a protein bar for lunch?
- [63:20]
B
Thank you. It's like a processed food disaster.
- [63:22]
A
And I'm not gonna name some bars, but there's some bars on the market, you know, kind of marketing themselves are healthy. And I'm like, you're full of garbage. How are you a health food bar? And some really famous practitioners have also stuck their names on. I'm like, how are you allowing this?
- [63:36]
B
Yeah, that's mind blowing.
- [63:38]
A
Okay. Hey, what is the one supplement everyone is taking that actually does nothing for their gut microbiome?
- [63:45]
B
The one supplement everyone is taking that is nothing for their gut microbiome? I think that a lot of the probiotics out there are just garbage. They don't do anything. There's very few well researched ones. Pendulum makes a really good one called Akromansia Seed, actually has good research around their probiotic. And then, you know, there's some. There's a few reputable companies out there, but most of the stuff out there is just tricking you so what I
- [64:13]
A
learned more recently was that it's the more than the probiotics even. It's a postbiotic that matters.
- [64:18]
B
Yes.
- [64:19]
A
The body biohazard sodium butyrate. And not only does it help you metabolize your blood insulin levels, but it has so many other health benefits to it as well. And so prebiotics is a market that people got into. There's not that much research around it. But postbiotics actually have more promising results on what they can do for you.
- [64:34]
B
Urolithin A is another postbiotic credible.
- [64:37]
A
That's.
- [64:37]
B
And causes you to have more mitochondria.
- [64:39]
A
Yeah.
- [64:39]
B
You know, who doesn't want that? And so that's a post bio.
- [64:42]
A
Yeah. And that's what I love about Timeline is I really. For anybody listening to this show, look, when you're thinking about supplement companies, we were discussing this at lunch, right? There's supplement companies that are diamond dozen, but there's some brands that are doing really well. They're the brands that are selling to practitioners. Practitioner focused. Number one, third party tested transparency when it comes to their ingredients. And our specialists, people like Pendulum, people like Body Bio, people like Timeline, they're specializing in a certain thing. They have a patent around their formulation. So it's just not going to like a random lab and say, let's just throw this together and market this for gut health or brain health. They're doing that extra research and they're backing into it with clinical trials.
- [65:19]
B
Agreed. Agreed.
- [65:20]
A
Darshan, I'd loved having you on the show and spending the day. I practically spent the day with you in Austin today.
- [65:24]
B
Thank goodness. I finally got to do this.
- [65:26]
A
I know. And thank you for being here at the same time and being here at south by Southwest. And I can't wait to do more stuff with you.
- [65:32]
B
Let's do it.
- [65:32]
A
Amazing.
- [65:33]
B
Thank you for having me, Sam.