Why You're Tired No Matter How Much You Sleep | Gary Brecka

Summary

Podcast Summary: Biohack-it with Iman Hasan

Episode Title: Why You're Tired No Matter How Much You Sleep | Gary Brecka
Date: August 6, 2026
Guest: Gary Brecka, Human Biologist & Longevity Expert

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Episode Overview

This episode of Biohack-it, hosted by Iman Hasan, features an in-depth, energetic conversation with renowned human biologist Gary Brecka. The discussion digs into why chronic fatigue and poor health are so widespread, even among those who appear to be doing all the “right” things. Gary unpacks the failures of modern medicine, highlights the transformative potential of lifestyle medicine, and offers actionable strategies to radically improve energy, health, and longevity. The conversation explores personal stories, international contrasts in health systems, policy changes, and the fundamental biological markers everyone should be aware of.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Gary Brecka’s Journey & Philosophy

• From Predicting Death to Promoting Wellness

  • Gary’s background is in the life insurance industry, where he used data to predict mortality. This gave him unique insight into how lifestyle and “modifiable risk factors” are responsible for most premature deaths ([04:23], [07:18]).
  • Personal transformation: Facing bankruptcy and a lack of purpose, Gary shifted his focus from chasing wealth to serving others through wellness.

• The Power of Ownership and Purpose

  • "When you take radical ownership of that and responsibility...this miraculous shift happens." ([08:23])
  • His purpose is now “to just get the information out there...the information doesn’t belong to me, it belongs to humanity.” ([09:44])

2. The Simplicity & Power of Basic Health Interventions

• You Can’t “Out-Biohack” Poor Basics

  • “You can’t diet your way around poor sleep. You can’t out supplement trauma.” ([02:29], [14:20])
  • Simple lifestyle changes (sleep, mobility, community) are shockingly effective and often overlooked amid health fads.

• The Body’s Innate Healing Capacity

  • “The greatest pharmacy that God ever created is right here [body]… it has such a capacity to heal itself.” ([13:10])
  • Focus is placed on supporting cellular health with fundamentals: sleep, whole foods, movement, community and purpose.

3. The Failings of Modern Medicine (U.S. Focus)

• Systemic Missteps

  • U.S. spends more on healthcare than any nation but leads in obesity, diabetes, multiple chronic diseases, and has plummeting life expectancy ([16:39], [18:24]).
  • Modern medicine prioritizes pharmaceuticals and symptom management, not root-cause, lifestyle-driven health.
    “We have spent and built an industry on chemicals, synthetics, and pharmaceuticals, when most human beings are deficient in nutrients, vitamins, minerals and amino acids.” ([16:52])

• Industry Influence & Public Policy

  • Overreliance on industry-funded research results in perverse nutrition guidelines, e.g., “Lucky Charms is now more nutritious than grass-fed steak” ([28:24], [30:51]).
  • Only two countries (U.S. and New Zealand) allow direct-to-consumer pharmaceutical advertising.

• Actionable Policy Ideas

  • End pharma advertising to consumers, require independent public health research, clean up the food supply, and address cumulative toxicity ([28:24] – [38:08]).

4. International Health Comparisons & Lessons

• Middle East & Blue Zones

  • Contrasts Dubai/UAE’s rising health and reduced diabetes rates (from 20% to 10%) through lifestyle intervention, community, and policy-driven well-being ([25:43]).
  • Blue Zones: Diet continuity isn’t the key—whole foods, mobility, faith, and community are critical ([14:37]).

• Democracy & Health Policy

  • “There’s actually something to be said for dictatorships—when they have the best interests of their people at heart…they’re genuinely interested in the well-being of their people.” ([20:07])
  • The U.S. could learn from the public policy and prevention focus in countries like Singapore and UAE ([37:07]).

5. Biochemistry & Biomarkers: Why People Feel Tired

• Root Causes Overlooked

  • Chronic fatigue is often due to low red blood cell counts and hemoglobin, i.e., low blood oxygen, not simply lack of sleep ([46:32]).
  • Many are battling underlying issues like “mold, mycotoxins, metals, viruses, parasites…85% of the unknown reason why the majority of humanity is chronically suffering” ([52:36]).

• Must-Have Biomarkers (for Men and Women)

  • Complete blood count, metabolic panel, lipid panel, hormone panel (testosterone, LH, FSH, D3, B12, thyroid, PSA), inflammatory markers (homocysteine, CRP), and more ([46:32] – [52:36]).
  • Most don’t know these numbers, while they obsess over business metrics.

6. Sleep: The Ultimate Biohack

• Sleep as a “Human Superpower”

  • “You can’t diet your way around poor sleep.” ([02:29])
  • “Sleep is our human superpower. Can’t emphasize that enough.” ([60:38])
  • Detailed prescription for building a transformative sleep routine, including darkening the room, setting bedtime alarms, breathwork, and magnesium ([59:02] – [60:38]).

• Hormesis & Resilience

  • Advocates cold plunging, natural sunlight, and mild stressors to keep body resilient ([44:12]–[45:23]).
  • “Aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.” ([44:12])

7. Peptides, Supplements, and Next-Level Biohacking

• Peptides: When and Why

  • Only after the basics are dialed in, peptides can be introduced for healing, anti-aging, hormone support, etc.; but not a first-line intervention ([52:45] – [55:28]).
  • “No better hormone than one the body produces on its own.” ([52:53])
  • Always clean up sleep, diet, movement first.

• Routine over Gadgets

  • “It’s not all the biohacking equipment I have here. It’s the basics.” ([41:42])
  • Expensive tools (PEMF mats, Eight Sleep mattresses, etc.) are nice-to-haves, not must-haves ([57:29]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments (with Timestamps)

• On Shifting from Self to Service:
  “When I realized that all of the things that were not going well in my life were not external, they were internal... When you take radical ownership, this miraculous shift happens.” – Gary Brecka [08:23]

• On the Root of Chronic Health Problems:
  “Modifiable risk factors—which is a fancy way of saying diet and lifestyle—could dramatically extend their life. And I don’t just mean marginally.” – Gary [07:18]

• On the Philosophy of Healing:
  “The greatest pharmacy that God ever created is right here. This has such a capacity to heal itself.” – Gary [13:10]

• On International Health Differences:
  “You realize it’s not dogmatic dieting, but… the two non-negotiables were mobility, movement, and sense of community and purpose.” – Gary [14:37]

• On U.S. Health System Failures:
  “Modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the industry that’s designed to prevent death.” – Gary [43:11]

• On Policy Reform:
  “The first thing I would do is end media control of the pharmaceutical narrative by restricting advertising to the consumer.” – Gary [28:24] “If you wanted to cut somebody’s life expectancy in half at any age, put them in isolation.” [14:37]

• On Sleep as the Ultimate Hack:
  “Draw your attention to sleep for the next week… Sleep is our human superpower.” – Gary ([59:02]; [60:38])

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Important Timestamps

• [04:23] – Gary’s backstory: From mortality data to wellness
• [08:23] – Finding purpose through personal struggle
• [13:10] – The body’s innate healing and testimonials
• [14:37] – Community, faith, and movement as non-negotiables for longevity
• [16:39] – Why U.S. healthcare spending fails
• [18:24] – Pharma influence on nutrition and policy
• [25:43] – Dubai/UAE diabetes drop due to lifestyle/community shifts
• [28:24] – The three US health policy overhauls Gary would make
• [30:51] – Flawed nutrition guidelines (Lucky Charms vs. steak)
• [37:07] – Singapore’s engineered longevity
• [44:12] – “Aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.”
• [46:32] – Essential biomarkers for understanding chronic fatigue
• [52:45] – The peptide protocol conversation
• [59:02] – Gary’s step-by-step prescription for a supercharged sleep routine

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Practical Takeaways

• Check your blood biomarkers regularly—know your numbers, not just your business metrics
• Prioritize sleep above all else – develop, maintain, and protect a nighttime routine
• Whole foods, movement, community, and purpose are the foundations of lifelong health
• Before advanced interventions (peptides, supplements), fix basics: sleep, nutrition, movement
• Push for policy changes that limit industry influence and promote real, independent public health research

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Closing Encouragement:

“Your past doesn’t define you… Sleep is our human superpower. And if you’re really interested in going on the journey...we need a community to thrive.” – Gary Brecka ([09:44]; [60:38])

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For more resources, visit Gary’s VIP community (with special bonuses for Biohack-it listeners).

Transcript

[Gary Brca]

85% of the unknown reason why the majority of humanity is chronically suffering and yet we don't talk about these things.

[Podcast Host]

Why is it that the US is spending more per capita than any other country, but yet there are other countries that are far behind in some ways, but they're catching up when it comes to being healthier. Diabetes has gone down. What's your take on it?

[Gary Brca]

I don't believe that there's a few people at the top sort of pulling the strings intentionally going, how do we make everybody sicker? Usually what happens is one thing goes wrong that causes everything. It's not multiple things going wrong. You can't diet your way around poor sleep.

[Podcast Host]

Most people are chronically inflamed and obese. Do you think lifestyle medicine is becomes the main form of medicine?

[Gary Brca]

Modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the industry that's designed to prevent death.

[Podcast Host]

If you could overhaul US health policy, what is the first three things that you would change?

[Gary Brca]

I would say that.

[Podcast Host]

Hi guys and welcome back to another episode of biohackit. Today I have somebody very special mind podcast. He's a leading name. He doesn't really need an introduction. He's one of the men who's at the forefront when it comes to longevity, health and wellness. Gary Brca, welcome to the show.

[Gary Brca]

I'm excited to be here.

[Podcast Host]

I'm so excited to meet you in person. And the fact that we're neighbors is,

[Gary Brca]

is I, I know. First of all, I can't believe that you live in the Grove. I'm like two minutes away from me.

[Podcast Host]

Literally I drove over, I'm like, oh, this is, this is my neighborhood.

[Gary Brca]

Two minutes, two minute drive. I love it here by the way. It's almost like the anti Miami, you know, because the, the, the city is 12 minutes away. My daughter used to live in the middle of downtown, but you can see when you look at the city, the density just drops when you get here. And there's like a lot of parks and greenery and dog friendly, kid friendly, family friendly. It's, it feels very safe.

[Podcast Host]

Good for your nervous system regulates and

[Gary Brca]

you know they're building a new Four Seasons right here.

[Podcast Host]

The Ritz Residences are coming up.

[Gary Brca]

Oh yeah. And there's a new wellness project here. I think it's called the well.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, the well from New York is opening here.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, yeah, it's right outside the window. And I, and I love that you see boutique destination resorts now going more towards wellness. Not just like massage and facial, but like therapies and cold plunges. And home, all kinds of wellness.

[Podcast Host]

I think the Restore Hyper Wellness chain is trying to come into this area too.

[Gary Brca]

Really?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

I love it. Get them all down here, right?

[Podcast Host]

Just like walk over everywhere.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, well, just walk around and biohack yourself. Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

Although I have to say, your house is like a biohacking facility. So can we, before we even get into the podcast, can you walk me through when you were conceptualizing this home, all the gadgets, like, how did you firstly, how did you convince Sage and number two, you have everything in here?

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, well, the truth is I didn't really convince Sage. I kind of do it. Some of it's against her will. Sometimes it's when she's gone, you know, I like, I take advantage of her. She'll go. She's an avid skier and I've been with this woman for 10 years and I'm still so shocked when I see her ski because her nickname is Safety Sage. So she hasn't had a parking ticket since like 1996. She's safety sage. Full stop at a stop sign. Always signals, never made an illegal U turn. But she puts on a ski helmet and this little ponytail sticks out the back and like this Red Bull athlete comes out, like, and she's like 50 miles an hour through the trees and she's on these double diamonds. And so I learned to ski when I started dating her and I'm still on the, you know, magic carpet on the greens, you know, like, I'm trying not to get hurt and she usually is too, but she is a phenomenal skier. We just got back from a few days in Steamboat. She was actually born in Steamboat, Colorado, and I think she probably would have been a professional skier if she didn't move.

[Podcast Host]

Did she do off piste and stuff or.

[Gary Brca]

She'll do any kind of skiing in the world and she just slapped these rental skis on. It's a beautiful thing to watch. Cuz if you, if you know anything about skiing, I mean, really good skiers just have, they just have this beautiful form. But then she just smacks these moguls and goes into the trees. And the, the amount of speed she gets going down, I'm like, where did this woman.

[Podcast Host]

This is my wife, you know, and

[Gary Brca]

then she's done and you know, won't parallel if it's after hours. It's like, it's amazing. It's so fun.

[Podcast Host]

So I wanted to get a little bit into, really get. For my audience to really get to know you. Tell us a little bit about how you even fell into this, like, whole space because you have a really interesting backstory.

[Gary Brca]

You know, I think like a lot of people, you know, my dad used to say, life is what happens to you, to you when you're on your way to doing something else. And it wasn't like I had this intention of becoming a biohacker or getting into the biohacking space. I was in a niche market of life insurance for years where we would predict mortality to the month. And I get a lot of flack for that. But it's. It's actually some of the most accurate science in the world. I mean, you wouldn't believe the number of financial services instruments that are based on mortality. So if you've ever heard of annuities, reverse mortgages, obviously life insurance, they don't just put you on an actuarial curve, right? They want to know your specific mortality. So if Lincoln National Life is getting ready to take $25 million worth of risk on your life, they don't care where you are on the curve. They want to know what is her specific mortality. And so these models were designed to take medical records, demographic data, and large pools of data on mortality and, and really design a way to hone in on how many more months that person has left on earth. And anybody that's listening to this, that's familiar with that space, if you open any of these reports, if you've ever seen one of these life expectancy reports, the one thing that will become glaringly obvious to you is if you scan these reports, is that the reason why the majority of people are not living longer, healthier, happier, more fulfilling lives are because of what we call modifiable risk factors, which is a fancy way of saying diet and lifestyle changes that could dramatically extend their life. And I don't just mean marginally. I mean dramatically extend their life. Seven plus years from making minimal changes in your life, you know, mobility, sleep, you know, reducing some inflammatory markers. Just getting basic data. And it's astounding to me how many people would say if you ask them that their health is their priority, but when you ask them questions about their business, they're spot on about everything in their business, right? They know their balance sheet, they know their income statement, they know their P L, they know the revenue per employee, they know all, all of these things. But if you ask them anything about their blood biomarkers, basics, homocysteine C reactive protein, your hemoglobin A1C, your testosterone or hormonal levels, they don't have the foggiest idea. And I Realized that there were human beings on the other side of these spreadsheets. And this was also, like a lot of people, not the best time in my life. All I wanted to do was be wealthy. But I went bankrupt and I was very myopically focused on myself. I didn't really think about humanity, I didn't really think about living a life of service. Sort of drifted away from my faith. I wasn't a particularly good partner, wasn't particularly good boyfriend. And when I realized that I was going to spend the rest of my life predicting death and decided to leave that industry, this is when I sort of began to believe in the universal law of attraction because I just stopped focusing on being wealthy and I began to focus on people's well being. And what was really incredible, you know, I'm not a physician, so I'm not license to practice medicine. But when I quit that career and came home and told Sage that I wanted to start a wellness franchise, you know, much to my surprise, she was like, you know what? I'm all in. She was in real estate. Wasn't particularly thrilling to her. That industry wasn't thrilling to me. And so we took over a little vitamin shop in a strip mall in Naples, Florida, and we put in a functional medicine clinic there and found a doctor that was willing to practice there and found a NP that was willing to practice there. And it just, you know, it just exploded.

[Podcast Host]

That's incredible. The backstory. And Gary, what was the inflection point that you found? Your why? So you went from being like, I just want to make money to being like, no, wait, I want to help people. And there's something clearly very off here with our health.

[Gary Brca]

It was when I realized that all of the things that were not going well in my life were not external, they were internal. They were related to my own choices, my own behavioral patterns. You know, they say sometimes through the cracks is where the light enters.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

And I think a lot of us, you have a string of broken business partnerships, or you have a string of broken relationships, or you have a string of business failures and you look to your outside environment and say, well, I had a bad partner, I had a bad, you know, I just could. Didn't have money to start my business, or I treated my partner in this relationship poorly because they deserved it. They didn't show me affection. And so you, you end up blaming everything but yourself. And I think when you take radical ownership of that and responsibility for that, this miraculous shift happens. And then you realize that some of the things that might have been missing from your journey are things like faith, sense of community, sense of purpose, like really being, identifying with a purpose that's bigger than yourself. You know, my father also used to say, he's a really simple man, he's a Navy captain, but he used to say, if you want to shrink your problems, grow your purpose. Up to that point in my life, you know, problems were what I thought about, problems were what I spoke about, problems were what I focused on. And when you do that, they just grow. And when you develop a purpose and you find out what your purpose is, which often comes from your pain. You know, some of the, some of the most hardcore addicts that solve their addiction become some of the most impactful people in that industry. You know, some people that have solved a broken relationship or work their way out of financial ruin or strain end up being some of the most impactful people in the world in that, in that area, because they, they find out what their purpose is. So my purpose is to just get the information out there. I really feel like the information doesn't belong to me, it belongs to humanity. I'm just blessed enough to have it flow through me. And, you know, now I have to say it's the most fulfilling life I ever thought that I could lead.

[Podcast Host]

I'm so glad we started the podcast with this because I think it's so important.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, we got really deep, really fast there.

[Podcast Host]

I, I, I was like, Because I've been, you know, I've been following you online for a while, obviously heard you speak on so many incredible podcasts, but I'm like, I want to make understand what makes Gary Gary.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

And that's how I wanted to introduce you to my audience because I think there's something so special about you. And having, you know, having you say all of this is like, that just like shines brighter. Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

You know, everybody has a past. I remember when I met, first met Jelly Roll, you know, music singer. And I flew with him, Sage. And I went on a private flight with him from LA to Vegas. And on the plane he was describing to me what it was like to be trapped. And I don't think you would have an issue with me sharing this story, but what it was like to be trapped in a 510 pound body. And it was immensely graphic to me. Like, I never really thought about, well, what happens if you roll over at night when you pull up to a stoplight. You know, you turn the radio up so you don't hear yourself wheezing. And I, I looked at all the successes he had had. And when he talked about his previous life, I mean, the number of times he'd been in prison, I mean, the number of times he'd been arrested, the number of the amount of time he spent incarcerated, you know, history with drugs, history with, you know, violence, and. And now he's like one of the greatest country music singers of all time, you know, and he has that song, God, I need a favor. I only talk to God when I need a favor. I get goosebumps just even. Even saying that. And people like Jelly Roll and people that are listening to this podcast that maybe are in that place in their life where they don't really haven't really figured out what their purpose is, or they made a sequence of mistakes and they think that that defines them. It doesn't. It's like God raises the sun and sets it every day to kind of remind us that you. You can always reset. Reset. And, you know, our cellular biology works that way too. We. We have 32 trillion cells in our body, and about every 80 live cellular structures in the body turn over. We turn over about 300 billion cells a day. So if you think about, you know, I have Lyme, or I have chronic fatigue, or I have brain fog, or I have weight gain or water retention, or I'm sore and achy. I'm, you know, I have. I have joint. Joint pain. And you've just accepted that. You don't need to accept that. You just have to think about what kind of frequency am I sending these cells? What kind of nutrition am I sending these cells? You, you know, what kind of support am I giving to my cellular biology? Am I bathing it in a toxic soup? And is that something that I can change? What would happen if I focused on my sleep? What would happen if I just developed a consistent morning routine or I just stopped eating processed foods and began to ate whole foods? Relatively simple shifts that. That would just change the entire trajectory of your life. And I feel like a lot of my message is about the simple things, you know, rather than this ultra complicated biology. You know, my undergraduate degrees are in biology. My postgraduate degree is in human biology, which is why I'm a human biologist. That's what my degree says. And I'm just so fascinated by the human body and our physiology because the greatest pharmacy that God ever created is right here. You know, this has such a capacity to heal itself, and we sometimes dissuade the power that this has over this. And when you realize that you can take your health into your own hands, I'VE had some immensely impactful people sit right in that chair where you are and talk about overcoming brain cancer, overcoming, you know, pcos, chronic infertility, chronic miscarriages, you know, broken relationships, all kinds of things. And, and they're just this bright light of energy in that respective area. And it's, it's, it's so exciting. Like, just like we were talking about before the podcast, like, I've, I don't feel like I work a day in my life.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

Because it's amazing just to be sitting here with you.

[Podcast Host]

It's just amazing to wake up and feel you're alive. But a lot of it also has to do with, I always say you can't out supplement trauma, you can't out biohack the things unless you get it. Get deep with yourself and understand your why and be like, make peace with your past and decide how you want to carry your past through.

[Gary Brca]

So true. Yeah. Your past doesn't define you, you know, and I've certainly made plenty of mistakes and I think a lot of people listening to this podcast make plenty of mistakes. It's what you do, being human. Yeah. You know, it's what you do after that. You know, do you, do you actually take responsibility to try to change your, your habits? Do you actually want to live a life of service, not just a life of being significant, something that John Maxwell talks about all the time? And I, I've heard that speech probably a dozen times and it sounds like it's brand new every time, but it really does make a difference. You know, interestingly, if you look at the blue zones, you know, where people are living the longest, there wasn't any continuity between diet other than that all of the diets where people are living a long time were whole foods. Right. Nobody was eating a processed diet. So you realize it's not dogmatic dieting, but the two non negotiables were mobility, movement into later in life, and consistent exercise and, and sense of community and purpose. Most of those people were faith based. They had a strong sense of community, a really strong sense of family, and they had friendship circles and peer groups that were really supportive. And I think our modern day has just gotten us so dissociated. You know, we knew in the mortality space, for example, that if you wanted to cut somebody's life expectancy in half at any age, put them in isolation. And we think of isolation as, okay, solitary confinement or, you know, I'm on an island by myself. Isolation is being socially or communally isolated from your peers, not having that sense of connection. And we spend so much time in that 4 by 6 screen. And that's not connectivity. Right? Connectivity happens. You know, the pandemic. When you look at the skyrocketing rates of, of depression, anxiety, mental health as a whole, add, adhd, ocd, manic depression, bipolar schizophrenia, paranoid episodes, depression, you see that these, these skyrocketed because we just took human beings out of interaction with other human beings.

[Podcast Host]

So why is it that the US is spending more per capita than any other country, but yet there are other countries that are far behind in some ways, but, but they're catching up when it comes to being healthier. Diabetes has gone down. What's your take on it?

[Gary Brca]

I think there's four reasons. I mean, first of all, if you look at the structure of the United States, how our healthcare system was built, I mean it was really, I don't believe that there's a few people at the top sort of pulling the strings intentionally going, how do we make everybody sicker or how do we hurt more children or increase the rates of childhood cancer, or how do we give millions of kids autism? Even though those things have happened, I don't believe that there was a sinister plot, conscientious plot to do that. But if you just look at the history of medicine, what we would call medicine in our country, allopathic medicine, physician directed medicine has been elevated as the gold standard. And that was by design. Essentially we have spent and built an industry on chemicals, synthetics and pharmaceuticals. When most human beings are deficient in nutrients, vitamins, minerals and amino acids. If I put a chart of your cellular biology up on the, on the wall, what's not on that chart is a single chemical, a single pharmaceutical, or a single synthetic. So how can these be the long term solution to bio optimization, to being, to being healthy? It's not to attack modern medicine. I mean, my chest starts hurting and it radiates down my left arm. I'm going to go to the er, right? I mean, if I hit a windshield, I want painkillers, I want a surgeon. But, but in terms of how does the population make the lifestyle choices that they need, we're not going to find that answer in our modern medical system. Because you're right, we, we're the largest spender of healthcare worldwide. We lead the world in basically six things. Infant mortality, maternal mortality, the lowest life expectancy of the next 66 civilized nations at birth. So we're ranked 66th in the world now. We lead the world in type 2 diabetes, morbid obesity, and then Also multiple chronic disease in a single biometric. And if you look at where the majority of our research is directed, it's at disease management and symptom maintenance. You know, diabetes, type 2 diabetes alone is about $110 billion annual industry. So let's not kid ourselves that there's some meeting going on in a boardroom somewhere going, hey, you know, how do we get this off the balance sheet? How do we get rid of this $110 billion in profit when you go to the Middle East. But first of all, if you haven't been there, don't make a judgment. Yeah, because I did, you know.

[Podcast Host]

And when is the first time you went out there by the way?

[Gary Brca]

So I went as a little kid and I don't because my. Yeah, my. So my mother was a flight attendant, my father was in the military. So we were very middle class. But we were very blessed because air travel was so expensive in the 70s, 80s. But we would fly free on Pan Am. My mother worked for Pan Am and, and then Delta and so we would fly for free and then we would stay on these Air force bases like Yongsan Air Force Base in Seoul, Korea. So we went Christmas shopping every year in Seoul, Korea. My friends were like, wow, we're the little farmer family. And we would, because we would fly for free, we'd stay on the base and then we would shop in this little shopping district called Itaewon. And they would do. We'd bring back these crazy suits with all these embroidery and everything. So I was exposed to travel as, as a kid. But I really started to understand the Middle East a few years ago. And you know, I went back and forth to Dubai a few times and I realized that there's actually something to be said for dictatorships.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you.

[Gary Brca]

When they have the best interests of their people at heart. And unless you've actually been, I guess you get goosebumps saying this, unless you've actually been to one of these countries, you really don't realize the sincerity with which some of these families care for their people. Like they are genuinely interested in the well being of their people. And they put hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars into. Initially they wanted to westernize. Now I believe they feel very duped by western medicine. And you see that they are investing billions of dollars in preventative care. They're investing billions of dollars in the health and well being of their population. They have their ranked third in the world in, in healthcare. Dubai and the UAE in general is probably this one of the safest places on Earth.

[Podcast Host]

Oh. Hands down. And it's so clean, you can literally eat off the floor down the street

[Gary Brca]

with all your jewelry on. Nobody would ever come 2:00' clock in the morning. Nobody's going to bother you.

[Podcast Host]

So one of our friends over there is a luxury watch dealer, so he deals in millions of dollars of watches. So my husband, we were there in December, goes to see him at his showroom. It's at this beautiful. It's a DIFC. The showroom. Yeah. Like 100, 200, $300,000 watches just lying there. My husband looks at him, he's like, don't you have insurance? What's the deal?

[Gary Brca]

You take their keys out of their car?

[Podcast Host]

There's no such thing.

[Gary Brca]

And I need really nice cars.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. He was like, no. He's like, if somebody picks up my watches, within two days, my watches will. And that person will either be deported or go to jail. And there's no such thing as crime. It's very, very, very low. And if you commit a crime, they will kick you out of the damn country.

[Gary Brca]

Right. Yeah. They're very low tolerance.

[Podcast Host]

And so in my mind, democracy is not meant for everywhere. Right. There are certain people who. And I might get crucified on my podcast for a second. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But listen, democracy isn't for everybody. And their functioning, thriving countries in the Middle East.

[Gary Brca]

Unbelievable.

[Podcast Host]

There are people. Love them. If you. Once you move to Dubai, it is very hard to leave Dubai. It's impossible. Because you're so happy there.

[Gary Brca]

I spoke at a. Of all things, I spoke at a women's empowerment event years ago, and this. This girl, Miriam is Ali, who's from the region, who. She was a 10x franchisee, and she. She had this event over there for women's empowerment. So stereotypically, in my mind, you're thinking, you know, women are oppressed and they. They don't get to drive, they don't get to vote, they stay home. It's very, you know, patriarchal.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

And then you get there. These are some of the brightest.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you.

[Gary Brca]

Most well spoken, vibrant, happy, beautiful, engaging women you'll ever meet. And they're genuinely happy. And a lot of their culture is built on respect, not oppression.

[Podcast Host]

Correct.

[Gary Brca]

Like, we could learn a lot from. From them, you know, and, and this event, for example, the. The women showed up with their husbands. They all came in together and sat down, and then the husbands got up and left. They came back at the end of the event. You know, you. There's decorum. You know, you don't put your Hands on a woman over there. And a lot of the culture is built around respect. I mean, you try to find not just a bad meal or a bad hotel, but just try to find bad service in a bad mood.

[Podcast Host]

Valet, even the Uber is far so nice. What you pay here for an Uber, like superb. Uber is like their baseline. Yeah, they're all happy, they're smiley, they're here being service to. I'm Muslim originally, and so me and my husband always talk about how our religion has been so misinterpreted. It's all about respect. Respect with the woman is the center of the house. And so unless you go out there and experience that, you don't know how they're living.

[Gary Brca]

So true.

[Podcast Host]

And the media is fear mongering you into this suppression of the Middle Eastern Muslim woman. And you're like, wait, guys, that's not the true narrative. We're actually very strong culturally as women. We're bred to be very fearful. We're to be like fearless.

[Gary Brca]

And by the way, they, they speak out out there, they've got social media channels, they're super engaging, they're educated, they're, they're building businesses. I didn't find part of government. Yeah, majorly part of government. Absolutely. I didn't find what I thought as a young child stereotypically was at all true over there. And so I partnered with, with a very prominent family there to start a wellness clinic on that side of the world. And what's really incredible is the amount of embrace that we've gotten from the governmental authorities. And it's not just the amount of capital that's pouring into these treatments. It's the genuine level of curiosity and interest from the highest levels of government. You know, in October, I'm going over there for something called 3030 where Sheikh Hamdan, who's the eldest son of Sheikh Mohammed, the ruler of Dubai, has this event where for 30 days, everybody exercises for 30 minutes and the entire country does it. And there's 5Ks and swim races and, and, and walks and runs and, and special needs events. And the Entire City for 30 days is out just exercising every day for 30 minutes. They installed these things called Dubai can, which are like these filtered water stations all over. And they sent everybody in the country these aluminum cans to have, you know, filtered water. And you see a lot of the royalty. I've gotten very close to the royal family in, in Dubai. Sheikh Nasser just won his second world race in these, this horse race, this distance horse race. Sheikh Hamdan has this place called Nas, which I think is.

[Podcast Host]

Is beautiful.

[Gary Brca]

Have you been there?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, it's like literally incredible.

[Gary Brca]

It is the greatest place on earth.

[Podcast Host]

And so. Well, these places are so well designed to be like, what is going on here? And to your point, by the way, just because everybody loves statistics on my podcast, diabetes has gone down from 20% almost to 10% in the UAE due to lifestyle choices.

[Gary Brca]

Lifestyle choices. They're intentional about their food. They're reducing the amount of.

[Podcast Host]

They live in community.

[Gary Brca]

They live in community. They are very tied to their faith. Faith is woven into the culture. Community is woven into the culture. And they take time for self care. They actually take. They don't believe that, you know, caring for yourself is selfish. They understand that that's very selfless. And the majority of them, not to be super myopic, but the majority of them are fit. Like, you walk around like find the unfit person over there.

[Podcast Host]

It's really, you go to the mall and everybody is like skinny or like an average like body shape and you're like, wow, you go to the mall in America and most people are chronically inflamed and obese.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah. So I'm really excited about that because of the embrace that you get from, you know, the highest levels of government. Whereas here the rules and regulations and, and also being able to provide help or be in service to humanity. If you're not, you know, under that allopathic umbrella, then it's impossible. Yeah, then it's. It's impossible.

[Podcast Host]

Would you see yourself ever living there, moving there?

[Gary Brca]

Absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, absolutely.

[Podcast Host]

That's how I feel.

[Gary Brca]

At least for a large part of the year. Maybe not the summer.

[Podcast Host]

No, no, summer is three months or four months or you know, kind of be out of there from like May to like September.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah. Because, you know, at some point it becomes about impact. And you know, there's 370 million people in the United States, there's 3 billion people in the Midd East. I hope to one day be potentially more influential here. You know, the Maha movement is really incredible, exciting. You know, I believe deeply in what Bobby Kennedy and a lot of his administration is trying to do. Not from, you know, political standpoint, but just looking at the potential to affect public policy. When you look at the amount of our nutritional research that is funded by private industry, when you look at being one of only two countries on the surface of the globe that can allow pharmaceuticals to be advertised directly to consumers, we think that we have a lot of free choice here. But when you take a non myopic view of it, a Lot of our freedoms are infringed upon, especially when it comes to raising, you know, children the way you want. And I'm really blessed. I won the kid lottery, you know, three, three of my kids are, my youngest is just, just in college. But my kids are, they're in the business. They've, they've caught the bug. You know, they're really into healthy eating and diet and lifestyle and spiritual well being. And I think that's the greatest gift in life.

[Podcast Host]

If you could overhaul US Health policy, what is the first three things that you would change?

[Gary Brca]

I would say that if it could be done by executive order to stop the direct advertising of pharmaceuticals to the consumer and not for the reason that you might think it's because, because this is some of the worst return on investment advertising that known, known to man. And I believe that pharmaceutical companies should be educating physicians and physicians should be educating the patient because, you know, physicians have something called informed consent, which is where you have to inform a patient enough about risks and benefits that they can make. They can consent to a procedure or to medication. And I think very often we fall short of that because, you know, your cholesterol number gets to a point and now you just are on a statin or you're told that you have a familial disease, something runs in your family. So now you've accepted that you have a genetically inherited disease. And so now I need to subscribe to a lifetime of medication. You find yourself morbidly obese. But instead of asking the question, how did I become obese? You just ask for how. What's the best, fastest way for me to lose weight? And what it does is it shifts this dichotomy from personal responsibility to taking the responsibility off of the person and placing it onto the system. And eventually it's not good for the system either. I mean, it's not good for the taxpayer, it's not good for the country because the system is not going to be able to support hundreds of millions of quote, unquote victims. It will support hundreds of millions of people that take responsibility. And I understand that some people don't have those choices, right? I mean, there are afflictions that people have or where that choice is taken out of their hands. And by all means that the healthcare system needs to, to, to care for them. So the first thing I would do is I would try to end the media control of the pharmaceutical narrative by potentially restricting the advertising, advertising to the consumer. Second, I would make the public policy institutions that are responsible for our public Policy, our nutritional research or public health care, our public school system, and especially the foods in our public school system, I would truly make them independent. It seems like if you have the majority of the funding for our public policy research coming from private industry and you look at how these funded studies will produce outcomes. For example, you know, lucky charms is now more nutritious than grass fed steak.

[Podcast Host]

It's insane to me. Like what?

[Gary Brca]

Right?

[Podcast Host]

And people believe it. That's what drives me crazy.

[Gary Brca]

Or that seed oils are not pro inflammatory. I mean, I still get killed for that online. And that processed foods, we don't have enough data to determine whether or not highly processed diets are negatively affecting our cellular biology or seed oils, or that we have these guidelines called grass, generally regarded as safe. And we still believe that the dosage determines the poison, which in many cases is not true. It's the cumulative dosage that determines the poison. So when you start micro dosing yourself to death, which is essentially what's happening to most, most of America, I believe one of the greatest theories now that's emerging in aging and longevity is this theory of immuno fatigue, which is a slow, progressive overwhelm of the immune system. Because our immune system's not just responsible for protecting us from the environment. We think of it as a police officer, which it is. Right. It protects us from invaders, you know, foreign pathogens, bacteria, viruses. But the majority of its role is to police ourselves. It runs around and it finds lazy cells called senescent cells, and it literally eats them, breaks them up, turns them into amino acids, feeds them as fuel to the rest of the body. It's just this incredible pharmacy inside of our bodies. You know, fasting is an amazing way to tap it, for example. And what we've done is we've taken this incredible ecosystem, our biological ecosystem, and we've handed it over to public policy that is bathing our cellular biology in a toxic soup. If you look at the highly processed diets of the majority of our children, you see that, you know, fatty liver disease. Starting in younger and younger ages. We have the highest rates of childhood cancer in recorded history. 77 of our military age men and women cannot qualify for military service due to poor health. I mean, if that doesn't scare you, right? You know, that's three quarters of our,

[Podcast Host]

and we should be scared military age population from just looking. If we ever go into war, most of the country can't fight. And so just that alone should scare us into the direction that America's headed.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah. And if you look at the Skyrocketing rates of autism. And I'm not just pointing to one factor, it's multifactorial. But if you look at skyrocketing rates of autism, of mental illness, of obesity, you know, the overall percentage of prepubescent in teenage young men and women that report currently being depressed or having been depressed or having anxiety to the point where actually interrupts their daily lifestyle, that is not normal. And so I think making our public policies, our institutions, independent, truly independent, they should be funded by the taxpayer, for the benefit of the taxpayer. And it should be independent research, good or bad. Because I think you see that the number of, of chemical additives, preservatives, pesticides, herbicides, insecticides that are legal here, that are not legal in, in many other countries because they use this cumulative dose toxicity. You know, nobody got mercury poisoning from a single dose of tuna fish, right? What happened was they ate, quote, unquote, safe levels of mercury over a period of time. Their body couldn't methylate that metal out of the body and it built up and they became toxic. So if we just cleaned up the food supply, the, the other thing that I see that this Maha movement gets attacked for is taking away free choice. And I think it's important to say nobody, at least not that I've heard of, is talking about banning soda, banning cigarettes, banning McDonald's. That's not what it's about. It's not about taking away your choice. It's about taking the unnecessary poisons out of the food supply, the unnecessary amount of overspraying with chemical additives, preservatives, what we call forever chemicals, things that your body doesn't recognize and can't break them down, and can't break them down and they wreak havoc in your body. But by the same token, as dark as all that sounds, I think we are going into maybe this greatest evolution because there's so many things that are converging right now. Number one, you have the convergence of artificial intelligence, big data and early detection. We can detect cancers now at stage zero, right? Circulating tumor cells before they actually become nodular tumors. We have pronovo body scans and clearly heart scans and really advanced diagnostics that can warn you long ahead of symptomology. Those kinds of things I think should be available to the public. You also see a willingness now from a lot of our government to begin to cover diet and lifestyle medicine, which I think is incredible. When somebody comes in and they're pre diabetic or they're diabetic, the first thing shouldn't be ozempic. First thing should be dietary and lifestyle intervention. And we should be supportive of those measures because we were meant to thrive. I mean, we're the wealthiest country in the world. We should be the fittest country.

[Podcast Host]

Fittest country in the world, yeah.

[Gary Brca]

Most thriving nation in the planet.

[Podcast Host]

But yet we're one of the sickest ones. Which is why I always look at things from an international lens and I'm like, why don't we look at what other countries are doing well and take note of that. Also we have on all our own farmland. The Middle east doesn't have farmland. So the fact that they're thriving compared to us Americans. Yeah, they can have. Yes, but we have actual farmland. We can still get minerals from our soil. Have we not commercialized and destroyed farming practices?

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, I totally agree. And you know, a lot of it begins with the soil. You know, if you looked at a soil lineage study from the 40s or 50s and you compared it to a soil lineage study, now nutrient density, you would be absolutely flabbergasted. Right. And. And so many of us are just simply mineral deficient.

[Podcast Host]

Correct?

[Gary Brca]

Right. Like if you look at our bones, our bones are not calcium. Our bones are calcium combined with something called phosphorus that unifies to make something called hydroxyapatite, which makes hard bones like your teeth. And in order for that to happen, we need 12 minerals. And if you're missing these 12 minerals, you have weak bones. And then you put on calcium supplements, which every, you know, assisted care living facility in the country is full of elderly men and women on calcium supplements that have brittle bone diseases. We're not loading our bones. We don't prioritize exercise and movement. If you look at countries like Singapore that have completely, they actually have engineered longevity in their countries.

[Podcast Host]

Really?

[Gary Brca]

Yes. There's massive incentives for not driving to work, for walking to work. They give breaks for mobility. They've gotten toxins aggressively out of their food supply. The majority of their food supply that is publicly available comes from markets that are whole foods. And you actually see their life expectancy rising even though they consume large amounts of meat. You know, majority of this grass fed, pasture raised eggs, free range chickens, line called fish, you know, oils. And you see that life expectancy is beginning to rise where in the United States it's actually going backwards lower. And so I think that it's a very like, exciting time. I'm excited for the next. In fact, I believe if you're alive in five years, you'll see a massive

[Podcast Host]

shift to your health.

[Gary Brca]

It'll be your choice if you want to live to 120 years old.

[Podcast Host]

And then what do you think? Us, especially the Maho movement, Bobby Kennedy, which I'm so excited for him to be in office. What do you think they could learn from what's going on abroad? If there's one thing, one policy they

[Gary Brca]

should be applying, one policy would be cumulative dose toxicity.

[Podcast Host]

Okay.

[Gary Brca]

Which is about that. So cumulative dose toxicity is where you take what we call generally regarded as safe guidelines, which are the amount of toxin that you're allowed to put in a serving of food. And you don't assume that somebody's only going to be exposed to that once. You assume that they're going to eat it repeatedly and they're going to micro dose themselves with that over and over and over again. Look, is one bag of skittles going to, you know, wreck your cellular biology? No. Is one, you know, glass of whiskey going to, you know, ruin your life or ruin your sleep that night? But no, but what happens is the cumulative dose toxicity. And then look at whether or not is absolutely necessary in that food supply. You know, we, we look at seed oils. Again, I. It's, it's not the, the plant per se, it's the distance from the plant to the table. You can't take plants, put them in commercial presses, degum them with hexane, heat them to temperatures like 405 degrees to turn them rancid and putrefy them, then deodorize them with sodium hydroxide and then occasionally bleach them and bottle them, put them on the shelf and then put a heart healthy label on that. See, that's, I think, directly misleading the consumer. When we take folic acid and we spray it on our grain supply, and we don't call it sprayed with folic acid, we call it fortified or enriched. So we use these terms. You know, people see a heart healthy label on a vegetable oil bottle, they grab it off the shelf. People see six boxes of cereal and two of them say fortified or enriched. Most moms are going to grab the fortified or enriched version versus the other one. Not really realizing that a lot of these marketing tactics are used to take otherwise toxic ingredients and make them sound beneficial. Natural flavors, natural additives, natural preservatives. And under that label, you can have truly natural items, but you can also have completely synthetic items. And our bodies were not meant to process this amount of food dyes, what we call non metabolites. Where, where you're right, your cells cannot eliminate this waste. And it builds up the Exhaust builds up and blows them up. The one thing I've found in human physiology, and I get a lot of flack for this too, is that the majority of the time when people have multiple things going wrong, right? So they have autoimmune Hashimoto's, they have autoimmune Crohn's. They probably also have arthritis, they have gut dysbiosis, they have a mood disorder. And now they're starting to have cardiac symptoms. So now they have cardiac anomaly. They have a mood disorder, they have an autoimmune condition, they have gut dysbiosis, they have. They've been diagnosed with irritable bowel.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Gary Brca]

Usually what happens is one thing goes wrong that causes everything. It's not multiple things going wrong. And now these poor people are on this hamster wheel in this toxic soup of synthetics and pharmaceuticals and different chemicals, when they really should have taken a giant step back and said, what does my body need to do its job

[Podcast Host]

right and how to do it?

[Gary Brca]

What raw material could I be missing? And you would probably find that in many of these cases, people are vitamin, mineral, amino acid and nutrient deficient. You know, they're not sleeping well, they're not moving their bodies, they're not eating whole foods. So I love this term lifestyle medicine, because it can solve or support the vast swath of what humanity is suffering from.

[Podcast Host]

Do you think in this administration we will get to a place that lifestyle medicine is. Becomes the key, the main form of medicine?

[Gary Brca]

I really believe so. And the reason why I believe so is because it works and it works fast.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Gary Brca]

You know, sometimes I've been demonized, but also popularized for some of the folks that I've had dramatic shifts in their life. And in nearly every case where there is a miraculous change or, you know, or this miraculous outcome, it's because of the lifestyle changes, not because of some special crazy, rare route that nobody knows about or is patented by one company and not another. It's just getting back to the basics. Vitamin D3 with K2 methylated multivitamins, you know, fatty acid supplements, mineralizing your water in the morning. I take perfect aminos. I had hydrogen yes to my water. You know, these basics, focusing on sleep, developing a consistent sleep routine, a consistent morning routine, not an expensive morning routine. It's not all the biohacking equipment I have here. It's the basics. Sunlight, breath, work, grounding, consistent sleep schedule, whole food, diet, basic supplementation. If you just imparted that on humanity, you would see a dramatic increase in the health, not only of the nation. But you would see these cataclysmic drops in mental illness, chronic disease, chronic disease, diabetes.

[Podcast Host]

It was just fascinating to me that the two leading causes of death in the US is heart disease and cancer. Both are lifestyle diseases that can completely be cured.

[Gary Brca]

Well, I mean, look at the, you know what the third leading cause is medical error. Right. So when you, when you think that, wow, modern medicine is the third leading cause of death in the industry that's designed to prevent death, and somehow people like you and I are the enemy. Yeah. Because it's crazy.

[Podcast Host]

Right?

[Gary Brca]

It's crazy to me. And again, I'm not anti pharmaceutical. I'm just pro human physiology and pro common sense. Yeah. I mean, I just believe so much in the body's ability to heal itself. And that I think that we're going to see in the next few years, lifestyle medicine become a much more approachable, much more accepted way to deal with a lot of what humanity is suffering from.

[Podcast Host]

And I think that is a big difference. When we look at other countries, you look at Europe as a whole, when you look at the Middle east, that's the things that they're doing well that we are not doing because it's built into the way they live their life. Europe, the whole place practically is walkable, right?

[Gary Brca]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

They don't sit in cars, they walk everywhere, they cycle everywhere. It's a very much an outdoor culture. They're getting in natural light. Things that we're not doing over here.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, I mean, I, I have a saying that aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort.

[Podcast Host]

Correct.

[Gary Brca]

I think I trademarked that.

[Podcast Host]

But you should, yeah, you should care.

[Gary Brca]

If I did, you guys can all use it.

[Podcast Host]

Aging is a.

[Gary Brca]

Well, not suit for trademark infringement. But, you know, because aging is the aggressive pursuit of comfort, we got to stop telling mom or grandma not to go outside. It's too hot, not to go outside, it's too cold. Just to lay, to relax, to eat at the very first pang of hunger, you're just collapsing our own natural defense mechanisms. I mean, the body is so much more resilient than we thought it would be. That's why cold plunging cold showers and challenging our bodies, these little hormetic stresses have such a positive outcome on our mental state. Usually right before a podcast, I jump in the cold plunge, you know, because I just call it my drug of choice. Because then you're, you're buzzing. Five, six more hours, you're, you're alert, you're clear, you're focused, and you can do that in a cold shower. You can do it by taking Tupperware

[Podcast Host]

containers and putting your face into it

[Gary Brca]

and putting your face into it. Or just take a Tupperware container and put water in it, freeze it overnight, and drop a couple of these big ice blocks in a bathtub. If you have a bathtub at home, you'll have a cold plunge for three days. It doesn't have to be expensive and doesn't have to be fancy. It just has to be ways that you consistently apply these minimal stresses to your, to yourself.

[Podcast Host]

Scandinavian countries, have you noticed, put their babies outside in freezing cold temperatures and leave them there because from a very young age they're adapting them to these natural stressors and the babies are sleeping outside in the freezing cold. But they do that well.

[Gary Brca]

Hospitals used to have sunbeds and sun decks. You know, on, on the roof of the hospital, they had areas where they could actually wheel patients with their skin exposed in their hospital bed into bright sunlight. I mean, they even knew then that something was happening when people would expose their skin to light that actually helped them heal from chronic conditions. And again, I'm not saying if you have cancer, just go lay in the sun. You know, that's. We're not taking it to the extreme. It's just that if I believe the majority of society got back to the basics, we would see a dramatic shift in, in our health, in the health of the nation.

[Podcast Host]

I also think because you're such an expert in this space as well, men's health is going through a silent epidemic. Like, there's something really going on with the drops in, you know, testosterone levels with men getting chronically, like, fertility. Right. And so I want to talk about that a little bit as well for the male audience who is like, Gary, how do I fix my health? And what are the markers they should be looking for?

[Gary Brca]

So for men, especially women too, you know, basic blood panel is like throwing a casting net out and seeing what's beneath the surface. Right? You can't see all the fish swimming around under there. So you throw out this casting net, you pull it up, and now you see what you have, and then you can decide from there. So I think that the basic analysis of your blood, you know, by a doctor going to your primary care doctor or your functional medicine doctor, and generally this should be covered by your healthcare basic blood physical exam. It should have a complete blood count. And this is essentially where you count up the contents of your blood. How many white blood cells do you have? How many red blood cells do you have? And you look at where you are in certain ranges. And it's not just about being within the range, it's about being in the optimal end of the range. So, for example, when you look at a basic complete blood count, you'll see things like red blood cell hemoglobin, something called hematocrit, which is your blood viscosity. You can see different volumes of fluids inside of your cells. And what this will tell you is, hey, maybe I'm really tired even though I don't have anemia because I have low red blood cell count, I have low levels of hemoglobin. Your doctor can look at that and say, even though everything is in the normal range, if I'm looking at your complete blood count, I see that you're low on your count of red blood cells. I see that you're also low on the fluid in the red blood cell called hemoglobin, which means that the fluid that you have to hold and bind oxygen is deficient. And it will jump off the page at your doctor. And when you ask yourself the question, why is it that people that are the most exhausted sleep the worst, right? Because you would think that, well, people that are exhausted all the time, they would sleep really good, but they're actually the worst sleepers. And why is that? Because the reason why a lot of people are exhausted is because they're low on oxygen in their blood. And what carries oxygen, the red blood cell, how inside of a fluid called hemoglobin. So if you were looking at this CBC part of your blood test, and you saw that your red blood cell count was low and your hemoglobin levels were low and your blood was a little thin, then there are ways to fix that by balancing your hormones. And it will also show you your white blood cells. The count of your white blood cells, you could see if you're battling a chronic infection that you might not even be symptomatic for. When you look at, there's ratios, neutrophils, basophils, eosinophils, and lymphocytes. And essentially in this panel, immature granulocytes. There are all these fancy names for white blood cells. Your doctor will know that when certain ones are elevated, you, you have a chronic infection going on. And then you can start to zero in on the reason why you otherwise look normal, quote, unquote. But you feel awful. And so many of us are battering battling these chronic conditions like mold, mycotoxin, heavy metals, viruses, parasites. In fact, if you took, just took those categories right there, mold, mycotoxin, Metals, viruses, parasites, you would probably wipe out. My opinion, 85% of the unknown reason why the majority of humanity is chronically suffering. And yet we don't talk about these things. And then you should get a comprehensive metabolic panel. And this will look at your electrolyte levels, things like chloride. It will look at the PH of your blood. It will look at your liver health, your liver enzymes, ast, alt, something called ggt. This will tell you if your liver's inflamed or if it's irritated. Poison levels like alkaline phosphatase. Then you look at your kidneys, which are also on this part of the panel. What is my filtration rate of my kidneys? 15 times a day. The full volume of your blood goes through your kidneys. And you can see if you have inflammation in your kidneys and poison levels are starting to rise, like creatinine or blood urea nitrogen. Your doctor can address that. And the idea is just to get an idea of what's going on. And then a lipid panel that looks at cholesterol, ldl, vldl, hdl, your triglycerides, lipoprotein A and apob, these full cholesterol panels where you are looking at not just the volume of cholesterol, but the size of the cholesterol molecule. Because when you combine inflammation with cholesterol and your white blood cells, reaction to that, creating something called foam cells, you start to have narrowing of the arteries, scarring in the arteries, atherosclerosis, arteriosclerosis. But it's very easy for a qualified physician to spot these ahead of time. And then I would look at a hormone panel for men, for sure. Luteinizing hormone, follicle stimulating hormone. These are hormones that your pituitary gland uses to dial up your sperm production and your testosterone production. Kind of think of the testicles like a yin and yang symbol. One side of it is creating sperm, one side of it is making testosterone. And there are lots of reasons why testosterone goes down. Not just dysfunction in the factory's ability to make testosterone. Very often the signal is turned down. So we have to look at the signaling hormones, lh, fsh. And then we also should look at the supply of material needed to make the hormone dhea, something called shbg, sex hormone binding globulin, which is a nasty little protein that artificially keeps your free testosterone low. Our vitamin D3 level, our B12 level, a full thyroid panel, what's called PSA, prostate specific antigen. And then looking at some basic inflammatory markers like homocysteine, which is amino acid in the blood, C reactive protein, which is a generalized marker of inflammation. About 72 biomarkers. Just to get that casting net out there and give you an idea of

[Podcast Host]

what's really going on.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah. And then if you find something, your doctor can drill in. But it's just so good to have a view of what's really going on

[Podcast Host]

with your overall health.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host]

People, when I told them I'm bringing you on the podcast, one of the big questions I got is peptides. I know you're big on peptides.

[Gary Brca]

Huge on peptides.

[Podcast Host]

When should peptides be introduced?

[Gary Brca]

So by necessity. Right. And so again, on a. A good qualified functional medicine doctor should be familiar with peptides. Peptides are amino acids. They generally, when you put them into the body, they cause the body to generally produce something on its own. So, for example, if you wanted to raise your own natural production of growth hormone, there are growth hormone releasing peptides, there are growth hormone releasing hormones. They act on different systems in the body. Some act on the hypothalamus, some act on the pituitary. But essentially what these peptides do is these amino acid sequences go into the body and they cause the secretion of a natural hormone. And no matter what anybody tells you, there's no better hormone than one the body produces on its own. So if you could actually raise your own production of growth hormone rather than take it from outside the body or improve your own production of cortisol or improve your production of testosterone without taking it from outside the body, that's a huge win. Then you have peptides that fall into other categories, like healing peptides, BPC157, TB4 frag. These are peptides you can talk to your doctor about. If you have repetitive use injuries or knee, hip, shoulder, rotator cuff, low back problems. And what these do is they help not only heal and repair tissue, but they help the body recruit its natural ability to heal to that site. So, for example, you know platelets, everybody's heard of a platelet, but few of us realize the platelet is kind of useless. But it carries something called growth factors, and there's all the power of the healing body. Anybody that's gotten a PRP injection or something for rotator cuff or something knows this. But you can take certain peptides, BPC157 is one of them, under the guidance of a doctor, and you can take these peptides and you can accelerate the rate at which you heal from certain chronic conditions. So many people listening to this Podcast have knee, hip, shoulder, rotator cuff issues, bothersome bicep, tendon, you know, low back. And these can be miraculous. They're peptides for the skin, copper peptides, G, H, K, C, U. They're peptides for hair growth. They're peptides that seemingly have an impact on our telomere lengths, like epitalon. There are peptides that actually are what we call anti anxiolytics. These are anti anxiety peptides, like Solank. They come in nasal sprays. So a good functional medicine doctor can take the challenges that you're facing and the goals that you have and design a peptide protocol for you that helps you get there faster.

[Podcast Host]

But do you think before somebody introduces peptides into their routine, they should clean up the terrain also?

[Gary Brca]

No question.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, right.

[Gary Brca]

You've got to start with the basics. You know, there are all kinds of metaphors that I happen to agree with. Like you can't diet your way around poor sleep, you can't exercise your way around a poor diet. So the basics, sleep, mobility, develop a really good nighttime routine and a really good morning routine. I mean, bookending your sleep is one of the best things that you can do. Because we're circadian creatures. We used to be very tied to the circadian cycle of the sun and it's hard to do that now. I mean, with all of our lighting

[Podcast Host]

and all artificial lighting.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, we can turn our bedroom into the surface of the sun at 1 o' clock in the morning. But getting your body into a consistent routine, this does not have to be expensive. And developing a sleep routine, darkening your room, decreasing the temperature, Investing in a $10 soft sleep mask, taking a magnesium supplement at night, maybe doing a contrast shower to break those catecholamines. Being intentional about your oral care. So flossing, brushing with a soft toothbrush, using hydroxyapatite toothpaste rather than fluoride oil, pulling. These are tongue scraping. These are very inexpensive, super simple things that might add a minute and a half or two minutes to your oral care routine, and now you've just skyrocketed the outcome you're going to get from that. Most people, if you ask them what their sleep routine is, they'll look at

[Podcast Host]

you like, what do you mean?

[Gary Brca]

What do you mean I go to sleep? You know, like, what time you go to sleep? Well, you know, whenever I get into bed. What if you just drew your attention to sleep and said, okay, I'm going to develop a consistent care routine to go to bed? Why? Because we are circadian biorhythmic creatures. And if we can get into the same habit of going to bed as we do to wake up, this routine becomes portable and it helps signal our body. Hey, it's time to go to bed, it's time to wake up. Simple things like breath work, getting sunlight into your eyes, exposing your skin to sunlight, touching the surface of the earth if you can.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Gary Brca]

And then if you happen to have the financial wherewithal, you can bring some of these things from mother nature outside in, you can get a PEMF mat, you can get an eight sleep mattress, you can, you can get a red light bed, but it's, it's not necessary, right?

[Podcast Host]

It's how far you want to take it. And by the way, I know you travel a lot and I've seen that you don't get jet lagged, right? And since I've been doing a lot of this different stuff, I don't get jet lag. So when I go to like 14, 18, 20 hour flights, I wake up and I'm like boom. Because I'm adapted.

[Gary Brca]

Same, you know, I have the same routine to go to bed and I have the same routine to wake up sage. And I went on this crazy, like 9 cities in 11 days or 11 cities and 30 days, it was crazy. And what I did was I posted my sleep scores every day so people could see that, wow, you're shifting time zones, you're doing all this travel and you're maintaining these consistent sleep scores. It was not a magic sleeping pill. You know, I was taking basic supplements, magnesium, but I had the same consistent routine. And my body, as I start to assemble it, I can feel myself starting to get tired. It's like the old Pabs Loves dog experiment where they rang the bell and then they fed the dogs and then they started just ringing the bell and the dogs would start salivating.

[Podcast Host]

They knew, they knew it was coming.

[Gary Brca]

Just developing that routine is so important

[Podcast Host]

and we are creatures of habit and if we have the right habits and habit stacking, we will thrive.

[Gary Brca]

So true.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you Gary for being on biohackit and for everybody listening, if you had to leave them with one. We've gone over so much incredible stuff, but one key takeaway for them to change their life, what would that be?

[Gary Brca]

One key takeaway to change your life would be to develop a consistent sleep routine. Draw your attention to sleep for the next week. And so here's an exercise you can go through absolutely free. Tell yourself you're going to go to bed at 10 o' clock and then get in bed at 10 o'. Clock. And the way you do that is you set an alarm 15 minutes earlier. We don't think about setting alarms to go to sleep. We only think about setting them to wake up. Set an alarm for 15 minutes before it's time to go to bed. If you're one of those ruminators that thinks a lot, then try a contrast shower, which is just a few minutes. Shower. Get in the shower. It's nice and warm. Run the water as hot as you can. Sand it on your back. Step out of that stream of water. They're kind of like this. Turn it as cold as it will go. And step into that stream of water and just, just deal with it for 30 seconds.

[Podcast Host]

Okay?

[Gary Brca]

Okay. It will not wake you up. Deal with it for 30 seconds and dry off. Do your oral care routine. Invest in a $10 sleep mask, a really soft cotton sleep mask. Surgically remove all the light from your room. Drop your temperature down to 68, 69 degrees. Turn your phone on airplane mode. When you get into bed, do a very simple breath work technique where you take a long inhale through your nose, pause and breathe out through a straw. And when you're doing that, just imagine taking all of those thoughts from your head. Did I get everything on my grocery list? Did I return? What time do the kids go to school tomorrow? Get all those thoughts from your head, breathe them into your lungs and breathe them right out of your body. I promise you, you will not make it to the 10th breath. And if you just did that for seven days, you could completely reset your nighttime circadian routine and you will begin to fall asleep at that time.

[Podcast Host]

Wow.

[Gary Brca]

Sleep is our human superpower. Can't emphasize that enough. And if you're really interested in going on the journey, I have a VIP community. All your listeners, they can go to my VIP community. They can put biohacket. If they sign up to be a VIP, put BioHacket in there. I'll send them a free box of hydrogen water tablets.

[Podcast Host]

Amazing. Thank you.

[Gary Brca]

It's such a game changer for them in that community because I truly believe that we need a community to thrive. I pour myself into that community. I educate them in a way that inspires them to make a change. But we talk about nighttime routines, morning routines, goals, lifestyle, spiritual, well being, whole food, dieting, supplements. And then we do live Q and A's where people can ask questions about supplements, things like that.

[Podcast Host]

Thank you so much. I feel like, super. You know, you're even more fascinating in person than I met you online, and I'm so glad I get to spend the whole day with you.

[Gary Brca]

Yeah, me too.

[Podcast Host]

You know, kind of explore your mind, how you work and all this incredible biohacking you have in your house. So thank you.

[Gary Brca]

Thank you so much. I'm so glad that you came.

[Podcast Host]

So much.

[Gary Brca]

You're welcome.