← Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD
164. SXSW Panel: How To Actually Take Control Of Your Health In 2026 and Beyond
00:55:41
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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. Hello everyone. Good morning. I'm Dr. Darshan Shah and I am so excited to be here on this incredible panel of true experts in the field. So, so before we get started, I want everyone to take a look at their wrist and then take a look at the wrist or the hand of the person next to them. There's at least a 80% chance that both of you have some sort of wearable on right now. And then many of you probably also have your latest blood work on your phone. And so this is our new reality. This was not the reality 10 years ago, that's for sure. I mean, this has all come fast and furious. I, being a doctor, have been in the medical field now for 30 years and I can tell you I never thought a day like this would come. And my own personal journey, you know, Having done over 20,000 surgeries in the western medical world and getting sick myself because I had no indication of what was going on in my own biology, led to me becoming extremely sick. And I had to go to your typical medicine route to try to get better. That didn't work, and we can talk about that later. But man, if I had had this type of technology attached to my body, my blood work available to me on my phone at any time, and I was monitoring it, I probably never would have gotten as chronically ill as I did. So the question now is, are we all biohackers now that we have devices on us and we have our own blood work in our phones and, you know, we're doing all of these things to monitor ourselves, things that we thought was science fiction and kind of fringe and biohackery in the past, now it's pretty much the norm. So that's what we're here to answer with our esteemed Guest so I'm going to start this conversation off with one topic, which is we're all gone from potentially elite athletes having access to this technology to just everyday people having this technology. And so I'm going to ask first, Steve Martocci about his view here and kind of his journey. Now, you launched SUPCO about a year and a half ago to help people make sense of this massive supplement industry. And man, I'm so glad you did that. I mean, I know you and I have talked a lot and I refer every one of my patients to Sepco before they buy a single supplement. It's definitely like the only to me source of truth in this world right now. But you kind of had your own health journey. And, you know, you went, you were £300 before, and you went from a kid who's playing multiple sports to kind of like this new reality. And experts were telling you lots of different things. And you told me, destroying my podcast, the system had failed you as well. And so I just wanted to ask you, you know, as you were building this company, how you felt about your personal health journey and how. How technology is kind of tied into that now.
- [03:34]
B
Yeah, I mean, I happy to share. So, yeah, I was a, you know, a kid who play who was 6, 5, made all the sports teams. Cause how could you cut someone who's as big as me? But I was always just terrible. And I would do entire football seasons and I would not weight and I would not put on muscle. And 90s medicine didn't have anything for me. It was basically, you're on the low end of normal on thyroid. There's nothing we can do for you. And then finally I sold my first company, GroupMe. I was £267. And I was like, I want to live. And got in shape. And it started with blood work and it started with adjusting medications and supplements. Obviously a commitment to diet and exercise. Funny with the word biohacker, though, in this journey. Like, I never, I never liked that word and it never kind of resonated with me. And I was actually very ashamed of what I was doing when I was doing it because I felt like I was so deficient in things and having to make up for it. And no one was talking about this stuff back then, but it was working. And people would ask me, like, what, wow, you just went through this transformation. What did you do? And, you know, I would share, I would have this out of date Google spreadsheet of medications and supplements no one wanted to hear diet and exercise 10 years before Ozempic was a thing and I would try to share it and, you know, they would take it to their doctors and the doctors would have no idea what to do with it. So it wasn't. It wasn't. I wasn't able to really share and I was pretty ashamed, to be honest. And it wasn't until, you know, we started. It was probably like a couple years ago, I was done working at Splice, my, another company I founded, and I wanted to get back into, you know, sharing this journey, you know, because preventative medicine is going through this transformation. Friends with the Function team, as they were going down their path, and I thought I could make a real wedge in supplements. And it started with just wanting to be able to cleanly share our stack and do it in a way because cutting through, you know, right now I just feel we're in a like, loudest voice wins type world. And so we wanted a platform which could be a source of truth for helping people make sense of supplements.
- [05:34]
A
Yeah, it's such a fantastic contribution to this entire space right now. And when people especially, you know, there's so many more. I think there's a statistic on Amazon, right, that there's. How many supplements on Amazon now?
- [05:45]
B
Well, we track 290 or actually maybe over 300,000 supplement products at this point,
- [05:50]
A
which is insane, mind blowing. It's. It's really hard to sort through that noise before your app, so I appreciate that. Next, I want to ask Pranita a question. Pranita, you're the chief medical officer over there at Function Health, which has transformed the lives of so many, many individuals on this in the United States and beyond. And I know so many patients come to us with their functional labs just asking all the right questions finally. So, you know, I'd love to hear kind of your journey in medicine and how that led to Function Health and just kind of bridging this gap where, you know, people never had access to the data. In fact, data was gate kept. Right. And now this. Your company gives people access, but also gives them guidance. And so I'd love to hear how you stepped into this and how that contributes to this whole world of the new biohacker.
- [06:42]
C
Absolutely. And one correction is I'm not medical, I'm not chief medical officer, but I am chief business officer and the founding CEO. And so much of what I kind of experienced really resonated with Steve's story is I personally went on my health journey starting in my teens. I was diagnosed with pcos, prediabetes and cholesterol. Throughout my teens and twenties and ran experiments on myself, essentially did what function does on a spreadsheet while I figured out what to do with my health. And so much of what I was told was, you need to take this medication and that medication to solve your health. And I knew that if I did that, I was gonna die young or live a really unhealthy life. And that's when I met my co founders at function and we were all sort of going through this similar journey of how do we solve this for ourselves and our family and our friends. And then a spark hit. And that's when we realized that because 70% of medical decisions are made based on lab work, you need to have that information before doing really anything else. And we all know that it's incredibly reactive. And so if we start with lab tests, and when I say lab tests, I don't mean the annual physical, which is around 26, 26 to 30 labs. I mean comprehensively understanding all the organs and organ systems in your body and how they work together. That gets us an understanding of what's happening with our heart, our hormones, our nutrients, stress, and taking that in addition to scans, information, so imaging, which is also really important to understand what's going on. That's why. That's why we came up with function and how we came up with this idea of we can't just do snapshot and time testing. We have to do longitudinal and we have to do comprehensive. And if all of those come together at a relatively accessible price, which Today we're at 365 per year, we can then start to understand what's happening in our body, how it's changing, and then what to do about it. And so that's really the impetus for me of why I founded Function, why I'm here, and why I think this revolution of, you know, call it biohacker. But it's not just biohacker. We all know that, right? It's so many people that know they deserve to have this information on their health.
- [08:49]
A
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think about my own being even a physician. Whenever a patient will come to me, we check the standard CBC and chemistry profile, and we're basically looking for disease. And so we can shoot a pill or a surgery at it. And it goes so much deeper than that. And so until I really understood about functional testing and how valuable that was to actually prevent and reverse chronic disease, even I did not have the right data. And then I think about the poor patients out there that have no data. It's like how do you make any decisions for yourself on where to go? Right. So I really applaud you guys for bringing that to the market. And then so, you know, function gives us kind of like this roadmap to follow once you get the data and then you know which way to aim. But then I look at wearables and what wearables bring to the equation. And John, this is why I'd love to bring you into the conversation from your position there at WHOOP about, you know, how, how do we use wearable data more on a constant and daily basis to affect our choices and how does that contribute to the. This new space?
- [09:52]
D
Yeah, it's interesting. The WHOOP origin story is in many ways like, very, very different than a lot of the personal stories that were shared because it was originally devised as a B2B platform that would help professional teams and athletes essentially modulate their training protocol relative to their autonomic recovered status. And we, on the other hand, have been kind of marching towards this health space because ultimately underlying all of these core behaviors between, you know, a top athlete or any of us trying to make a positive lifestyle change is just the ability to manage our behavior on a day to day basis. So, you know, WHOOP started, it was in locker rooms maybe to an extent, you know, a doctor's office. It was always adopted by very tip of the spear athlete communities who had a defined protocol for how to exercise and get fit. And WHOOP was an easy bolt on. But it was interesting. We kind of had our mutation moment during COVID where WHOOP was used by athlete on the PGA Tour to identify that they were positive for Covid before the viral load hit the point where they would have chipped their antigen test. And that was the beginning of the ushering in of a whole new era of continuous monitoring through whoop really, I think culminating last year when we introduced the WHOOP 5.0 and MG, which brought medically cleared capabilities at home and abroad onto the platform and introduced a concept of what we call WHOOP age and pace of aging, which is a different take on the extent to which your lifestyle is positively influencing your biological age or your practical biological age. But at the end of the day, what we really feel, it can always. It boils down from your point, Dr. Shah, on the continuous monitoring side, what you can manage, you can measure in our special sauce, is the extent to which one the act of exposing someone to their data, whether that's continuously monitored or blood work or whatever else the case may be, that itself prompts positive Behavior change. But then you start adding the personalization and the coaching that comes with a lot of the AI tooling that we're using, and you really get into a highly personalized journey that results in measurably better outcomes for people. But it all started with the very tip of the spear, and now it's all of us kind of, you know, working our way day to day to better outcomes.
- [12:14]
A
Yeah, no, it's. It's so great. I got my whoop band on right now and I did my strength workout this morning. And it's just really great how you can really use your whoop as your partner day to day to not just manage your health, but also just motivate you and to work out. Like, I just love, I just love working on my whoop in on because I could see my heart rate zones, I can see that the effect of my workout, it's really. It's really awesome. So, you know, I look at the whole world of all this data coming at us now from your wearables, your blood tests, data on supplements, etc. And people have a lot of access information, right? And a lot of people are getting their information from social media. And I think, unfortunately, what social media has done to this world, it's. Has given people a loud voice that probably should not have had a loud voice just because they figured out the algorithm and they just threw a lot of money behind it. Right. And we have created, unfortunately, a massive gap in trust with supplements. With, you know, what data should you be checking, et cetera, how accurate is the data? So, Steve, I want to kick this back over to you because you become kind of like the whistleblower of the supplement industry with your app and, you know, talking about what's really in those bottles on the shelf. And, you know, I think about, we need this kind of like truth layer in medicine now, and you've really taken charge of that in the supplement industry. And I'm wondering if you could tell us a little bit about the supplements in the aisle of the pharmacy and also what you're finding online and where do we kind of draw the line there with what's working and what's not working?
- [13:55]
B
Yeah, thanks for asking. This has kind of become the core of so much of our mission. You know, we started out, as I mentioned, with the kind of stuff stack sharing concept so people could share. And we realized that so much of this industry was broken. You know, people taking the wrong dosages and then this whole layer with the products, people not being able to trust the Products and the sources. Right. So you know, we've gone in and we've cataloged, as I said before, like 300,000 supplement products. And then we've taken, you know, we take this very robust system of scoring. It's a 29 attribute system to build the trust score for, you know, as many products as we can. We're getting through them fast. We have about 35,000 of them right now. And then you kind of give someone a very easy to follow score out of 10 that they can go double click in and see that. Oh yeah, it means that it has these certifications, it's manufactured here. They run the whole kind of gamut of what you would go independently research. We kind of sum that up and make it easy for people to scan a product and see what its results are. And then we've had to take that even further. Further. Right. So like we've, last year we started doing some experimenting with off the shelf testing. We pulled products from Amazon, like the top six, I think it was creatine gummies on Amazon and four out of the six of them had zero creatine or like fairy dusting amounts of creatine in them. Like, like what? You know. So like we've done a bunch of independent testing as well. We just launched a certification as well that is like kind of a secret chopper. Like we pull the product anonymously off the shelf and see that it actually is what it says in the label claim. And there's existing certifications that are kind of during the manufacturing process but not really from what you would experience as a consumer. So we're just trying really hard to kind of help people not get stuck in this loudest voice wins. Also there's so many tools. We give you a stack score on the system which analyzes what you're doing, what your health goals are, figures out if you could be saving money if you could better align to your dosing, better aligned to the research. And that's a lot, you know, a lot of these recommendations out there are coming from what, you know, they're called biohackers now, but they're really kind of like biomaxers. Their answers, there's always more. And they seem to have infinite hours in the day. It's like, you know, do your morning journaling, then do your cola, sauna and cold plunge for an hour, then work out for another 90 minutes and then, you know, have your gratitude practice. Like it doesn't, it's just doesn't end, you know, like I've got a 21 month old in a startup. I've got 90 minutes, four days a week. So we help people, you know, set budgets and optimize and make sure that, you know, they can't do everything. So start with the most important stuff and make sure they have a path to that.
- [16:39]
A
Yeah, it was so needed. Rita, I want to kick this one over to you now next, because, you know, I think about how we used to practice medicine. We would make educated guesses based on symptoms, some basic lab work, maybe a physical exam. And I'll tell you a story. We had a patient coming to Next Health about, I would say, six months ago that was just so frustrated with seeing multiple gastroenterologists for an abdominal pain and reflux, given a ton of medications, was just getting worse and worse. And they decided then to go in for a function scan because they want to get their. Just take a look at what's going on. Turned out they had a pancreatic tumor, and this was ignored by the typical system for about a year or so. Thank goodness it was stage one and it was still treatable. And they're in treatment right now. But, you know, I look at, you know, bringing truth to medicine through scanning, and you guys have brought scanning into function through the function scans, and you're expanding this. And I think it does give patients an option finally, to have access to their once again, to their own data to find the truth in what's going on in their own bodies.
- [17:48]
C
Absolutely. I think all of this really comes down to one term that we use often, which is n of one medicine. Right. Like, I'm so different from each of you, and I'm so different from my family members, too. And so all of it comes down to how do we understand our bodies over time? And that's why, for us, our imaging acquisition of Ezra was so critical. We knew that MRI and CT got us one layer and deeper into what's going on. So when you pair the blood work with the imaging, you get far more of an understanding of what's going on in your body, in addition to things like wearables and other IoT devices and past medical records. So two things that we're building right now in addition to the scans piece is, yes, you have the option to go get your scans. And we use AI in this. In this way to make it easier to get better image quality. And so the goal here is to get not a faster, less efficient scan, but a faster, more efficient scan to get as much of an understanding of the conditions that are going on. And then with the scans we are taking, that plus our diagnostic data and building out our medical intelligence lab, which really understands all of this coming together. Because again, if we just give you your lab data and then give you your imaging data and you say, okay, here you go, that's not helping anybody. So we are trying to bring this all together to say, okay, what is happening within you over time so that we can start to guide you on the action plan that you need. And last but not least, we also have our AI chat capabilities that we're working on, which is our private AI chat today allows people to ask questions. And again, the whole point is to be more comprehensive and longitudinal about this information so that we have a sense of what's going on. And you can query against yourself and start to get a sense of what's going on because as you said, trust here is the most important piece given all the noise in the world today.
- [19:44]
A
Yeah, absolutely, John. You know, on sticking to this theme on truth and medicine and truth about our own bodies, I look at my WHOOP as being my personal kind of truth meter. You know, like, am I really holding true to my lifestyle habits and all the things I say I'm going to do on my podcast and on social media that I say I'm doing? Like, if my WHOOP doesn't prove it to me, then I'm, I feel a little bit of like an imposter syndrome and so on that like how are you guys further building out WHOOP to really act intelligently and truthfully about what it's sensing in our bodies and giving us that feedback. What is coming next with whoop?
- [20:28]
D
Yeah, I love the way you put that around your truth meter. I recently started saying whoop is the proof and I, I see it in just at least a few different layers. The first is just the act that and I in a, you know, Pranita alluded to this as well. The act of discovery can be absolutely life changing. Right? You know, we ob like not. And it probably comes as no surprise as a function of our legacy and coming from performance and sport originally, the population on Whoop, like yourself, Dr. Shah, are relatively healthful, right? They live active lifestyles, they make good choices for the most part, but they're also in the process of discovering things below the surface that are, they're total surprise to them. I'll give you a for example, me personally, I'm a very active person. Once a year I compete in some kind of ultra endurance stupid human trick. And despite, and I thought for sure my wife's Vegetarian. We almost entirely vegetarian in our home. I thought for sure my lifestyle was outrunning everything that would otherwise have, you know, have been grabbing in my ankles of life. And then I go in and I get my first, you know, I'm in the alpha for the, for the WHOOP advanced panels and I found out that my APOB is at 5x, the outer bound of what would be acceptable. And all of a sudden I start connecting all of these dots and all my family history that I thought that I had escaped. So number one is just the, the, the mere act of discovery, right? Beyond that we do a lot of connecting dots for people. So whoop age and pace of aging, which I referenced earlier, it helps connect the choices you make to the way you feel and the extent that you, the extent of the vivaciousness with which you feel it. Right. So whether your sleep consistency is off, your quality of sleep isn't where it needs to be. And increasingly building in some of these other layers of things that you know, you know Steve, the supplements that you may or may not be taking and how they're changing your sleep quality and in the restfulness of your sleep or your recovery status, we're helping connect more and more of those dots through the, through continuous monitoring of the interventions. And then last but not least, it's come up a lot today already is around AI usage and the personalization factor. Right. So one of the things that I've experienced is the memory on our AI improves. WHOOP is beginning to know me better than my own relatively short term human memory knows itself and is connecting those dots for me. So we're discovering, we're connecting the dots, we're making it more personal and everybody on WHOOP is learning leagues about themselves that wouldn't otherwise impossible as a result of that.
- [22:57]
A
Yeah, it's, it's so, it's so awesome. It's added so much to the data. 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 iM8iM8 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, IMAID 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 Im8. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to Dr. Shah or go to imaidhealth.com discount Dr. Shah and you can get 20% off with my discount code. Dr. Shah. You can also find the link below. So let's turn the conversation a little bit and bring this all together in one unified map for people, right? So we have, we have the data, but without a plan, after getting the data, it's all just noise and everyone gets confused. So we can work, the four of us here can work together to bring this together into what do you do with the data and how do you implement into your life and how do you create a roadmap? And so we can call this like the end of one loop, right? So we have the map, which is I look at function health as being the map. It gives us where we need to be looking, where we need to be heading. We have then the fuel, which is the supplements that we put into our body in addition to the other things that fuel us. And SUPCO can help us make really good choices there. And then we have kind of the coach, which is your whoop. That's keeping track of your day to day and making sure that you're really doing the things that you say you're doing. And finally you have the clinic, which is where you go to really interact with the medical system and seek out treatments that you might not have available for you at your regular doctor's office. I think that's where next health kind of fills a big gap. So I'm going to start with the map. I Would love for you to talk a little bit more about how that map fits into someone's life as far as, you know, changing this kind of like, let's wait and see what happens. Approach into a more proactive approach. Steve. So once person has the map, they need to fuel their body with food, supplements, good choices that they're making. And so how does SEPCO give me, the doctor, the confidence to know that an intervention is really working?
- [26:31]
B
I love, I mean, like the fact, Darshan, the good news is for you, I know that you're a doctor who knows what he's doing when he looks at a list of supplements. You know, like I think about like, you know, Kelly is OB during pregnancy just being like, oh, the only thing you should take is magnesium oxide. I'm like, who, who does, who even talks about magnesium oxide anymore? Like, the, the, the gap is so big that if the patient doesn't have the ability to go cross reference things themselves and just see if it's aligning to even what their, you know, professional care is taking, I think there's a gap. And you know, and, and you know, we're hearing more and more from, it's funny, we get a lot of brands that are reaching out for, from doctors being like, yo, I recommend you, but you don't have a trust score. And my patients are pushing back on me, you know, like all this stuff. So it's kind of nice to just be able to be this layer, you know, in between so that if you're going solo or you know, doing like, you know, just kind of like with the health goal based, where you're not necessarily working with a doctor, it's more on the wellness side, you've got a guide. And then if your doctor, if you're interfacing with your doctor, you both have a way to cross reference things and that, you know, honestly, I just think there's a lot of perverse incentives at times when it comes to supplements. A lot of doctors are making money on the supplements that they're selling as well. And the ability to kind of have that, let's keep us all honest in this is a, is a really nice layer to play in this.
- [28:03]
A
Yeah, I agree. Like, I'll say it, even as a doctor, like, we got zero education on supplements in our medical schools.
- [28:10]
B
Totally.
- [28:11]
A
Everything we learn is just through osmosis and a lot of doctors getting their information from social media on supplements anyway. So you have to build in your own trust layer into this industry. And you know, I hate to say it, but you just can't even trust medical advice around supplements. We're just not trained for it. So it's really good to have this as a resource. Thank you. Pranita, I wanted to ask you, how does the roadmap come to us from function and how do we use that in this new kind of system that we're developing? And how does it replace this wait and see approach of typical medicine?
- [28:47]
C
Absolutely. So for us, the way I see it is like I mentioned at the beginning, the traditional Visit is only 30 biomarkers and so we have to get more information as soon as we can. 90% of our members say that wellness is a top important priority. And that is actually us wide, sorry, us consumers to say this. So when we think about sort of the movement to proactive health management and the movement towards understanding our information, that is the map, that is understanding what's going on in our body. And we're not designed to replace your doctor today. It's designed to work alongside the traditional healthcare system. And so we partner with quest, we partner with physicians to help enable sort of this deeper understanding through advanced lab testing and imaging. And our whole thing is once you start to create a map, you then begin to partner and understand with the likes of SAP co and understand what you should do and actually have behavior change. Because I think that's the biggest thing for all of us is right is will people actually do something about this? And I do think once you start to see that evolution, see that change through this type of testing, there's almost this like really great loop where you start to see that you have been improving not just from a lab test perspective, but from a how you're doing and how you are feeling, showing up in the world. So that's why I think the map piece is really critical to all of this.
- [30:13]
A
That's critical, absolutely. I'm so glad people finally have their own map in hand now on their iPhone as they look at their function data. And John, I want to then bring this over to you. How is Whoop Coach actually closing this loop? By taking our physical data, that is detecting and talking to the lab data and bringing it all together for us.
- [30:37]
D
You know, it's interesting. I think Whoop, going back years now is probably one of the world's largest journaling apps. Right? You can record dozens of different choices. A lot of those are increasingly automated through connections to other services and other devices. But between journaling of behaviors and choices, the continuous improvement of the things that the platform will ingest. So increasingly blood labs and you can Imagine, you know, everything that's to come. We create a bit of a gamification loop in all cases to be able to demonstrate, I would say, on a short, medium and long term horizons, the impacts it's having across recovery, stress, strain, sleep, and increasingly longevity and health span in general. And then the AI and the coach broadly engages in two other really profound levels that are relatively new to the platform. One is that we'll actually create plans for you that are tailored to your specific needs. Right. So again, closing those feedback loops and just providing that, you know, honestly, it's, it's like this, it's like a surrogate life coach, health coach, nutritionist, whatever the case may be in your pocket, giving you those prods and the long term plan. And then last but not least, as I discussed earlier and we've all experienced, whether through ChatGPT or Claude or another, the dialogue that comes with just being able to continually ask questions and have them intelligently answered. I mean, I started at WHOOP nine years ago in May. In the beginning, the strength was around the visualization of data. Right. Your recovery dial, your sleep score, whatever the case may be. Increasingly those are accompanied by a continuous dialogue with your agentic companion. And it is, you know, it's meeting people where they are in a really conversational and behaviorally adapting way.
- [32:27]
A
Yeah, it makes it so much easier to be able to just talk to your WHOOP as well. So I love that. All right, so we have all these incredible tools now. If you were to piece this together even just eight years ago, it would cost you more than 10, $12,000 a year. And what I love about everyone here is we're really trying to democratize this so even the normal person can maybe spend $1,000 a year, a couple thousand dollars a year, and get access to everything that we all provide. And so I know at Next Health, we've actually gotten to a place that you could actually get a longevity program for $99 a month. And so this gives you access to our medical practitioners that will interpret blood work for you and figure out what are the best hormones and medications and peptides and all of that for you. Just $99 a month. Just really making it as available as possible for people to participate in the longevity market. So I wanted to ask all of you, John, why don't we start off with you talk about your model and how do, how does this bring this level of data to people?
- [33:29]
D
You know, WHOOP is really interesting because I remember when we switched over to the membership model, I don't know how many years ago, six, seven years ago now, it was our kind of like Netflix cut the cord moment where we, you know, we, you know, did away with the DVDs and now you get this streaming service. But what we've maintained faithfully to our members is that we're continually adding more value for the same price. And in fact, actually we've even dropped prices. And wherever possible, we're looking for solutions that are member friendly. So for example, before I could go into Quest, who is our lab provider for advanced labs, I was part of our internal beta where I was uploading years of lab data from my pcp. And so we're trying to go back in time and actually create more sense of historic data to create a better and longer track record for you. And ultimately again, the AI, the more data you give it, the smarter it gets and more personalized and nuanced. So we, you know, we've sustained or even dropped prices in many cases and continue to add value on top of that. It is a mutual incentive between us and the members to continue the journey together.
- [34:35]
A
That's fantastic. And prito, I mean, function 369, right? For a year membership. And how much are your Scans now?
- [34:43]
C
Yes, 365. $1 a day for the annual membership, down from 499. And our scans are, we started off at 499, they're back up. The 22 minute scan is now back up to 999. But the number of EZRA scans that we've sort of function scans that we've increased has increased 5x with the recent acquisition. So for us, from the beginning, when we started functioning, we say our mission is 100 healthy years for 8 billion people. And we mean that or we, our goal here is to be as accessible as possible. And that starts with getting the, those costs down as quickly as we can.
- [35:18]
A
How, how do you, I mean, like I remember it would cost like no less than $25,000 for an MRI of your body.
- [35:25]
C
Yes. I mean, and, and one of the, the things about the scans is how can we be more efficient using AI so that those scans can take less time? And that is sort of like part of the puzzle, right? It's, it's always kind of tinkering on each element of the puzzle. For us as, as far as the membership, there's only so much you can, you can bring down the cost of those core labs. But as we start to add value, like John is saying, as we start to add value, over time you get more for that 365 a year. And that's how we think about it, is using AI volume of scale and just knowing and acknowledging that our core mission here is to get as many people on the platform as possible.
- [36:05]
A
Yeah, and I love it that the savings that you create, you pass on to the customer rather than adding to the profit margins that you guys are seeing. So it's just the customer keeps winning. Steve, how much does someone have to pay to figure out how to trust their supplements?
- [36:20]
B
Amazingly, nothing, which is the vast majority of our features are free. We do have our certification business. We do have a premium. So if you do want to upload blood work and get, you know, kind of deeper levels of analysis, we have a premium subscription membership. And then, you know, like, we're. We're just constantly trying to figure out the intersection of capitalism and health, you know, and so I think you'll see more from us to help consumers save money and find the right stuff and do all these things. But, like, what is that right intersection? And I think what I love is that I hear everybody on the stage trying to find that in a really consumer friendly way. And this is the key to unlocking preventative health care. Right? Like, this is the key. We gotta, like, really don't gouge our people. These are lifelong. Every moment we're doing our job, you're extending the LTV of your customers by keeping them alive. Like, come on. Like, this market is huge. So, like, as business owners on this stage, I just think that this is the joy of the era we're in now and watching AI Also, in my own interactions with discovering things about my own health, like, oh, I'm a carrier for Pompe's disease. Did you know that if you're a carrier, you still have less enzyme production? No doctor knows how to treat that. And so the concept of being able to have this dialogue and deep dive into our health, it's just going to unlock so much more opportunity to build really huge amounts of consumer value, because this market is all of us.
- [37:50]
A
Yeah, so true, so true. And everyone's gonna keep winning. And I do feel that there's gonna come a point where we really see a flip in this. You know, we've been marching towards more and more chronic disease for the last decade. And finally, I think we're stabilizing and I think we're gonna reverse by finally giving people access to the tools that we're all talking about today. So it's a really exciting future. So, you know, we've talked about all of the technology available, the maps, we're creating this virtuous loop, end of one loop, and just creating an incredibly powerful system. So, you know, as we look to the future, I want to make sure that people know it's not just about having more data. It's about how do you use this data to extend your health span. It's about adding healthy years like, you know, all of our goals and keep people healthier for longer, just so we get more out of life. And that's my definition of longevity. It's not adding more years to the end of it. It's like, how do we keep you healthy until the last possible minute, whether that be 75, 85 or 95. So think they're already hitting their daily target. Fiber is one of those things that get written off as basic, but the science tells a very different story. Gut health drives long term performance and fiber is what makes gut health possible. It determines how well you absorb the nutrients from your food, how stable your energy is throughout the day, and how effectively your body controls inflammation and recovers from training. If your gut isn't functioning at a high level, everything else that you're doing, the supplements, the workout, the sleep protocols, is working at a fraction of its potential. And that's why I'm using momentous fiber. It's a complete three in one formula with soluble fiber, insoluble fiber and prebiotic resistant starch. Most fiber products only contain one type, which means they're only solving one part of the problem. This formula is designed to strengthen the gut, support digestion and help stabilize blood sugar for steady crash free energy, clean, minimal ingredients, no additives. And it's also independently NSF certified for sport. It comes unflavored or even in a cinnamon flavor that's really tasty and mixes easily into a shake or even just with water. Head over to livemomentous.com fiber and use my code DrShaw for up to 35% off your first order. The link is in the show notes. Let's move into some rapid fire questions because we have some of the smartest people in the world in health here today at our panel and I want to make sure everyone gets the most amount of information out of you. So question number one, we'll just go round robin here. We'll start with Pranita. We'll go to Steve and then to John. Forget about price tags for a minute. In this era of information overload, what is the most high leverage investment that you can make that provides the most life changing information for the effort Involved and you're not allowed to mention your own company.
- [40:51]
C
I mean I might have to think about this one but for me I think investing in your sleep is like figuring it out a way to invest in your sleep. And mind you, I've got a 10 month old at home, so look like I haven't slept.
- [41:07]
B
Oh yeah.
- [41:08]
C
I think even with that though, that is, that is probably the most high leverage investment I would think about in whatever capacity you can. Despite being a night worker, being a new parent, like whatever it is. That for me is not actually like a thing you buy. It's actually yes, you can buy a mattress, you can buy the trackers, but it's like how you actually feel when you wake up. That to me is probably the single most biggest investment. I might change my answer, but yeah, for me because I'm clearly in a lot.
- [41:43]
A
Yeah, really good one though. It's absolutely, absolutely true, John.
- [41:48]
D
Well, it's funny, we're probably all going to have to change notes because I was going to say sleep and that I was adapting to my point.
- [41:53]
A
I was even looking at the notes,
- [41:54]
C
I was like, I'm sorry I didn't add.
- [42:00]
D
It's why I always say you live how you sleep and you're the being underslept is probably the single behavior we're most habituated to. Thinking is okay so but given that Praneetha said sleep, I was actually going to go with a blood pressure and it's like you know, we again I mentioned that most of the people on our platform are going to, they're going to present as generally healthier than the average bear and yet when they take their first calibrated blood pressure reading as they enter into that feature, I think somewhere in the order of 30% of people are presenting with mild to high blood pressure and never knew it. Right. And so one as someone who has his family history of heart disease, I'm keenly aware of how risky that is to be undiscovered. But as well I think that that blood pressure cuff is a symbol for self actualization and agency as it relates to your health. It's like behavior change at Whoop is everything and it's all about behavior stacking and whatever it takes for you to take that first step in discovery and self management and management of your health as a portfolio of wealth. To live forever or to live longer is, is, is the right step to take. And like a blood pressure cuff, you go to CVS to stick your arm in the cubby for free.
- [43:12]
A
Yeah, absolutely. John, when do you think you. I, I just saw the blood pressure feature on my Whoop. When do you think that becomes a continuous blood pressure monitor on your wrist as well?
- [43:22]
D
Ooh, God. That's a great question for the product people. I don't know the answer to that.
- [43:27]
A
It would change the world because, you know, out of everything that you, that we track, like you can feel symptoms of not being under slept, you can feel symptoms of not exercising. Right. But blood pressure, I mean it's known as the silent killer for a reason in medicine because no one knows they have it until it's too late. It's often ignored decades before you find it. So I can't tell you. I would say 80 to 90% of the people that we measure blood pressures on, it's, it's way too high and they're always surprised by it. It's just crazy.
- [43:55]
D
I mean like I said like 30%. I'll have to double check that number. Like 30% of members are presenting with high blood pressure and had never known it. And I'm not sure if you've seen that, but that's what the feature looks like. Okay, so that's your, you know and there's mine. Sort of like mid high as expected.
- [44:15]
A
Yeah. And you know, for every 10 points you are above 130 over 80, you add 15% to your all cause mortality.
- [44:22]
B
Oh wow.
- [44:24]
A
So it's so important to dial it into 120 over 70. Most people don't know that tiny little
- [44:30]
B
thing on that that's funny is I have like white coat syndrome when it comes to blood pressure. Like I'll go in and I'll get these measurements and they'll be like, they'll be like, you're not okay. And I'll be like, just, just take it with a manual one. Just take it again. They're like, oh, you're 118 over 82. And it's like, you know, it's so bad sometimes for me it's really weird.
- [44:51]
A
What's yours?
- [44:51]
B
I got, I got a couple. I got a couple. So one, the cheapest high leverage thing for me is I can never get myself to floss because that floss is like so annoying. There's this and for years trying to find the perfect floss pick, there's this $18 T Smile evolutionary dental floss kit. It's basically like a Y shaped stick with a little heads that you can attach and it has two strands instead of one. I'm telling you, this thing's fucking perfect. You're going to floss all the time. And the dentist is going to be like, oh, my God, you listen to me. Like, I remember the first time I went in after actually flossing. They know. So that's 18 bucks and I think that one's great. Calcium scan of my heart. Did it at age 30, way early. Did it at age 35. Found plaque at age 35, which is. Started aggressive statin treatments at a very young age. Probably saved my life. Probably be in heart attack land in my 50s if I hadn't intervened. Eventually got it with the clearly so I could see, you know, how much was softer or hard. Talk about a silent killer. You know, super healthy people. Ultramarathoners dropping dead because their plaques building up, you know, and they don't know. So, like, that's super high on the list. And then the not exp. Something that I still think is very expensive for me but has the leverages. I cannot bring myself to do good workouts unless I'm either with a personal trainer or in a class. And, you know, for me, I have a degenerative disc disease. I throw my. I threw my back out last week. I do Legree style Pilates, uh, once or twice a week. And I pay for a personal trainer because if we're talking about the actual leverage and the actual amount, it's expensive. But it's. It's like not working out is not an option for me. Um, so that's, that's my hit list. Oh, last one. Vitamin D. Vitamin D. Like, I mean, I, I wanted to start freevitamin d.com at some point because it's like, you're all probably deficient in the Northeast. Too many of us are deficient. You go get your function scans and see that you should just be buying a very cheap and high quality vitamin
- [46:56]
A
D. I love it. All great ones. And by the way, Steve, I will double down on the two string floss. That is a game changer for me.
- [47:05]
B
I'm. I'll send this Amazon link to y' all right now, please.
- [47:09]
A
It's. So
- [47:12]
B
this makes me floss. It's in the chat.
- [47:15]
A
I love it. I love it. Okay, last round robin, I'm going to ask each of you a hard question. Okay? So get ready for this one. I'm going to start with you, Steve. So the fda, there's a lack of oversight in the supplement industry. A lot of people complaining about too much oversight in certain industries, such as with peptides and stem cells and, like, really stifling innovation. How do you think about the FDA and How do you fix this?
- [47:47]
B
Yeah, I mean, look, this is a great question, right? Like, we talked about trying to find the intersection of capitalism and health. And then like, there's this other thing of like, government regulation and health. Look, I mean, the FDA and supplements is why we exist, right? We are providing that layer. Like, I'm not going to go tell you that the fda, we should have government all over everything. But I will tell you, we lack a consumer trust portal for supplements. And we're really happy to fill that gap, right? And like, you know, give people more flexibility, get people, you know, not buying fake products on Amazon and, you know, get people doing and tracking whether or not these things are driving outcomes for them. Really happy we have the flexibility to exist in, you know, a free society and do this. Now you have this flip side where, you know, in the peptide space, we had some very popular products get pulled from the allowed compounding list. And that looks like it's about to change, which is maybe by the time we even do this panel, it will have changed. And so for me, there's a battle going on everywhere between the individual and the institution. You have N equals one loud voice is telling you that everything they learned in school and told you is wrong. And then you have government being like. Or clinical being like. It's not a randomly controlled trial. So all the data is pointless. And there's not. There hasn't been a middle. Everyone's just kind of like, put their feet in the ground and picked one of those sides for a long time.
- [49:11]
A
And.
- [49:11]
B
And I think we're on the other side of that now. I think we're at the point where this. We want to find a middle ground. We want to. And for me, aggregating n equals 1 data and making that feel as institutional as possible and having institutions recognize good n equals 1 data is where the future lies here.
- [49:29]
A
Agreed. That was great answer. Great answer. Praneeth, is your turn in 2030? Do you think that there should even be an annual physical at all anymore? Not. Let's just. Yeah, 20, 20, 28. Should there still be the annual physical
- [49:44]
C
the way we know it today? No, it won't be annual and it won't really be a physical. It'll be more than that. Right. I think it'll be daily, maybe even multiple times a day that you're understanding what's going on. And from a physical perspective, if we take the word physical, it's not just physical, it's physical, mental. It's everything that's going on in your life. Um, So I actually think any sort of conversation with a physician or specialist will turn into a very targeted conversation where you know what's going on, the physician knows what's going on, and maybe this like third party advocate of yours also knows what's going on. So I think it'll just be an entirely different definition in such a way that we may have sunset the term annual physical because like, what is that anymore? And I, I don't think it'll take till 2030. I agree, it'll take a couple more years just because with all the folks on this stage, plus everything else that's happening in this environment moving so quickly, it's only inevitable and it's only honestly what we deserve.
- [50:42]
A
This would be a great time to even ask the audience to raise their hand if they still even get an annual physical, right? I don't know many people even know their primary care doctor. I can tell you there's probably less than 10% of people now that I think will get an annual physical. Just makes no sense. John, for you, here's a tough one for you. A lot of people are resistant in my practice to having a wearable on them because of this entire concept of data anxiety. Too much data actually worsens their health outcome in their minds. How do you talk about that? Give me an answer for those people.
- [51:22]
D
I was talking to somebody recently who levied this exact concern and I found myself comparing whoop to music. And I would say the data availability to music, which is to say, like, I can't remember ever listening or meeting someone who didn't appreciate music in some regard, it has some purpose in their life, background for studying, or it could be something that they are totally dedicated and obsessed with over time. And I think that your health data, in your personal data have to at least be background noise. Like you have to be aware of it. And the extent to which your mood or your need strikes you, you can turn up the volume at your leisure. And I, you know, when Covid came, the idea, before COVID came, the idea that people would continuously monitor their health was totally foreign. And then the idea that you weren't continuously monitoring your health became alien. It's a question of how attuned or how acutely you are tuned into that. And I think that that, you know, can be entirely a matter of personal preference in the personalization of your dashboard and the data that you put into it and the insights that you take out of it. But the idea that you don't just have that background noise on at some level, I think is, you know, you're just, you're doing a disservice to your long term health span without it.
- [52:44]
A
Absolutely. Absolutely. What a great conversation, you guys, this is so much fun. And, you know, just a few closing thoughts at NEX Health. One of the things that I always talk about with people is that I was part of the western medical system for so long. And, you know, that system was built for a reason. It was built to take care of really sick people. People that had undergone some sort of emergency like an overwhelming infection or they got hit by, you know, they got kicked by their horse or something. That's when this system was developed. And now the system has morphed into people expected to take care of their chronic diseases. And even worse, they expect the current healthcare system to keep them healthy. And it was never built for that. And so what people should really come away from this taking away is that our western medical system should be used for what it was built for. When you have a real problem or real emergency and you need to build your own health focused system, that's a new system that is completely separate from that system. And that's where you're truly empowered to become the CEO of your own health. And the tools that the people on this panel provide to you, function health lab, testing, your whoop data, your access to high quality supplements through suppco, those are the tools that you're going to need. In addition to, you know, maybe you have a really good trainer like Steve mentioned, maybe you have a practitioner at a NextHealth that's helping guide you through certain problems in a more proactive basis, keeping you healthy and even trying to get you off of your chronic prescription medications that you don't need to be on forever. I think this new system, which is a true health focused system, is the future. And it's not even the future. It's here right now. And that's what's really powerful. So if people can take away that piece of information and make it part of their life, I think they'll all benefit. So I want to thank all the panelists here today for being part of this very impactful panel and for really making the system together with all of us and empowering us. Thank you, guys.
- [54:46]
D
Thank you, Darshan.
- [54:47]
A
Thank you.
- [54:47]
B
All right,
- [54:52]
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 to 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, 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.