← Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
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- [00:03]
A
Welcome to xtend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah. A podcast dedicated to cutting edge science research tools and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21 and trained and board certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results. When it comes to your health span, we are living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world renowned experts offering you a step by step guide to proactively avoid disease and most importantly, extend your health span. Dr. Liu, thanks so much for coming to Los Angeles and doing this with me.
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B
Dr. Shah, it's a pleasure. I'm so excited to do that.
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A
You're all over the world, it's just so incredible. As the leader, I look at you as a leader of this longevity movement with the doctors, like you've brought us all together. You really created a mind share of physicians that are in this space that I think is so needed. Right. The longevity, the longevity conversation has been biohacking, it's been nutrition, it's been all these things. And bringing the physicians together to finally start talking about it has been massive. So I thank you for that.
- [01:22]
B
Oh, thank you so much. And I thank you, you for, for the support. I mean the first day you were here to you know, all our conference, speaking, educating, sharing your story, I think what's amazing is, you know, uniting all those physicians that we, I mean we trained, we started know medical school to become doctors and to focus on longevity, helping people live longer and better. So I'm really excited to, to be at service and then for, for this mission, I think look, that's going to be a transformative evolution of, of modern medicine.
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A
Yeah. And your vision of bringing us together, it came at the exact right time because we are at an inflection point. To your point. We all trained in medical school, we all did our individual specialties. You did pediatric cardiac surgery, one of the most difficult specialties imaginable. And you saw the light of how we need to really rethink how we practice medicine. And you switched your career just like I did. And then you had the vision and foresight to bring all the doctors that had done the same thing. You know, we interviewed five doctors today already that all changed their lives from traditional western medicine to Functional medicine, longevity medicine, whatever you want to call it. And now we're at this pivotal moment right in this longevity space. You talk about this a lot. What do you think is the future? Well, first of all, why don't we start as where are we now and where are we going in longevity medicine?
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B
Yeah. I think what I like is telling a little bit of the evolution. Right?
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A
Yes.
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B
Like you said, you know, we were both surgeon, and as surgeon, right, we here to understand the body. Right. And we see the inside. That's really interesting. The surgeon is only. The only doctor can really look at the inside by opening the body, understanding how he works.
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A
Yeah.
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And so I can tell you as a heart surgeon, we were, we were opening the heart, the art, and then we were witnessing the lesion. Right. And so understanding how the body can change over time and sometimes prematurely was, I think, a wake up call for me. And so I tell you, one day, I think it was in 2014, I was in Mauritania. Mauritania is a country in Africa. Mauritania. Right. The city is knock shot. Think about it. It's a desert. The, you know, the hospital. Just imagine the hospital. We're operating kids there.
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The third world country.
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Yeah. Like really developing nation. No, no, you know, no operating room for cardiac. So we bring the whole team, we do a week, we operate. You know, probably 10 kids, you know, they all do fine. And at the end, on the Friday, you have this family coming. They say, doc, we need you to see this little girl. I think you can help her. So I said, yeah, okay. Where is she? She's not, she's not at the hospital. So I have to drive. I thought it was like 20 minutes. Taxi. I have to drive two hours in the desert. Wow. I thought I was getting kidnapped at that time, to be honest. Right. So I got there and this Little girl, probably 12, sit on the floor. The parents, the grandparents, everyone's there. And then they show me an X ray, a chest X ray, and I see this enlarged heart. Wow. And I, I know it's too late. I know it's too late. And, and, and we know in those countries most, you know, most heart disease that affect children are prevented or, you know, preventable.
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A
Really?
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B
They are rheumatic heart disease.
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A
Oh, right.
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B
From a strep infection. You can treat that with antibiotics.
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A
Yes.
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B
That costs nothing.
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A
Right.
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B
And so I decided, because, you know, no doctors can drive two hours in desert. Right. We decided to create mobile clinic. And so at that time, we find a portable echo. You know, those, those companies were doing Smaller one and point of care testing. And then we plugged that with telemedicine and satellite communication to do virtual consultation. So it was like preventative telemedicine in, in the, at the, at the last mile for heart disease.
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A
Right.
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So sending all those images back and then the doctors could say, yeah, we can operate, we can, you know, so we're sending teams and train the doctor. So I think that really started there. It's like this little girl called Miriam was really my inspiration to start going to. Closer to doctors, closer to patient. When I came to New York, came back to New York, you know, I talked to a lot of friends, say, why don't, why don't you do that in New York? We have the same issue. We die from heart attack.
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Yeah.
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And so we started to do those, you know, Screening at Equinox 2014 before they launched Longevity, you know, it was already something that we were screening people for cardiac disease. Cardiac disease. We were doing, you know, you were bringing cardiac echo, CIMT or, you know, aneurysm, et cetera. And so we did that for airline companies, gyms, lawyer's office, kind of corporate, you know, corporate longevity. So that was the beginning. Now fast forward. Covid. Covid. You know, my wife got Covid really early 2020. And so started to, she was in the room, you know, everything was really highly secured. Right?
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Yeah.
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And. And so I started to monitor her with devices. Right. And so pulse ox, remember, it's like we didn't know exactly what it was. And so that was the beginning of our understanding that we could monitor patient. Right. In a different way using technology. Not a portable echo, but, you know, small wearables that can indicate, you know, different variation in a continuous way. And so from there, I started a longevity practice, you know, with one doctor. And obviously it was hard to find the second one. Yes, right. But think about it, 2021, everyone called us and say, hey, I don't want to die. Like that was really the bigging wasn't, I am sick, I want to prevent disease, I don't want to die tomorrow.
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Right.
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And so I think it was really this wake up call of evolution where healthcare was never sexy. Prevention was something no one wanted to hear about. But when Covid hit, everything blew up. Everyone wanted to improve their health, optimize whatever they had so they didn't get sick. So from there, you know, started really a small WhatsApp group that we, you were one of the first joining. And then we call longevity docs today. And so now longevity docs is A is a larger movement than this WhatsApp group.
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Like thousand doctors in it.
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B
Now I think we have, yeah, we, there is a thousand doctor who, you know, who applied to join, who we validated six, close to 600, meaning every single one of them. I, I probably met, you know, 500 of them personally on the zoom call and, you know, that's what you were asking. Is there a shift in medicine? I think yes, Yes. I think, you know, when you start medical school, you want to keep people healthy. Yeah, you love what you do. You love anatomy, physiology, bio. I mean, some of us, right, we love surgery and adrenaline of this and the urgent. And so I think a lot of doctors right now are trying to get to the point, like, am I doing my job, my profession, my vocation, right. By staying in a hospital, seeing a patient every 10 minutes, providing care for people I could have prevented. So I think it is a good time in history. Everything is aligned. The mindset is aligned, the culture, the consumer is asking, the capital. You know, people are investing in longevity because they know that's going to be the future and technology is ready. Yeah, right.
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A
But I do think that, you know, we're going to, we're going to have an, another major massive shortage of doctors because I had Dr. Elizabeth Yurth on this chair earlier today, Dr. Abedou saying, same story, you know, surgeons, and also Dr. Yirth was a pain management doctor, sports medicine, and saw the light. Like we all were treating so much disease and we're like, why are we not preventing this from happening in the first place? Right? And if you really think about it, there are very few true preventative doctors, right? Very, very few. There needs to be one for every sick care doctor that there is, I think. Right. And so there has to be a large number of doctors that are really going to need to go out there and truly practice this new field of not just preventing disease, but also optimizing your health, which is a whole other kind of category of science.
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B
Right.
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Is completely different. Right. For example, we Talked about with Dr. Hussain, the glycocalyx and nitric oxide. You don't even talk about that in preventative medicine or disease care because it's too late. By the time you get there with a heart attack or, you know, even preventing cardiovascular disease with statins, it's too late. You've already gone years and years. And so I feel that there's going to be a brand new field of medicine that develops here.
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B
Right?
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And so it's going to be very interesting to see how many doctors can actually practice this because it's, it's going to be. Need to be a lot.
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Yeah. And so I mean, look, my dad is a physician.
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Yeah.
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And. And he was an acupuncture and professor of acupuncture. So when he started in the 70s.
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Yeah.
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Everyone thought he was crazy. Right. And it doesn't exist, etc. So he fought a lot to make that a specialty for doctors. Right. In Europe. Now, fast forward, preventive medicine. We used to say we shouldn't get, we shouldn't do mammogram, we shouldn't do a calcium score. And remember 20 years ago, calcium score for the heart wasn't something cardiologists didn't want to do that. So I think everything is changing. And the thing that I think is, is more interesting right now is we went from population health. That's how prevention works. Right. Is it a good investment for a nation to do a screening, larger scale screening compared to n of one prevention.
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Right.
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And like you said, I think medicine was always focused on understanding the disease. So we were trained on the physiology, the evolution on the physiopathology of the disease. What I think is changing or changed for the past 20 years is the discovery of the mechanism of aging, the Yamanaka factor, for instance. Right. The hallmark of aging. That's been published. And so we understand right now this is not only a disease, this is an evolution of the body, of our biology for, you know, mitochondrial dysfunction, DNA mutation. Right. Epigenetic change, inflammation. So if we target that as part of longevity medicine, this is what is really new, is longevity medicine is going to target really the root mechanism of aging to prevent the disease, but as well to optimize health.
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Yeah.
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So now think about that like if we go a lot earlier in the mechanism of your, how your brain function, how your cardiovascular respiratory system can be boosted, I think it's another game. We are not into reactive care. Just thinking, let me recover, prevent a disease, let me optimize my health so I can live to my full potential.
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Right, Right, Absolutely. It's so exciting. And one of the things you always say is every doctor should become a longevity doctor. Right. And so I've heard you say that a few times.
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B
Yes.
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When you say that, it sounds like the optimal situation, obviously. But physicians will need training in how to do this. Right. So what, there's a lot of doctors that listen to this show. How should they think about how to learn about longevity medicine? Because I could tell you, in my practice of medicine, in my surgical practice, I learned everything I Needed to in medical school by a deep knowledge of what I needed to know on how to treat disease with surgery. But I got zero training in the science of health and longevity. Right. And so I feel like there's. And that's still happening today in medical schools. People are not learning about health maintenance, disease avoidance and longevity. How does a doctor think about what they need to learn and how would they learn it?
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And I think what is really interesting, if you go back in time, how did we learn? We learned from our peer.
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Right.
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We learned from other doctors. It wasn't an institution. Learning was, you know, transmitted. It was a legacy from surgery. You were operating is not in the books. You learn surgery, not in a library. You go to the OR and you have a mentor. It's hard, right. And they tell you, no, this is wrong. Do it again and do it again. But they trust you.
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Yeah.
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And they trust that in the future you're going to be an amazing surgeon without the, without the mentorship. And you will transmit again and again. And so what I like about what we created, that longevity doc, is this movement of generous doctors really sharing every single day without thinking about a personal agenda. And just because that's the mission. And so I think that's why, you know, they attract each other. That's why we come and we join each other and get united. I think there is a lack of education today, but I hopefully will become the norm in the future. So what we did, because we started to unit them on a WhatsApp group, then during conferences, because of this lack and this white space, we decided to create our first certification. And so it's a hundred hours doctors creating it for other doctors. And what I think it is really interesting is it's accessible anywhere in the world. So you don't have to attend an ayurvedic school. Right. You don't have to travel and ask for permission to empower yourself to have the knowledge. So we go from the biology of aging to the new interventions to the cutting edge biomarkers and we even discuss the new technologies. Right. That are accessible today. And then obviously some are controversial because they're not yet 100% validated, but we talk about the evidence of it. And so we give the doctor the, the tool so they can decide.
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Yes, absolutely.
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Recommendation is really hundred hours of guidance.
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Yes.
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From the clinical side. Part of longevity medicine, to become an independent longevity physician, which means creating your own practice, which, you know, it's pretty hard when you come from a health care system.
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Yeah.
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You haven't learned Anything about setting up your, your practice and they saw a PC, the legal aspect of it, the technology you should use. We always have an EMR at the hospital right now. You need the dashboard to look at all your data technology. How do you hire, how do you brand market price? Right. And obviously how do you do that in a really ethical way?
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Yeah.
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And I think that's the, that's the limit today of longevity medicine. Right. How can we make sure we, we implement, you know, strong principle. Right. And first, do not arm, do not wait, do not wait for the disease to appear. Neither.
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Yes, exactly.
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It's like I love, you know, hypocritis is our logo.
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You remember?
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It's like we put new, new glasses on it. So it's modern. But, you know, first do not arm is really the off. By the same time things evolved, you know, in millennials now we evolved to. We cannot wait until the disease, Cardiac disease is 100% preventable.
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Yeah.
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Yet 20 million people are dying every year. Right. I don't want my dad to wait. Don't want my kids to wait.
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Right, Right. Yeah. I mean, by waiting until disease develops, you are doing harm. You're having microscopic biological harm that you're letting, allowing it to progress and not doing anything about it. So it's critical to absolutely start early and start sooner. This episode was brought to you by nextel, a health optimization and longevity clinic located in Los Angeles, Manhattan, and soon to be opening in Montecito, Nashville, Miami and many other cities in the United states and Canada. NextHealth is the apple store of wellness where you can optimize your health span and lifespan using cutting edge technology. I actually founded NextHealth eight years ago to give my patients a place to go, get extensive biomarker testing done and provide them with all the tools that I use to get my health in order. The longevity circuit in NextHealth using hyperbaric oxygen, sauna, cryotherapy and LED light is a game changer. In addition, the doctors at NextHealth measure thousands of biomarkers and put into place a longevity optimization plan using advanced tools like ozone, plasma exchange and peptides. Go to www.next.health to check it out. So when I talk about the field of longevity medicine with younger doctors that want to go in the field, one of the first topics that we talk about is getting the basics down. Nutrition, metabolic health, exercise, movement, sleep, stress management, emotional health. Like, I feel like that those are all things that we were not taught in medical school.
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B
Zero hours. You know who said that? Eric Verdan we were like he said, you know, how many, how many hours I've been trained? 000. But like you said, it says level one lifestyle. You know, I know you love your pyramid. Level one is really the fundamental right. Like no one can start in longevity medicine and thinking about the future therapies and you know, gene. Gene therapies and stem cells, et cetera. I think that's what gets the in line on the media and that's what people love to talk about. But longevity first start with the lifestyle.
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Exactly.
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And so if you look at all those hallmark of aging, those are the pathways are really impacted by, you know, everything that we discussed. We won't get into the details. The movement, the stress mitigation, healthy nutrition and environment. Right. Your environment, your community is really important. But now level two, like you said, it's the integration of all those different parts, the root cause of disease as functional integrative medicine. How do you integrate novel ways of treating. And I think there is a lot of new research undergoing on geroprotective drugs as well. Right. Senolytics. And I think in the future, in the next few years, maybe two, three years, hopefully earlier, we're going to find the validation, the clinical validation.
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Right.
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With clinical, you know, clinical trial that says some of those molecules that are already available on the market cheap. Right. Can protect us from aging.
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Exactly.
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That reverse that we're not sure yet. Nothing is yet on the market, but we can enclose. So my advice to the dogs and even for, you know, is like, do not die next 10 to 20 years because that's where innovation is going to come from.
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Yeah, absolutely. A lot of people just came back from the Buck Institute. I've been talking with them about the conference and people more than ever now are really seeing that there will be innovations coming in the next few years during our lifetimes that will dramatically change how we think of disease and possibly even think about our upper limit of aging. Do you believe that?
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B
Yeah. And I think Luke, you were a pioneer. I remember, you know, passing by, you know, your first, your first location. Right. And I was like, wow. You know, I was already a big fan. I was like, wow, this guy nailed it. Because remember at that time was 2017 or something, you know, 14. I was already thinking like we should come and do all those tests, et cetera. But I think what, what you, you manage doing is, you know, first of all is being led by a physician.
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Right.
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Why clinical longevity medicine has to be led by clinical, you know, clinical leadership. And with a doctor that is trained in longevity medicine. I think that's number one. To keep the credibility and, and the safety, I think, I think that's really important. But now you cannot advance without innovation.
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Exactly.
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Right. The innovation is going to make it more convenient, more affordable, more accessible, frictionless. And I think you made it so cool. Right. You enter, it looks beautiful, people are great. And number three, I think is information. And that's what you do every day. Right. With the podcast. So I think this combination is something that we didn't think about 20 years ago.
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Yeah.
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I think that healthcare leader were never trained to educate.
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No.
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Right. And so you have to, we have to love doing it. Right. You have to love sharing and listening and being and researching every day. And you're doing an amazing job. Doing that is not easy. Right.
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A
So absolutely. I think, you know, to your point, I think we were actually educated to keep the patient uninformed. Right. I think the patient was given very little access to their own data. A lot of knowledge was gained. Gate, you know, there's a lot of gatekeeping of knowledge. A lot of people thinking that the layman could not understand. Right. There's this whole term called the layman. Let's put this in layman terms. Right. And the reality is people understand. You have, you have to explain it to the level that you've learned it and let them take the knowledge and understand it. Right. And so just like you said, you know, the podcast that we're on today, extend podcast, this was came out of like the necessity to educate the public about the things that you and I talk about every day. Because they need to learn about their own biology. Right. Without learning about your own biology, you can't really understand how the different inputs affect it.
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B
And I think every doctor should be an educator.
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A
Exactly right.
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B
And they should follow your, your, your footstep. You should train them on, on being able to educate and being in the front of the camera is not, is not easy.
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No.
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Right. Making sure that you can really summarize your thought and being accessible for everyone.
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Right.
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So I think at the era of social media, it will become a responsibility to educate.
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Yes.
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Right. Kind of a public health mandatory service.
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A
Yes.
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Right. If we don't do it, other people will do it. Non specialized, untrained and with a different agenda.
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A
People. Well, we've already seen this happen, Right. I mean, the original biohackers have massive social media platforms where they talk about some of these therapies sometimes too soon, sometimes when they're unproven or they make claims that are absolutely not founded by any science. Right. And unfortunately, these are the people that have had the biggest voice because they're the ones that had the time to do it. They weren't seeing one patient every five minutes in the clinics.
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B
Correct. But so I think we have to move like, you know, I'm really, I'm really grateful for the biohacking community.
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A
Sure.
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Right. So that's something I look at really, you know, a lens of the pioneer. Right. And they try them themselves. They really look at how can they understand better. Because I think we lacked the information. Right. And so a lot of people wrote a lot of pages on this movement and I think we have to be grateful about that. We kind of all are a little bit hacking our health. Absolutely. But I think we should move right now to next. We should elevate biohacking to bioliteracy. Right, right. Biohacking is retesting. Okay, that's fine. You can do it, you know, in a safe way and in a cheap way. Shouldn't be super expensive neither. Right. But at the same time, I think bioliteracy should be the foundation of biohacking. Do not try everything if you don't understand the basic. So I think at the era of information, if the doctor is not informed, literate, and cannot educate, which means translate the biology, the symptoms, the treatment in a proper, simple way, I don't think this type of physician will have a future.
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Right, Absolutely.
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And I think I will be bold. I think AI could replace doctor. A lot of people said the human touch is important. Yes, it is. Maybe Dr. Will evolve in a different position. But AI right now is probably better at scanning a lot of different images in radiology, in pathology as well, in testing. Right now everyone is uploading, like the younger generation. They upload on ChatGPT.
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Absolutely.
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Why they would see a doctor.
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Yeah.
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And so I think we have to have a wake up call as physician. If we think we have the. That was all power. It doesn't happen anymore. Right, right. No one wants to see a white coat. They want to answer fast, cheap, without paternalism.
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Exactly.
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And that's why I see the, the young generation of physician, they are so excited about it. Finally they said, that's why I started medicine.
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Yeah.
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And that's why you starting, I would say an older generation like us saying, that's so exciting. And now we can educate. We understand the science, there is the technology to tackle it. Maybe in the future we could have better intervention. And then the consumer, which is not a patient anymore, is coming before it's too late.
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Yeah.
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I think everything is aligned for once.
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A
It's like crazy time period. Incredible time. Right.
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Physicians are so excited and there's nothing to educate them. So I encourage even university to, to embed, you know, longevity as a curriculum. They should bring, they should educate. And I think Malaysia is doing that already, Singapore is doing it. So it doesn't mean that doesn't exist. It means that some nation or some academia are going faster.
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A
Yeah, they are. Right. Exactly. Well, and then the Walton family just opened a school in a medical school where the foundation is training in nutrition and, you know, functional medicine, et cetera. So I'm really excited that even newer medical schools are now starting with a foundation of functional medicine rather than it being completely ignored.
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B
It is, it is absolutely a necessity in the sense. And so that's, that's, I think the first step. And look, you were, you're talking about the Walton family deal, which is the, you know, the Walmart, you know, buyer. And so I was talking with the retailer yesterday. Right. Including Walmart.
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A
Right.
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B
What I think is really fascinating, they are, first of all, they are pharmacy. Right. They deliver food.
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A
Yeah.
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Now, I mean, there is a way and I think, you know, they were discussed that it can come with the blood work.
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A
Yeah. I think they were going to put clinics inside.
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B
They had. And, but, but think about the future. You upload your blood work.
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A
Yeah.
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B
And then you get the food card recommended for your blood work. Right. For the condition shipped your home.
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Yeah.
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So I think that's the future. So now think about the relationship with the physician.
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Mm.
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How do we reinvent ourself?
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Yeah.
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Right. If we don't, we're not in control of the prescription anymore. You have major platform right now where you can buy your medicine. Right. And you can buy your medicine without seeing a doctor or your pcp. So you were asking how many doctors need to be trained. And I made the math.
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Right.
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If you want to see. And if you look at, let's say, let's go back, if longevity medicine is personalized, evidence based, you know, you know, outcome driven practice of targeting this root cause of aging. So you don't see a disease. Right. To produce more vitality and even longevity. Right. We focus on health span, not only lifespan. If you think this, this is longevity medicine, you cannot see a patient every seven minutes or 10 minutes within an hour, every six months.
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Yeah.
- [27:01]
B
If we have 350 million citizens in the U.S. we need 700 million hours. Right. So I made the math. Basically, you need half a million doctors Trained today there's a million doctor license. So it means half of the population should be trained at least to understand what is longevity medicine. Right, right. And so is it possible? Why not? If half of the population is already a primary care doctor? I think the primary care is the future.
- [27:27]
A
Yeah.
- [27:28]
B
Right. Because trusted community will go to the primary care doctor right away.
- [27:31]
A
Right, right. I mean, it'd be fantastic. The only problem is right now because the system is so set up to have primary care doctors see as many people as possible per day, going from 10 or 15 minutes a patient to one hour a patient is. The system is not set up for that. Right. And they don't get compensated for that, number one. So that's, that's not helpful. Right. But also number two, people are just really dealing with a lot of chronic disease. So it's, it's going to be a tough turn. I think it is, it is.
- [27:59]
B
But, but like you said, you know, that's really what it needs. It needs to be happening. But at the same time, you know, evolution happens sometimes in a really, you know, in decades.
- [28:08]
A
Yeah.
- [28:08]
B
So if you look at technology, 20 years ago, we didn't have social media. No. No. Digital phone, Mac, you know, the, the portable computer, only 30 years old. Now everything is accessible. So think about what's going to happen in 10 years. AI is going to free a lot of time of doctors because 50% of the time they spend today is administrative. Right. To enter codes in an EMR, to get reimbursement, etc. So I think there is a way, if we rethink the system, everything in the system is maybe building a new system. Yeah, right. Well, sometimes, you know, you have to do. The house is too broken.
- [28:43]
A
That's exactly what I, you know, I always say about Next Health. We're just building a new system. That other house is built for a specific purpose. If you get hit by a bus, you have a heart attack, you could diagnose a stage for cancer, you need surgery. Thank God we have that system. But Next Health is basically a new system. Just practice a completely new way. Right. And I think the problem is trying to fix something that was built completely differently with financial incentives that are opposite. It's hard to do. Right.
- [29:09]
B
But, but I think, you know, with. There's a lot of smart people right in this country. This is amazing to see. You know, the, the, the innovation that happens. I think if that's really the goal, it can be achieved.
- [29:20]
A
Yeah.
- [29:20]
B
And, and again, I think we have to give back. Like what you said, you know, Being. Being the CEO of your own health.
- [29:25]
A
Exactly.
- [29:26]
B
For patients. So if the patient is empowered, motivated, educated. I think, first of all, like, this is the job the doctor doesn't have to do.
- [29:34]
A
Exactly.
- [29:34]
B
Right. And it's not about biology anymore. I think, you know, longevity, I call it the longevity architect. You should build a life that is worth living. So it's not. Health is only one part of it. Right. Where you live is another part. Your purpose, your community. What do you leave behind? What do we want to live longer if we don't know what, you know, what we live for?
- [29:53]
A
Right, Absolutely. You know, to your point, too, like, I think there's going to be a massive unburdening of physician time as more patients become the CEO of their own health, utilizing, first of all, learning and becoming health literate. Right. Through podcasts, through their own research, through using AI. Secondly, through uploading their own data to AI and getting, you know, I have patients now all the time and friends all the time. Like, I got my blood work, I uploaded it to AI, it told me to, you know, reduce my salt intake. My do do this differently, et cetera. And they're not even. They're not even seeking any interventions for any humans. They're just following the program given to them by AI and they're making meaningful change in their health. Right. So this is all happening in the background, and that will have a meaningful effect on chronic disease rates. Right.
- [30:41]
B
I think what is really interesting is we are the era where personalization and access of our own data and understanding is available, accessible and affordable.
- [30:52]
A
Yes, absolutely.
- [30:53]
B
It wasn't the case. Right. Having an ETG was so hard. Now you can do it at home. Right. And all those tools right now have a technology that can measure and bring together so many different data. Right. Sleep data, recovering data, fitness data and blood work.
- [31:09]
A
Right.
- [31:10]
B
Now all of that, plus your. Your rituals and your habits can create a plan.
- [31:15]
A
Yeah.
- [31:15]
B
Doctors don't have time to do that.
- [31:17]
A
Right.
- [31:17]
B
So we're going to have to become those guides, advisor. Right. To few, do few patient. Right, Right. And say, okay, this is what you do if you have a disease. This is what you do to avoid having a disease. Right. And so the same way you have, you know, and that content, Right. For your business, you're going to have a doctor that will look at, you know, you make the money, the accountant look at it.
- [31:38]
A
Yes.
- [31:39]
B
And I think, you know, we have to transfer this accountability to the patient, the consumer, the, you know.
- [31:45]
A
Yes. People need to become responsible for their own health and not outsource it to the medical world anymore, because that world was never built to optimize health or to prevent disease or to reverse chronic disease. So people need to take their own health into their hands and understand that those are their responsibilities. And I think once you have that mindset shift, then you can put into place, like, a longevity plan. You have, like, a structure for a longevity plan that you talk about with people. Can you go over that structure every.
- [32:16]
B
Every first of January?
- [32:17]
A
Yeah.
- [32:17]
B
I used to take an Excel sheet and say, okay, this is. This is how my. My next year is going to look like. And so, you know, I had few. Few columns, and one was health. Where do I want to leave? You know what I'm excited about, who I want to share the journey with. And so I realized that was exactly what longevity is, because you want longevity for two things, time and health. If you take one of the equation, doesn't mean longevity anymore, right?
- [32:46]
A
Exactly.
- [32:47]
B
Time, no health. That's not longevity. You have health, but no time. What it is. Right, right, right. And so I think if you have those two in mind, how do you build a life around that? So I created a longevity canvas, 10 pillars, really simple. It's like one sheet, and you look at first pillar number one, how do I look like when I'm 95, when I'm 75 next year? How do you project yourself? Like, visioning yourself in the future is so important because you are now reverse engineer where you want to be, right. Number two is your purpose. What wakes you up every morning, right? This gives you this drive, this vitality to not only keep pushing. Right. But as well to take care of yourself. It's like being in a. In a plane, right? You want to take care of yourself, you want to take care of others. And I think there is, you know, obviously health. This is a big part of it. I combine, you know, health, lifestyle, and environment together. That's the thing we must talk about. You talk, you know, heavily. You go deep on your. On the podcast, right? Is. Is maintaining, you know, healthy biomarkers, right? Cleaning your environment, your house, you know, traveling. I said I travel a. This is not good for radiation or sleep deprivation, but it's amazing for community. It's amazing for purpose. It's amazing for, you know, growing my knowledge and so on. The other part is how do I invest, you know, my time and resources for longevity. So knowledge is one. We know that people are more educated, you know, live longer. Right, right. And this is. This is really published data. This is incredible community. If you're surrounded by the right people. You said a lot. Detoxify your environment.
- [34:21]
A
Yes.
- [34:22]
B
Include relationship in it.
- [34:24]
A
Exactly. Relationships are part of your environment. Right.
- [34:26]
B
But they're part of toxic, you know, toxic relationship.
- [34:29]
A
Toxic relationships.
- [34:29]
B
You know, it's a problem. And I think, you know, if you look at that is how do you create a canvas of your life and you revise it every quarter, every six months. And look, and this is free, right? I think this, you know, I put it available for everyone. So you have prompts and then you design your own canvas. Now what I think is going to be interesting in the future, you'll be able to embed, and I'm working on that on the back end. Create your own agent, right? Your own longevity architect that can say now, Darshan, is time to take a vacation, right? It is time to take a break. Right. It is time to, to spend time with your family. It is time, right. To have an altruistic endeavor. And I think this is important that we get reminded because we are, you know, either driven or we have other, you know, priorities in life. And so having a canvas sometimes give you a master plan and you can go back to. And, you know, and I believed it was great to share it. I shared it with friends. I love it and I share it on stage. People say I want it. So I started to redesign it and to make it, you know, available so people can play with it and own it in a way that is much more than just biomarker of health.
- [35:36]
A
Right.
- [35:37]
B
It is biomarker of life.
- [35:38]
A
Right? Right. Hi, Dr. Shah here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30 year old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60 year olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones, and they have limited cell phone battery, poor sleep, stress, processed foods. All of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with iM8. IM8 powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92 ingredient formula designed specifically for cellular health and longevity. I'm talking 900 milligrams of vitamin C. That's like 20 oranges worth of DNA protection, the clinical dose of CoQ10 that you need to power your cellular engine. You also get zinc, selenium, vitamin E, Alpha lipoic acid. All of these work synergistically for cellular repair and protecting your telomeres. So instead of taking a handful of pills every day and all these supplements, Im8 actually gives you everything that you need in one scientifically formulated system. And this isn't just a theory anymore. IMAID had partnered with Oxford University, the International Space Station San Francisco Research Institute, and they've done studies and they've gotten this NSF certified to truly power your health. Most people are aging twice as fast as they should. Unfortunately, you don't have to be one of them. Try ima. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to DrShaw.com IM8 or go to IM8Health.com discount DrShaw and you can get 20% off with my discount code DrShaw. You can also find the link below. I love that you tie in all these other pieces that you don't really consider as being part of longevity. Community, friendships, relationships, all of these things that purpose, of course, these are so important and they need to be part of the overall formula. Where can people get this from you? Is it on your website?
- [37:51]
B
Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's available on the website. DrDavidlu. Drdavidlu.com and yeah, on social media as well.
- [37:58]
A
Dr. And that's incredible that you created this coming from your perspective. As you know, you're extremely successful surgeon now. You're the founder and leader of a group of longevity doctors. So you truly have the biggest picture view, the most zoomed out view of any of us really on longevity and how this, the future of longevity should look like. And so to put it together on one architecture.
- [38:21]
B
No, thank you. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that. I think but you're right. Is architecture right? I like, you know, I like building infrastructure.
- [38:28]
A
Right, right.
- [38:28]
B
And so sometime is, is going horizontal instead of going like a rocket ship vertical.
- [38:33]
A
Right.
- [38:33]
B
And building an infrastructure, I think is for the long term. Right. It's foundation and I like to build things that it can last. It can benefit a lot of people and impact and reduce suffering. And so you want to do that in a way that is not linked to you. Right. And so the same way with, with the Heart Fund, the foundation who created, I was, you know, was 21.
- [38:53]
A
Right.
- [38:53]
B
Is still going. Right. And it's still doctors getting trained in Africa. I'm going, you know, in. You should come, invite you to come. I would love to. Yeah. In the first, first quarter next year. I mean, I think when you build things that outlive you and Then you just let them go. I think that's the beauty of life. Right. It's just building and give it away. Right. And that's what I believe. Pillar 10 of longevity. I think that's the ultimate mastery. This legacy, what you build for other that is not linked to you and then you can be detached to. And so I think a lot of people sometimes say, well, why are you doing that? But this is part of my longevity plan. This is what I like. I can live tomorrow. I'd be already proud of my life.
- [39:36]
A
Sure.
- [39:36]
B
And I think, you know, this is. I wish everyone to be as lucky, you know, as I am.
- [39:44]
A
Yeah.
- [39:44]
B
And I'm grateful to be at service. So when you are in this position of service, you really have to build strong foundation to be able to deliver. And sometimes, you know, pioneer is not easy. Right, right. It's hard, you know, like for life, you know? You know, it is exactly. This is so hard. Right. You get step back, people don't like it. They get, you know, you get challenged, people laugh at you. But I think the power of just believing in your vision because of the greatest impact. There's no ego in it.
- [40:13]
A
Yeah, right. Yeah. I also think that doing hard things contributes to longevity because it forces you to push forward, to use your brain to think about what you need to learn and then go out there and learn it and solve a problem. These are all things that give you a sense of purpose, but allow you to also use your brain and allow you to keep pushing forward. And those are all pieces of longevity too.
- [40:34]
B
Oh, totally, totally. I think, you know, learning. I mean, we know that learning a new skill every four years, I think, you know, every four years is so don't quote me on that, but I think improves your, you know, your way of quality of life. I think reduce as well, mortality. So that's number one, multilingualism.
- [40:52]
A
Right.
- [40:53]
B
It was just a study published here, I think in. In Nature. Right. Learning several language impact your health. Right. And your longevity. So I think we are here to learn, to stimulate our brain so everyone can learn. That's why learning about health is like everything else.
- [41:08]
A
Yeah, absolutely.
- [41:09]
B
So everyone should be bioliterate. Yes, Right. Bio educated. And you can become your own, you know, your own guide in your journey and then you can guide your children and you can guide your parents. So I think it's. It's really kind of an education. Like you cannot leave the next generation not understanding their health. Like, even social media as part of health, we have to monitor that for kids, you know, that's a wake up call, you know, it's isolation. Mental health for the next generation is really, really a bigger, big burden. So we have to intervene now because the next 20 years, 20 years, they're going to be adults.
- [41:45]
A
Yes.
- [41:45]
B
With the, you know, with all the problem that he, you know, entails.
- [41:50]
A
Yeah. Australia just made it illegal to use social media for 30 years old. Yeah. Crazy.
- [41:55]
B
And in some of the country they make it as well an education platform. So we have to have as well technology is amazing. That was on social media. We couldn't connect the same way in educate. So I think we have to be as well, intentional and thoughtful and educate the next generation. Say, yeah, it is here. There's bad stuff going on. Right. There's the good stuff. And I think you should leverage that. It's like AI. Right? So I always say embrace the innovation instead of finding it.
- [42:22]
A
Yes.
- [42:22]
B
Innovation almost always win.
- [42:24]
A
Yes.
- [42:26]
B
So you better be on the side of the story and leverage it. Right. And so it's like longevity medicine that's going to be there because people want it, not because we decided it. Because patients are tired to suffer and to impact their health and their finance on this. So they want a better way to look at themselves and live their life.
- [42:47]
A
Exactly. And I think also people are tired of spending so much money on a broken healthcare system. The insurance costs are going through the roof right now. I think people want something different. They know they can't even afford to be sick in there. So it's time to obviously find something new. And I think if we can embrace this longevity movement, it will unburden that other system, making it less expensive, hopefully. And people don't need as much.
- [43:12]
B
Exactly. And I think that's the type of research we need to do. Right. I think research is really important to validate and understand that we, you know, scientists, doctors, policymakers, they want hard data. And I think that's the power of the movement we created with longer. We have like you know, up to a thousand people right now that can participate into research. Decentralized clinical trial, can do surveys. Right. It can do population health or population management project. And I think that that changes everything. You know, remember at that time we need to do research. You had to be a PhD candidate in one lab, in one, you know, in one place. You now everyone can be a researcher. And that's what I like about this, like this common sharing processes with those data. You can come back, right. To know, like you say, insurance, employers, you know, in the US the, the first insurer is the employer all right. And so I think the employer. Right. True motivation is to have healthy employees. Absolutely. The workforce is so productive. Right. And so inspired that it would, you know, they want to produce more. And I think if you, if you look at this, this, you know, through the lens of economics now you understand that it's not about prevention anymore. It's about optimizing human potential. And I think the current society diminished the human potential mentally, physically. And in terms of mindset, I think it's time that we could take over as human before AI does it.
- [44:39]
A
Yeah, that makes a lot of sense actually. I think we're so focused on preventing disease that we forgot about just optimizing human potential. By doing that, you will prevent disease and you'll have less healthcare expenditure. Let's just work on optimizing all of our employees.
- [44:55]
B
I think this is really important and you can play a huge role doing that. Not only preventing disease, remember it was the wellness benefit. Obviously it was interesting to have a few session of yoga or a free gym. But I think right now employees are getting smart and they want more. They want to be highly educated, they want to push forward, they want to feel better, they want to take care of their family. And they would do it if they are a great partner.
- [45:22]
A
Right.
- [45:22]
B
With a clear mission, a brand Elizari with this video. I think that's going to be true in the future.
- [45:27]
A
Yes, I completely agree. And it's a whole new way of thinking that is just now happening live, real time in this moment. So the future of longevity medicine is very bright.
- [45:37]
B
I think, I think it is really bright and it doesn't. I don't think longevity belongs to physician only. I think it's going to be ubiquitous and I hope one day we don't even talk about it anymore because it's so natural and so normal. Transportation will embed it, hospitality, housing, urbanism, you know, the food industry, textile. It will be everywhere. Everything's going to be built and designed intentionally to help human thrive. And I think if we do that through this lens, think about it in the next 20, 40, 50 years, look at where we were 50 years ago. In 50 years, no one's going to talk about longevity anymore because it becomes so normal. But we have to play right now a pivotal role. It's a moment where we have to embed in a really ethical, safe, outcome driven way in many as an industry as possible. So it becomes natural. You don't say you have a digital phone anymore. You don't say it's a mic, it's an Electricity powered mic, everything is powered by electricity. Communication is powered by Internet and everything is digitally transmitted. We don't see it anymore. Longer is going to be the same for human potential and hopefully for human life.
- [46:56]
A
And maybe the dream of it being ubiquitous and everything is amazing, which is a little bit of the opposite of where things have been headed over the last 50 years with chemicals being spewed out without any testing. And I do feel like we're at this transition moment, but hopefully it can happen faster. That's the goal.
- [47:12]
B
Yeah, you're right. I mean, look, like I said, every industry has to move fast because of innovation. That's where you start implementing policies and regulation and sometimes you only understand that 10, 20 years later.
- [47:26]
A
Yes.
- [47:28]
B
And I think this is the problem. We build fast, but we don't monitor or we didn't at that time. And I think if you do it intentionally, outcome driven, you look at the outcome, you don't just build. And so if you do it with outcome in mind and obviously side effect and then continuous monitoring, which we can do with a lot of technology now, let's say if you build a house and then you monitor every single chemical in the house, all the small particles there, you could do that. Right?
- [47:56]
A
I'll do that.
- [47:56]
B
Right, exactly. We're doing it. Right. So.
- [47:58]
A
Right.
- [47:58]
B
So imagine just having that embedded in you in your buildings.
- [48:01]
A
Yes.
- [48:02]
B
And I think that could be interesting to say. Oh, by the way, material we used now impact the biomarker of the resident. We don't know that. Right. At some point, the toilets that exist right now, toilets will measure, you know, your urine and your stool. Right. So you can maybe adapt the water in personalized way, you know, and so that's what I think is going to be the future in a really, really seamless way, going to be able to adapt everything. So longevity become ambient. I love calling that ambient longevity.
- [48:32]
A
Is this around you all the time?
- [48:34]
B
Around you all the time.
- [48:35]
A
And biomarkers being fed constantly to your phone, maybe, which houses your AI that is constantly monitoring all the biomarkers, like from your toilet, even your environment, your blood tests, your wearable devices, everything's being monitored and giving you real time advice.
- [48:55]
B
Correct. And I think, look, today your data are everywhere. Right. Big companies get your data.
- [49:00]
A
Right.
- [49:01]
B
We don't know what they do with it, but it's not really for our own health.
- [49:05]
A
Okay.
- [49:05]
B
We don't really see the impact right away. What I can tell you is there's company right now, and I'm sure you know about that, looking at monitoring 40 biomarkers right. the same time. Right. With like a continuous monitor. So if we think about that, we're going to understand the trend and what's impacted. So I think even with MBN longevity, the outcome would be right away, say, oh, I moved to this house, I changed this bed, I'm using this type of sheets. Right. I change my food, the water is filtered, the light are different, my mindset shift, the book I read. Right. The information, everything merged together. So you can measure your biomarker, and it's only the biomarker of health. The biomarker of life going to be unhorned. And I think we're going to extract a little bit. We're going to zoom out. Right now we obsess on biomarkers of the biomarker of your mitochondria, NAD levels, et cetera, which is great. It's innovation. But I think we're going to zoom out. The true biomarker of life, then longevity, then healthy longevity, then biology.
- [50:06]
A
Yeah. I mean, if you look at the research like the Harvard study that was done following, I think, 100 people over 80 years, the true biomarker of health was social connection. So maybe we should be measuring how much time you spend talking to other people. Right.
- [50:20]
B
I think it is a really interesting survey. I think some people call it social fitness.
- [50:25]
A
Social fitness.
- [50:26]
B
Not fitness in a social setting. Social fitness. How do you exercise? And I know you do through your Jefferson and dinner. Right. And I think it is really important.
- [50:35]
A
Yes.
- [50:35]
B
Having people that we can have fun, to have fun together. We're in the same journey. We can make fun of each other. That's what I like about, you know, the south of France, the Caribbean, Italy. Right. We make fun of each other. And I think that's important when to have, you know, auto derision. Right. A little bit of humility in what we do. Making fun of ourself is really. I think it's. It is important not to take ourselves too seriously so we can laugh about it. And I think we don't do that enough. Right? We don't.
- [51:02]
A
Janice laughing. That's another. That's another measure of longevity.
- [51:06]
B
Minutes laughing right now.
- [51:07]
A
Minutes laughing every day. Not my dream right now, but our phone should do that.
- [51:11]
B
We should do that. You're right. Well, I never heard of it. It's a brilliant idea. Laughing is important. We don't. We're too serious.
- [51:17]
A
Yeah, exactly.
- [51:18]
B
And it creates chronic stress.
- [51:20]
A
Wow. Well, I love hearing you talk about this because you have such a great viewpoint about it, especially with the level of knowledge you have of the longevity field to really zoom it out for us and really point out what's important. I really want to do your 10 longevity builders. I can't wait to download.
- [51:38]
B
We could do it together.
- [51:39]
A
Let's do it together.
- [51:40]
B
Do it together.
- [51:41]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I hope you might not put on my website and hopefully that everyone can see where mine is and you can do exactly.
- [51:48]
B
Yeah, it is just important. So first of all, it's a fun game and I even share it with Moana, my wife, and say, okay, this is mine, you know, you should do yours. And I think it's great because now it becomes as well a family conversation. Happy. So pride at some point because it's community. So you should share how many times you want to see your baby or your parents next year. And every time I fly back to Europe, I try to see my parents, even if it's for a few hours. We know time is limited. And so I think my dad, my mom really raised me to become a doctor. I didn't know anything else. They were in the medical field.
- [52:23]
A
So your mom was a medical field shooter?
- [52:25]
B
Yeah, she was a pediatric nurse and she was going to refugee camps. I was, you know, sometimes following her in the, you know, they had both people from Cambodia. I still remember, you know, hidden in the. In the church. And then we were bringing food and co. So I think, you know, she opened my human tie inside my dad, you know, we were living in the. On top of the. His medical practice in the south of France in Nimes. And you know, every time after school, knocking at the, at the door to go to the practice of smelling the, you know, the alcohol, the incense, seeing the patients say, thank you, doctor, thank you. You sent me. Thank you. So I think this is the kind of inspiration we need. Right. Make it is inspired by a lot of YouTubers and streamers. I hope is going to love seeing the impact of science, of research, of AI and medicine. And I'm just joking a little bit because the figure we have at that time, as, you know, mentors and leaders are changing today.
- [53:21]
A
They are.
- [53:22]
B
And that's okay. We have to adapt with our time. Right. But yeah, so I think we could share ours and people can eventually be inspired.
- [53:31]
A
I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me today.
- [53:33]
B
Thank you. Thank you.
- [53:34]
A
This was an awesome conversation.
- [53:35]
B
Love it.
- [53:36]
A
Can't wait for people to hear this. And how can people learn more from you?
- [53:39]
B
I mean, social media, Dr. David Liu and then my website, drdavidlu.com, but I think the most important is really, you know, the mission. Longevitydocs.org for every doctor. We welcome every doctor in any part of the world. And we have, Doc, we have right now, 50 countries represented, more than 300 cities. So that's the beauty of it. We can call any, we can call any doctor in the world and have, you know, someone that can, you know, listen to us, refer a patient, ask a question. So for every single doctor, this is my call. Try to be literate in longevity medicine, understand the mechanism of aging, and obviously, you know, if you can help your patient or learn more about the topic, you know, this is, this is where you can go. Longevitydocs.org thank you so much. Thank you so much.
- [54:25]
A
It's so great.
- [54:26]
B
Thank you so much.
- [54:26]
A
Thank you.
- [54:27]
B
Thank you.
- [54:30]
A
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps the support, support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best and it's always important to seek their guidance.