Well, hello ladies and gents, Robert Sykes, kido savage.com. Today I've got special guest doctor Josh Levitt. He is a naturopathic physician and we dive into all things health. We talk about his his transition to naturopathic medicine, his desire not to go the route of traditional Western medicine. Talk about some of his motivations there, kind of the origin stories to what got him
into health in the 1st place. And we just really peel the curtain back on what is plaguing us as a species with regards to our current health status, what he's seeing in his clinic. What are some foundational changes that can be made to improve the health of his patients and the population at large? We talked about things, things that we can do on a very acute level from a from a bone density standpoint, from a soft tissue standpoint.
We talk about different biohacking techniques and protocols, talk about the importance of proper nutrition, recovery, mobility. We cover the gamut on a variety of different topics. I throw it into the conversation. I've got no doubt that you will take something from this. So that further ado sit back, relax, enjoy the conversation with Dr. Josh and we are live, Doctor Josh, how are you Sir? I am well, how are you? It's a pleasure to be here. Yeah, man, it's a pleasure to have you.
I'm excited to be chatting with you today. So I love bringing naturopathic doctors on because I feel like I don't know from a Western medicine standpoint there there's certainly some benefits to that. But I think there's, you know on the other side of coin, other side of spectrum, there's a ton of benefits that often go unsaid from the non western medical science. So I'd love to kind of get some back story as to what pushed you that direction in the first place.
Absolutely. And I totally agree with you. I'm, I'm one of the naturopathic doctors who who believes that there's good stuff in both, you know, on either side of that bridge. And in fact, for the last, like 25 years of my career, I feel like I exist on that bridge in between the alternative medicine side on one side of the bridge and the conventional or mainstream medicine. Side on the other and and, and I'm doing what I can, doing my part to try to bring those two sides closer together.
And yeah, if you want me to share the sort of how I got into this so many years ago, I'm happy to do that too. Would you like to hear that story? Yeah, I love a good origin story, man. Give me even the details. Absolutely, Yeah. Mine mine's actually pretty good, if I may say so myself. So I I went to UCLA as an undergraduate.
I always wanted to be a doctor. I was kind of a rough and tumble kid, a surfer and a skateboarder from Southern California, always banged up and bruised and spent much of my early childhood and braces and splints and the like. And and so orthopedics was always very interesting to me, mostly because because of my personal experience, I also come from a family with lots of doctors in it as well. So I went to UCLA in pursuit of that. I studied neurophysiology there.
And at the time, my dad was training medical residents in clinical psychology at UCLA at the Med Center there. And so I kind of like, I guess you might call it, backstage access to doctors at the time. And they were surprisingly discouraging about pursuing a career in medicine at the time. And the reasons for that are all the reasons why I think Western medical healthcare, especially American healthcare, is so
troubled right now. Increasing influence of big insurance companies, increasing influence of big pharma, etc. And so they were discouraging me from a career in medicine. I didn't know what to do with that. And so instead of going the conventional route to medical school, I took off for a year. And I traveled around the world. This is sort of like me with a backpack, hitchhiking, sleeping on beaches, youth hostels, that sort of thing.
I like it. And on that trip, I landed in Switzerland. And when I arrived in Switzerland, I was coming over from the Middle East. At the time, I had a blister on my foot that became infected. And it turned into this problem called Cellulitis, which you've probably heard of before, a terrible, superficial infection that was going deeper and and and was really. I mean, quite honestly, limb threatening, maybe even life threatening if nothing had been done about it.
A really serious infection that I had overseas in difficult circumstances. Anyway, I call home and get a prescription for antibiotics called into a pharmacy in Switzerland and there I go hobbling off to this pharmacy where I pick up this prescription for antibiotics. It was Keflex Cephalosporin antibiotic. And inside that pharmacy, there was all this natural medicine stuff, right? Herbal medicine things, homeopathic medicine things, nutritional things.
A whole new world that wasn't really relevant to my my Cellulitis at the time. I needed the antibiotics, which, by the way, cured the infection. But that experience inside that pharmacy, seeing that medicine was a lot more than just the pills behind the counter, really lit a spark in me. And in the fire from that spark is it's it's still burning strong right now. That's my that's my origin story right there. I love it, man.
I love it. So out of curiosity, you know, you going from a backpacking across the country kind of phenomenon like what made you did, did do you still kind of do some of the stuff you still do like spontaneous act like that or do you kind of feel more settled down now? I feel, I mean, I I think I'm probably forced to be a little bit more settled down. At that time. I was single and I was cruising, you know, at this point in my life, I've been married for 23 years.
I've got three kids and a dog here in the house. So yeah, I'm a little bit more settled down, but that's that's by necessity, not necessarily by choice. In fact my kids. The last one, my youngest one is 17 years old, going to be a senior in high school this year. And so the the nest is almost empty, man. And so when it is, I think more adventures, hopefully without the Cellulitis, await both me and my wife. Very cool, man. It's exciting stuff.
We got a 14 month or 14. Yeah, 14 month old now. So we're just kind of getting in that settled state with him. But I've been thinking a lot about like, I love travel and I love seeing different things. And it's just kind of cool, different chapters of your life kind of figuring out what you want to prioritize. Absolutely, Yeah. Yeah. I remember those, those days well, we had three kids very, very close together and that was, that was a whirlwind. Those were, those were beautiful
and challenging times. And I'm sure you would you would probably agree totally. So this may be totally off on a tangent here, but I feel like the the spectrum of health and Wellness and and medical intervention. You know if you look at the traditional Western medicine then you look at more of the you know Eastern medicine, you look at the homeopathic, you look at the natural path that you look at all these different alternative medicines.
And I feel like the the bridge is is narrowing to the sense that more people are becoming accept accepting of there being a blended approach. What do you think the catalyst for that acceptance is? Do you feel like the I feel like just more information over time is really hope that I feel like people are becoming more you know just tuned in on how there are benefits to these natural remedies especially when it comes to within the realms of nutrition.
I feel like that maybe that's my echo chamber because that's the the area that I'm typically residing in. But I feel like the general public is becoming more receptive to their being a blended approach.
Do you think that the I certainly don't want to get into a tangent about, like vaccines and COVID and what not, but I would imagine just the the State of the Union, so to speak, over the past few years, has opened people's eyes to the fact that maybe just the direction that traditional Western medicine has taken may not be all-encompassing. So first of all, I totally agree with you.
I do think that the bridge between those two worlds used to be a lot, you know, longer the the the two worlds were very much further apart and I think that they are closer together. I don't take any personal responsibility for that, but I do think it's true. I think that people on the alternative medicine side are starting to recognize that there is some good stuff that comes out of Western medicine.
I think a lot of us would agree if we get hit by a truck or when an ambulance takes you to the emergency room in a trauma situation. For my Cellulitis situation, you know that Western medical interventions can be great, but I think that so there's been some movement in that direction. And then on the Western medical side, I mean, there was a time in the early part of my career where Western medical doctors
that were in my own community. I live here in Connecticut, right near Yale University and practiced here for many, many years. There was a time when doctors like me, including me myself, were just considered straight up quacks, right? Just just charlatans. And now that is absolutely changed, partly by by way of personal relationships and a mutual respect that comes there and partly by way, I think, of what of what you just suggested, which is that increasing information, right?
In the era of my career, there's been this explosion of the Internet and the information economy, and people have information that was much more difficult to access before. And are starting to question authority in every kind of way, right, whether it's Western medical or otherwise. And so, yeah, I think absolutely we are definitely at a place now where people are recognizing that Western medicine may have its benefits but also has its liabilities.
And it's not a one-size-fits-all solution. It's not a universal solution. It's part. Of the healthcare landscape and I think people are increasingly understanding that. By the way, we still have a long ways to go. But but yeah, I think the idea that doctors and Western medicine and pharmaceuticals are the Holy Grail and the only thing that you need for your health is, is becoming. It's becoming more clear that that's not true to more and more people, which is good news,
totally. I think one of the, the main, you know, beacons of hope for me so to speak, within the the realm of alternative medicine is that comparatively to traditional Western medicine, there seems to be much more of an emphasis on preventative care and proactive care as opposed to, you know, retroactively prescribing a pill drug approach for something which I think that is where people need to focus on. Absolutely.
Yes, you're right. And you know I would piggyback on that and say #1, I completely agree, right. If we if we if we get a handle on all the foundational things that that promote health and things like diet, things like exercise, stress management, sleep, all the foundational aspects, you know, we could relieve a lot of the burden, economic and and health burden on our on our healthcare system
if we if we treated it that way. And that's good that a lot of people are starting to move in that direction, understand that. And then there's this sort of like there's this, I don't know, harsh reality. You might say that in my shoes, like in the in the world of clinical practice, as much as I would love to say that I have a steady stream of people coming into my practice over many, many years saying like. I'm doing great, Doc, and I just want to help.
I want you to help me stay that way. You know, like, Can you imagine, like, that's like the idea of a preventative healthcare practice is that, like, people are feeling great. They come to doctors to help them stay that way. And and the sad reality, I suppose, is that that's not really true. That's not how it works, right in my office, both in my practice and the practices of all the doctors that I work with
in my clinic. It's sick people that come in, sadly, you know, pain, sickness, that's what motivates people. And so we still have a long ways to go in that regard as well. It's still sickness and pain that motivate people. But the good news is that a lot of times it motivates them to come to a naturopathic Dr. or look for a nutritional or herbal or less toxic, less invasive solution. And and that's a beautiful thing. That is certainly a step in the right direction.
I don't view you or your field of work as a, you know in quackery terms at all. But in in your realm, are there certain components of alternative health that the naturopathic realm views as somewhat quackery? Like, are there things so far in the extreme that just like that is totally barking up the wrong tree there? Sure. Yeah. I mean I think that like anything, yes, absolutely. I mean alternative medicine can get way out there.
Woo woo is the term that a lot of times is used Western medicine can get way out there as well. And and you know I, I the way I think about it is, is that if if, if a treatment or it's any kind of intervention is safe. And is not going to delay a person getting otherwise effective care, then I'm good with it, right. Like if there is an intervention that a lot of people believe is a place you know works by way of a placebo effect.
And there's lots of things both in Western medicine and an alternative medicine that probably work that way. The mind and the the power of belief is a very powerful thing and so if if a person's going to use something that doesn't really have you know, strong biologic or physiologic effects. But. But. Works by way of placebo. That's great as long as it's safe, as long as it is effective and doesn't delay the person getting definitive care for a problem that could smolder or
get worse. And so, you know, I don't really think of of quackery that way either. Unless, of course, people are just out there. You know, ripping people off, selling them, you know, high-priced or high markup. You know, items or products that just don't meet quality standards or known to be ineffective, that's that's a real problem. And absolutely there's charlatans out there in every
industry, no question, totally. What is the field of study that has really garnered your interest as of late? What's kind of your like, what are you digging your heels into? What's a? What's the field of study that is not really in the limelight? That probably should be. Well, one of the one of the things that's really defined my practice in my career and and and I'm a very, I have a very
eclectic practice. So I see people with all sorts of different problems, common complex, chronic problems. But the area that has captivated me the most, where I think we have so much education to do out there to the general public, is in orthopedics and in musculoskeletal pain, because that's an area where #1. Hugely problematic, right?
Massive, massive amounts of pain, arthritis, degenerative disc disease, sports related injuries, etc. Out there, it's just a #1. Low back pain, for example, is the number one reason why people go to primary care doctors. And then number two, people have this sort of really strong belief that Western medical orthopedics, Xrays, MRI.
Guys, injections, surgeries, joint replacements are really the only way to go. And so that's an area you talk about digging your heels in. My heels are pretty firmly dug in there. Well, I'm totally frustrated with the Western medicine approach to proactively hedging
against some of that stuff. Like I I tore my LCO doing some Brazilian Jiu Jitsu a couple months back and just simply going through the decision tree to get any, any form of MRI scan or any, any any help whatsoever was just a massive hurdle. Like it was just not user friendly whatsoever. Like I was thinking, you know you can go and you can get a DEXA scan, you can get in body scan, you can go and get IV drips, pretty much any walk in clinic.
Now there needs to be like some walk in Mri's with some knowledgeable text that can show you what you're feeling, you know, graphically lay that on the screen and then you can have some you know, form of action with that. But they make those barriers to entry so high through the conventional means. They do. You're right about that. And yeah, it's interesting. I know you kind of have biohacking tendencies, you know,
as an elite athlete yourself. And it's, it's, it's interesting, you know, you want to be able to get access to that kind of imaging. And right now it's sort of behind this big insurance paywall. Interestingly, I had a patient actually not too long ago who similar to you, wanted to see images, MRI images of his hips. This guy was a runner at a pretty high level, and it was very difficult to get insurance approvals because his problem wasn't bad enough to justify, you know?
The, the expense of bilateral hip Mri's, which in this country cost about 1500 bucks each. So he, it just so happens that his wife lives in Greece, not lives in Greece is from Greece and they were going to Greece to travel to visit her family. And so we went to Greece and he got bilateral Mri's, one of each hip. And it was like, I think I saw the receipt, I think it was 300 bucks, You know, it's unbelievable. All he had to do was have his family translate the report back into English.
And so, yeah, part, partly what you're talking about is not just, you know, it's not just dogma or ego doctors or can be the only ones that have access to Mri's. It's just that whole healthcare landscape and the shockingly high costs of healthcare in America that's driving some of that. It is very frustrating. You're right. Is there any any horizon on that? Like, is there any hope for the future in that becoming more accessible?
Or is that just simply the landscape that we live in in America and it's not likely in a correct course anytime soon? Gosh man, you know that's a great question and I'm probably not even the right person to answer that. You're now talking about healthcare policy and politics and you know and things like you know the the influence of third party insurance companies versus a singlepayer type of system and and that's that's a rabbit hole. I'm not sure we want to go down
right now. We could but that isn't we'll be sure. All right. So let's let's talk about what we can control then. So like for you and your practice and your, you know, your clinical studies and you're in working with patients and clientele, like what does your typical avatar look like? Like what? Who's coming into your office? What are they typically wanting to do?
Sure. Yeah. So like I said, as much as I wish it was a bunch of healthy people coming in looking for assistance to keep it that way, what really what what it truly is, is people who are suffering in some way. And so I would divide those people into two main categories in a nature pathic practice. Number one, the first category would be people who are looking for a natural approach first, right?
So a doctor like me is the first person that they see when their knee hurts, when they have a GI problem, when they when something is amiss, right. They're feeling something, They have a symptom, something's new, something's painful, something's problematic. And they don't want to go the Western medical route first because they have some sense of what that's going to look like. And so they come to me first.
So. You might call that primary care, which is a kind of what a lot of people like to call it, right? So that's category one. And those problems can be across the spectrum of of Health and Human illness. Someone found a lump. Someone has a new pain. Someone you know, whatever the case may be, isn't feeling well. And then the other category is people who are almost the opposite of that.
These are people who are sick and they've been sick for a while and they've seen lots of doctors, often starting with a primary care doctor or an internist and then working their way through the western medical specialists of which there are, you know, all shapes and sizes for every different body part and body system you have a different specialist. Many of these folks have chronic complex multi system illnesses and they work their way through that system.
And they're still suffering, right? They're still sick. They still don't feel good. And they're looking for somebody who, you know, they usually come to me or my colleagues by way of referral. Because we have a knack for looking at a complex case like
that in a holistic way, right? It looking at the whole person, body, mind, spirit and the environment in which they live, which often can yield insights that you lose when you see someone who's just looking at your thyroid or just looking at your elbow or like a like a specialist does. So so yeah, those are the two main groups. And how long have you been doing this now again? I have been doing this for over 20 years now, 23 years.
If you were to map that out on a timeline, would you say that you're seeing an influx of patients coming in with these ailments or is that declined over the years? I think that there is increasing public interest in naturopathic medicine. I just to give you an example, we have a new Doctor in my clinic.
And her practice filled up faster than I've ever seen a practice fill up. So if that tells us something about maybe what people in, at least in my community, think about our practice, that's one thing. But I think it also says something about the state of affairs, people's dissatisfaction with Western medicine and their interest in naturopathic primary care. So yeah, I think interest is rising. And I also think that the status of health of a lot of Americans
of all these. Various type of problems, autoimmunity, allergies, all the things GI problems that bring people into naturopathic doctors offices, orthopedic and musculoskeletal pain are getting worse and worse, right? We have a we have an ailing population and they they need help and they're coming to us, which I'm grateful for. Yeah, that's what I kind of want to dive into, cuz like if you look at things on a population level, there's more information
than ever. And it seems as though kind of similar to generating wealth. Like the the wealthiest 1% keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poor, those margins keep separating. The same seems to be true when
you look at individual health. The people that are attuned to digging in the research, you know, doing all the spinal hacking and just diving deeper and deeper seem to be getting healthier and healthier in the the average population, the general population seems to be on the decline. Do you, I mean is there any common denominators you're seeing there? Like, do you think it's predominantly lack of movement? Sitting at a desk looking at
screens for dietary choices? Like what do you think the driving force is? It's probably. I mean it's definitely a summation of multiple things, but like if you were to get the low hanging fruit first, what would that be? Yeah, I get that.
And before we even start picking that low hanging fruit, I want to just like applaud you for recognizing that that 1% thing I think is a really good insight by you because you're you're, you know, and me too, I think are in that 1%, right, Like recognizing and understanding nuances of diet and even playing around with things. Like, you know, Genesis, like you're like you do and a lot of biohacker types do and experimenting with ourselves and you know, optimizing.
And I think it's easy for people who are into that sort of stuff to feel like, you know, like that is the reality out there in the in the world, right? Like we and have it our own little reality and we have our little, our little concentric circles around us. And a lot of times it's easy to believe that, like the world that we live in, that you or I are experiencing on the daily, is like the real world. And the reality is that it's simply not right.
Like that represents only a small fraction of the people who are interested in things like regenerative agriculture and eating a ketogenic diet or taking things like turmeric or Boswellia. You know where the average American and you know is, is is drinking Mountain Dew and you know eating double bacon cheeseburgers from fast food restaurants and Donuts and you know putting 16 sugars in their
coffee and. And it's so far from what you or I kind of even consider normal, you know, like the fried Oreos at the County Fair. I mean, people are eating those every day and and and that's so, So at a distance from the world that you or I inhabit, but that sadly really is there is the
real world. And, yeah, increasing, you know, prevalence of obesity, increasing prevalence of heart disease, increasing prevalence of diabetes, including when I was in medical school, diabetes was a type 2 diabetes happened to people that were 40 and older. That's what it said in the textbooks. Now it happens to kids and. And so, yeah, it's a very sad
state of affairs. And then, yeah, absolutely, like we can go down the list of bullet points of the things that we're doing wrong that that caused that. I'm happy to go there with you. Yeah, it was interesting, man. We were at, I was speaking on a low carb cruise about a month
ago. And it's like a normal cruise ship, but it's like a Petri dish of the population because you've got this, you know, very small group of I think 300 people in the entire cruise ship that were part of this low carb community that that are in the biohacking space. Everybody else is not like that. It's like all you can eat buffet at all times. Everybody's waking up at 1:00 in the morning and getting ice cream and Donuts and pizza.
Everybody's overweight. Like, it's it's more an oddity now to see somebody that looks healthy, much less fit, but just simply healthy. It's it's much more common to see someone that is classified as morbidly obese walking out of a grocery store than someone that just seems to look like they're in some degree of health. And it's a sad reality. But I think it it's important for us to, you know, be mindful of that reality.
We can't become trapped in our own echo chamber and assume that the whole population is living on Cloud 9 and get everything in check. Absolutely. Yeah. You're you're right. And yeah a cruise ship is is absolutely a little microcosm right of the of of the world and that that little slice is pretty pretty eye opening if you're not used to seeing what the typical
American looks like. And it's interesting, I was, I was, I saw something recently which was a book of of the old style and I'm putting this in quotes freak shows where they had people with like you know medical abnormalities and whatnot that would put on display, you know this the the original circus acts so, so to speak. And often they would have people that had, that had obesity, you know, that were on display as like, you know, the £400 man,
that kind of thing. People would pay a ticket and, you know, pay a nickel and come and come and see people on display. And it was really interesting because there was a picture of of the obese man that was on display at one of these circuses that just to me looked like a normal person that I see, you know, every day around here. And it was shocking to me that think back this book was, you know, this was many, many decades ago.
And it was like, wow, you know, we've come a long way And and that that's a sad state of affairs that we're in right now, for sure. And it's sad because like, I don't, I don't ever want to put myself in this. You put myself on a pet store. Think of myself as an elitist. That's certainly not the case. But what's sad is that so many people in the population are well beyond that £400 mark and they just simply don't even leave their home. And people don't even see them in public.
They don't see them going to the grocery store. They don't see them in daytoday life. They're just so overweight that they lack the selfconfidence or physical capability that even leave their home. And that demographic of people is growing quite rapidly as well. So we, we most certainly are living in a problematic time when it comes to general populations health. So.
So what? What's the cure to this man, this is like a loaded question that nobody seems to have the answer to. Yeah, what? What do we do? It's a very challenging thing and and and I think again, I'm gonna put 2 buckets out here in front of us and and and those two buckets are our personal health, right, the care of the individual. And then the other bucket is the care of population, something that, you know, medical researchers call public health,
right. There's private health, the, the, the care of the individual one-on-one like what I would do in my clinic or what you might do if you're coaching a client one-on-one kind of health care. And then there's public health, which is the taking care of entire populations. And it turns out that sometimes. What is good for the individual is not the same as what is good for the population and and vice
versa. So you know, to look at your question, you know what are we going to do about the all the problems that come with, you know, the chronic disease type of problems, the heart disease, the obesity, the diabetes, the increasing rates of cancer, the autoimmunity. And I would argue that all of it comes down to 1 central tenant, right and we can break it up, but that central tenant is that we are living. Out of sync with our natural
evolutionary biology, right? We are living in a world with which is full of calories, full of opportunities for inactivity with a body you know that's just mismatched for that. And because of that mismatch, depending on where your own genetic or familial or other vulnerabilities are, you might start to express symptoms. And so you might start to pack on weight. You might start to have insulin. Resistance. You might have cardiovascular problems, you might have orthopedic problems or
arthritis. Your body's going to degenerate in some way or another. But I would say the single common denominator here is that we in many ways not just diet but also lifestyle and also stress and also movement and physical activity, are living out of sync with. The way our bodies are supposed to work. And so what's the fix? Well, the fix is to get, I guess, back into sync, right? To get back to to to restore
balance. And there's a bunch of different areas that we can discuss about how one might go about doing that. And what's sad to like, you know, piggyback off of that statement, is that there's this epigenetic effect that's taking place that is resulting in this exponential decline in health. Like people's dietary decisions, lifestyle decisions now impact and they're you know following generations like the next three or four generations.
Like the people that are born, you know that they're even they have, they have less of a foundational starting point at right at the gates. So it's just like this exponential decline that we're experiencing and I don't know that people realize that. Like I think people just assume if they're unhealthy, it's only affecting them. A lot of people are ignorant to what they're doing is even
unhealth in the 1st place. But to know that it's negatively affecting downstream from them for the next 3 generations is is pretty pretty eye opening. It's eye opening and hopefully if people can help, if we can help people understand that you know that a baby girl already has eggs in her ovaries that already carry those genetics and then those epigenetic signals which will then be passed on to her children. And so, yeah, absolutely the epigenetics, the conditions.
In in the parents not not just the mom but the dad as well you know do have influences over their offspring and their offsprings offspring and you know we've seen this in research for many, many years. But to taking taking what we know and turning it into what we do has been a challenge for well for millennia. It's a it's a thing that humans have a notoriously difficult time with is turning what we know into what we do. Totally. So let's try to turn this, this doom and gloom conversation
around. Just. Yeah, right. We're getting pretty dark. Let's lighten it up, yeah? So if you were to be able to, you know, snap your fingers, flip the script, and have people live more in line to their evolutionary past, more in line with what we are structured to do as a species, what would that look like on the day today for the average individual? That's a great question. And and and absolutely there is room for light. There is room for hope and
optimism here. I really, I really do believe that it's really impossible for me to walk through the world just feeling doom and gloom like that. And I really think because I've seen it in my career, people can turn this around no matter what the problem is. I've seen remarkable. Improvements across the board and everybody system and every type of disease. Things that aren't really even supposed to be able to happen in Western medicine when people pay attention to these sorts of
things. So the first thing is what we're doing right now which is just open your eyes to it. Recognize that the problem exists that we are out of that you we are out of sync and then identify what is the the first step that we can take. My my job is to always just meet a patient where they are right. It's it's impossible to get somebody to make a dietary change if they're not. Ready to make a dietary change if they don't want to, if they're unwilling or in other ways unable.
So I'm always looking to find where can I move the needle the most, and often it's a dietary change where I might it might be as simple as having them. Eliminate or decrease the amount of soda that they drink. You know, let's go from six a day to two a day. Let's start there. For some people that's a change, you know.
For others it might be something a lot further down the line where we're looking to improve the quality of the oils in their diet and minimizing the highly processed oils that they're cooking with or eating in fast food and switching that out for something that has, you know, more antiinflammatory benefits. So I'm meeting somebody where they are usually starting with the. Diet or the diet always being a
cornerstone. And for me, the simplest way to describe the dietary approach that I advocate is what I call down to earth eating. You know, eating foods that come from the earth in a minimally processed form. And that could be from the farm, that could be from the field, that could be from the fishery. But foods that like are in as close to the form that they were in when they came up and out of the earth. And that might look like the the perimeter of the grocery store for a lot of people.
That's one way to describe it as well. Yeah, it's interesting for me being the ketogenic space. You know there is certainly a push towards regenerative agriculture, eating things that are as wholesome and you know, nutrient dense and single origin as possible. And I know the ketogenic diet as of late, you know the past three or four years has been in the limelight and that from a Google trend standpoint probably peaked back in 2018, I would say 1819.
But I feel like when you take the wild popularity of it out of the equation, just simply look at what it is at its core it seems to make a pretty good degree of common sense like you're eating wholesome single ingredient nutrient dent sources that are ideally sustainably sourced in line with the environmental well-being. And people tend to function much, much better once you remove the noise from the diet with all the processed hyper palatable foods.
So from a strict common sense and biological and nutrient availability standpoint affect the keygenic diet, you got a lot of things going for it. I totally agree with you there. You know, and and it's amazing to think and this is another area where I think we can be very much positive about the way the human body works is, is the metabolic flexibility that allows us, you know, our bodies are like hybrid cars.
And it's like it's unbelievable that we can burn glucose as a fuel, we can burn ketones as a fuel and we have metabolic flexibility and that's built into the system, that evolutionary system that I was referring to, you know, there were times. Back in the day, you know going back many thousands of years where you know there was only the kill that the that the tribe had to eat, you know and those were ketogenic times, no question about it.
Then there were times where the berries you know we're we're fruiting on the on the bushes around the camp and those were times where the the diet was a little bit lighter in calories and probably more carbohydrate heavy. But that was very shortlived amount of time because berries don't bloom on bushes for very long and so when we tap in to
nature in that. Way and think about, you know, our genetic past for most of us as hunter gatherers, even a little bit of both of those, and then stick with nature as our guide. It's hard to go wrong there. Yeah, totally agree. And if you couple that with the fact that people are just simply much less active now they've ever been before with the dawn of the Internets, people sitting in an office all day long developing skeletal miss
misformations in that regard. Like there's just a lot of things that are out of sync, as you were saying, with what we've, you know, been genetically raised to do over a Millennium. So I don't know how to correct course there than just simply enlightening people in the insignificance of eating right and moving more because it it does go beyond that for sure. Like you can go down the rabbit hole of all these different tangents and nuances.
But just simply eating right and moving more I think would correct course tremendously. I completely agree with you. Those are the two main things and you know a lot of people call them diet and lifestyle. But yes, eating right that minimally processed, avoiding those hyper palatable foods and keeping to a nutrient dense, you know, the type of diet really
goes a long way. And then yeah, moving more and and and really what it comes down to for a lot of people is just finding that sometimes it's a metaphor, sometimes it's a story, something that relates to them. And I think about it this way sometimes. I've educated a lot of people in this way where if you think about the the what we. Might call the normal activity pattern for a human would be that we would be on the move almost all the time right. Like really constantly active.
If you think of a of a of a person who's out in you know in a in a more you know and I'm I'm putting this in quotes but in a more primitive kind of kind of living situation there's like basically constant activity looking for shelter you know you know processing food hunting for food. Humans are supposed to be constantly on the move.
And if you think about a. A wild animal, even something around your house, like a squirrel for example, and you took that squirrel and you contained it into a cage, so it only did like less than 10% of its normal runnings around. What do you think would happen? You know, any Organism that's supposed to be constantly moving around that gets put into a cage and restricted its activity to. To 10% of what it's normally supposed to do. It's going to get sick and it's
going to die. That's what's going to happen you know ultimately and that's basically what's happened to us. We have to move. Movement is imperative and it you know and and we're just simply not doing it and you and I are doing it but like we said that the the the public is not and and and hopefully we can inspire them to move a bit more. Yeah. And I feel like the the people are so fixated on weights and it's very easy to move less maintain weight if you're not eating the right foods.
I mean I said it to an extent a lot of people gain weight in that context but you can certainly maintain your weight by not moving as much but the composition of that weight is going to change drastically. You're going to lose lean tissue especially as you age. Your metabolism is going to down regulate your hormone function is going to become out of whack like everything declines in a in an environment of significantly
reduced movement. And I see this all the time and and older folks, I'm sure you do as well with your practice, like people coming in and you know, older, older men, older women especially, they just simply cannot maintain lean tissue. And that is becoming, I mean like when you start becoming psychopenic and you lose lean tissue, like you just lose honest the joy to live because you can't do the things you love
doing. Absolutely, Yeah. It's we call it frailty and it's a it's extremely common and it's extremely dangerous, right. You know the and and it's shocking for people to learn that. Humans lose lean muscle mass at a rate of 1% per year, you know, and that's that's just normal, right? Like after about age, 35 or 40 or so, that number will just start to go down and down and down South you need to be. Actively pursuing, increasing that lean muscle mass, or even
just to maintain stability. And when that number starts to go down, that lean muscle mass decreases, people get frail, and then all hell breaks loose. Physiologically, it's all sorts of problems and it leads to, yeah, absolutely. Sickness, lack of joy and all sorts of medical problems will ensue, no question about it 100%.
So from like a classic 82 analysis standpoint, you know, if people are eating rights, avoiding processed carbohydrates, sugars moving more, increasing their resistance in some form or fashion through ideally some form of progressive overload and that's going to hedge against that decline over time. What are some, you know, cool biohacks so to speak, because everybody wants to know the the
the quick fixes. Like what are some things that people can incorporate that are trying to get to the next level or just simply find some shorter term success that hopefully gets them motivated to do the long game approach to putting in the work. Like what are some things that people can incorporate and see a pretty significant benefit from relatively quickly? For sure.
That's it's a great question. I would add one other thing on there too before I get to the meat of that question, which is, which is we are exposed to so many toxins, right? Like there's just so many chemical exposures not just in our diet, but in, you know, in our personal care product. In our homes, in our workspaces and things like that. And I think that's another big driver.
So when we relieve ourselves of those burdens and which is difficult to do completely, but we try to clean up our homes, clean up our personal care product routines and minimize our exposures to toxin. So our liver, our kidneys, all of our organs of detoxification can sort of maximally function. That's another way to just like you know move the needle in your in your favor. And I think that kind of goes along with, you know, diet and nutrition and physical.
Activity is like, you know, I would add a third pillar there, which is that trying to minimize toxic exposures to whatever extent possible goes a long way as well in today's modern, highly toxic world. I didn't even realize this until recently. Listen to a podcast maybe in a Rogan podcast or something, but they're talking about
glyphosate. Now that's on almost all, you know, monocropped, you know, crops these days, but wheat specifically, they've been using glyphosate to dry out the wheat prior to harvesting it. So like with a lot of the crops they'll they'll spray with life, say preemptively that, you know, make it resistant to certain pesticides or pests rather. But then they've been putting it on the wheat directly prior to harvesting to dry it out So it doesn't become, you know,
mildewy and rotten and whatnot. So like the amount of toxins that people are getting in their diets just because of the the process and I don't think people are realizing that. People aren't realizing that. And it's shocking. It's absolutely so disturbing that they fit. You know, it was one thing when you're spraying weed killers on the soil to discourage the growth of the weeds you don't want and and then allow the corn or the wheat to crop to come up
through that. But now because farmers figured out that glyphosate works really well to just dry out the wheat, that means you can harvest it when the weather's dry. It never gets rained on. And then you save your crops from getting moldy and mildew and and this is this, this, this started maybe 15 years ago I think or so where now the, the Roundup glyphosate is being sprayed directly on our food. Right. And that's horrifying.
You know, that's just a horrifying proposition And you're absolutely right that a lot of people don't know that. And so you know, to your question, what can people do? Well, yeah, learn about stuff like that and don't eat glyphosate ridden, real laden wheat in your diet. That's that that's that's a huge action step that people can take. And then there are there are there are many, many more we can get into it.
What what are some things like I know one of the things that are really popular right now is this push towards TRTHRT hormone replacement therapy in those that are kind of cresting that 40 year mark. What what's your take on that? I know that's that's really where a lot of people's interest is residing right now. Yeah, absolutely.
Certainly in in your community, in the bodybuilding community, in the biohacking community, people are looking to optimize and and listen like there's a place for it, right? Like there is, you know, I think if people have, we have to, I'd said earlier, people I like to meet patients where they are right. And so some people are looking to maintain their normal health. Some people are looking to recover their health, which is ailing. Other people are looking to optimize performance.
And those are all different goals and the treatment plans that go with those, you know, might look different.
So in in the world of a person who's looking for optimal performance, whether it is like athletic performance or maintenance of athletic performance and decreasing injury prevention or achieving a certain physique for a bodybuilding competition, etc. Yeah, that's a different set of goals that a person who's looking to, you know, recover from their inflammatory bowel disease or treat their
arthritis, right. And so for optimization purposes, I think that there is absolutely a place for hormone optimization in, in, in, in both males and females and there's all sorts of different things, peptides, amino acids is not my expertise and and genuine bioidentical hormone replacements that are that are part of that picture for for
optimization. That said, for for people who aren't looking for elite performance and they're just looking for genuine good health kind of through the years, in most cases I don't think it's necessary, right. Like the body does have a somewhat of a biological clock. One would expect male testosterone levels to decline over time. Obviously, female estrogen progesterone levels decline over time.
There's going to be experiences, physical experiences that are associated with that, that aren't necessarily disease states, right? They may. They're like transitions and I think it's easy for us to to medicalize transitions. I I use an example a lot of times that is that's that's like puberty, right? Puberty is a transition, right? We go from one state of being to another over this few year period and no one thinks that
it's a medical problem. And yet when when people go through menopause or when people have a baby, you had that not too long ago. These are all natural processes that are just part and parcel of being a human, and we like to medicalize them. And so I don't think that we immediately need to jump to home and replacement just because someone's going through a transition. But I'm not down on hormone replacement at all.
If a person needs it, or if a person is looking to optimize their function in a certain way to perform at a certain level for, you know, for whatever it is that moves them so that that's where I'm at with it. Yeah, I really like the way you stated that because I've had many guests on the podcast and I've, I've asked them that same question.
And you may have just given the best answer because I feel like there is definitely this demographic of people that looks at that transitionary period and doesn't want anything to do with it and tries everything that they can through exodus hormones to hedge against it. And I totally respect one's desire to optimize. That's kind of. What my, you know, Forte is like I I love pursuing human optimization. But at the same time you have to realize that you are still in fact a human.
And I think to try to, you know, mitigate these transitionary periods in their entirety is subhuman to an extent. And at some point we have to recognize that we are going to all die. Like that's just reality of life. And you just need to embrace each of those phases as they come and not try to. Hedge against the hedge against him to the point of you know changing what you are biologically going to to turn
into over time. And I think that is a a tightrope that we haven't quite figured out because to some extent this hormone replacement is is kind of Wild West like anybody can walk into a clinic these days, get a test done and get prescribed XY or Z hormone. But there's not been a whole lot of research to the downstream effects of that over ample period of time. Yes, I totally agree with you. I think, yeah, I don't think people should be trying to fight getting older, right. I don't think.
And I think maybe I can sum it up by saying that aging is not a disease. You know, it's, it's, it's it's a natural biological process. It's supposed to happen. You know, it's just it's it's going to happen to all of us with the inevitable death at the end, whenever that may come. And I what I think at least from a from a medical perspective and again this is different from the perspective of elite athletic performance, those are two very different things.
And actually you know what, I want to even go back for a second and say that like in the sports medicine world there was a early in the early parts of my career, I thought that being a sports medicine doctor, you know working for a professional team would be would be a great kind of career. And then I quickly realized that professional doctors for professional athletes, the goal is not the maintenance of longterm health, The goal is performance, right.
Get them back out on the field. Even if it means injecting that joint with steroids, even if it means taping up that ankle and putting in the Mac out there and that's those are two very different things. I'm not down on it, but like, when you tape up that ankle that's not ready to go back and play, that ankle is going to is going to pay you back later and it's going to be ugly, and that is just bound to happen. And so the care of the elite performer at the peak of their
performance career is one thing. And the care of a more typical kind of general human who's just looking to live a long, healthy, hopefully productive life and then die quickly at the end is something very different. And I'm much more interested in the latter, it turns out. Yeah, no, I'm as well. I don't think human optimization performance has to be.
Exclusive to longevity, but there is certainly a tipping point at which you know performing optimally by way of measuring, you know the the most weight lifted or the leanest you can get, or you know the the most basketball games played in the season. Like there. There's a point which you can push that to the point where it's not going to be beneficial to overall longterm health and I feel like. That is not optimal like when you when you define what optimal is.
I would not define that as optimal. Like I I think doing the best you can as naturally as you can, it's most in line with what your species, what you're capable of as a species in a way that is also conducive to longterm health and well-being. Is, is the goal, at least for me. Yeah. Well, we're cut from the same cloth there, too. And, you know, and we all love, I think, to watch people who are
outliers, right. The biggest bodybuilders, the fastest runners, the highest jumpers, the fastest swimmers, the people who can do these crazy long Iron Man's. But I think and and those are those are feats of human performance and they're they're remarkable and miraculous. And I love to watch it. I love to watch people serve huge waves and skateboard down huge hills.
But no one's saying that that's like a good idea for the general population, certainly not me. It's fun to watch and it's like a, you know, it's amazing to see people push those absolute limits, but to suggest that that is consistent with, like, long term optimal health. Absolutely not. And so again, meet a patient where they are and decide on goals based on where they are and where they want to go is how I approach health and medicine. I like it. I like it a lot. What's your take on a
chiropractic work? Chiropractic work. So I do a lot of soft tissue and Bony manipulation and I I think it absolutely has its place. I think that it becomes like many fields, both Western and alternative medicine, it can become, people can become very dogmatic about it. There's many people in that field who think that the right chiropractic adjustment, you know, can fix anything.
You know, and I've I've heard stories of people being told by chiropractors that they adjust the right area at the you know, that they can improve blood sugar control or improve blood pressure. And you know all sorts of other things where. And that's an example of I think a field that has its utility that certainly has its place in medicine being overdeveloped or overused or over relied upon for other problems that that are that it's less appropriate for.
So yeah, I think Bony adjustments have their their role. I think they're they can be very dramatic and you know and and provide an experience to a patient that really feels like something kind of dramatic happened when often the real work is in the soft tissues surrounding where that Bony adjustment happened. And so I think it's it's, it's got its place, it's got a limited scope and and it's certainly a useful therapy in certain situations. And your Forte is most in the
soft tissue. You said, right. You know, like I say, I do Bony adjustments. So when a person comes in to see knee who has musculoskeletal pain, let's just say pain in their knee, they're gonna get the whole gamut, right? They're gonna hear that. I want them to improve their nutrition. They're gonna hear that. I want them to improve their mobility, their stretching and their strengthening of the
muscles that act upon the knee. They're going to hear about herbal and nutritional supports for in, you know, inflammatory changes and muscle tension and fibrosis in that knee. They're going to get somebody work, right, handson therapy, trying to liberate or loosen, you know, trigger points in or around the area. They might get a Bony adjustment, you know, in their lumbar spine or in their hip or
their sacroiliac joint. So yeah, as a as a naturopathic Dr. I'm looking at that person that that that knee, and I'm looking below it at the foot and seeing what the mechanics of the foot are. I'm looking above it at the hip and the spine, and then I'm looking at the human in whom that knee resides and trying to put a treatment plant together. That just makes sense for that person and what their goals are. So yeah, they're gonna get the Full Monty for me, man.
Like and that's that's it's all symbiotic and H you can't like look at any one acute thing, OK, this is the standalone prom. You got to fix this one thing and everything else gets better. I think taking a holistic approach is absolutely the way to go. I sometimes say to that, like I, you know, to this day, I've been practicing for close 25 years. Like I've never seen a knee come into my office. I've never seen a heart or a lung or a colon come into my
office so far. It's always been inside of a person, you know. And so that person is who gets treated, Yeah, that joint, not that body part. Speaking of knee, knee health, man, I've been doing that. You're probably familiar with it. Ben Patrick's ATG program. You probably. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Mr. Knees over Toes, Yeah. So I've been doing that for the past 13 weeks or so and that's made it. Yeah, you walking backwards. You pulling a sled backwards these days?
Yeah, yeah, I'm doing that and I'm just get like a basic, you know, 15 minute, 20 minute workout, you know, prior to the actual workout, just doing knee mobility stuff. And prior to that I never did any type of mobility stretching. I just that was never my thing and I've never really needed to. But as of late, man, I'm getting old, I don't know 31 years old. They I just noticed more knee pain especially like doing
squats and things like that. And I started doing, you know, that mobility work and that has literally made a dramatic effect in a relatively short period of time. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah. He's very popular for a reason. And I like, I like how he approaches, you know, it's so contrarian, right. Like the whole knees over toes thing. Right.
Was just like that was like a directive that we got, you know, from that was coming down from not unclear sources, just never knees over toes, don't ever have your knees over toes. And I love how he just flipped that whole thing on its head and did you know, some remarkable work on himself and has educated a lot of people about, you know, bio mechanics and and and how
our bodies are supposed to work. It's it's and here we are again, right, talking about this mismatch idea, even even think about it and he talks something about this too. I know he's a big fan of like barefoot shoe technology, letting your feet splay out. And again, it goes back to that mismatch. We walk around all day on hard,
flat surfaces, right? Whether it's the flooring in our house, the pavement outside and our bodies, including our feet and our knees, and the whole biomechanical chain are designed to move around on soft and uneven surfaces. And so if you walk around on hard flat ground, especially if you do things like play basketball or lift heavy stuff on hard flat ground all the time, you're going to pay for that. That's not the way your body was
designed to work. It's supposed to work on soft and uneven terrain, like you find out in nature, and if you do that for a long enough time, you're going to get bit, which is what happened to him. It's probably what was happening to your knees as well. So you know, it's good to flip that script. Yeah. I don't have any desire to be a country and for the sake of
being a country. But I've come to a point in my life where I'm almost like anything that I hear from the top down, I pretty much just do the opposite of and. And it pays dividends. Yeah. Yeah, I know. Yes, skepticism is becoming the new the new trend, isn't it. Yeah, for sure. With with your expertise in soft tissue mobility, all that, what
what's your take on? It's like I've got the like the Theragun for instance, that's super popular, the Hyper Volt and Theragun, like everybody's got one of those it seems. What's your take on those compression boots that is I believe are designed to stimulate more blood flow? I think they just simply constrict and then not really honestly. Sure. The mechanics have never used them before, but have you played around with those much? Yep, played around with those.
And there there is data about those for recovery from injury. And really what what you're getting there is you're getting most of the ones. And I think that you're talking about these big long boots that in many cases go all the way up to the thigh that put some pressure on the leg, you know, compressing it completely and then relaxing, compressing and relaxing. And what's happening there basically is the stimulation, not just a blood flow and venous return, but also of lymphatic flow.
So like a little Physiology lesson for everybody out there is that, like your heart pumps the blood through arteries, right? And it goes all the way all through your body, up to your brain, down to your tips of your toes, and then it comes back. You know, those arteries get progressively smaller and become capillaries, at which point the fluid in the blood, the liquid portion, the serum, leaks out of the capillaries through little windows.
They're called fenestrated capillaries, and then gets taken back up through the lymphatic channels and the tiny little venules on net, which are now under very low pressure to bring that blood and the serum within it back up to your heart. And it's kind of an amazing thing to think about, right? Like if there's blood that gets pumped down to your foot and you're standing up and you're, you know, however tall you are, that blood in your foot needs to get all the way back up to your
heart. And and draining something upstream like that is really hard especially when there's no pressure in the system. And So what happens is your veins and your lymphatic channels have valves, they're one way valves and those valves allow the blood and and lymphatic fluid to go up and then stop at the valve because the valve only allows the the liquids to go upward and the force, the pressure is generated by muscle activity.
So that's why they want you to move your feet and move your legs on an airplane and flex your calves and move your body around so that those little muscular movements squeeze those channels, those veins and those lymphatic channels, allowing the blood to get pushed back upwards towards your heart, going through the valve, stopping at the valve, then going through the next one and the next one and so on.
And those compression boots that you're talking about basically do that externally, right, like school, compress and then relax, compress and relax and promote both Venus and lymphatic circulation and that improves recovery. Interesting because this is totally a selfless question on my part because I've got several bodybuilding competitions coming up in the in the in the following months here, and I've got a lot of traveling for those events.
I've also got like a 50 mile March a week prior to. My first competition. And as it's true with many bodybuilders, like if you're traveling, you, you tend to hold a lot of fluid around your ankles. You just have some edema if you're traveling for a show. That's why people typically get to the venue well in advance, allow their body to kind of stabilize. You got to make sure electrolytes are in check. Everything's in equilibrium there.
But I thought about investing in a pair of these compression boots to just aid in that recovery in the days leading it to the show, to make sure that I'm not holding the excess fluid in my lower limbs. Yeah, I would support it. You know, you could probably do something similar even just with compression stockings, you know, that's a sort of a lower tech
version of that. And the reason why that sort of stuff works, by the way, is that those channels are situated throughout your lower extremities. And the superficial ones, the ones that are closer to the surface, tend to be the ones that get compromised more easily. And the deeper channels that are deep within the structure of your of your limbs, they maintain their integrity a little bit better.
And that's why when a person has edema, whether it's for traveling reasons or otherwise, when you compress the leg even than just the calf or the foot with a compression sock, that forces that fluid into those deeper channels which tend to be that you know, hold their integrity in the the valve. Other structure stays a little bit more intact and so you can just push the fluid and deep into the leg and then let those deeper channels carry it back upwards.
That might work as well. That'll be an interesting thing to see how that goes for you. I would imagine that's probably more effective than just simply elevating the leg, right? Yeah. I mean, it's it's it when when a person has bad edema for, which can happen for all kinds of reasons, a combination of, you know, all elevating the legs,
just gravity, right? All that's gonna happen is that fluid just gonna drip back down, you know, because it'll just be gravity guided and compression socks definitely level up the the the, the power of gravity. Absolutely. Yeah. They're they're really a core part of treatment plans for people with vascular disorders that that that yield edema in the lower extremity. Very interesting. All right. So that's a little bit of time to get here.
I'd love to kind of just pick your brain as to what it is that you're most excited about within your field of study or just outside of your field of study. Like what are you doubling down on at the moment? What's got you excited? Well one of the main things I'm really focused on right now is is in the management of musculoskeletal pain through herbal and nutritional therapies and and and what I'm the reason why I'm excited about that is because I've been doing a lot of
this lately. You know I'm I'm the the cofounder and the medical director of a company called Up Wellness. We make a whole bunch of different nutritional supplements and and there's one in particular that I've, you know, I've, I've, I've been in this game for a long time now but I made this product called Golden Revived Plus that's marketing towards people who
have musculoskeletal pain. And I'm just hearing and I've sold, I don't want to brag here but the hundreds of thousands of bottles of this stuff over the last bunch of years and and that's great and I'm grateful for that. But what I'm seeing and hearing from customers is that they are. Not getting surgeries that they were scheduled for. They're avoiding, you know, joint injections.
They are, you know, improving in with conditions that their orthopedist and their other doctors thought couldn't improve. And so leaning into, you know, why is that happening? It's really, it's gratifying to kind of create, you know, that kind of an effect in a person and then doubling down on that by providing information and, you know, and an additional content for people who are in that situation is really what's got me all riled up right now.
So from a supplemental standpoint, what what is it that's in that blend that that is the active comp and like how is that working mechanistically. So I'll break it down for you and I'll be as quick as I can. I know we're running out of time, but like, the idea is that when person has musculoskeletal pain, whether it's a knee, shoulder, hip, wherever their back or neck, very often they'll be led to believe that whatever they saw on the MRI, the disc herniation, the meniscus tear.
Especially in chronic cases, the bulging disc is responsible for their pain. And in many cases, and there's a lot of research about this, that's just simply not true. There are other factors, and those main other factors that lead so many people in the the the pain that they experience. Our #1 excessive inflammation, #2 muscular tension and #3 fibrosis, which is the accumulation of scar tissue either on a microscopic or a larger scale.
And those 3 problems, inflammation or excessive inflammation, muscular tension and fibrosis are are are the targets. And so how do I address those targets? I'll give you kind of a quick list #1 Curcumin high potency Turmeric extract. I use something called BCM 95 curcumin, which is a really high potency. Turmeric extract #2, and that's for the inflammation piece is is buzzwellia which is frankincense
and herbal medicine. The resin from a tree that also is a powerful anti-inflammatory and has some properties that allow it to help almost resurface. I don't want to say resurface cuz that's a little dramatic, but smooth out some of the pits and cracks in damaged cartilage. So that's Boswellia. I use bromaline which is an anti fibrotic. It's a digestive enzyme which breaks up that scar tissue. It's actually meat tenderizer,
believe it or not. Bromaline is the ingredient that helps break up that fibrin magnesium because so many people are deficient in magnesium helping address that muscle tension. And then a bio flavonoid compound called quercetin, which is a powerful antioxidant. And then this black pepper extract called piperine to help absorb all of those things. And it's that combination, It's like a secret sauce, man. It's like a secret recipe that's
really, really helping people. And yeah, that's, I'm super proud of that and I'm really excited in the future to just sort of lean into that even further. And this is like a like a powder people put in a shake or just drink with water. No, it's a capsule actually is it makes it easier to take. Those things are pretty especially the buzz. Well you are pretty powerful tasting. So it's a it's a capsule with all those extracts inside of it. That's called Golden Revive Plus. Nice.
Nice. Very cool. Yeah, well, I'll definitely have to link that to that. What is the website link for that site? My company's called upwellness and it's upwellness.com. Upwellness.com And is that also where people need to go to find out more about you? Absolutely. Yeah. You can go there and read all about me and the other products that we've created up. Wellness. And then I also, I never would have thought I was going to be doing this in medical school.
But I'm on Instagram, I'm on TikTok. I even made a Threads account that new, that new platform. So yeah, just out there in every possible way to try to give people information about natural approaches to healthcare and alternatives to the conventional approach. Hey, I think that's freaking awesome. And I feel like the traditional Western medicine since they probably there was definitely a time at which.
They turn their nose up to social media, Like, hey, if you've got a social media account, you're woo, woo. But, like, if you peel the curtain back, like you want to make an impact and you go where people's attention spans are, and their attention span is on social, on podcast, on these platforms. Not so much on mainstream television or NPR anymore. You're absolutely right.
You know, I was actually talking to a doctor friend of mine, too, who writes articles and blogs and and at a very kind of high academic sort of level. And it was interesting in the conversation because I was saying, like, the conversations are happening on on social. That's where the conversations are happening. And so we can't, as physicians, sit up in our ivory tower and and hope that the conversations come to us. I think we need to go into those platforms. That's why.
That's why I'm there on Instagram, on TikTok, on threads, because that's where the conversations are happening and that's where we need to be if we want to educate the people that are engaged in those conversations. So yeah, absolutely. There's nothing woo, woo or quackery about it. That's that's that's where the people are. So that's where we have to be. 100% Man Threat Threads is the the new Twitter competition from Facebook, right? That's right, Yeah, that's
right. Got like 100 million users in the 1st 24 hours or something ridiculous like that.
Is it pretty user friendly or not so much Oh gosh I've only put a few things on there and and just sort of tested out the platform it's you know I'm I'm approaching 50 years old here so just stand on top of all these social media things is quite a is quite an effort but yeah I think it's it's it's it seems to me very Twitter like although I would say that it seems so far anyway a little bit more positive right.
Twitter is kind of a cesspool and rapidly devolves into political and all sorts of other kind of conversations and threads. So far seems to be a little bit cleaner, a little bit more positive. So that's encouraging. I'll check that one out. There's so many of them, man. Like, I'm not really doing the whole tick tock thing with just so many of them. But yeah, I guess I'll have to check out threads now too. Awesome with Dr. Johns. I can't think enough the time.
I certainly appreciate the insight. Good Sir. I will link out to your social platforms and the website. Make it easy for people to find you. And if there's ever anything I can do for you, by all means just let me know. Well, I really appreciate that. Thank you for having me today. You bet. Take care.