What If Feeling Fit Is Not Enough

You can crush workouts, hit great HRV numbers, and still have arteries aging faster than you are. That’s the uncomfortable gap we dig into with Dr. Craig Backs, a 40+ year physician who calls himself a “recovering allopath” and now focuses on proactive cardiometabolic care. We talk about why atherosclerosis is an inflammatory process in the artery wall, how plaque rupture can turn a “fine” day into an ambulance ride, and why better measurement beats reassurance based on the usual checkup script. 

We also get into the hidden drivers most people never think to test. Dr. Backs explains how carotid ultrasound can reveal plaque and estimate arterial age, why “normal” lab ranges can still be suboptimal for longevity, and why insulin resistance and chronic inflammation deserve more attention than a single cholesterol number. One of the most surprising threads is the dentistry connection: gum disease, infected root canals, and oral bacteria can contribute to systemic inflammation that raises cardiovascular risk, which is why he collaborates with progressive dentists and remote “scanners.” 

From there, we make it practical. Dr. Backs shares his “badasses” checklist, why resistance training is often the missing exercise lever, and how to avoid getting distracted by expensive “entertainment medicine” when simple habits could move the needle faster. If you care about heart health, stroke prevention, dementia risk, metabolic health, and extending healthspan, this conversation gives you a clearer map and a stronger reason to act. 

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Transcript

Quick Habits That Move The Needle

SPEAKER_00 0:00

What are a couple things that people can do this week that actually matter? That I mean, obviously you're unable to diagnose them or whatever, but what are just a couple things that people can do that actually will move the needle for say most people?

Show Intro And Medical Disclaimer

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Well, if I can I'll just reinforce the again, the badass is, you know, minimize your intake of sweet starches snacks and sitting, meaning getting up and move more. How much exercise should I do? More resistance training. You know, cardio's good, but resistance training has been overlooked. I think that's starting to become recognized that lifting things, moving things, resistance bands, those kinds of things. So sweet starch, snacks, seatbelt, sitting, don't smoke, of course.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

This is the Longevity Loop Podcast, and I'm your host, Brett Wallace. In every episode, I bring you the leading voices in longevity, plus my own insights, put the world's best strategies directly into your hands, making elite longevity strategies accessible to everyone, regardless of your background. So let's jump into the loop starting right now. All right, welcome everyone to the Longevity Loop Podcast. We've got another great episode of uh scheduled for you today. Um, the longevity loop is brought to you by spanner.com, s-p-a-n-n-r.com, and that's uh our longevity directory that we put all our doctors in. If you're looking for a specialty doctor in your area or if you're looking just for information in general about longevity, we've got a huge archive of articles, podcasts, newsletters. So go over there, check it out. Really cool stuff. And just a quick heads up this isn't medical advice. Um, even though Dr. Bax is a doctor, um, you want to consult with your doctor before taking any of the things that we're gonna be talking about, or consult with Dr. Bax himself. Um, but for the most part, this is just a conversation to help you think a little bit differently about your health and in particular with this episode, your heart health, um, as Dr. Bax will get into. So, as I said, today's guest is Dr. Craig Bax. Um, and the funny thing is how I met Dr. Bax is through my dentist, which isn't usually the way that I meet uh the medical professionals that I interview on this show. Um is a really cool experience through my dentist, very, very unique protocol uh that Dr. Bax is will be getting into. And uh, and once, you know, we've talked before, and once I really start digging into what he's building, I was like, wow, this is a lot different than kind of the standard um heart health protocol that you might hear a lot of times. Uh Dr. Bex has gone through his own medical personal health journey, which he'll get into, and which always matters to me that he's really focused on helping people actually get to the root of what's going on and not just manage the symptoms, which as most of us listening know that that's kind of the standard medical care of the days of the days. The you know, the medical system in general is uh kind of like that. It's managing symptoms, not really getting to the root causes of things. And one thing I love to talk about on this show is really getting to the root causes of things and optimizing your health from a uh a ground up perspective instead of just the band-aid approach that it seems that most of the medical uh industry is kind of uh operating on uh these days. Um Dr. Bax is behind the Cure Center and the Cure Coach, which I'm sure we'll get into. And really what stood out to me is the mix of personal experience that Dr. Bax has and also just trying to really solve the problems that most people feel stuck with, and it's just kind of okay, this is just part of my life, and just you know, so you know, and then they just continue on on that path that's unoptimal. So, with all of that said, Dr. Bax, welcome uh to the show.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Thank you for having me. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, yeah, love to have you here. I mean, I just I I just love uh doing these type of shows because you know, I I I get educated one, and it's just really cool for you know people like you getting more and more out there uh and just uh uh telling the story to a lot more people. So you've got a personal health journey. Um I've watched that YouTube video of yours uh that led you to this place. So let's start there. What was going on with you with uh what you were discovering and um and your kind of aha moments and discovery moments through this process?

Bax’s Wake-Up Call And Weight Loss

Learning Arteries Are Inflammatory

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Well, first of all, uh your comments about mainstream healthcare. I I've been as mainstream as they come. I've been practicing medicine for over 40 years. I finished medical school in 1981, finished my residency in 84. And, you know, I I would I call myself a recovering allopath or an open-minded allopath. You know, so for those who know that you know the nomenclature allopathic medicine is traditional Western medicine. You have an ill, I have a pill, um surgical procedures, you know, re it's reactive medicine. And you know, I was caught up in that. I practiced for about 25 years, primary care internal medicine. I love the detective work, you know, people would come in with symptoms anywhere from just I just don't feel well to people coming in and cardiac arrest and you know practicing that gamut more less at first a balance of hospital and outpatient, but then uh uh more outpatient. I went through uh a bit of a change in careers. I decided I wanted to take a little bit of a break and transition. I'd spent three years as a hospital chief medical officer. So instead of doctoring people directly, I was uh trying to help to kind of manage the medical staff uh function and behavior. And then I'd left there after three years because uh, you know, I found I missed patient care, uh, and there were some aspects about hospital administration I liked, but uh I really it just wasn't I wasn't everything that I thought it was going to be. So I went back into medical practice. At that time, had ballooned up to about 235 pounds, you know, stress, relying on the traditional recommendations, it's all you know, trying to eat a low-fat diet, but don't worry about sugar. And uh I was I was uh confronted by uh a former neighbor of mine who uh he was a fitness uh fanatic at that time was very much into CrossFit. He was about ten years older than I am, and uh his name is Mike. I won't mention last names to protect the guilty for right now, but nevertheless, and there's a whole uh you can find that I actually was a uh about an hour and a half interview. We actually went out to the CrossFit uh headquarters and got interviewed uh by one of their leadership there, got to meet Greg Glassman and have lunch with him and all. So he he's but he said he saw a picture of me, and I was even fatter than I am now, and he kind of insulted me left and right, and he says, you know, why is it he says, I won't drop any of the coarse language, but why in the don't you doctors take better care of yourselves? And uh so his he he used me as a subject, uh kind of a uh patient zero, and he thought if he could influence me and uh put get me in better shape, that would inspire other healthcare professionals to follow suit. And I bought into that and it it helped. So I lost about 65 pounds, got down to under 170, the best shape of my life. I was doing some pull-ups and you know, kind of stuff I never imagined. Um but then COVID hit and you know it kind of fell out of that. I also had some injuries, shoulder, and so long story short, two hip operations, lower back surgery, neck surgery. You know, I'm not doing that high-intensity work at this point in time, and I have regained some of my weight, exercise has been limited. So if you see me now, you say, well, he doesn't look like he looks like he's heavier than 170, and you're right, but you know, I'm human. I have my, you know, one of the things that I count on for the longevity of my practice is that you know, huh human behavior is what it is. We all we do better, we do worse, we you know, we get committed, and then we relapse to bed. So anyway, been there, done that. Um, but in the process, I um I learned I had a correct ultrasound of my own at a lipid meeting, um, and I it verified that I had arterial disease. I have atherosclerosis. I'm like, hmm, how much should I do? And I was taking, uh, I think at that time I was taking a statin for high cholesterol, but that was about it. And I went and I so I, long story short, I found out about the bail-donine method. It was a two-day course, a preceptorship, 17 hours of drinking from a fire hose. Learned that pretty much everything that I've been taught about cardiovascular disease was wrong. Um, you know, Mark Twain says it's not what we don't know that gets us into trouble. It's all the things we know for sure that just ain't so. And so I learned at that point that arterial disease is an inflammatory progressing condition in the artery wall, not in the lumen, and that it can be this progression can be stopped and it can be put into remission. And the people that taught it to me offered a money-back guarantee that if you had a heart attack or a stroke, they refunded their fee for the past year, and they had only written one check in the last 15 years. So anyway, long story short, I emulated that, that that's pretty cool. I wanted to have my own evaluation, but their cost was so high and the cum it was so cumbersome, I had to fly. I would have to fly to their location in either Tennessee or Washington State, plop down at that time about$10,000, you know, and uh go through the process. And I thought, like any cheap Midwestern German blue-collar kid, I said, I wonder if I could do it myself cheaper. And so I went about the process of fixing my, you know, solving my own problem. This is how most inventions and businesses start, or many do. It's like I'm gonna deal with my problem, and maybe that my problem is something that other people have. Well, lo and behold, I mean, arterial disease is I'm just gonna say, if unless proven otherwise, you've got it, if you're an adult over the age of 30. And it actually starts in our teens if you really use very sensitive tests. And so I thought, wow, wouldn't it be awesome to have, you know, to be uh kind of an innovator in a market that's you know doing very poorly, but has a lot of opportunity. There's a lot of, you know, a lot of work that could be done. So that's kind of where I am today. I've for the last 12 years, I've been focusing on arterial disease and mostly focusing on taking the work that are the lessons that I learned from Dr. Bale and Dr. Donein back in 2013 and figuring out how to do it in a way that's more accessible for more people. And that includes getting the cost down, uh enabling them to utilize their third-party payment uh if possible, um, and also deliver it look mu more often than not in the same way that you and I are connecting uh over distance now by telemedicine services. So I I transitioned the name of my practice from my from my personal name to, well, first I call it the Center for Prevention, Heart Attack, and Stroke, and then I uh came up with an acronym, and CURE stands, it's not a promise, although it's an aspiration. It stands for the catastrophic unseen reversible epidemic of cardiometabolic disease. So C U R Castrophic Unseen Reversible Epidemic, which I wanted to describe attributes of this um uh condition, and also kind of say something about what the practice is all about. CureCoach is a company that I started because I needed a software platform to pull everything together, to communicate with patients, to share information, to educate, and to organize, and that's what the CureCoach company was about. And we developed a, it's called curecoach.ap, curecoach.app. It's a mobile-friendly website, and it enables me to um interact more efficiently, share documents in a HIPAA-compliant way uh during telemedicine meetings. So I, you know, I tried to s anticipate where everything was going uh and you know be di as digital, paperless, and I'm there. I don't have to use any paper at all. It's all digital and and pulling together all the resources to deliver the same kind of care. And I'm happy to say in the last 12 years, not one of our patients has suffered a heart attack or a stroke. So I should be charging a whole lot more and offering the money back guarantee. So I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, that's an amazing statistic. I I remember you sharing with that one of the first times that we talked, and I was like, that's that's an impressive stat.

SPEAKER_01 13:33

Well, I'm not you know, at first I I didn't tout it very much the first five or six years because number one, I wasn't really sure, but after a while I just noticed and then I realized I I tend I was brought up not to be as I I was always told as a kid, don't get too big for your britches. That was, you know, the you know, don't brag, you know, just do the work. And but that at some point I came to the conclusion that, well, if I'm getting these kind of results, people need to know about it. Um so it's not not brag, it's just it's just a reality, it's just a fact. And it it but it's also kind of a scary thing for a healthcare system that's addicted to the revenue from the number one cause of death and disability and the way it's dealt with is late-stage rescue with stents and surgery and rehab and all those kinds of things which generate tremendous revenue volume for the healthcare system and third party payers as well. So we can get into that if you like, but we'll we'll go we'll so I've kind of laid out uh um you know the the I the the journey from being a reactive physic you know, traditional physician to now being I call it proactive medicine as opposed to preventive medicine because in reality most of us are past the point of prevention when it comes to cardiometabolic disease. So that's you know arterial disease, heart attack, stroke, dementia, kidney failure, and you know type 2 diabetes and pre-diabetes, and what I call pre-pre-diabetes, or the rest of the world calls it insulin resistance. So the these things are far more reversible, far more preventable. But the key thing is to know that you you have a problem, you're more likely to react to get rid of the problem as opposed to you know preventing something. Well, but that we'll get to that to tomorrow. So that's part of how I try to separate myself from the rest of the herd.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

Yeah, that sounds like a whole different framing of it, instead of just going into a checkup and then the doctor's like, okay, you're great to go, where like from what you found, it sounds like it's like, hey, everyone has some extent of this buildup that's dangerous and it only gets worse. And you're saying you're coming less from a point of preventative because it's already happening and most everyone until they prove otherwise, like you said. So really your whole approach is reversing the damage that's there. So with you and you know, other doctors, what were what what were the doctors missing or couldn't connect that you later figured out? Like you know, obviously you go into a cardiologist and you know, they're like, okay, here's a EKG or you know, what whatever stress tests or whatever, and they say, hey, your your your heart's fine, send you on your way. So they're obviously missing something there and not connecting the dots. So what was it that you figured out that you know you were previously missing and that these doctors are are not really connecting the dots here?

SPEAKER_01 16:41

It's a really great question. Uh first of all, I will say they're overlooking or not looking for the same things that I was overlooking and not looking for because that was the way I was trained. The only thing I would say that maybe is different about me than maybe the vast majority of other physicians is I'm rebellious and open-minded and willing to change my mind. And being in solo practice, I'm able to innovate and change my mind and you know make a change more easily than if I was in a you know larger practice where you have to get permission for everything from a committee and you have to analyze it to death. Paralysis, analysis, paralysis by analysis, you know, is the term. So, you know, you know what you call a vote of 99 to 1 among physicians? A tie.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Bring on the doctor jokes, let's go. Right.

Making Proactive Care More Accessible

Gum Disease And Heart Attack Risk

SPEAKER_01 17:42

So, and this is part a big part of why um why I didn't I mean, I and I and I play well with others. I've been president of my State Medical Society, I've been chairman of the board of the Illinois State Medical Society, I've been a member of the AMA House of Delegates, so I know what it is to work with a team, but if you want to get something done quickly, you you go by yourself. Now that we now what I've what I'm interested in now is in going far, you go with others. So you it's important to start building a network of you know, team. So um, but one of the things in particular was this dental connection. Um, you know, I I heard a lecture the first time I ever heard a lecture from a dentist or a periodontist ever in my life, because in in pre-med, you know, it dental medicine, dental school was where you I'm sorry to say to my dental out, you know, I don't know how many dentists listen to this, but you know, the old uh what's that uh the hangover movie, oh you you know, you're not a doctor, you're just a dentist. I don't I promise I don't, you know, I I respect dentists and what they do. I mean, some of the stuff they do is amazing, but the the idea that about fifty percent of heart attacks and strokes you can tie back to inflammatory conditions in the mouth. And I went, what? You know, that you know it but in reality when you dig into the science that was driving the inflammation, bacteria and inflammation in the mouth and infected root canals, gum disease, uh in fact they say, you know, I've come up with the the smoking gun for your heart attack might be your smoking gums. The inflammation that's in the in the gums maybe have driven that event. So that was one thing. And then the um the focus on okay, what really is happening as this disease progresses and what really happens when an event takes place. And so it's d I use the analogy of acne all the time. So if you think of the wall of your artery as your skin, acne is an inflammatory condition, more generalized, but in spots you get pimples, and that's what an atherosclerotic plaque is. And if that plaque is big enough, yes, it can constrict the blood flow in the lumen, but why does it suddenly you're fine one minute, then next minute you're in an ambulance, you know, uh fighting for your life, and if you're lucky you get to the hospital and get rescued, you know, with a stent or angioplasty, and the answer is, well, that plaque, like a pimple, can rupture or pop. So, and it's when it's the newly formed plaque is the most vulnerable to rupture. That rupture of the plaque causes the blood clot to form within the lumen of the artery, and it's the blood clot that cuts off the blood supply to part of your heart or part of your brain, heart attack, stroke. And so you have this thing that goes very slowly for a while and then suddenly it you erupts like a like a volcano, if you want to use another metaphor. So that was really an aha, you know, moment. And by the way, you can you can detect this easily with safe detection techniques like carotid ultrasound, and you can actually measure and see it reverse. You can get you see your arty well get thinner and healthier. So it was really and it really appealed to my uh at the time I uh you know with with fitness, one of the things that I learned in that process was that if you expect to get better, you have to measure it. So you have to you have to track your times, and you need to uh take keep track of your personal records or personal bests for your bench press or the number of squats you can do or how how how heavy you can squat or you know, all those kinds of things. But if you don't measure it, you're not going to improve. So that's one of the key things that and you know, in mainstream medicine, we do this with blood pressure and cholesterol levels, but it matters what you measure. And so we were it turns out we're measuring many of the wrong things. So like the focus on LDL cholesterol, I tell my patients now, we'll look at it, but we're not gonna stare at it the way your other doctors are doing. We're gonna actually look at other things like measures of inflammation, like artery wall thickness, like LPPLA. Myeloperoxidase, microbial, and the caratinin ratio. I'm not, you know, these are just things that aren't done as part of mainstream healthcare. And digging more deeply into the root causes that aren't looked at and doing our best to mitigate each one of them to the greatest extent we can. One of the issues that we focus on a lot is we're not just shooting for good, we're shooting for optimal. So for instance, with vitamin D, the mainstream healthcare would define a vitamin D deficiency as under 30, but an optimal vitamin D is probably closer to 100. So in my mind, a vitamin D level of 60 is still vitamin D deficiency to some extent because it's not optimal. Why is that important? Well, vitamin D is a the you know so-called sunshine vitamin, which is more like a hormone, is central to a lot of immune functions, insulin sensitivity. It's just one example of if you have the wrong target, yeah, you're gonna be average, but who wants to be average? You know, who was happy, you know, getting a C, you know, at least among people who really want to excel. So we're shooting for an A plus in all these measures, and that's how you put that all together. And each person is an individual. You know, for you, you know, genetically there might be some factors that don't affect me, and vice versa. So you can't just say one size, you know, there's not one size fits everybody. In fact, it's I always say one five one size fits nobody.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

Yeah. Yeah, and and it seems like the medical establishment as a whole is kind of like, you know, when you look at the CDC recommendations, like you just said, like the vitamin D, it's grossly under, you know, and even like you said, the 60 is it milliliters per deciliter or whatever the measurement is, you know, a lot of even functional health, you know, kind of even more kind of you know, quote unquote cutting edge physicians will say that that 60 is that prime number to uh that's the minimal. Whereas like, yeah, with more progressive providers like yourself, and uh, you know, that you they're saying, you know, 80, 90, 100 is is more optimal. So um, yeah, that makes sense. The the traditional cookie cutter approach works for no one.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Well yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna be cynical and and and sow some skepticism. Why is it that the system doesn't adapt to these two things? Well go back to that 99 to 1 vote. In in healthcare, innovators have generally not been welcomed. And that's true in science, and in in all kinds of you know institutions, the church, you know, uh education, academia, people with new ideas. Galileo, you know, didn't do, you know, they he wasn't um praised during his lifetime. You know, they they uh it so the the these new and I'm not you know I'm gonna mean to imply that I'm Galileo or that. All I've done is I've recognized that the results we're getting are terrible. And well, why are so if you reverse engineer a process that's getting terrible results, then you're gonna find a lot of flaws in that process. And my plea, if I can make one thing, is our approach should be who's getting the best, you know, and many instances when I was in in particularly at the hospital as a chief medical officer, I was introduced to the idea, you know, best practices. What what institutions are doing the best? Let's emulate them. And yet that really doesn't, you know, what really happens is who's doing the best, let's throw stones at them and bring them down to our level, and that's how we're gonna compete. That's how we're not gonna lose patience to them. You know what I'm saying? And it's kind of part of human nature, you know, that we we don't say, oh, that's really cool. I'm gonna do that like that and see if I can do, or maybe even do it better. When in fact, what tends to happen is like, okay, what can I what can I do to, you know, make myself better looking by comparison by you know tarnishing their reputation or pointing out the flaws in their thinking.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Yeah, my British friends call it the tall poppy syndrome, you know, it's like you know, the like it's like there, and then yeah, you'll you'll get cut down. But I also feel like a big part of that is also just I mean, kind of almost what you're alluding to, but like everyone's safe in this zone where it's like financial incentives, you know, kind of tend to lean towards a more conservative approach. And and I think there's also the thing about liability, right? Like if you're just going through the standard care, you don't have a level of liability that someone maybe doing some different things might, because if you there is something that happened along, was like, well, that's how everyone else does it, and then you're like, okay, well, then you're not culpable at that point. Whereas if you are doing something that's cutting edge and novel, um, you know, and something happens, well, you know, probably whether it's your fault or not, they're gonna be like, well, he wasn't doing things normally, so or she, you know, like aren't doing things the normal way. And so maybe that's what we should look at. And I think that's a lot of the times it what help holds uh the medical industry back as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Well, there is that's our story, and we're sticking to it, but it becomes that's that's like the rebar is is put into place, but what really cements it into place is that they figured out how to monetize it and be financially more successful as a result. So, and you know, I I've I've been, as I said, we've been doing this for 40 years, and there's a quote that I put on my website, among others, um, by a guy named Eric Hofer, who I don't I think is otherwise relatively unknown. He's written a book. I have not read the book, but I love the quote. It says, Every good thing starts out as a movement, becomes a business, and ultimately degenerates into a racket. And I think I've seen at least the last two stages over my forty years as managed care, you know, started to take root. We need to control costs, which is a a good idea, good intentions, but ultimately, no matter how you do it, the incentives somehow, just show me the incentives and I'll figure out how to make money. And right now, I think the the money changes have taken over the temple and have overwhelmed the ethics of of finance, have overtaken the ethics of Hippocrates. So the and I mean it's just gotten more and more and so if we defensive medicine, I mean, uh started in response to too many lawsuits. At as President of the State Medical Society, I was elected during a year when we get liability reform when our enemy was the plaintiff's bar. Um, you know, that those those terrible lawyers who sue doctors. But I've also learned that the number one reason that patients sue doctors is not because they're injured. It's because after the injury they're stonewalled. They never get, you know, there's no admission that something went wrong. Why is that that who tells us to not talk to them? The attorneys. Who benefits from lawsuits? Well, ultimately the plaintiff might get some money, but the attorneys ultimately are the ones that, you know, the system is perfectly designed to get the results that it's getting, and that's who truly benefits from it. So until we take a real hard long look at the incentives, so defensive medicine, you know, is very lucrative for hospitals and radiologists, you know, order another test, you know. But is it good for patients? Uh you know, they're getting exposed to radiation, IV contrast, you know, all these kinds of things. Probably not. I I tell patients all the time, no, and I'm gonna say right here now. It's just like with free software.

SPEAKER_02 30:16

If you're not paying for it, you're not the customer. You're the product.

Stop Chasing Average Lab Targets

SPEAKER_00 30:23

Yeah, I've heard that before. Um, but yeah, I mean that's that's that's a great way to put it. And and it and I don't think, especially with our listeners here, I I feel like our listeners are a little bit more educated than the average bear, but really having knowing that the system is broke and actively seeking different solutions. And I think that's almost what the longevity kind of community and movement has come to realize. And, you know, with great clinicians and doctors such as yourself, really like, hey, hey, something's wrong here. There is a different way to do this, and this is how um, you know, you can move the needle instead of just being based in this like sick care system that I don't think anyone really thinks it's working that great, except, you know, as you said, is like the people making money, they they think it's working great. But but you know, for us patients, it it's it's just not. It's just really not. And it's really, you know, like I'm lucky to be working in this industry, and so I really get to talk with a lot of great people and do a lot of research and be like, wow, get turned onto some really great ideas, but that's not most people. Most people don't really have the time to dig deep into like what's really affecting their health, or even like what you deal with, it's a hidden thing that people don't know, which is almost more insidious in so many cases because the tests and ability to get tested without an actually overt system or or symptom rather, like you're just you know, for lack of a better term, you're you're screwed, you know, and until you actually show symptoms. And so many times when you show the symptoms, it's too late. And so, you know, it's just like one of those things. So, with you, what was one of the first things that actually that you found that actually moved the needle, like you know, with yourself, but also with the people you're working with, right? I mean, there there was obviously some light bulb moments that were going off with you where you're like, hold on, let's try this. And it sounded like it started with the the two uh you know clinicians or doctors that you went to and uh, you know, a while back, but well, I I would say it really started with the uh like, oh heck, I've got this disease.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Here it is on ultrasound, I can see it, you know, seen as bleeding. So you can't deny it anymore. I mean, I knew my dad had three stents, you know, almost died of a heart attack. My mom had multiple strokes and diabetes, you know, but that's sort of abstract. But now suddenly you see it, it's kind of like that, you know, moment when a mother, you know, an expected mother has her first ultrasound, and you see the picture of the baby, and so you know, that's like this is real. This is not, you know, theoretical anymore. Uh so I I think there there's that. Um to be quite honest with you, most of the things that I do that help people I learned not from not from medical journals or from doctors, but from you know, fitness coaches, you know, they're kind of ahead of their time. And they're so when I, you know, first walked into the gym and my coach, uh Mike, you know, said, uh, well, you think this is you're gonna have a six-pack, and I said, like, you know, I'd be happy to see my toes. You know, um and he said, but the six-pack isn't gonna be built in the gym, it's gonna be built in the kitchen. It's not what how you it's not working out, it's what you eat. And the answer is don't eat any sugar. Guess what? There's sugar in everything. You know, the same the same diabolical executives and chemists that made tobacco addictive are now working for food companies and making food addictive, and so-called food, processed food. Um, Franken food. I I call it, you know, I spell it PHO D. You know, it's uh and that we're being PHOL'd by these food ph o D companies. So um, first of all, you're transitioning the lifestyle emphasis away from you know too much fat and red meat and all that kind of stuff to, hey, we're just eating way too much sugar. Now it's a little more complicated than that, but that's uh you know, if we want to go on on one thing. And so I my my advice is you know, from lifestyle is to avoid the badasses. Uh sweet starches, snacks, sitting, seed oils, smoking salt, sleep disturbance, stress, and shift work. I'm I'm now adding a couple well, I'm gonna add one other one that can get in our way. Stubbornness. You know, thinking we know it all, you know, not being open to new ideas, uh living in denial. I that's a a real challenge. So a big part of what I've been focusing on for the last several years is I I'm pretty confident about the science and the medicine. I'm always learning new things, but I've seen how things work. I you know, I kind of had I can p recognize those patterns. What I've really been working on is sales, influence, you know, trying to persuade people. How do you get people to move from thinking about something to acting on it because thinking about it all day doesn't accomplish anything? Using you know, being more comfortable with the idea of using fear and anxiety, which is justified, and then offering a solution that motivates, using visual over verbal, using stories over studies. You know, as as clinicians, when we go into grand rounds, you know, the doctor, if you had to start telling a bunch of stories, the doctors would throw me out, you're unprofessional, you're an act, you know, that's all anecdotal. But if I'm trying to convince patients and I throw, well, this, you know, the Jupiter trial or the Ascot trial or this trial showed this, the eyes just glaze over and they don't, it doesn't lead to anything. The power of telling stories I've had to train, you know, the the successful outcomes come from being able to motivate people um and make them more aware. So and that's still a work in progress. I've actually, you know, one of the Scott Adams, I don't know if you're if you're familiar with Scott Dilbert, right? Dilbert, you know, I really appreciated Dilbert when I was working at the hospital. Just the whole, you know, the just the institutional. But um, yeah, he he his um his book, Wynn Bigley, and then another, if you want to understand about marketing, I really enjoy look butching video com or uh YouTube interviews with Rory Sutherland. I don't know if you've ever he's uh he's a British guy. It's all about how you look at you know things and you know what what really matters to people. Why do they why do people make decisions? And we have to realize that it's really emotions that drive our decision making way more than you know balancing risks versus benefits.

Incentives Behind Sick Care Medicine

SPEAKER_00 37:25

Yeah. Well, I mean, it it makes sense. I mean, uh it's it's really hard to act on something unless it's staring you right in the face, right? Like, I mean, I remember I mean, it just there's so many examples of you know, it's like I I would always learn something, especially when I was a younger guy, like, oh my god, everyone needs to hear this, and I'd start like talking about it, and everyone's like, yeah, whatever. But then it wouldn't be, you know, especially with food, you know, like I'll talk about you know, health and food all day long. Most people don't really take note of anything like that until they're faced with a challenge, or a loved one is faced with a challenge, and then they're like, hey Brent, what was that you're talking about back here, or you know, what what you're talking about, but you know, like whatever whatever it might have been that I was talking about at the time. But yeah, it's just like you can't it that's the hardest thing about human psychology. You can't force anyone to do anything, they have to be moved to go there themselves. And you know, the thing that I've figured out just kind of personally is just like let people know what you do, and then just when they're ready, they'll they'll they'll come and find you uh when it talks about that. So um, but yeah, I mean that's that's just a challenge, and especially with things that you know, the longevity switch of like or or just you know, the health span. You've heard that obviously, but it it's just like if we're going good, usually it's like, okay, great, it's just gonna keep on being like this. Why like people just don't think about the consequences of that, or it's like you know, it's almost like getting your car fixed or whatever. It's like getting, you know, the oil change. It's these things that you don't really see, but like I guess you know because it's a pretty well-known consequence if you don't change your oil, if you don't change your tires or you know, whatever these things are. And with health, it's even like just a little bit even more different because it's a you know, if it's not broke, don't fix it. But I feel like that is changing a little bit, especially with like longevity medicine, functional medicine, a lot of this stuff, the preventative care, the health span, really people are like really trying to optimize that. And you know, like you said, like even like CrossFit, I think had a lot to do with kind of sparking that is like, hey, going to the gym is fine, but I think we can get better results by doing like, you know, kind of these HIT workouts and you know, like these, you know, I forget all the CrossFit talk, the AMRAMs and you know, all that kind of stuff. But you know, just like really get into it and like digging into like, hey, what is the best um form of these things? And I feel like CrossFit, one of the things that they really brought was that that high-intensity workout type stuff, you know, these HIT workouts that, you know, obviously they weren't the ones that probably invented it, but I feel like they're the ones that kind of brought this new school of um kind of fitness to things. And I think that's also integrated with you know, longevity medicine, you know, people are interested in feeling better, living longer lives, healthier lives, not necessarily longer lives, although I think there's a lot of people that do, including myself that would like to live a longer life, but also just like the health span part of it. As long as you're here on this earth, let's make the most of those 80 years you're here, or 90 years, or 100 years, and really be healthy to the end instead of that, you know, the again, the sick care system is like I don't think anyone really wants to live to 100 if their last 20 years of just life is just miserable. It just it I mean, I I I don't think anyone really wants that.

SPEAKER_01 40:55

So I I call it I call it squaring the curve because you know that nor for most of Americans are now, you know, you go along and then you have a if you have a heart heart issue, you know, and then you have a heart attack, and then you have a stroke, and then you're demented, you know, you know, let's let's die old and healthy uh at whatever age that is, um and and be as functional and and contributing as opposed to becoming dependent. I mean one of the things that I'm pivoting more toward now is okay, if you don't give a damn about your health, think about your wife or your husband, you know, he's gonna have to take care of you. And what if you I know you don't care about if you die, but what if you have a stroke and you're paralyzed and you can't talk and you don't die? One of the things that, you know, going back to Scott Adams, you know, reframing the conversation, you know, away from. And let's face it, I mean, most of I mean human beings are selfish by nature. We tend to think only primarily of ourselves. Part of this is you know realizing that what we do from a health point of view has impact, you know, has repercussions, you know, for our family, for our community, for our business, you know, for you know, the people that depend upon us. So we have not only a you know an opportunity, but also, in a sense, a bit of an obligation, you know, to be as healthy as we can. I think one of the things that I I like, I think the conversation around health is getting better because it's being taken away from the people who are focused on sickness, you know, and public health, and you know, profiting from it and finding ways to you know monetize it to you know, how can we make health a virtue, not a not a not a uh uh you know, how should I say, not something that we you know, not a vanity, but you know, just something that it should be expected to be a full human being. One of the things about the CrossFit approach that I appreciated was not only the high intensity, but it was a multidisciplinary, it's not just about exercise. You know, they they talked about diet nutrition, the paleo diet, and then functional movement, you know, you know, flexibility, balance, virtuosity, all those different things that were kind of pounded into me from day one. And they were they were um before Greg Glassman got run out on a rail, you know, for reasons that you know, kind of notorious, but you know, he was referring to what was going on in healthcare as the mess. And I can't think of a better term for it. Um but one of the things I think you mentioned is that, you know, is the system going to fix itself? And then and I think the answer is emphatically, I'll just say flat out, I'm further certain of this. The answer is no. Uh you so that's why I'm not trying to fix the current system. I'm trying to be part of building a new approach that makes the old system irrelevant, obsolete, you know, seem ridiculous in retrospect, you know, all these kinds of things. And and to build more resilience into myself and uh into. the people that I that I provide care for and educate them, motivate them. That's why I use the word coaching. I I uh the I think coaching describes better what I do now uh than being a medical doctor I'm just here to point out your opportunities for improvement give you the tools to see that improvement and then hold you accountable for that those outcomes with measurements that's one of the things that I really one of the things I need to emphasize more than any I'd more of and I'm trying to focus on this if talking if any of your listeners or viewers are you know clinicians I love what I'm doing now as a physician. Now how many doctors do you talk to can say I love what I'm doing you know because it's become very demoralized as a profession. Because why? Because my I have a good balance of life of my I can most being proactive in the care means we can schedule everything. We we don't have to react to a you know event in the middle of the night these are think of all you know it's I talked with a fireman uh fire captain recently it's like you know most of the fires that that you people you say from fires are from building code inspections you know not getting up in the middle of the night and go and fight a fire because you made the building less prone to catch on fire you know handling the flammable materials the decisions that are made long before so it it's um it's not only great for patients it's great for professionals you know from you yeah so working with the dental community has been a you know it's it's had its challenges but it's also opened my eyes to a lot of other things you know to to respect the the way that they're looking at things too but at least some of them the ones that are more progressive like you know the one that you encountered.

SPEAKER_00 45:54

Yeah like Dr. Chrisman here in Tucson yeah I mean that's it's always a challenge. I mean I've known so much about you know the medical industry for sure as as well as the dental industry that like I feel like they're just still stuck in the stone ages with with some of the stuff they're doing and it's really tough to find a good dentist that is kind of like a biological progressive thinking dentist that's not just going to do the normal whatever procedures and that was one of the great things about Dr. Krisman who I went to that you know the intake you know it was just like going into a a longevity doctor for a first time or a really good functional medicine doctor. It's not a 15 minute thing it's it's a two or three hour process that they're you know and like when I sat down you know they're giving me the the cardioid scans and and just bacteria tests in my mouth and um you know like heavy metals testing and and it just a whole litany of tests which was awesome. Like that was just as soon as I was there for that I was like okay this is the right place to be I know I found the right dentist for me and my family because I know that they took the time and it costs a little bit more money, sure, but I know the end result is going to pay for itself in spades by doing a little bit of that you know an ounce of prevention prevents a pound of you know what what whatever that's saying is there. But um it's true. And then just also touching back on the doctors, you know, like you're loving what you're doing now. And one of the things that the privilege I get to deal with with like my longevity clinic marketing business where I deal with longevity clinics and doctors most of them have left that system to start these longevity clinics. And and I have to say that most of them are very happy in this thing because they're actually moving the needle. As most of them you know I guess fortunately or unfortunately they don't deal with insurances they don't have to deal with the all the you know the the red tape and PCMs and or PC like you know the you know the pharmaceutical insurance and you know like that whole mess as uh glass one would say. And so it's really uh you know it's it's really cool to be working with uh individuals like that and clinics like that that you know really do love what they're doing and they love what they're because they're seeing results just like you are with who they're working with. And so that's just a really cool thing.

SPEAKER_01 48:32

One thing I would appeal to the longevity market uh providers is if I can tell one more story um and I don't know how we're doing for time but um I I recently had a uh a gentleman he's in his early forties he um had a shoulder injury he was a athlete in high school and college he's the CEO of an international uh company lives about three hours north of where I am here in Springfield Illinois in the Chicago area and he went to uh a a longevity clinic in Las Vegas I think um got peptide in I think um oh what's the stem cell therapy for his shoulder injury and and and got on a anti-aging longevity program and but also happened to have a cariet ultrasound um because the company that interprets my studies had a booth there and he found out that his arterial age was considerably older and he had unexpected plaque and inflammatory changes. So he left there with treatment for his shoulder injury and he was very happy with the fact that he was now instead of running a 10 minute mile he was running a seven and a half minute mile and his weight had dropped by 20 pounds and he was you know throwing the ball you know 75 miles an hour now in his 40s you know he had been a pitcher in in high high school and college and and he was really excited about that but he was wondering if anything had happened with his artery you know artery changes. So he did his research he found a dentist similar to Dr. Chrisman in Oak Park, Illinois and got that I had trained uh in a similar way uh to do the ultrasounds and lo and behold his arterial age had not gotten any better in I think over six months and so long he came to see me we identified a number of issues related to his cardiometabolic health that had not been addressed or even looked at particularly by the longevity clinic and I I can't my comment to him is and we're gonna get a follow-up in a few weeks here I I'll be anxious to see if I've done him any good I you know I predicted I believe that you know I will have done some good but I said you know had you gone on you would have been a very good athletic looking very fit corpse so it's you know it's important to do the bodywork and the paint job but you know if the engine's about to blow up none of that's really going to matter and you know in winning the race and so I think there's and I'm not you know throwing any shade on I think everybody's doing the best they can with their describing their elf their part of the elephant. You know you know the story the the the blind men describing the elephant you know depending on where they were you know it's it's either like a tree or it's like a rope or it's like a you know but the point is we we all need to recognize that we have our blind spots and none of us have all of the answers. And but you know I think that making this case that you know if you have good arterial health and that um or cart what people commonly call cardiovascular health that's kind of essential. You know that's kind of basic to everything else. And um but if you don't you know you don't have what is that I can't remember who said that if a a healthy man has many many dreams and and goals and aspirations, an unhealthy man has only one not being sick or you're getting over their illness. So uh so anyway I think the uh the the interdisciplinary the need for us to be talking to one another and recognize that okay I've got you know I've got this angle covered but you might want to look at at this so I I don't try to I don't do you know somebody asked me about peptides or aging management I say well there's here's resources for that. I'll take care I'll I'll play my position and play it as well as I can recognizing that I you know at uh I'm too short to be a a you know a you know a center you know uh but the centers are too uh too clumsy to be a uh you know to be a point guard although I watching the NCAA in the final four or the uh it's like my God some of the the athleticism of some of these big men is just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 53:11

Yeah well I did it's it's the NCA right now is huge here in Tucson because I think Wildcats are probably number one or number two right now. So it it's it's it's been pretty crazy here in town to see everyone you know with with all that with but yeah the with the athleticism there. I mean one thing you talked about with your friend there, you know, like he went to this clinic in Vegas and got tuned up and was able to like improve his athleticism start running faster miles and whatever. But I think that's one of the biggest misnomers and I'd like you to kind of address this too is like just because you know you got the six pack like you said the paint job and the tires or or whatever I I think that's such a common misconception including myself up until you know fairly recently in the last couple of years oh I'm I'm fine I'm a bike rider you know like I I can you know crush you know I'm still crushing you know personal bests on my bike and I'm getting better and I'm faster and I'm eating and sleeping and my whoop tells me about my sleep score and HRV and all this is great. So I must be doing fine. There's no chance of heart disease with me but I that that's obviously not true. Right?

Healthspan Mindset And Blind Spots

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Well exactly there's a lot I call them blind spots you know in this and I think you know my the program that I learned and that I've fine-tuned to fit my practice style and emphasis covers most of those blind spots but there's genetic factors that you may not be aware of. You know if you're otherwise physically fit but you have a mouthful of high-risk bacteria that you didn't know about that that are causing problems and you and nobody looked um that could be causing all the this silent problem and then suddenly you know you have an event it's it's good to look under the hood and make sure that everything else is okay. And here's I think the key thing and I fa I finally figured out how to explain this because I I've run into like this guy I talked to is that and you're an exception I or you're different in this respect. You recognize it most of most people say if I tell them well your arterial age is 20 years older than your chronological age and it can be better immediately they shut down how can that be it can't be you know they're offended you know it's like how dare you it's almost like how dare you tell me I'm gonna die from a heart attack when I feel so you know I look so great. And uh so I finally come up with you know you can do all these things but sometimes you just don't get the arterial health you deserve. You know you're doing a lot of good good things but there's this two these two or three things have been missing in the evaluation but we can help you with that. So you know get past the ego and get to work on those things and you can have every you know have all these things but we we have to be open-minded that hey hey maybe we don't have all the answers you know or maybe maybe I have to be circumspect about the last five podcasts I've read or listened to you know which give me different flavors of advice how do I deal with all the noise well I mean part of the answer is establishing a relationship with somebody that you can trust who has a track record who's credible who you know knows how to communicate and figure out your priorities and put it all together. So I mean I I look at things like in you know uh these programs like function health where you can get a hundred tests you know for in a very reasonable price you know my question is if you can get a hundred of those those hundred tests for less than five hundred dollars you know why you know when you when your insurance was paying for it it would cost five thousand dollars you know that's a whole nother conversation but I I say you know it's a lot like you know calling up Home Depot or Lowe's and saying I want a house and they drop a load of lumber on a lot here's your house. Well some assembly required you know somebody's got to have the have the uh experience to say okay that's really important in your case and it might be important in 98% of other cases but in your case this is more um important than we need to be focusing on and I spend a lot of my day um doing that and I really you know I it's both challenging and it's and it's um uh but also you know it can be frustrating at times and and and narratives develop about certain things. Can I can I put in a bit of you know can I put in a maybe for your audience maybe a counter uh narrative to the the statin and the pharma narrative um because I get a lot of people who are very skeptical about you know the benefits versus the side effects of statins and I would just say that statins are primarily useful because they're anti-inflammatory. They're safer and better tolerated at lower doses yet still get the same reduction in events for heart attack and stroke. Now there are alternatives that are in the in the um nutraceutical space that sometimes get similar results but um I I'm always uh I have many conversations with people who, you know, when I show them what the true outcomes with low dose, like I'm talking about 20% of the usual starting dose statins and they see the reduction in arterial age over time and then in themselves it's hard to not be for me not to at least offer that to people and give them that opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 58:38

Yeah so let's let's talk about that a little bit like what I'd like to hear you know and probably my audience does too is like what are how are you helping people like when they come to you or through a channel through the dentist or they might be coming through you for finding you online or maybe through this podcast. Can you describe what the process is that you act how how you work with people that come to you and it sounds like you know I guess I would ask is like who's the perfect client for you but it sounds like probably most people are because it's just something that's hidden and it's not like hey I'm trying to improve my PR push up max or something. You know it's it's something that you know it sounds like most people would benefit from finding this information out.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Well I may not improve the number of push-ups you can do it but I can improve the chances you'll still be doing them 10 years from now or 20 years from now. The so generally I've evolved over the years. I was taught you know the first thing to do is get a crud into my media thickness ultrasound as as kind of the gateway. But first of all if somebody's already had an event it's not too late to prevent the next event. I have patients in their 90s you know who couldn't care less if they've dropped dead from a heart attack but they don't want to have progressive memory loss from dementia which is can be slowed or prevented by the same basic principles. The root causes for cardiovascular disease, neuropathy, dementia, kidney failure are all there's a common pathway called chronic inflammation, oxidative stress brought on by you know the badass I mentioned and but they can be mitigated by you know interventions. So if they've had an event, call me. I do what I call Discover Zoom. So it's a it's you know what are your you know where are you what can we do? And that can be you know it uh it's no cost. Uh we just talk about you know what what's the interest. But if there are no symptoms but you know want to be proactive for whatever reason because of family history or just you know something happened to a friend, you know, a loss or just whatever, uh typically starts out with some kind of screening measurement or baseline measurement. So carry ultrasound, if we see plaque here then we know we have something to work on and motivate and and follow for measurement. If the caroids are clean, corneary artery calcium score is useful as a screening tool but it's not useful as a something to monitor or measure for monitoring for benefit and I won't go into all the details for that right now but just to plant the seed that that's not an ideal screening tool. But or if they know that they have an elevated lipoprotein A because of a function health test or a you know they they let's just you know tell me what you got let's see where we can go from there. If they're close enough or you know that they can come see me that's great. But we also I'm developing this my goal is to develop a network of I call them scanners. I don't like the word provider you know but provider is a contractual term that's been used to provide to describe professionals. I'm a medical professional you know I don't provide you know I I care for people and I you know I treat and I coach but that that's so the point is I call the like Dr. Crisman is one of my dental scanners.

unknown 1:02:09

Dr.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:09

Scapolato in Oak Park is a dental scanner I support him in helping him interpret the the images that he obtains that Dr. Crisman obtains and then following up with the patients with their with their problem as I did in your case and and many others. So now we see we have a problem with good baseline measurement. You know one of the other tools I use is a body composition analyzer which there are many brands I happen to have an inbody 570 um I have another one that's in about an hour away from here that's networking into the same database so I can follow people on the in-body that and then we use Quest diagnostic for the laboratory testing. So let's say you have this condition we need to get to the root causes there's about a dozen tests about four of which are standard in the general panel but the other eight are above and beyond we get that drawn at Quest at a Quest Patient Service Center which they're all over the country and they have a common data or common platform for entering the orders and retrieving the orders and then we meet you know when those test results are back and we start doing our assembly. We have our we have our IKEA dresser parts laying on the floor we're trying to them out help you put it all together into a plan. And then we I I I use a I call that the first huddle so then we develop a game plan and in about three months we re-huddle and look at the results or the blood tests and then typically if you know then we if things that are working we keep doing and things that aren't optimized we fine tune. And that's iterated every three to six months in general depending they get time off for good results you know if the results aren't what we want we might have to re-rehuddle up a little bit quicker. So it's it's all a matter of just monitoring over time. And so I and you know people I think monitoring is important for accountability particularly with lifestyle related diseases we need to be reporting in and you know re and be remotivated from time to time. That's why personal trainers are so effective because as I mentioned human nature you know uh I I don't work myself out of a job and very few people get it spend six months go on for the next you know six years never seen be seen again and continue to get the same results because you know fall off the wagon whatever have you so um so it's a it's a great the the key the the the challenge is coming up with a business model that makes sense that more people can afford it which in my in my estimation people are paying a lot of money or somebody's paying for their health insurance if the insurer will cover a service then let's get it covered. But just because they don't cover it let's try to find a way that makes it you know accessible and affordable and you know you don't have to well I one of the other elements I think that I kind of separated a bit from my mentors in that I don't let perfect be the enemy of the good. You know so if we can nudge you you know 20% of where you need to be that's 20% better. You know if I can get you a hundred percent there, you know that's great. But we don't it's a it's a step by step by step. No very few people can consume or modify more than three things at one time.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

Yeah dozen things at you it just you know gets lost.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

So so you're looking at blood panels that you're getting and you're ordered specialized ones that are kind of like you said go above and beyond you've got the in body which is body Composition similar to like a DEXA or something like that, right? Where you actually see body fat, visceral, um, subcutaneous, all those things. And then the cardioid ultrasounds. Um, those are kind of your three tools there. So when you begin looking at all these things, is it more about finding like just one big issue? Is it there, or is it kind of stacking multiple small things that you're thinking and kind of like playing with the little switches there? Because I imagine this isn't a one-size-fits-all approach, correct?

The CURE Workflow And Follow-Ups

SPEAKER_01 1:06:31

Correct. Absolutely. Every you you've seen one, I call them cure plans. Um, you've seen one cure plan. It's just like contracts. You've seen one contract, you see one contract. Everyone has their own unique circumstances, there are things that people can do. Uh maybe their diet is off track because you know their spouse isn't on board and they're the cook. And one of the things I from a from a marketing point of view, well, I actually from a marketing and care point of view is I if I see uh a woman, you know, I ask, well, what about your husband? You know, and then vice versa, if I see him, if and typically if the wife brings the husband in to be evaluated, I then turn to her and often find that she has more of a problem than he does. But the key thing is we get uh that I can coach a couple more effectively than the individuals. So but having I probably got a little bit off track there. But the it's you know, you you come up, okay, here is the list of opportunities, you know, what can what do we want to address first and how can we address this? And you know, here's the list of supplements that that I think would you know address each one of these issues and we'll address them to the extent we can. And then when we reconvene, we see what kind of progress has been made on each one of those elements until we get them all right. I'd I'd liken it a lot more to how how multidis the multidisciplinary approach to cancer. You know, it's not just radiation treatment, it's not just surgery, it's not just chemotherapy, and now they develop, you know, there's there's uh you know uh targeted therapies and all these other, you know, ways and it's it's really almost like being a chef in the kitchen and you have these ingredients, and how do you come up with a you know, come up with the right recipe for that, you know, appropriate dish. And I think this is where, but there there are enough common themes that we focus on that you know everybody can start on. So one of the things I do I've developed a template in my electronic medical record and a checklist that I go through. Okay, we and this will be this is something that would be optimal but optional. We can put it off for right now to see how the things go. We don't have to do it everything all right away to kind of deal with budgets and lifestyle issues. So that's what and that's what makes it you know kind of fun because it's not brote. But I would say that the biggest issues that are typically overlooked is too much attention paid to cholesterol and not enough attention paid to insulin resistance and you know, sweets and starches and processed foods. Um too much emphasis, more emphasis on exercise and not enough on what we put in our mouths, you know, in terms of dieting. Um right now the ch another challenge is you know that with the glyp one inhibitors, the ozempic, the regove, and you know, these weight loss drugs is yeah, maybe somebody who's 350 pounds who's you know about to go on insulin because their diabetes is out of control, that's a good solution. But if you're you know, if you're 15-20% overweight and it's just because you know your spouse keeps buying you potato chips and you shouldn't be having those, that we need to deal with it differently. So um, and just you know, the idea that there's a magic bullet or a magic pill that's gonna solve everything. Um there is although I will say that you know the the uh the war I call it the war on statins or the anti-statinism are i is I think um misguided at least, and I think it's actually potentially gonna lead to worse outcomes, but it gets people to buy into more lucrative PCS K9 inhibited pharmaceuticals, they buy more supplements, they have more stents in surgery, so maybe there's uh there was another motivation going on here.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:30

Yeah, well, I I guess you just never know really with people's personal recommendations there. Um, one thing I wanted to kind of follow back and double-click on, you know, with your S's, I I kind of lost count because it seems like there's a dozen or so. But you said salt is in there, and I feel like salt is one of those really controversial ones where you know you hear like, okay, too much sodium is a bad thing. I think that's established. But then you obviously need sodium like to function, right? And then like with someone like me that's living in Arizona and sweating all the time, it's like, okay, I I do see supplements, or maybe not supplements, but products like Element, for instance, that are advertised all over by influencers and you know, and then you know full spectrum salts, you know, that are that are, you know, like uh like I think Baja Gold is one of them that they always say that you know that the sodium content is actually lower, and then the mineral content is a little bit higher. So is it actually sodium that we're looking out for? And what exactly is it that we want to watch out for when it comes to overdoing it on this thing? Is it a lower quality sodium that we want to watch out for? And and I know it has something to do with art artial stiffness, right? Is the sodium component to what you're talking about?

SPEAKER_01 1:11:44

Well, it's probably it's far more complicated than we would have time for to go into detail.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:50

But I think fair enough.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:52

Um that um, you know, I I keep it in there because uh it's hard to be cr, you know, I kind of have my feet in both camps, you know, because I don't, you know, I I think they're we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. So I would say I'm more liberal. Salt is if I had to organize it in terms of priorities, I kind of do when I go to the sweets, starches, and snacks are at the top of the list. You know, CDOs are kind of in the middle, salt is stored toward the end. And you know, like even smoking, I think sometimes think that maybe smoking, you know, caught the attention when sugar was doing all the crime. You know, they s they say you don't have to outrun the bear, you just have to have a slower friend. You know, so the and I so I I I mean I don't encourage people to smoke, don't get me wrong, but you know, I think we should be paying way more attention to the processed foods. And I think we are starting starting to now. But I think for the average person who doesn't have high blood pressure, who doesn't have heart failure, who is physically active, I don't recommend salt restriction at all. You know, I don't say you know, take salt tablets, you know, that sort of thing. Um there but there are people who have heart failure, who have hard to control hypertension, although honestly, I think the number one thing that's overlooked, or maybe not the number one, but com very commonly overlooked is sleep disturbance of sleep apnea, and which is where the dental community can play a a big role. I I call it the five stages of dealing with with uh CPAP. You know, I I have patients who have gone through this, you know. There's no way I have sleep apnea. And then, well, if I have it, it can't be that bad, and I can't see myself ever doing anything about it. All right, well, I guess I have to be tested. Well, I guess I have it. I'm I'm I've been trying it, it's not as bad as I thought. And the final stage is why didn't you make me do this sooner? You know, um, and why did we overlook it? Um so it it's it's uh it's an evolution. I'll just throw in a plug for our sleep medicine screenings. Um and so and so I think that's a that's a big big one. But anyways, but go back to your if I had to drop one of the S's, I would probably drop salt as a as a priority, to be perfectly honest. But it it's there because of, you know, people kind of expect it to be, and it does play a role in some cases.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:27

Yeah, and I feel like it's one of those things that is also closely tied to processed foods, right? They're just oh like so much sodium in those, and it's it's probably you know, that uh like most things, there's quality of things matter, and of course, a lot of those things, just like the seed oils, you know, they're not gonna throw healthy fats in these processed foods, they're gonna throw the cheapest seed oil, canola, whatever like I was just talking with a friend the other day about baby formula, right? That you know, like because we just nerded out when our son was born about like baby formula, and in the States you couldn't find a decent baby formula. It it was all like non-fat milk and then replaced with uh canola oil, sunflower. You're like, what are you doing? You're putting non-fat milk in here just to replace it with seed oils. And we ended up, you know, buying uh a brand from Holland that you know was like full fat milk, and then the the only oil that they had in it was coconut oil, which to me was acceptable. And then, you know, and then uh like the folate versus the folio cat, it was just like bonkers how poor quality formula was in the United States versus other places. And you know, again, it's it's the quality of the ingredients there and and the I don't know, I guess that was a weird tangent to go off of there, but just basically like with the seed oils and the quality of these ingredients that are in a thing that should be a healthy thing, but you know, again, when things are too processed, it's all meant for shelf life, profit, not health. And I think that's one of the things you really have to be careful about. And and I know there's a lot of companies addressing these things, even just like with potato chips, making them with tallow now versus uh you know, seed oils or you know, which I think is marginally better. It's probably just fried things in general you should probably cut out. But you know, like at least there's you know, like a little bit better options, a little bit more conscious choosing of the ingredients there.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:23

Um I call them slightly, I call them slightly less bad.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's on the yeah, we we tell our son we're we're just kind of like good for you, neutral, bad for you, you know, and like a lot of things just come in. He's like, Well, what about chocolate chips? I'm like, well, let's just say chocolate's good for you, but the sugar's not that great.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:43

So, you know, if it's really dark chocolate, let's call it neutral, you know, and and and you know, kind of like and I think the the key thing is that you know, a treat, an occasional treat, is one thing, um, but a steady diet of the same poison, you know, it can be lethal. And but the problem is uh we have a a food industry that's that's focused on consumption, meaning purchasing, meaning sales, and they want it to grow. So, you know, addiction is a great model for keeping a customer. You don't want to kill them, but you want to keep them addicted. And and sugar is is the not it's the number one addictive substance in our environment. Uh you can stay away from alcohol, you can stay away from heroin and cocaine and cannabis or you know, tobacco, but it's very, very difficult to get away from sugar. And some people, you know, like some people can drink and never become addicted. Some people might even be functional heroin users, not too many, but you know, with with sugar, if you're addicted to it, it's very difficult to be abstinent. Uh, so I have to I I put in a plug for let's, you know, let's have some compassion for that um group, but at the same time, let's not enable them or say that you know it's not a problem. And you're, you know, but you know, sometimes you you you know you'd have to settle for an antidote, um, you know, and and just again, do the best you can. My goal is uh I I came up with uh you know said nudge and you know nudge people in the direction. Um and somebody said, Oh, you don't bludgeon people. So now that's my new I don't bludgeon you, I nudge in you.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:26

Yeah, and and it's all about meeting people where they're at, you know, and then that's the great thing about like, you know, your position that you get to spend some time with people and a lot of the new, you know, kind of let's call them just new school practitioners where you're sitting down for a little while. So you get to really know who a person is and you can meet them where they're at and just slowly help them along and so be like, hey, you need to get more exercise, okay, get out of here, type of thing, which you know doesn't do too much of good for most people.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:54

Well, if I could, real briefly, I think one of the things I would make a plea to anybody who's looking at these practices, and then you might have to spend some, in fact, you should have to spend some money out of the pocket for that advice. If it's worth anything, you need to have skin in the game. Now I don't think it's you know, tens of thousands of dollars, that's not necessary. My goal was to I I have success with blue-collar workers, you know, and as well as you know, people in the C-suite, uh, maybe even more, you know, uh, because they're a little bit more open, you know, more of an open sponge in in terms of what they don't know, but they're both very coachable. Um, but uh, you know, so in my practice, I have uh the fee for service for the consultations and the labs and the ultrasounds, many, much of which is covered by third parties. But at typically at about six to eight months, I do um uh uh engage in with what I call a proactive medicine investment. Uh so what you spend on good advice is worth every penny, but it but it's not it's not an ex it's not a purchase or an expenditure, it's an investment. If it's good. Now if you you know it's if you're not getting good advice or if you're not getting good results from the advice. And I think that's really the key with anything that I uh if we don't debate about is this the right advice or that the right advice, or is this person more in tune? It may or may not be for the individual. Let's try and see what the results are. You know, if you get great results, great, let's keep doing it. But if the results aren't there, then maybe we should try a different way.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:32

Yeah. Yeah, I always I always think about it, and I've mentioned this on the podcast before, but it's it's something akin to teaching someone to fish and giving them fish, right? And it's like teaching someone to fish is way more valuable than just giving them a fish. And I feel like a lot of times you go to a doctor and it's like, okay, here's your prescription med or whatever, and it's not really teaching them anything other than just, you know, it's like here's here's the thing that will solve your problem, where like you just said, the valuable thing that you want to be investing in, to paying for, to really investigating, is someone teaching you the process. So you come away with something valuable. So, you know, I mean, I can imagine ever not needing a doctor, but you know, it's basically okay, here's your situation. What is a great thing to like coach you along? This is what will really help you, and then you be able to kind of maintain that on your own, and then obviously coming back for you know, checkups and and and making sure it's all going the way it is, but just sort of really like getting that information there and learning that even the best athletes in the world have coaches that they rely on.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:47

And you know, and so you can that there's that's really a a great model and that there's always new things we can learn that come along. And then we find out some things that you know we thought were valuable may not be so valuable. We have to be open-minded to being able to make those changes. Or, you know, maybe our circumstances change, maybe we could afford all those things, you know, and now we can't, or maybe we couldn't afford them, now we can. Um, you know, that that that's a it's an ever-moving, fluid, dynamic, you know, situation. But the key thing, the key thing to mock I always try to model with people is the further you are from the event from that continuum, if you go to my website, you can see the pictures of the artery, the greater your margin for safety. So if something comes along and pushes you in that direction, an infection, an injury, a surgery, a stressful divorce or whatever, you know, you're you're moving toward that event, but you start out here, not next to the event. So we you know we make you harder to kill going back to the old CrossFit um you know days.

Weekly Actions Plus Where To Start

SPEAKER_00 1:22:56

So Dr. Bax, let's make this real for people who are listening right now. What are a couple things that people can do this week that actually matter? That I mean, obviously you're unable to diagnose them or whatever, but but what are just a couple things that people can do that actually will move the needle for say most people?

SPEAKER_01 1:23:17

Well, if I can I'll just reinforce the uh again, the badasses, you know, minimize your intake of sweet starches, snacks and sitting, meaning getting up and move more. Uh what kind of exercise how much exercise should I do? More. What more um more resistance training? Um, you know, cardio is good, but resistance training has been overlooked. I think that's starting to become recognized that lifting things, moving things, resistance bands, those kinds of things. Um so sweet starches, snacks, seed oils, uh sitting, uh, don't smoke, of course, um, you know, stress, you know, you just have we have to find ways to cook with it and manage it. Um but be op, I think more than anything, be open-minded and also be aware that just because somebody has uh how should I say, uh not everything that sounds good is good. Um and you can spend a lot of money on a lot of things that, you know, I probably now here's I'm probably gonna may get in trouble with some of the viewers of what I call entertainment medicine, you know, or uh, you know, curiosity medicine or even vanity medicine. Uh it's really important to try to discern, you know, what makes sense from your point of view, what can you implement and do it for the long term, you know. So, you know, rather than spending, you know,$1,000 or on a you know red light, you know, therapy mask or$5,000 on a sauna, you know, maybe a good pair of walking shoes, you know, and find a hill to climb would be a better use of that time and money.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:56

Nice. That's some good advice. So if someone wants to learn more about what you do uh at the Cure Center and and and talk to you, uh where should they go? Where would you point them to go first?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:11

If you go to thecurecenter.life L-I-F-E. That's my website, the front page, the main page, has a series of buttons. You can uh download my free uh book um or you can order it on Amazon uh as paperback or Kindle. The free version is both uh uh is a PDF, and there's also a Speechify version that people can listen to if they prefer that. Um they can schedule a Discover Zoom uh just to undo that themselves online. We'll uh just chat like we are now. You know, what are their circumstances and how can how they can help? And um so I think if they if they go to that page, they'll find pretty much everything there. As they explore the website, they'll find my FAQs section, but the book, which is uses the acronym CURE, um, is simply a compilation of the FAQs, the frequently asked questions on my website, or I cover the things that so the way I've decided to scale my practice and influence is if I got a question more than a couple of times, I said, well, I need to write up a you know a page or a page and a half um that discusses that, explains that, so that I can say a couple of short things and then send them the link to read it. But the book is uh I didn't I wrote the book as an instruction manual or as an owner's manual. If you're looking for an encyclopedia or a textbook, I think what it is. Short to the point, try to be concise to the you know, and just so I don't know if you're old enough to remember uh Dragnet, Sergeant Joe Friday, you know, just the facts, ma'am.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:56

I I've never seen the show, but I've definitely heard that term before, so well great. So it sounds like the Curecenter.life is where sh people should go. They can get your book as a free download, right? Or they could go to Amazon too. What what was the name of the book?

SPEAKER_01 1:27:15

R E the catastrophic unseen reversible epidemic of progressive cardiometabolic disease is a subtitle. It's kind of a long but just if you go to Amazon and you search for cure, it it'll pop up. It's um I don't have a copy of it here, but um it's the same color as my shirt. I kind of picked this color as my um company colors, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:39

You got you got the theme going. That's awesome. Well, Dr.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:43

Be consistent.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:43

Dr. Bax, thanks for joining me today and uh educating and uh just uh sharing your knowledge and and wisdom. It's it's been a treat to get to talk to you here. Um and to those listening, if you got value from this, uh share it with someone who's trying to figure out their health, you know, it's like I feel like that's a lot of people, and a lot of people are getting more and more clued into this. So share the podcast. It helps me out. It helps Dr. Bax out, and it will help you and uh you know who you share it with out too. So, and then also if you're a clinic owner or practitioner doing real work like this and want to get help getting more patients, that's what we do at the longevityclinic marketing dot com. Um, and also spanner, like I mentioned at the beginning, sp-a-n-n-r dot com. That is where all things longevity, great directory. If you're trying to find a great doctor in your area that specifically helps you with uh living a longer, healthier life, uh, go there, check it out. So appreciate y'all. Uh thank you for tuning in, and we'll see you on the next one.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:49

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:50

This is the Longevity Loop Podcast.