← School of Hard Knocks Podcast
School of Hard Knocks Podcast
Dr. De | Biohax CEO on Longevity, Burnout, Hidden Stressors, and Building Health for the Long Term
01:10:05
Dr. De is the CEO of Biohax, a healthcare company focused on optimizing health, performance, and longevity for high performers. In this episode, we break down why burnout is normalized, why modern systems treat symptoms instead of building long-term h...
Loading summary
Transcript181 lines
- [00:00]
James
Up to 80 to 90% of Americans, their bodies are failing them. How did we create a society where being sick is the new norm?
- [00:09]
Dr. D
Look, if you look. If you look at certain cereals, I think it's like Fruit Loops and stuff like that.
- [00:12]
Josh
Kellogg's.
- [00:12]
Dr. D
Yeah, all that stuff. I don't advocate for any of that stuff. Like, that's just like having dog food for breakfast. That's what I do all the time.
- [00:19]
James
It's like, what have you learned about how healthcare, they are designed to keep people coming back to them, to where maybe they alleviate symptoms, but not totally addressing those cures?
- [00:27]
Dr. D
I mean, when you look at it, either they're really blind or they're really evil.
- [00:31]
Jack
What's a belief that you have about medicine that will get you laughed out of, like, a traditional health conference, that.
- [00:37]
Dr. D
Your body is designed to only consume things that it.
- [00:41]
Josh
What are the tests that every American should try to get in their life to really get a full picture of.
- [00:47]
Dr. D
Their health, no questions asked? They're RA.
- [00:50]
James
I'm 23 right now. My goal is to live to 100 years old. If I were to be honest with you, I think if I continue my current lifestyle habits, I'd maybe make it to 75, because I sleep like, I travel all the time. I don't eat.
- [01:01]
Dr. D
Great.
- [01:01]
James
If you were to instill five things in me right now to make sure that I live from 23 to 100 years old, what would you do?
- [01:07]
Dr. D
Ready?
- [01:12]
James
What's going on, everyone? And welcome back to the School of Hard Knocks podcast. I'm James, and I'm here with Jack and Josh. And we have an incredible guest with us today, your celebrity's favorite doctor, the legendary Dr. D. One of the pioneers of biohacking, the healthcare mogul, man. It's great to be here with you in Miami today, man.
- [01:29]
Dr. D
Thank you for having me, man. Thank you, guys. Thank you. I appreciate you guys.
- [01:32]
James
Where I want to start the conversation today, and we're going to get into your history and everything is that, you know, we hear statistics that up to 80 to 90% of Americans are metabolically sick, meaning even if they don't necessarily feel that they're sick, their bodies are failing them. How did we create a society where being sick is the new norm?
- [01:50]
Dr. D
Well, quite simple, man. Like, we're really getting seduced by wrong technologies. That's like, if I have to leave it in one sentence, it's like all these crazy technologies that are coming out, you know, the 1970s with the pesticides and then the GMOs, and then you know, 3D with printing food. Like, sometimes you're eating stuff and you don't know. It's like, is this chicken? Like, you know, you could 3D print salmon now, for example, vertical farming. Like, a building could be like, you know, grow tomatoes and vegetables. And it's like, wait, hold on. Like, what are we doing? You know, so all those toxins coming into play into our bodies, we're not prepared to handle that, to tell you the truth. We are doing pretty freaking well for the amount of crap that we get hit with every day, to tell you the truth. Honestly, if you really get into it and start to see some of the stuff that I look at, like epigenetics, imprint home, we could talk about that stuff. It's pretty crazy. It's like, wow, humans, not too shabby. We're doing pretty good. So, short answer. Wrong. Technology's bringing too many toxins into our environment. And then. It's not that I actually said this in our first interview. It's not that the fish are sick. It's the fish tank that's getting really dirty, and the fish are getting sick.
- [03:02]
Josh
Well, I think it's something to do with America, Right. Because you could go over to Europe and eat the same food that you eat in America, but you're not gonna get fat.
- [03:10]
Dr. D
Yeah.
- [03:11]
Josh
Whereas, like, in America, you could eat just plain white bread and. And you could get sick from it.
- [03:16]
Dr. D
Yeah, yeah. No, look, if you look at. I'm trying to remember the brands of the cereals, but if you look at cereals, I can't remember the brand right now. But if you look at certain cereals, I think it's like Fruit Loops and stuff like that.
- [03:27]
Josh
Kellogg's.
- [03:28]
Dr. D
Yeah, all that stuff. I don't advocate for any of that stuff. Like, that's just like having dog food for breakfast.
- [03:32]
Josh
All right?
- [03:33]
Dr. D
That's what I tell people all the time. It's like, go pour your dog's food and then go. I mean, just. There's an analogy. It's like, bro, it's not real food, man. But you get desensitized to this stuff. Right? It's heart healthy, whatever. But anyways. But still, you look at the. You know, what's allowed there and what's allowed here. There's a big difference. You see what I'm saying? The chemicals that, you know, Skittles in Europe, if I'm not mistaken, like, titanium dioxide's not allowed in there. Like, what the hell is that? It sounds like some construction, you know, something like crazy chemical. And it is. And Skittles got sued here for that. Right. And by the way, it's inside Centrum, or it was Centrum, you know, America's family vitamin, same thing that's inside the chemical. And Skittles that got sued, you know, not allowed in Europe. So you see, like there's a whole list of things that aren't allowed there, there, that are allowed here. And to tell you the truth, the statistics, the health statistics are not good in Europe either. And so I'm not saying like, oh, Europe's great. No, Europe is like gets a D plus, America gets a F minus. You know what I'm saying? Think of it that way.
- [04:36]
Jack
So I'm curious though, how did you kind of go down this route because you were studying traditional medicine and then you were dealing with an illness which led you to go down the kind of the biohacking route. So at what point did you realize that the system that was kind of designed to heal you wasn't actually going to be the same system that was going to save you?
- [04:52]
Dr. D
All right, so two, two things happen in parallel. It was my career and how I was feeling. So like, if you feel bad, right, that motivates you to really want to figure things out, right? So I, I finished medical school and then I went to Cleveland Clinic, the one here in Florida, to do research and man, and I was in doing research in the metabolic institute and I'm seeing like these 1,000 pound patients come in. Like I saw one 1,000 pound patient, but like 800 pounds, 900 pounds. And that, that moves you a little bit when you see these people, like the, just the width of that person laying down, it's like, no, it's, it's like crazy. It's like, I mean it's, it's, it's, you know, I want to be sensitive to the topic, but it's just like the first time I saw one of those patients and I'm like, and they, they're around, we just don't see them, obviously they're morbidly obese. And you know, I'm seeing this and I'm like, America, you know, it's like, it's bad. And then one day I remember this 1000 pound patient came in and the guy dies in surgery. And then I remember this. I was a researcher. So we're in this research meeting, the head, the head, the head doctors there. And he picks up the phone and he's like, oh, I don't know what to do. He's like, I don't know, you guys figure it out. Chop him up. Hangs up the phone. I'm like, what?
- [06:18]
Jack
He said.
- [06:19]
Dr. D
We all looked at each other like, chop him up. You know, made a joke out of that. And you know, not knocking on doctors in the hospital. Sometimes you get really desensitized from doing the same thing over and over and over and over. And I'm like, what did this guy just say? And basically the guy didn't fit in a coffin. Didn't fit in. Fit in whatever the machine or however the thing is to cremate people. I have no clue how that works. And then he kind of said, I don't know, chop them up. That was, I don't think they, I didn't follow up. But we all just looked at, you know, at the guy. And then meanwhile, I had been proposing research on fasting. Completely getting shut down all the time. No, no research on fasting, this and this and that. So I'm like. And then I'm also going to like, I'm participating in some of these meetings with the top metabolic docs in the country from top institutions, and I'm watching them drink Coca Cola, eat hamburgers while discussing like the metabolic future of America. And I'm just like, what is this? The blind leading the blind, right? These guys don't work out. They're like, most of them are like just their lives. I didn't want to be like anything like these guys.
- [07:23]
James
It's kind of like when you've seen like prior health administrations of like presidents and they've got these like people that are way out of shape leading, it's like, what the hell is going on?
- [07:32]
Dr. D
Yeah, exactly. That exact, exact same thing. So that happened. And then, you know, there's much more details to that story. And then, and I'm feeling like super tired, drained. I'm 40 now, so I was 30 at the time. And I'm like, I'm not feeling right. Like energy wise, everything, focus, concentration. I'm like, something's up, right? So then that set me off on my health journey. I kind of quit medicine there and then in my own health journey. My mom's from Brazil, so I ended up in Brazil and learned a lot of the medicine that I know. They have a lot of like natural remedies there and so forth. And I heard this. My mom, funny enough, she's like, you ever heard of functional medicine? I'm like, what? I'm like, no, I don't know what that is. So as soon as she told me about that, I started doing my research and I fell in Love with some docs in South America that like, they really knew their stuff and just went down that rabbit hole and story's really long, but that's kind of how it got started.
- [08:24]
James
So I want to ask, and I want to get into the business side of how you built out biohacks and whatnot. But you are somebody who has observed the way that the traditional medicine business works, but also building your own practice where you're actually, as with biohacks, you actually want to see people cure the diseases that they have. You want to see them fix their health problems and whatnot. Whereas in traditional medicine, is there a certain degree to which they are designed to keep people coming back to them to where maybe they alleviate symptoms, but not totally addressing those cures. What have you learned about how health care, the business and the traditional side of things actually works?
- [09:02]
Dr. D
Yeah, man. I mean, when you look at it at the model, either they're really blind or they're really evil. It. I mean, because it doesn't make sense. Like these chronic care really, really stinks. And then people in acute care, like in the er, etc, they're just exacerbations of chronic issues. So these people with metabolic issues, having heart attacks, whatever, congestive heart failure, all these things due to exacerbations of the chronic care that we're not addressing. And then what happens is like we come up with these amazing technologies, right? Like these robotic surgeries, you know, like there's this like machines like the Da Vinci and so forth, which is like really cool. And it looks like medicine is advancing, but it's not. And it's like, it's a whole different school of thought. And sometimes I find myself in heated debates, I can say arguments, but borderline, you know, with, with some, some docs. And it's like, listen, man, I come to always to a point, I'm like, it's a different school of thought what you're talking about. Like, you're saying the world's square. I'm here saying it's round, man. And the point is it's this failing system that's costing our country too much. And not to mention, dude, these are the people that are alive that were causing issues. How about the generations that are coming? Like, you know, 1970, one in 10,000 kids was autistic. Now it's one in 31.
- [10:28]
James
What was it originally? 1970?
- [10:30]
Dr. D
You said 1971 in 10,000.
- [10:32]
Jack
That's insane.
- [10:33]
Dr. D
Now it's one in 31 dot like two, three years ago it was, or maybe four years ago. It was one in 52 if I'm not mistaken. Okay, so it's like, go ahead, fact check me. The numbers are very. And what I'm quoting CDC website. So it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Pump the brakes. And I can go deeper into how we're hurting the generations to come. And the foods you're eating are influencing future generations, but they don't care about this. It's like, okay, okay, here's a new technology, a new machine, new medication, so forth. Oh, medicine's advanced. No, it's not. No, it's not.
- [11:02]
James
So can you actually break that down and go into why that is like where it used to be? Kids weren't being born.
- [11:08]
Josh
Well, I want to piggyback off that because it's like, it's almost like you go to like a traditional doctor, like they're gonna find a way to be like, oh, this is what you're dealing with. Here's this pill or here's this medicine to take versus like, hey, what is your sleep like? What is your diet like? What is your, like, hey, what are your daily habits? Like? Do you have like some sort of like hormone or something that's off? Like it's always like, oh, you're dealing with this. So like, just take this medicine here. I feel like a lot of the.
- [11:34]
Dr. D
Times, yeah, a medicine or procedure or. And the thing is, like, we don't talk about. And these are like really well documented things like, hey, what bugs have you been exposed to? For example, tick borne illnesses, mycotoxins, which is like fungi, etc. Even like long Covid man, that spike protein, that's a big problem. And people are having issues, neurological and cardiovascular issues because of these things. Right now you throw on a little bit of excitotoxins, you know, like your yellow six red 40s, all this stuff. Now all of a sudden that person is this crazy chemistry that at face value looks normal. But behind the scenes, which is what we do, and we look at their epigenome, we look at those genes that are being methylated and altered and turned on, et cetera, and it's like, holy smokes, of course these people are going to have the problems. But then you go back to traditional care, hey, there's a new pill for this symptom, there's a new procedure for whatever condition, and it's like, okay. And that makes money, et cetera, you know, big pharma, big metal. And either they don't know or they do know and they just want to keep things moving. But the truth is, if you go to the root cause of things, you solve the problem. You solve the problem and you'll completely change the fabric of the biology of our country. Because if we don't act fast, we're gonna take America's iq, we're gonna take America's health and crash it hard globally. It's gonna happen, but we're gonna be the first ones to really, really give a bad example of what we're doing to our health.
- [13:20]
Jack
What's a belief that you have about medicine that will get you laughed out of, like, a traditional health conference?
- [13:27]
Dr. D
A strong belief that I have in medicine is that your body is designed to only consume what it knows, things that it knows what it is. So. Meaning your body knows what water is. Now you put chemicals inside that water, it doesn't know what that is, so it's going to attack it. But in medicine, they say, no, no, there's, there's. There's immune tolerance. Your immune system can deal with certain toxins. Or potato chips, like, in a bag, whatever. No, that's food. No, no, no. Those chemicals, your body doesn't know what it is. And your body will start to attack it. And the thing is, if it keeps attacking it, over time, it'll start to attack yourself. It'll attack self, which is autoimmune disease, and raise the levels of inflammation that can lead to cancer. A lot of docs are like, no, that's bogus. Like, you could deal with a certain level of toxins and so forth. And I preach about that all the time just because, like us at Biohacks, we deal with so much inflammation and immun. So I really try to tell the team that takes care of the patients, like, hey, man, watch the amount of toxins these people are consuming, because our body's not designed to tolerate that.
- [14:32]
Josh
Well, it almost seems like for hundreds of years, what were humans eating? Whole foods that they created on a farm. It wasn't like. It was like, oh, let me put this chemical in. That didn't exist back then. They were eating whole foods for hundreds of years, over and over again. And then just relatively in this century and the last half of last century, everything changed.
- [14:55]
Dr. D
Yeah. If you look at, like, certain diseases that just like, look, there's about 10,000 monogenic diseases. So describe diseases.
- [15:02]
Jack
Right.
- [15:03]
Dr. D
Some doc talks to a patient like, oh, I've never seen this before, starts to describe, and then some other guy reads it. Oh, I think I got a patient with this. And then all of a sudden. Right. So there's about 10,000 of these, meaning monogenic, connected to one gene. Right. Look at Alzheimer's, for example. It comes to mind. Popular one right now. Very popular and scary. Scary. First described in 1906 or 1905 by a guy with the name of Alois Alzheimer's. Dr. Alois Alzheimer's in Germany. What I just said is a little over 100 years ago, but we were eating those whole foods. We were eating. Where. Where was all the disease before? Oh, we were dying from, like, super infections and so forth. Okay. But we figured now we're dying from all these toxins leading us to metabolic issues and so forth. Just. That's why I tell people, use common sense, man. Just go back on the clock. Go back on the clock. Or go look at cancer maps today, look at industrial development, and match it to the level of cancers in different communities. So you go look at these places that are completely like, no industry, et cetera. And, you know, sure, they're poor or whatever, but they're eating more whole foods than we are, and go look at their levels of cancer.
- [16:08]
Josh
It's almost like if you went to the grocery store and you flipped the packaging on the back and you looked at, like, all the things that are on the back of the package of, like, the ingredient list, and it's like, imagine you had those laid out in front of you on a table, and you're like, would you eat all of that? And the answer would pro and, like, all the chemicals in, like, a little bottle. And your answer would probably be no.
- [16:29]
Dr. D
Of course.
- [16:30]
Jack
You can't even read half the ingredients nowadays.
- [16:32]
Josh
You don't even know what it means.
- [16:33]
Dr. D
Yeah. If you don't. If you don't look, if it. I mean, if it has an ingredient list like that, you shouldn't even be touching it. And the thing is, dude, like, for example, talk about ingredient lists, like natural flavors. You guys seen that? Yep. That is one of the words that means. I mean, I can't even tell you guys, it. That word can mean a ton of other stuff. Like, I think there's like, 60 or 70 other designations for natural flavors. So it's like, that's. That's a very unregulated, scary word. When you see, you know, I don't know, water, coconut, and natural flavors, it's like, okay, interesting. You know, it's like, maybe I don't want to do the natural flavors thing. But again, we get so desensitized in seeing these things, and then it's like, oh, okay. And if I was to go down the Rabbit hole and show you guys what these things can do, these little levers that could turn on certain genes. Like, there is no direct gene connected to cancer. I'll say that again. There's no gene that causes cancer. You can't say that. And then when a doctor says, like, oh, it's in your genes. It's in your DNA or something like that, I think that's a disservice to the patient because, like, you are. Basically, you are. There's like a tyranny in saying that to the patient because it's like the patient now walks away with the label. Hey, it's. It's in. It's in my DNA. I can't do anything about it.
- [17:51]
Josh
It's inevitable. I got nothing.
- [17:52]
Dr. D
Yeah, but when you're like, wait, wait, you can modify these things. You can modify your risks and your exposures, and that's what epigenetics is, right? That's. That's the beauty of these things. Once you understand, you know, the control that you actually do have over your health. That's another thing. With chronic care, you're taught to think like, you don't have control over your health. Oh, it's in. I was born this way. It's in my DNA. No, no, no. Pump the brakes, man. And it goes back to the narrative, like, oh, you know, like, no, you don't have to be poor. You don't have to not be successful. You don't have to not be healthy. You know, you have control.
- [18:25]
Josh
What do you think of fasting? Because I've seen a couple things of, like, if you fast, then it can almost wither away certain cells and things like that that might be harmful to you. What is there truth to that? Like, the deal with fasting?
- [18:37]
Dr. D
Fasting is the best thing you could do. Fasting is the best thing you could do. Like, one thing that I really like, too, is to look like I go back in time. I really like to see how people took care of their health back in the day and what they did, you know, like you just said, you know, oh, back in the day. What did we eat back in the day? Did we fast? Even all the holy books, like all ancient books, all civilizations talk about fasting. Hmm. Come on. You know that right there, that. That health principle right there is one of the oldest ones. And then it did win the Nobel Prize of medic, I believe, in 1915 or 16 on. On the concept of autophagy, which is the body eating itself, which is really cool. What you're really provoking the body to do is eat itself. And there's so much connected to fasting on. On the principles of longevity. So all, all the doctors, there's a trial called the calorie trial, which they've used this a lot. And you know how these. You have these epigenetic clocks now it's like, oh, how. How old are you, really? How, you know, like, like on.
- [19:40]
Josh
Whoop. Where they.
- [19:41]
Dr. D
Yeah, yeah. So these algorithms are all very different. There's. Some of them are very wonky and, you know, but the calorie trial was on which some of these first clocks were. Were tested on. And they were, you know, some worked, some didn't. But the thing is, everybody agrees in medicine, traditional, not traditional, that food restriction and timed eating does help with longevity a lot. Fasting is like insane. Fasting is great.
- [20:08]
James
I wanted to touch on how, you know, you brought up earlier about the. The, I guess, rates of kids that are autistic when they're born. And it used to be 1 in like 30,000 or something like that. Now it's 1 in, like 31. Maybe I got the first number, 1.
- [20:22]
Josh
In 10,000 and then 1 in 31.
- [20:24]
James
Now 1 in 31. That obviously has to do with the root of what the parent is giving off to them. And you brought up vitamins earlier. Right. And what I want to talk about is deficiencies among the patients you see. And obviously I know that there's a certain level of confidentiality, so you don't have to get in depth with the types of people or who you're seeing and whatnot. It doesn't have to just be your patients, but in general, the general public, the people that come to you. What is the most common deficiency across the board that you see so many people struggling with and that they have, which is a big reason why everybody feels like shit all the time.
- [20:56]
Dr. D
So me, I mean, I spend my days now like, you know, more as a biotech entrepreneur, but, like, our team's big. Sees people all over the country. And so I'm getting a lot of feedback from the team as well. I'm going to give you one that it's hard to measure, but you see a lot of people have issues with this magnesium. People are having headaches, high blood pressure, etc. Magnesium is huge, man. Magnesium is. For example, in the hospital, there's a crazy heartbeat called torsade de pointes, right? It's French. It stands for twisting of the points. Like, you see the ekg. It's crazy. You can't interpret it. So magnesium is Great for that. A baby that's born premature, you need to give that baby magnesium so he matures his brain.
- [21:43]
James
You had, I believe, a heart atrial fibrillation.
- [21:48]
Dr. D
Yeah.
- [21:48]
James
And you had a magnesium deficiency.
- [21:50]
Dr. D
Yeah, so I had that. I had afib for about two, three hours. And it wasn't rapid. Just sitting in my office and popped into a fib and in a meeting. And that was right after a couple months after having Covid. So one big thing that is. And even today I got a phone call. Big name person, same thing, AFIB twice. Electrophysiologist wants to, you know, your heart's perfectly fine. Let's, you know, do the ablation. And so what we did, we referred to a metabolic cardiologist, which a lot of people don't even know what that is, but Johns Hopkins, triple board certified friend of mine that I'm like, why don't you talk to him first before, you know, follow along with the EP has to say. And you know, my case was also not so much the deficiencies, but it was more of a case of lingering spike protein, etc. And I had the pleasure to even talk to a big name cardiologist in the, in the metabolic cardiology space, Dr. Thomas Levy, great books, et cetera. Like, the guy's an og. As soon as I mentioned my case to him, he's like, oh, you're another one of those, right? And me, like, I live doing plasma exchanges and stem cells and peptides and so forth. That can happen to anybody. But more so if somebody has deficiencies or etcetera, you know, in my thing, especially during those, that, that time, it was like four years ago, super stressed, had my first son. I was taking a board exam, you know, like so sleeping little, etc. You know, and, and those viruses, they catch that opportunity and you think they're gone. Oh, I don't have a cold anymore. Three, four months later. And you cough that thing up, right? So that's. I tell people a lot. Check your Covid spike proteins. Because it's a thing. Long covet is a real thing.
- [23:40]
James
Why does that have an effect on people? People like, like, can you explain that to people that may not understand the whole deal with the spike proteins? Because I'm not even too familiar. I mean, I know that we've talked about it before in the past, but what is the significance of having those in your body?
- [23:53]
Dr. D
Well, it's huge. And it's, it's. And, and I want to tell you guys, it's, it's not, not only Covid, Covid Was definitely like a super special bug. And the, that virus is very interesting. There's even, there's small sites on the virus that have the same parts as the HIV virus which is pretty crazy. Yeah, there's some analogy in the anatomy of the virus which is pretty wild. So when you have this spike protein, it literally damages your body in the nervous system and cardiovascular system. So it's basically taking a little dent into your system on a day to day basis and you're to going, your, your body's going to start to manifest issues of that spike protein. And this can happen, this can happen with other bugs as well, you know like tick borne illness, illnesses, etc can. You know, when I was in med school I one day I woke up and half my face was frozen. So yeah, I got a really bad, I mean I was 26, that was way before and you know, I got Bell's palsy and you know my face is normal now but you know, it could have scarred me. So your nervous system and your cardiovascular system, very, very, very, what do you call it? Sensitive to certain infections. And I hope this helps people because sometimes people don't know what they have going on and traditional care will not look at these things like brush it over real fast, let's just do an ablation. It's like, no man, there's reasons behind these things.
- [25:20]
Jack
Yeah, I know. James just kind of touched on what are the most common deficiencies that people have. But what are some of the principles that people can follow to live a healthier and better life? Whether it's a certain amount of sleep, exercise, vitamins or supplements they should take.
- [25:34]
Josh
Well, I want to add to that when you said one of the reasons why you got into functional medicine is because you were like, I'm tired. I'm dealing with, you know, I'm dealing with this and stress. And I feel like every single person out there, or the majority, especially go getters, entrepreneurs, things like that, they run themselves into the ground. They're like, man, I'm tired.
- [25:52]
Dr. D
Yeah, that's. I think that the one of the biggest psyops in like society and in our day and age, like our crew, like go work. Ah, don't sleep. No bro, like first of all, like I'm gonna mix medicine with entrepreneurship right now if you guys allow me. Yeah bro, you're awake and your ass is unproductive as hell. And it's like you're pushing yourself and it's like you're sending stupid long emails, you're on social media eating crap, having useless conversations Going to networking crap and not doing anything. Then you're busy as hell, and you're confusing being busy with being productive. And then it's like, oh, I slept four hours and I'm going hard.
- [26:30]
James
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Dr. D
Like, no, bro, shut up. You don't know what you're doing. It's like 100%. It's like, no. And then the thing is sleep. Sleep is one of the biggest things, man, especially, like, for, you know, the young entrepreneur, younger, whatever. I mean, the return, the bang. The what is it? The bang for your buck with sleep and fasting. You asked me two things. Sleep and fasting. The bang for your buck on your health is going to be so big. Mental clarity, etc. Productivity, okay? Because, like, one thing I get to do, you know, I obviously never mention names and so forth, but damn, I get to sit down with the most productive people on planet Earth, like, sometimes. Like, wow, okay, Just got to talk to this person. They're. They. The high performance thing, you know, the amount of stuff that these guys can get done is crazy. And. And the thing is, they're all very hungry and driven. But to keep that level of hunger and drive as well, you know, in the long term, you have to have a certain level of rest. If you live exhausted for the five, 10 years, you're going to burn out. That's where burnout happens. And that's where I get to see a lot of these very successful people. Athletes, entrepreneurs, et cetera, Some of them burn themselves out. And then there's this. There's literally a curve Productions possibility curve which culminates in burnout. If you're not cautious, Sleep is huge. If you wear a sleep monitor, look at your heart rate at night, look at your hrv. That is insane important.
- [28:05]
Jack
I feel like you're preaching to the choir here.
- [28:07]
Josh
I was gonna ask. I feel like you're talking about the nervous system and the cardiovascular system. And I think HRV links them. That's like the metric that links them together, right?
- [28:17]
Dr. D
Yeah.
- [28:17]
Josh
And start how. And it's almost kind of like. That's like the longevity metric. Like how. How do people, like, increase their hrv? That's what I want.
- [28:25]
Jack
And just real quick, could you also explain what HRV is?
- [28:27]
Dr. D
Yeah, yeah. So heart rate variability, right? You have your heart rate, which is, you know, obviously you don't want a high heart rate during the. I mean, you're gonna feel wired, tired, et cetera. It's harder to even. Like, I spar every day before work. Like, spar today. Right. So I check My heart rate at night and then I kind of know how tired I'm going to get to do 11, 12, how many rounds I will donate my body to whoever I'm sparring with. Right. I've been doing that consistently for three years. So it's not like, oh, I just started. No, I've been consistently for three years. The thing is heart rate, you want as low as possible. Hrv, you want it as high as possible. So high variation of the heart. And to be able to increase that, it's actually relaxing and going parasympathetic. So your, your body has, your body just has like two gears, forward and reverse. So when you go sympathetic is fight or flight, let's go. And that's kind of what we, you know, we tell ourselves basically like the entrepreneur, entrepreneur thing. Like in my head all I hear is like, oh, they're telling them to be sympathetic. Yeah, go get deals done, go do whatever phone calls. Okay, when do you go parasympathetic, which is like the rest digest, etc. You know, when do you. And being able to relax helps you to live longer, helps you to be more productive. And America has a big problem. And talk about chronic care. Let's talk about the psychiatric chronic care in America. America lives kind of on and kind of off. What do I mean by that kind of off? Because 30% of America suffers with insomnia. Kind of on because I don't know the real percentage, I don't know the real number. A big part of America can't focus, can't study. Oh, let me get, take some amphetamines. Amphetamines? What do you mean? Oh yeah, Adderalls, Ritalins and all that stuff. Drink a bunch of caffeine, a bunch of energy drinks and so forth. America lives wired and tired, wired and tired, Wired and tired. Instead of being a real productive, high level entrepreneur, when you're on, boom, you got eight hours, 10 hours and you're pushing it. I'm talking about 10 hours of true productivity, like crushing it, meetings, et cetera. High energy where everybody feels like it's authentic, true high energy. That's hard to be over 10 hours or 12 hours, whatever. But then you truly rest. When you truly rest and you give yourself a reboot, that's super important, super important for productivity and longevity. 100%.
- [30:54]
Josh
So usually when I'm, we travel all the time for hard knocks, but usually when I'm home and able to just kind of like dial at my computer to get work done, I'll get up, work pretty Much all day. And then around five, six o' clock, I work through it, but I start to get really tired. But one morning I woke up and I didn't look at my phone for like pretty much when I woke up. And then I went straight outside, went on a walk, came back and then got to work that 5, 6 o' clock market. I wasn't tired at all. I was ready to keep going for like three, four more hours of work. And I feel like everybody when they're, you know, they wake up and they take their phone and they look and it's automatically like, bing, bing, bing, bing, fire, fire, fire. They got to put out or something like that. It was just crazy to me how it was just like, man, when I got up and just low stress, didn't look at the phone, went and actually got some exercise in and then came back. I was not tired anymore.
- [31:47]
Dr. D
Yeah, yeah. And that, that's why I give that example all the time. Back in the day, you had to feed your family, maybe worried about a saber tooth tiger coming to kill you guys and you know, just kind of, you know, little, little fire and kind of play with sticks and rocks with your kids. Talk to the wife. I'm serious. Like, think about it a few years ago, like I'm being allegorical, but think about it. A few years ago, just like recent few years ago, now all of a sudden they bathe us in this electronic communication. Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. Everything like you go bananas, man. Like you don't relax, like you lose your. There's people that I talk to, like, bro, you're so wired, you need two phones. One phone that your wife and kid and maybe your parents know the number. And then no social media, nothing else. And then another phone that's your. And then you're gonna grab this thing at 9 in the morning, given you woke up at 7 and you're gonna put it away, 6pm go live your life now and then tell me how you feel in three months, you know, because it is that. That's true, man. You get hit all and then you're in sympathetic state. Sympathetic state. And it's important centenarians. There's studies showing that the people that live to like 100, plus the centenarian communities, which there's four in the world, Okinawa, Japan, Sardinia, Italy, Costa Rica and Loma Linda, California. There's one in the US Oddly enough. And these people, they practice a lot of like relaxation. And I'm not talking about like meditating on Muhammad. I'm not talking about any of that stuff.
- [33:12]
James
All right.
- [33:13]
Dr. D
I'm not talking about that stuff. I'm just talking about, like, chilling out, relaxing with, like, you go to Europe, you know, in Europe, you go to Spain, Italy, you see people just sitting in a cafe and so forth and socializing. That's essential for your health. Essential for your health. You know, that's one of the big secrets. For example, the Loma Linda community in. Off. Off of LA. It's about 6. It's a city off of LA with those people there, they socialize a lot. That's a big thing.
- [33:38]
Josh
When I brought up Europe earlier about, like, you know, there's things that aren't in their food that we've also thinking of Italy pretty much. Well, because. And when you go, like, when we went there, we basically learned that, like, the meals are like a essential thing.
- [33:53]
Dr. D
Yeah.
- [33:54]
Josh
During their day that they go and they sit there for like three. It's like a two, three hour event for them to just chill out.
- [34:01]
Dr. D
We're actually expanding our business to Europe. And there's a very well known family that's. That's helping us. They're Italian. I won't mention their names, but I had a meeting with them in New York. I sat at the table for 12 hours. These people gave me pasta. Like, pasta and so forth. They have restaurants as well and so forth. I'm like, guys, I'm gonna leave here rolling.
- [34:22]
Jack
I was gonna say, you didn't walk out of there.
- [34:23]
Dr. D
You rolled out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They flew in from Italy. They're. They're actually really, like, really Italians. And I'm like, wow, this is a very interesting meeting, you know, and one of our partners, like, hardcore American and so forth, he's like, I'm not used to this, man. This is like, you know, it's like, when are we gonna get to the meeting part? I'm like, but they're talking, they're developing relationships and friendship, and I really enjoy that. Like, I'm actually. My dad's from Portugal, mom's from Brazil, dad's from Portugal, you know, Portuguese. Kind of similar to Italians, too. Sit at the table. And so I was raised like that with my grandparents. And then you go, you fall into the go, go, go, go, go. And don't get me wrong, I'm an entrepreneur too, and so forth. But now I've been way more cautious with, like, I need to stop, I need to enjoy. I need to enjoy, you know, breath of fresh air every once in a while. Just like, sit down with no phone for a sec. We don't know how to do that anymore. And then talk about like now you get hit with toxins, you're getting hit with, with emf, all these different frequency and then your brain is in crazy stress. It's this recipe for disaster.
- [35:21]
James
I wanted to shift real quick to talk about biohacks, the business that you've built. Right. Because obviously you are a wealth of knowledge of not only just health. Right. Because I could ask you millions of, I know we all could ask you millions of questions about our health and our habits and you know, just you're a very trusted person in that regard. Anytime any of us have ever had something even, you know, family related, the first person to think about is Dr. D, Dr. D. But you're also, you know, have built an incredible business. And a lot of people, let's say they go to medical school, they spend 10 plus years from start to finish going through, you know, school. They come out, they've got this instant gratification, they have no idea how to build a real practice.
- [35:59]
Dr. D
Right.
- [36:00]
James
Because they were in school for so damn long. You built such an established business, you're working with some of the biggest names in business, entertainment, sports. Can you talk to us about your progression of building biohacks to what it is today, just from start to finish? Right. Your turning point in saying, I'm going to open up my own practice out here in South Florida. What were the steps that it took to build that business? And then we can dive a little bit deeper in some of the specific things that you're doing.
- [36:24]
Dr. D
Yeah, I mean at first it was really hard to like conceptualize even what the heck I was doing. Especially, you know, a big part of my career is absolutely crazy. After I was at Cleveland Clinic, I jumped out of my residency path and then I didn't want anything to do with medicine. And then I'm like, okay, let me go find a medical team to work with, hire these people. And then you know, build, build this clinic, which NOW is a 50 state licensed telehealth company, which that's another can of worms. The, the essential things that it's not like, I can't tell you, man. James, I can't tell you was like, oh, here's like, I'm going to apply this business strategy or whatever. When I started finding out about these things, the my view of medicine, I would sit down with people when they would come in and you know, I would start with, did you know, this and this and this and that and you know, we would look at the cases, you know, with the, with the, with the team and so forth of, you know, medical professionals. And I'm like, wait a minute, this person, this issue could be fixed if maybe we look into this or maybe we look into that. And then I remember a lot of people, a lot of the patients would tell me, you're a great sales guy. I'm like, sales guy? This guy just called me a sales guy. And then it would happen again. It's like, oh, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're really passionate about this. So I started hearing the word passionate. So, you know, maybe, I don't know, six people called me sales guy. And I was like, all right, that's weird. But then the word passionate really started to like that word. I kept hearing on a day to day basis and it was kind of just sort of brush it off my shoulder. But then I was, I mean, super excited about what I was doing. And then all of a sudden, you know, I get some random emails. Hey, I have this very special person to bring to you today. I didn't know exactly. It's always the same thing. It's a manager, it's somebody special that brings me a celebrity, brings me like a very, you know, like a power person, whatever. And I'm like, oh, wow. You know, and then I would hear the same thing. I heard you're very passionate about this, etc. Then I grew, but then I had to really become the businessman to put systems models and procedures into place to, to be able to scale the thing. And it was, it was a hard, hard, hard road for me in a bit, for a while because I was getting so much demand. I was like, what do I do with all these people?
- [38:44]
Jack
I'm curious, right? Because like you had to go from practitioner to business person. Did you have like a mentor or how did you go about, you know, learning how to actually run a business?
- [38:53]
Dr. D
Books. It's fine. I, I did go to school. I do have an mba, but it's like it doesn't make any.
- [39:01]
James
I mean, you didn't let the business.
- [39:03]
Dr. D
No, man. I remember sitting there in the mba, I'm like learning business from this guy that doesn't have a business. What the heck? So, but anyways, I, I went to courses. I, I did a couple of times at Tony Robbins Business Mastery. That, that was a, a really, really good one for me. Connected my passion to the project itself and like understanding, you know. You know, I didn't even know what the word operations was. I mean, what's Operations like surgery. Like, what do you. You know, like, I, you know, and then books, and I didn't have a specific mentor. I didn't. I would love to tell you that I did, but I never did. So it was just, you know, figuring things out as I went, you know, and. And I would join specific organizations and listen to podcasts and. And picking up here and there.
- [39:51]
James
When I last interviewed you, February 2024, when we were on your yacht, there's an answer that you gave me in one of my questions that has always stuck with me and just has always been in the back of my mind. And it was when I asked you about, among yourself and the most successful people that you study and know, what's that one trait that they all have in common? And you talked about just the raw and pure obsession that they have. In particular, there's a comment that you made that they're always scheming. They're always scheming. I think about us. I mean, like, the reason why we've been able to grow hard knocks to 18 million followers, doing over $1 million a month is because, I mean, we are just obsessed with what we do. Like, I. I am so obsessed with the interviews that I do, ensuring that they all go viral, getting millions of views, and that one trait right there. And it goes back to kind of in that last point that you brought up about you had all these people that were telling you that, you know, you're a good salesman, when in reality, I think if all of us had to go around the room describing you, I would never think of you as like a salesy kind of kind of guy, which is what you don't want to be like and associate with those people. But that raw passion and obsession that you had for medicine, longevity, making people healthy, that was one of your ingredients to success right there. The obsession factor. How common is that in the most successful people you've seen?
- [41:06]
Dr. D
Oh, it's. It's super. It's. I mean, super common. Like, I noticed that I won't say who I was talking to, but just a massive person, like, particularly a big fan of this person's music. And I'm like, looking at the person like, dude, you have everything and so forth. And they're still like, no, but I gotta do this and this and this and figure this out. I was like, the heck, you know, I'm like, this guy's really, really hungry. That was the word that really stuck up to, you know, stuck out to me. And then I started thinking, I'm like, wait, A minute. Like, I did like this, like kind of retroactive thought process. It kind of like for. I remember this day exactly. And I was like, all these guys are really hungry. All these guys are like, it doesn't work this way. We're going to figure it out this way. We're going to do, you know, like. And that right there even gave me more insight why they were coming to me. I'm like, they wanted the extra edge. And there's guys that tell me, I'll never talk about you. I can't tell people who my edge is. I was like, no. You know how many times I've heard this in one word, in one way or the other, X factor? I'm like, no way. Really? You know, and it's like, all right, so, okay, I'll stay behind the curtains. The best kept secret, you know, you know, But. But that, but that hunger, that there's a biological component to that hunger too.
- [42:23]
James
Yeah. I want to talk about some of the different verticals that you're involved in as well, because you also have, I think, a joint venture with John Matson as well.
- [42:31]
Dr. D
Oh, yeah. So, absolutely.
- [42:32]
James
How did you kind of grow. Go about growing the different verticals of Biohacks? Right. Obviously, I think did it just start primarily with kind of one sort of treatment where you would do testing for people? How did you grow about the different verticals and how have you managed that expansion so much? Now you're going global, you're going to Europe now. So how's that expansion been and growing the different verticals?
- [42:50]
Dr. D
Yeah, no, listen, you're actually touching one of my. The points I'm most proud of. And like, it, like, I'm starting to. I feel like that's a trophy I'm about to like, lift up. So when I started, it was just like a simple little blood exam. You know, I started this thing with a doctor that was. I knocked on his door when I was 23 years old, old and very, very, very dear person to me. Dr. Richard Silva, he's in, up in Fort Lauderdale and he backed me up and so forth. And we started this and you know, and he gave me a lot of the first steps and so forth. And you know, it was. Come for a consult, it was 200 bucks. I don't remember with blood work, with everything. I remember one day, like, this is the passionate thing. I actually just remember this lady came in and she's like, like, oh, you're the crazy guy that writes on the windows, right? I'm like, and my windows were really Written. I didn't know. Like, I would get up on my desk, right, With a mark. Cause it was all glass in my office, right? And, like, in the beginning, I couldn't afford those vibe boards. Now I have those vibe boards and whatever. And I would write on the glass and so forth. And so once I started getting more into that stuff and, like, more passion, so forth. Even today I was doing this, like, all the new modalities there are to test for data. I always want it for myself. And I always tell my team, like, oh, this is a new test. I want to do it on myself. I'm like, let's give it to the patients, too. Like, you know, obviously, make sure everything's valid and good source, great laboratories. So the. The amount of data we started collecting was really big. And then eventually I got into epigenetics, which is the future of medicine, guys. That's like the crypto of medicine. Like, that's a whole freaking series in. In and of itself.
- [44:29]
James
And that's engineering your genetics pretty much.
- [44:32]
Jack
It's the.
- [44:32]
Dr. D
It is very simple. You have your genes that never change. You test your genes today and test them 100 years later. They're the same. Same for all of us in the room. Now you. I'll blow your mind. A grain of rice has 52,000 genes. Okay. Grain of rice has 50. That's a lot of genes, right? Do you know how many genes you have?
- [44:52]
James
Millions.
- [44:53]
Jack
Billions.
- [44:54]
Dr. D
From 22,000 to 25,000 genes, you have half the genes of a grain of rice. Yeah, that eyebrow thing you just did. Yeah. So, yeah, that blew my. That's one of the biggest things that blew my mind. And go look this up. The Human Genome Project, which was finally done calculating in April. April 2002, was to see how many genes we have. We have less than a genetic.
- [45:15]
James
Why is that? How is that possible?
- [45:17]
Dr. D
That's it. That's the amount of genes that. That's it. There's no. It's not. It's a very binary thing. That's it. So now what you're asking is, how am I possible? It's like you take a grain of rice, like, wait, how are you more genetically complex than I am? So the epigenetics really comes in. It's the expression of those genes, bro. It's how. So you have your genes, and then the expression of those genes, and one gene can have 30,000 permutations. That's how it's possible. So that's what I got into. So then it's like, okay, you got this environmental toxin, you got this hormone, et cetera, what is it doing to these genes? So, and this is the simple, they complicate this so much. You have your genes and then it's like a little light switch. I want you to think of it as a light switch or a little volume switch, like you're playing music and you could turn on really high the volume or turn it off completely. So what we call methylation or acetylation, right, with the lading is turning it off, sitillating, turning it on. I mean if you talk to a scientist, it's going to sound like Chinese, but that's really what it is. It's light bulbs on a DNA. Okay, simple to understand. So then there's certain things you could give it, which is binary, good or bad. Your body doesn't interpret like, oh, I think this is okay. No, it's good or bad. And then that volume switch goes up and down. So then I started getting into that plus then collecting a ton of data on environmental toxins and so forth. And then I started earning the respect of a lot older gentlemen in my field. You know, people calling me, hey, the directors from the lab, hey, I see the data you're collecting, see the stuff that you're doing. I see the names coming by here. Like I, I literally, I remember this one time like the, at the time, there's the largest peptide pharmacy in the country. And the guy, one of the guys writes to me, our president wants to come and talk to you. Didn't say like meet you or anything, like what did I do? You know? And he's like, he, the first thing he, like we sit down in a restaurant, he's like, like, who are you? He's like, where are these names coming from? And like, where, like, who's sponsoring you? Who's like. And I'm like, no, it was all based off of the data that we're collecting and then to understand how to manipulate this data, which leads us to where we are today. We're about to launch now, January 15, a couple of days away. Supplements made for your epigenetics, for your epigenome, basically with a finger prick. So I basically took taking a test from a company in partnership with them called trudiagnostic, which is by far the best epigenetic company in the world. Largest epigenetic database, et cetera in the world. No private, no government institution can compare to them. I really respect their work. And again, because of the work I was doing, I got friendly with the main scientist and it's A finger prick that you could see almost 2,000 markers. Instead of drawing blood and you just put it on a little, little drop of blood on a piece of paper and you can see things like how many times, how many times a person smoked in their whole lifespan, how many times they drank in their lifespan. And there's even talks about seeing where people live by a drop of blood because you can match toxicity inside of them and matching it to toxicity by zip code, which is crazy. So now that's where our work is leading. So now we'll be making supplements which will be in a Nespresso pod. Nespresso looking pot, not an actual Nespresso pod. So a little cup. We'll be making supplements based off of that, which is super exciting for me because like we'll be able to deliver the same value or akin to it that we've been delivering with biohacks Medical, but for a mass population at, you know, a couple bucks. Yeah, so that, that's our, our, that's going to be my global initiative right.
- [48:51]
Josh
Now at Biohacks, I feel like there's a bunch of tests that traditional medicine wouldn't offer like a typical patient. What are the tests that every person, every American should try to get in their life to really get a full.
- [49:05]
Dr. D
Picture of their health, no questions asked. Their rate of aging, how fast are they aging? And no offense to a lot of algorithms that are out there, a lot of them are, most of them are absolute trash. There's a whole, there's a whole industry to this thing. Okay, I'm not going to get into these epigenetic clocks and so forth because it does get a little hairy. But just like we're, we're now at one. You know, we had the first, second, third generation of these epigenetic clocks, but now we're at a more advanced time with these epigenetic clocks. But you can actually see how fast you're aging. So if you're aging really fast, that's is, that's a, that's a problem. So like for example, companies like True Diagnostic, which they've published studies with Harvard, Yale, Duke, I mean if you go to their website, they're, they're all over, you know, academia, you could see, check this out. Ready. When a crazy statistic, you can see with the 92% accuracy when somebody's going to die with a delta of five years, plus or minus five years.
- [50:12]
James
If that's, if they were to continue just their current habits and life.
- [50:15]
Dr. D
Correct. That's why I'm saying that's so important. And this is really avant garde, you know, like, a lot of docs will be like, measure your vitamin D or measure your sugar. And it's like, no, no, no, we're way past that. I want to see how fast you're damaging yourself. How much damage has that DNA incurred? How old does your DNA really think?
- [50:32]
Josh
Do you think sleep is the biggest thing that that test triggers?
- [50:36]
Dr. D
This is all really, really well documented, which are the biggest interventions. And a big portion of it is individual, which is the beauty of this thing. Certain foods will be better for you, and certain foods, obviously, you know, eating a bunch of crap cheeseburgers every day is gonna be bad for everybody, right?
- [50:53]
Josh
Yeah.
- [50:54]
Dr. D
But there might be a vegetable that's better for you versus ham, et cetera. But sleep? Yeah, I honestly, like, if I have to shoot from the hip, sleep is probably one of the best things you could do for your. For longevity.
- [51:04]
James
All right, so let's play a game. I'm 23 right now. My goal is to live to 100 years old. If I were to be honest with you, I think if I continue my current lifestyle habits, I'd maybe make it to 75, because I sleep like shit. I travel all the time. I don't eat.
- [51:20]
Jack
Great.
- [51:21]
James
If you were to instill five things in me right now to make sure that I live from 23 to 100 years old, what would you do? Give me that. Give me the five pillars right now.
- [51:30]
Dr. D
Ready? You 23?
- [51:32]
James
Yeah.
- [51:33]
Dr. D
Sleep.
- [51:34]
James
How much?
- [51:35]
Dr. D
Eight hours.
- [51:36]
James
Eight hours every day?
- [51:37]
Dr. D
Seven and a half to eight hours.
- [51:38]
James
Okay.
- [51:40]
Dr. D
No processed foods. No processed foods.
- [51:44]
James
Meaning no more McDonald's, no more big Mac shaves.
- [51:47]
Dr. D
I can't even work with this room, bro.
- [51:49]
Jack
Have you ever had canes before, Dr. Dude?
- [51:51]
Dr. D
No, I never had canes.
- [51:52]
Jack
He's never had canes.
- [51:55]
Dr. D
No. Like even.
- [51:57]
James
Yeah.
- [51:57]
Dr. D
No, no. Never drank alcohol in my life.
- [52:01]
Josh
Life.
- [52:01]
James
Wow, that's amazing. Is that number three? Yeah, I'm not. I'm not a drinker, though. I'm not a drinker.
- [52:07]
Dr. D
Okay, but still. So no, I'm still on number one. Oh, no. Number two was processed foods. I would incorporate fasting.
- [52:15]
James
Okay, what's that schedule like? Like you.
- [52:20]
Josh
Is it like intermittent fasting?
- [52:21]
Dr. D
So intermittent fasting is good, but like the long periods of fasting.
- [52:26]
James
So like two, like on like a, like 72 hour water fast.
- [52:29]
Dr. D
Exactly how often so that I know of. I've never seen published data that's like, okay, this specific type, you know, here's a perfect schedule. Maybe there is in the world of epigenetics, you know, and that's the beauty of epigenetics. But prolonged fasting, there is data on prolonged fasting, how it is improved for you. And there's certain thresholds of certain time periods where certain biochemical processes start in like after 72, 96 etc hours. Certain things start in your body. So, you know, if it's possible to work up to that, you know, that is something phenomenal. So, so that was number three. Number four, I would really, really, really take inventory of the toxins you're exposed to. To super. Take inventory of the toxins you're exposed to. I would not play around with that. Toxins will wreak havoc in your life and they're just, they're poison.
- [53:31]
James
What do you mean by that?
- [53:32]
Dr. D
So, so the. To. So there's a ton of toxins in food, water, plastics, etc, for example. Guys talk about testosterone. Testosterone, Testosterone, yeah, testosterone is great, man. But you're, you're giving yourself so much garbage that is increasing your estrogen and destroying your testosterone. Like why is our testosterone level so low nowadays? Right. So do you know what your testosterone level is at 23?
- [53:56]
James
I don't know what mine is now.
- [53:57]
Dr. D
All right, So I would just keep an eye on it. You probably don't need anything right now, you know, and when I say pro, I know I got doctors out there. It's like, well, what do you mean he doesn't need anything? No, no, no, no. Sometimes they need a good detox. A 23 year old will need a good detox. And that's where doctors are like, no, pump the brakes. Do an environmental toxin on a test on this guy and look at the BPAs and all that stuff. And it's like, oh, doctors. Oh yeah, okay. I wasn't talking about giving you testosterone. Of course not, you're way too young. I'm not talking about that stuff, but I'm talking about watching for endocrine disruptors. That's a type of environmental toxin, you know. And then lastly, micronutrients. Also understanding your micronutrients. So vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, super, super, super important, bro. Like your levels. This is very common nowadays. People are starting to understand this. More levels of vitamin D3. But magnesium is a big one. People sleep on supplementing with micronutrients. Micronutrients are very important, high quality micronutrients. Those would be my top five for you. And there is a big difference. There's studies even I mentioned Centrum in the beginning, but there's studies even with Centrum. How it actually does put an influence and slow down your rate of aging. Even like not so good vitamin cocktail as centrum, you know, hey, that's the blueprint right there.
- [55:10]
James
All right, let's get controversial for a minute real quick.
- [55:13]
Dr. D
Let's go.
- [55:13]
James
We're going to talk about the unspoken word, the COVID vaccine. Okay. I went to a cardiologist at a like renowned, like your typical traditional medicine place in Texas. Not going to shout out my guy because I don't want big pharma to take him out. But anyways, you know, he, he was. I went to go see cardiology because I had been running and I noticed that when I was like running consistently, I started to kind of get some like tension and pain, kind of like the left side of my chest. Just wanted to make sure everything was okay. And just one thing led to another. Got into a conversation with him about that and this is the first ever, you know, as you know, Jack had a couple bouts of. He's been how many cardiologists and you've had a couple.
- [55:56]
Josh
I mean, I've probably been seeing a cardiologist visit probably just the same amount as an 80 year old at this point. Anyways, I'm 24.
- [56:03]
James
Anyways, the cardiologist I had in Texas actually was the first. I say this because I know from his experience going to traditional medicine, anytime you question to most people, traditional medicine about the vaccine, they go, oh, nothing to do with that, nothing. They shut it down.
- [56:18]
Josh
They'll be like, no. And then they get like, it's like they don't want to.
- [56:22]
James
My point was, is that this doctor said that, you know, all I'm going to say is they did studies in some Japanese city of people that took the vaccine and didn't. And they said that people that took it actually ended up having way worse longer term health issues with a variety of different things. Why do you think that was and what are your overall thoughts on whenever there is a new vaccine out in particular? We can take Covid, for example, or just if there was another global health crisis that comes out, where would your hesitancy be towards these vaccines? I just want to get your thoughts, and we talked about it earlier, your thoughts on the COVID vaccine and for people's overall hesitancy to them.
- [57:00]
Dr. D
You guys love that question, don't you? No, no, I know. And, and no, but it's. It's a necessary. It's an. It's a necessary question. Look, I particularly don't subscribe to it. Like that thing got approved Just. Just the approval process, like, it didn't go through proper studies. It didn't go through. And then it's crazy how doctors, all of a sudden, it's like, okay, yeah, it's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's like, whoa. It's like, wait a minute. It's like there's no questions asked, you know, and doctors are very indoctrinated. You don't ask questions. You just do and do and do. So it's like, me, it just doesn't go with my personality. I'm a very. Like, I ask questions, and I'll always be that way. I'm not trying to be controversial or anything. So when you look especially it's MRNA technology, start there. You know, it's like, it's a different kind of technology, too, which you're going to start to see more and more and more of. So it's like you're playing with fire, and it's something completely new. And we see it didn't, you know, all the way from the shots to the vaccines and to. It didn't mitigate problems as we thought it did. And there was really great solutions that other countries even tried. And I won't mention the names here. There's other stuff with really good studies and et cetera that I. If I. If I were to mention the name here, a lot of people would be like, even doctors would have never heard of some of this stuff. But there are countries, like, for example, Bolivia sanctioned it during. During COVID A whole country. You know, it was very controversial. And it's like, wait a minute. How come we don't talk about these things, right? There's things that are, you know, have been around forever, we don't talk about. But then all of a sudden come a vaccine. It's like, yeah, it's approved. And then look at the onslaught of issues. Look at just the narrative around it, you know, look at, you know, even certain statements from Fauci saying, you know, that Anthony Fauci, the guy, like, if you question me, you're questioning science. It's like, he said that, and it's like, wait a minute. Okay, who died and made you king? So the thing is, when you just. The narrative for me, was hard to, like, when I see a narrative like that, just like, I already pumped the brakes. And it's crazy to me. A lot of doctors, they're so institutionalized, they'll be like, okay, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. But when Also, you look into the data of this stuff, it's a lot of the data is skewed and doesn't make any sense, you know, so. But it's not only the vaccine that was issued. The COVID spike protein from the bug itself, from the virus itself is a problem. And it's a problem that people are starting to feel more.
- [59:36]
Jack
Now question that I'm kind of curious on is I have a tor meniscus and I have a bucket tear, but it's torn in a way in which it's fully functional. I can play sports, walk, run, no issues. One of the things you mentioned earlier was stem cells. And I've learned that stem cells is actually one of the ways that you can potentially treat, you know, tendon tears and just pretty much repair issues with, you know, I guess that are traditionally, you know, pretty much solved through, like surgery. What's kind of your thoughts on that? Is that somebody that is going to be, you think going to be continuing to continue to use in the future? Is that the future? What's kind of your thoughts on stem cells and just using that instead of just like traditional methods to repair like.
- [60:17]
Dr. D
L. I think stem cells are the. One of the greatest advancements in medicine. I think it's phenomenal. Stem cells exosomes. Fortunately, one of the most published men in stem cells is a very, very dear friend of mine, Dr. Joshua Hare. I looked this up actually last week. He's cited on Google Scholar 67,000 times. He's one of the people that pioneered injecting stem cells into the heart to regenerate the heart. So, yeah, stem cells. There's excellent data on what it could do. And it is part of the future 1000% if the narrative allows it to continue that way. Right. And that's why Florida, I don't know if you know, but now Florida has adopted allowing to do stem cells under certain conditions.
- [61:06]
James
That used to be where people would have to go out of the country, Costa Rica and all those spaces.
- [61:09]
Jack
Now for orthopedic explain, like how that would work. Let's just say, for example, example, I wanted to repair my meniscus through stem cell therapy. How would that actually work?
- [61:18]
Dr. D
So you go to an orthopedist or you go to a doctor where that's comfortable injecting the area, and then they would do the treatment for you. I mean, it's actually pretty simple. I mean, you look at the stem cells, it looks like water, you know, actually like the IV or whatever, but it looks very simple. And then they inject the area where you have the injury. You can also do the IVs, but in a case like that, it's better to inject the area. Right. The.
- [61:45]
James
You know, just.
- [61:46]
Dr. D
So there's more of a local approach, but it's actually pretty straightforward. The meniscus too, it's a little. I'm not a specialist in that part at all. But you know, the meniscus problem with the menisci is that certain parts lack blood flow. Right. So. But again, stem cells, what they could do is pretty insane. You know, in terms of regenerative capacity. It's. It's the future. Stem cells, peptides, exosomes, like that stuff mitigates a lot of surgeries and things that are totally unnecessary.
- [62:16]
James
I wanted to ask about, you know, obviously built an incredible business. Have had so much success, but following you on social media and just getting to know you, you know, you're also a family man and you built this business next to your wife. Essentially. Yeah. I wanted to ask how important the.
- [62:34]
Dr. D
Watch of my wife. No kidding. How.
- [62:37]
James
How important was the decision of marrying the right woman for you?
- [62:41]
Dr. D
That's so funny. I posted that yesterday. It was her birthday yesterday. And I'm like, oh, I gotta, I gotta post. You know, it's just. I went into that spirit of like I, I gotta post. And you know, I'm showering my son and trying to post. But then when I locked in, you know, and I was posting, that's really what. I'll just kind of like paraphrase what I said because it answers your question. When I locked in, like, I'm like all teary eyed and writing that stuff because it's like I prayed for this girl. I imagined her, I designed her in my head before she even like I knew she existed. And I'm not saying this to sound pretty. I designed it. Like there's a type of person you want, right? You want a seven foot five girl, probably not, right. You want a certain height. You know, I'm being actually real. There's a. You know, and I designed her in my head, I designed her like. And I really believed in it. And I, I really avoided spending spending time with the right person while waiting for the correct person. And people, a lot of people get that wrong. And you spend a lot of energy going in the wrong direction. I prayed for her, whatever. And then she finally comes. Exceeds my expectations. But here's the crazy part that answers your question. I realized the biggest gift, the biggest gift was for me because of who she makes me be. Like, I tell her this all the time. Like you're the wife of a billionaire. Not that I'm very far from being a billionaire, but the thing is, how she acts, how she moves, how she flows through life, it's like, damn, you know, I'm like, it's. We've been together for a decade, you know, and then there's like this unspoken word of these, like, expectations that she has for me and then that she thinks I'm a badass. I'm like, you know, and sometimes, like, well, you know, my wife thinks I'm a badass. So, you know, so I gotta live up to this thing, you know, it's this just like this crazy energy that exists between us that allows me to accomplish so much, man. I can't explain it to you and for a fact, I wouldn't have done any of this if I didn't have her or even another person. No, her, she's like the elixir to the formula, bro.
- [64:51]
James
Beautiful. Again, another answer that you gave in one of our interviews when I asked you the number one book that changed your life and you said it was the Bible, and you talked about how you prayed for the woman that you ultimately had become, your wife and the mother of your children. What has the role of faith played in your life? And how important is that to you in terms of your mindset, the way that you think about life, the way that you think about business, and just the role that God has played in your life. I just want to get your thoughts on faith and God and the impact it's had on you.
- [65:21]
Dr. D
Yeah, it has played a role, and it's playing even a bigger role now because, like, somebody asked me once, how do you know you're always going to be at the forefront of medicine? And I answered, because I'm always going to be looking at God's medicine, at the Creator's blueprint. I'm always going to be looking into nature to understand nature. Why do I love epigenetics? Because I get to prove that your lifestyle being changed, your lifestyle being holy. I didn't say wholesome. I said holy. Like a lifestyle aligned with God will literally impact your DNA for the better. And God will reward you with a better, higher quality and longer life. So that's my blueprint. That's my North Star. I always follow that and forever will. So my brain is always distilling through, okay, which science aligns with him and which science does not. And I'm not reading a book. I'm not just. And that's when you're in the spirit, you're in the flow, you know, living life through or trying as much as possible to live life through Christ. You get that guidance. You see what I'm saying? And then also as a business person and who I am, my. My reputation, who I am has become so important to me. So important, you know, sure, there's a bunch of people that won't like me for the stuff I'm saying here, you know, like, there's a whole community that won't like and won't he rocks. Exactly. But. But the thing is, you know, I come with a heart of, like, servitude and wanting to really help people and help our country, bro. You know, God, family and country, dude. Like, we need that more and more. And you, I don't know about you guys, but I feel like people are waking up more to this now. People are like good values and so forth. It's like people are like, whoa, you know, this hasn't been working out too much. Like, let's go back to old school stuff, you know, And God. Jesus is the center of that. And I say Jesus because a lot of times people very. And I don't say God because, like, which God are you talking about? I'm talking about the Creator, my friend. Talking about Creator and Jesus Christ, man. That's the line of thinking that sustains me, fulfills me, and guides me, bro. And to tell you the truth, I'm not even. And my goal is not on this earth. I'm focused on the life to come. This is just a passage. Your real life is still to come. So that right there fuels me. And I'm trying to work as hard as possible to buy my plane ticket to the kingdom of heaven.
- [67:47]
James
And you're investing in eternity.
- [67:49]
Dr. D
There you go.
- [67:51]
James
On that note, Dr. D, we'd like to end these podcasts off with two questions for our guest. I'll start and Jack will finish this off. But Dr. D, how old are you now?
- [67:59]
Dr. D
40.
- [67:59]
James
40, man. If. If me and you were to die tomorrow and you had one more message to leave with the younger generation, what would that be?
- [68:05]
Dr. D
Listen, you. You have. You have a. A blueprint that God put inside of you. You have a design that God put inside of you, and you have this desire that. I know you feel what it is, but sometimes it gets too noisy. And God whispers. He whispers. Silence your mind. Silence your life. Listen to what that is, and seek it more than anything beautiful.
- [68:35]
Josh
And if it was all said and done tomorrow, how would you want to be remembered?
- [68:40]
Dr. D
They say you die two times, right? They say you die the first time your body physically dies. And then the second time is when somebody says your name for the last time. So I would want my name to echo through eternity by allowing the health message to bring people closer to Christ because a lot of people don't listen to him, a lot of people don't look for him. But when your health is in shambles, you kind of tend to call out to God. And if I could help people see that more clearly, I think I would have fulfilled my life's mission.
- [69:18]
James
Amazing. I love that. Guys, thank you so much for tuning in. That's a wrap on today's podcast with the legendary Dr. D. We're going to put all the links down to his socials and his company down in the bottom so that way you guys can check him out. Be sure to like and subscribe for amazing content every week, guys, we're bringing you guys the most amazing business legends. The pioneers that built companies in different industries like healthcare, tech, finance, you name it, are coming to the School of Hard Knocks. So we can't wait to see you in the next episode and do yourself a massive favor if you go down click the link in the description, you can join the School of Mentors, which is the number one entrepreneur community and network in the world where you get direct access to live calls that we host every week with eight, nine and ten figure entrepreneurs that you've seen on the School of Hard Knocks. So we can't wait to see you on the inside and in the next episode, we'll see you guys there.