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2:49

Hey everyone, welcome back to On Purpose,

2:51

the place that you come to become

2:53

happier, healthier and more healed. Today's

2:55

guest is someone that I've been looking

2:57

forward to have on the show for

3:00

around a year now, because I know

3:02

that listening to this conversation is going

3:04

to increase the good energy in your

3:06

life. If you're someone who wants to

3:08

invite better energy, better frequencies into your

3:10

life, this episode is for you. If

3:12

you're someone who wants to understand how

3:14

you can improve your health, both

3:16

physical and mental, this conversation is

3:19

for you. And if you're one

3:21

of those people who started to

3:23

think there's too much, there's overwhelming

3:25

information, there's too much data, there's

3:27

too much to digest, this conversation

3:29

is for you because we're going

3:31

to simplify what our biggest health

3:33

challenges are. Today I'm talking to

3:36

the one and only Casey Means

3:38

MD, a Stanford trained physician and

3:40

co-founder of Levels, a health technology

3:42

company with the mission of reversing

3:44

the world's metabolic health crisis.

3:47

Casey devotes her life to tackling the

3:49

root cause of why Americans are sick.

3:51

She's been featured in the New York

3:53

Times, the New Yorker, the Wall Street

3:55

Journal, Forbes, Women's Health and many more.

3:58

Today we're talking about... Casey's book, which is

4:01

all about metabolic health, called Good Energy. If

4:03

you don't have this book, you're going to

4:05

want to read it as

4:07

you hear this conversation. Go and grab

4:09

your copy right now. Welcome to On

4:11

Purpose, Casey Means. Casey, thank you so

4:14

much for doing this. Thank you so much

4:16

for having me, Jay. It's such a joy. As

4:18

I said, I've been following your work for around

4:20

a year, probably even more now. And

4:22

I said to my team, I was like, I need to

4:24

talk to Casey. I feel like she has insights that we

4:27

need to understand. And I wanna dive straight into it. You

4:30

talk about, you say this, you say, don't trust the

4:33

doctors. You say, don't trust

4:35

the science. And you say, don't even

4:37

trust me. Who do

4:39

we trust? The answer to that question

4:41

is that we need to start trusting ourselves.

4:44

We are living in an environment right now

4:46

in the United States where chronic

4:49

illness is rampant across our children,

4:51

across adults, across the elderly. We

4:53

know that something is not quite right.

4:56

We're spending over $4 trillion on healthcare

4:58

every year and our population is getting

5:00

sicker. We're getting heavier. We're getting more

5:02

depressed. We're even becoming more infertile. Life

5:04

expectancy is going down. And

5:07

it seems that the more we do,

5:09

the sicker we're actually getting. So my

5:11

call to action for people is that we really need

5:13

to start trusting ourselves. And what do I mean by

5:16

that? We are living in

5:18

a time where there is information

5:20

tools and technology that exists

5:22

that can give every single

5:24

person the power to understand

5:26

their bodies in ways that

5:29

has never been possible throughout

5:31

all of human history. There

5:33

are technologies that let us see

5:35

inside our bodies every single day

5:38

like wearables and biosensors and direct

5:40

consumer lab testing that can literally

5:42

answer the question for us, am

5:45

I healthy? What do I need to do differently

5:47

to achieve optimal health?

5:49

And it can sometimes sound scary

5:51

to say, oh my gosh, I

5:53

shouldn't trust the healthcare system, we've

5:55

produced miracles. But a key thing

5:57

we need to understand is that

6:00

A lot of the miracles that we

6:02

think of when we think of the

6:04

healthcare system, they are for acute issues.

6:06

They are things historically like infectious disease

6:09

and emergencies and traumas where

6:11

that thing is going to kill you

6:14

immediately. And when the healthcare system intervenes

6:16

in that situation, it's

6:18

miraculous. And when you

6:20

look at the increase in life expectancy over the

6:22

last 100 years, it

6:24

is very much predicated on cures

6:26

for acute issues, things like sanitation

6:28

practices, emergency surgeries, antibiotics, and the

6:31

like. But if you actually take

6:33

those causes of death out of

6:35

the equation, life expectancy hasn't

6:38

actually changed that much in the past 100 years. Unfortunately

6:41

though, in the past 50 years or

6:43

so, chronic conditions, these conditions that last

6:45

for years and years and years, they

6:47

have gone up exponentially. This is

6:49

the things like cancer and heart

6:51

disease and stroke and Alzheimer's dementia

6:54

and depression and chronic pain that are just

6:56

absolutely plaguing our country and our leading causes

6:59

of death. And unfortunately, in the

7:01

way our healthcare system is designed right now,

7:04

as we actually spend more money

7:06

and more effort on addressing and

7:08

treating these conditions, the rates of

7:10

these conditions are actually going up.

7:13

So a chapter in my book is called,

7:15

Trust Yourself, Not Your Doctor. And the point

7:18

of this is that when it comes to

7:20

chronic conditions, unfortunately the

7:22

healthcare system does not deserve our

7:24

trust because the treatment of these

7:26

chronic conditions has been an abject

7:28

failure. And I think the easiest

7:30

way to kind of really paint

7:33

the picture of all of this and how I've

7:35

come to this somewhat radical conclusion is actually

7:37

to just share a personal story

7:39

if you don't mind. It's actually

7:41

about my mother. And I think

7:43

this story is something that most Americans

7:45

can probably see themselves in. I

7:48

think it really is emblematic of why

7:51

our healthcare system is broken and a

7:53

path forward. So my

7:55

mother, her story really starts

7:57

when she was about 40 and she had me.

8:00

And I was actually a 12 pound

8:02

baby. I was born very, very large, one of

8:04

the largest babies the hospital has ever seen. And

8:07

my mom had gained about 70 pounds during her pregnancy.

8:09

And in her 40s, she had a

8:11

lot of trouble losing the baby weight. In

8:14

her late 40s, she went through perimenopause. In menopause,

8:16

it was very difficult for her. She had hot

8:18

flashes. She had sleep symptoms. The doctor said there's

8:20

very little we can do about this. She moves

8:22

into her 50s. She starts to develop high cholesterol,

8:24

high LDL. The doctor says

8:26

this is very normal for people your

8:29

age. Gives her a statin, very common

8:31

medication that's prescribed 200 million times per

8:33

year in the United States. Later,

8:35

she gets into her late 50s. She starts

8:37

developing high blood pressure. She gets an ACE

8:39

inhibitor, also very common. It's almost like a rite

8:42

of passage these days to get a diagnosis of high

8:44

blood pressure. She moves into her

8:46

60s and her blood sugar starts rising.

8:48

The doctor says, you now meet

8:50

the criteria for prediabetes. But again, this is

8:52

very common. It's a pre-disease. And

8:55

he gives her a prescription for metformin. She

8:57

takes it religiously. Again, very common medication that's

8:59

prescribed 90 million times per

9:01

year in the United States. Then

9:04

she turns 70. And she's 72 years old. And

9:08

she's taking a hike with my dad. They took

9:10

a nightly hike outside their home on the coast

9:12

of Northern California. And she has a really sharp

9:14

pain in her belly. And it lasted for

9:16

a few days. So she went to the doctor. And the

9:19

doctor said, this is pretty atypical for you. You've never had

9:21

this before. Let's get a CT scan. And

9:24

later that night, she gets a text

9:26

message with the results of her CT

9:29

scan. And the results said that she

9:31

had stage four widely metastatic pancreatic cancer.

9:34

And 13 days later, she was dead. And

9:36

this was almost three years ago to the day. And

9:40

at the time of her

9:42

death, she was

9:44

seeing what people would arguably say are

9:46

the best doctors in the country. She was

9:48

getting executive physicals at Mayo Clinic. She

9:51

was seeing doctors at Stanford and

9:53

Palo Alto Medical Foundation. She was getting, quote unquote,

9:56

the best care in the country. And they

9:58

looked at my family when this happened. And

10:00

they said, we are so sorry,

10:02

this is so unlucky. And

10:06

the question I have is,

10:08

is it really unlucky? And

10:12

in our conventional paradigm, in our conventional

10:14

healthcare system in the West, the system

10:16

that I was trained in at Stanford

10:18

Medical School, it does

10:21

seem unlucky. The pancreatic cancer seems almost random.

10:23

And she had all these things crop up.

10:25

And she was getting standard of care and

10:27

actually excellent care. She was getting what the

10:29

guidelines said, the medication, she was taking them.

10:31

People were turning little knobs on her biomarkers.

10:34

And then the cancer cropped up and it

10:36

just seems so out of the blue. She

10:38

was 72. And actually

10:40

many doctors would have said she's healthy because she was

10:42

on all her medications. But

10:44

the vision that I really wanna put forward and

10:47

the reason I think we need to start trusting ourselves

10:49

more is that through a different framework, we

10:52

actually see, as

10:54

we look at the underlying root

10:56

cause, physiologic connections between everything my

10:59

mom was dealing with and so

11:01

many other things that are plaguing

11:03

Americans today, shortening and torturing our

11:05

lives. They are fundamentally rooted

11:07

in the same thing. And

11:11

that thing is what I

11:13

present as what I

11:15

call bad energy in the book,

11:18

otherwise known as metabolic dysfunction. A

11:20

fundamental problem with how our 40

11:23

trillion cells produce energy to let them

11:26

do their work in the body. And

11:29

the beauty of why we can trust

11:31

ourselves more in the healthcare system is

11:33

because we have tools now to understand

11:35

our metabolic health in great granularity for

11:38

ourselves. And unfortunately, the

11:40

healthcare system, because it is focused

11:42

on a siloed intervention-based

11:45

system based on really

11:47

looking at all these diseases, weeds that

11:49

crop up that we play whack-a-mole with,

11:52

with drugs and interventions, we

11:55

focus on that instead of actually

11:57

focusing on the underlying bad. that

12:00

energy that's connecting so many of the

12:02

conditions that we're facing today. And this

12:04

is science-based. This is based on the

12:06

research. When you really look at

12:08

almost every chronic

12:11

symptom, chronic disease facing Americans today,

12:13

they are directly linked back to

12:16

metabolic dysfunction. And that is something

12:18

that each of us can understand

12:21

with simple tools and simple

12:23

understanding in our lives now,

12:25

but unfortunately is not

12:27

a paradigm in which the

12:29

modern American medical system operates.

12:32

So they are going to

12:34

miss these early warning signs

12:36

like my mom had, the

12:38

enormous baby, literally called fetal

12:40

macrosomea, big-bodied baby. That is a

12:42

direct sign of metabolic dysfunction, bad perimenopausal

12:44

and menopausal symptoms, inability to lose the

12:47

baby weight, high cholesterol, high blood sugar,

12:49

high blood pressure,

12:51

and ultimately cancer. All of them

12:53

are connected. So this is really

12:56

a vision for healthcare about empowerment.

12:58

About learning to understand your own

13:00

body. About not waiting, unfortunately, for

13:02

the monumental size of

13:04

the healthcare system to turn the arrow.

13:07

Because right now, unfortunately, it's not incentivized

13:09

to. And so it's really up

13:11

to us to understand this core physiology of

13:13

our own bodies and work to improve it.

13:15

And it's actually so much simpler than people

13:17

think. It's something that each of us can

13:19

do, and it can really unleash

13:22

that internal metabolic life force

13:24

within ourselves to help us reach our highest

13:27

purpose. Absolutely. Thank you so much

13:29

for sharing that story too. I mean, hearing that

13:32

it's heartbreaking because I assume

13:34

you believe it's avoidable. I assume you believe,

13:37

and what you're sharing here, the vision is

13:39

that it didn't have to go

13:41

that way. And I can

13:43

imagine with what you know now and what you're sharing,

13:46

that can be hard to deal with. For

13:48

anyone who's listening or watching right now, who

13:51

almost thinks it's gone too far, how

13:55

much can what you're sharing help

13:57

reverse certain impacts? I think one

13:59

of the best ways. that I can actually address

14:01

that question. And the

14:03

answer to the question is yes, so much of

14:05

this is reversible, is to actually share

14:08

a Taoist statement, which

14:10

is that living

14:13

beings are processes, not

14:15

entities. So

14:18

we have been very much, I think in our

14:21

honestly de-spiritualized Western culture,

14:25

we look at the body as a thing,

14:27

a thing that is separate from everything else

14:30

in the world. And a thing

14:33

that is static and a thing that lives

14:35

and dies. And the

14:38

reality of the biology and the chemistry

14:40

is that that's just could not be

14:42

farther from the truth. We

14:45

are a dynamic swirl

14:47

of matter that's constantly giving

14:50

and exchanging and taking matter

14:52

and energy from the environment

14:55

in a constant process. And

14:58

the reason this is relevant to

15:00

the reversal of chronic diseases is

15:02

that every single day we get

15:04

the opportunity through our choices to

15:06

rebuild the next version of this

15:08

process. And we

15:11

literally eat 70 metric

15:13

tons of food in

15:16

our lifetime, 70 metric tons. And

15:18

that is the material from the

15:21

environment, from the earth, from the

15:23

cosmos that we are taking in

15:25

through eating and digestion to

15:27

literally 3D print the

15:30

next version of our body. And when

15:32

we 3D print a body that has

15:34

what it needs, that has the right

15:36

building blocks, the right chemical molecular messengers

15:38

and food to essentially express a healthy

15:40

version of the body, we

15:42

have that. And so I think

15:44

thinking of ourselves as a process that

15:47

is constantly making choices to build a healthier

15:49

version of the body. We realize that we

15:52

can absolutely have a different vision for our

15:54

future than what we have today. Our genetic

15:57

code is, and our cells are there to...

16:00

build and produce and express the

16:02

healthiest version of our self possible.

16:04

But health is fundamentally

16:06

a matching problem if we match

16:08

the needs and expectations of the

16:11

cells with what we

16:13

are giving them through molecular information of

16:15

food, through energetic

16:17

information through sunlight, through

16:19

the words we expose ourselves

16:22

to, through how we

16:25

interact with those around us and the

16:27

physical signals of exercise and movement. If

16:29

we give the cells what they're needing,

16:31

we can express health. So

16:35

the answer is absolutely yes. And

16:37

when you look at the data,

16:39

what you actually see is that

16:42

many, many people who are learning

16:44

about the science of metabolic health

16:46

and ways that we can shape

16:48

our diet and lifestyle to improve our health, what

16:50

we find is that people are putting their type

16:52

2 diabetes into remission. People are

16:54

slowing the rate of how

16:56

quickly Alzheimer's is developing.

16:59

People can of course reverse obesity.

17:01

And so it's really about giving

17:04

yourselves what they need and expect to

17:06

essentially build the healthiest version of themselves moving

17:09

forward. And I would also just add when

17:11

I was in medical school, one of the

17:13

most impactful things that I saw was our

17:15

histology class, which is the science of basically

17:17

taking sections of the body, like cut up

17:20

sections of the body and putting them on

17:22

slides and looking at the microscope. And

17:24

what you find there is that this

17:26

concept of like we live and then

17:29

we die is actually so false. Because

17:33

when you look at a tissue, a human

17:35

tissue under the microscope, what you actually see

17:37

is that in one piece of tissue, there

17:40

are cells being born, there are cells

17:42

dying, there are cells that are

17:44

aging. It's all happening. And

17:48

I think that's actually really hopeful because I

17:50

think there's an existential grip of

17:54

anxiety that lives within us as Westerners

17:58

and it's an existential anxiety.

18:00

anxiety about death, unlike so

18:02

many other cultures, Eastern

18:05

cultures, indigenous American cultures, so

18:07

many other cultures, we are petrified of death.

18:09

We don't have a curiosity about it. And

18:11

I think the healthcare system

18:13

actually really weaponizes

18:15

our profound fear

18:18

of death against us. Because if you can

18:21

convince people that you live and you die

18:23

and that's it, you can

18:25

essentially get them to do anything to

18:27

avoid that fate, which is unavoidable. And it's

18:30

also just happening kind of all the time.

18:33

And if you can hold a

18:36

pill or a surgery or something in front

18:38

of them that makes them think, you

18:40

know, this is my salvation, you

18:43

can get them to do anything. And another

18:45

message that I have in the book is that part

18:48

of our journey in health and

18:50

our journey in healing is actually

18:53

to unlock ourself from that existential

18:55

anxiety and to

18:58

sort of see what the system is

19:00

using and what it's using against us

19:02

to control us, to turn us into

19:04

desperate consumers looking for anything to ameliorate

19:07

our existential suffering. And when we

19:09

rise above that and have curiosity with it, I

19:12

think we actually make much better health

19:14

decisions because we realize that

19:16

fundamentally I think we are eternal

19:21

limitless processes in constant

19:23

continuity with everything else in the universe.

19:25

And I think frankly, that's just the

19:27

material reality of it. But I think

19:29

there's also a spiritual dimension to it

19:31

too, that can help us really unlock

19:34

our health from a sense of abundance rather than

19:36

from fear. I mean, that's

19:38

such a fascinating perspective and obviously one

19:40

that I so deeply feel connected to

19:42

and aligned with, whether it's

19:45

the philosophies of reincarnation or past lives

19:47

or whether it's karma or whether it's

19:50

even the simple understanding of as

19:52

energetic beings, we're constantly, as you're

19:55

saying, a cell is in motion.

19:59

Hey, everyone, it's Geoff. Hey here, my wife

20:01

and I have had so much fun

20:03

creating our own sparkling tea Juni. And

20:05

I've got big news for you, it's

20:08

at Target and we'd love your support.

20:10

If you can go out grab a

20:12

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20:14

nootropics into your life with mood

20:16

boosting properties aimed at promoting a

20:19

balanced and happy mind. Through

20:21

our commitment to our wellness journey and striving

20:23

to fuel our bodies with the healthiest

20:25

ingredients, it's been our purpose to make

20:28

healthy choices accessible for all. Which is

20:30

why Juni is now on shelves at

20:32

Target. So head to our store

20:34

locator at www.drinkjuni.com and find Juni

20:37

at a Target near you. For

20:40

anyone who's listening and thinking, Jay, what

20:42

is metabolic health and how

20:44

does it make sense in my daily life? Like,

20:46

I think we've heard the term metabolism and most

20:48

of us think about it as like how

20:51

quickly we burn energy, but it's like, what

20:53

is metabolic health in a very simple way?

20:55

And how can we make sense of it

20:57

as someone who's not educated in

21:00

the field? Yeah, metabolic

21:02

health is fundamentally how we

21:04

convert food energy to

21:06

cellular energy. So we

21:08

have, again, like 40 trillion

21:11

human cells and

21:13

every single one of those

21:15

cells needs cellular energy to

21:17

function. We have 40 trillion cells.

21:20

Each of those cells is doing

21:22

like trillions of chemical reactions every

21:24

second and all of those

21:27

need to be paid for and they need

21:29

to be paid for with energy. And that's

21:31

energy that we convert from food energy through

21:33

our mitochondria to cellular energy, which is called

21:35

ATP. And the

21:38

bubbling up of all of those chemical

21:40

reactions, all of which require energy to

21:42

happen, the bubbling up of that is

21:45

our lives. That's what it is. Death

21:48

is the absence of metabolism. Without that

21:50

underlying life force in our cells, we'd

21:52

literally just fall apart and melt. That's

21:54

what death is. So

21:56

anything that hurts our mitochondria,

21:58

hurts our metabolic. functioning

22:00

is like essentially

22:02

inching closer to the grave. It's

22:04

like being a little bit dead while we're alive.

22:07

And unfortunately right now, 93% of

22:11

American adults are dealing with

22:13

metabolic dysfunction. The modern world

22:15

has changed so much in

22:17

the past hundred years on

22:19

every level. Industrialized ultra-processed food

22:21

making up 70% of our

22:23

calories. We're getting two

22:25

hours less per sleep, two hours less of sleep

22:28

per night than we were a hundred years ago.

22:30

We are outdoors about 7% of our time in

22:32

a 24-hour period. We

22:36

are sitting the vast majority of our

22:38

time. There are 80,000 or

22:41

more synthetic chemicals that

22:44

have entered our food, water, air supply, personal

22:46

care products. We're also living

22:48

in this thermonutral existence now with no

22:50

big swings in temperature. So

22:52

that thermal energy signal to ourselves has

22:54

completely been cut off. We have

22:56

really little heat, really little cold. We like it at 72 degrees.

23:00

So every vector of the environment

23:02

in which our cells are living

23:04

in has changed. And

23:06

the message that I want to share

23:09

is that when you

23:11

really dig deep into the science, the

23:13

way that all those changes in our

23:16

environment are actually harming our health is

23:18

by directly hurting the mitochondria, that beautiful

23:20

part of our cell that converts food

23:23

energy to cellular energy to power our

23:25

lives. So metabolism is our life force.

23:27

Metabolism is the process of creating the

23:30

energy that powers everything we do, how

23:32

we move, how we love, how we

23:34

think, all of it. And

23:37

I like to think of it

23:39

actually in like a bigger picture too and

23:41

a picture that inspires me so much to

23:43

want to share about the

23:45

mitochondria, share about metabolism, which is that if

23:49

we think of food as the environment and

23:51

we think of food as this sort of

23:53

structure in the cosmos and we also think

23:55

of food for what it really is, which

23:57

is plant matter. that

24:00

has taken photons

24:03

that have traveled 92 million miles through

24:07

space from a star, hit

24:10

the chloroplasts inside of plants,

24:13

and then has been converted, that photon, that

24:16

light energy has been converted

24:19

into the carbon-carbon bonds of

24:21

plants. It's literally stored light

24:24

in these bonds of plants. We

24:26

either eat that or animals we eat

24:28

eat that. And fundamentally, it

24:30

channels into us unlocking

24:33

the sun's light energy in

24:35

our mitochondria so that we

24:37

can have the thoughts, feelings,

24:39

the creativity to spread our

24:41

light in this world, our

24:43

personal light, and to

24:45

reach our highest purpose. And

24:48

so we are, the mitochondria, the

24:50

metabolic machinery is fundamentally the end

24:52

product, the

24:54

machine that unlocks the sun's energy

24:56

within us, and something

24:59

wild that very few people

25:01

know is that mitochondria are

25:03

actually light-emitting organelles. If

25:06

you take receptors and put

25:08

them near the mitochondria, they

25:10

actually release weak photon energy.

25:12

So we are emitting light.

25:16

And what is so devastating

25:18

about the chronic disease epidemic that

25:20

is almost entirely rooted in mitochondrial

25:22

dysfunction, bad energy, metabolic dysfunction, insulin

25:24

resistance, all the same thing, is

25:27

that in a sense, it's

25:29

blocking what I think one of

25:31

our core miraculous purposes is

25:34

as humans to unlock

25:36

light and have the energy

25:39

and the internal life force to reach

25:41

our highest purpose. So we can talk

25:43

all day about insulin resistance

25:47

and these sort of very clinical terms, but

25:49

I think it's really important to back up

25:51

and sort of see that this chronic disease

25:53

epidemic, which is fueled by our

25:55

bodies not being able to handle the changes

25:58

in modernity in a... a

26:00

healthcare system unfortunately that is fully

26:02

financially incentivized to not focus

26:04

on root cause physiology and

26:06

instead focused on whack-a-mole medicine.

26:09

It's not only hurting us, making us have

26:11

shorter lives, making us have sicker lives, it's

26:13

actually stopping us from

26:15

being converters of light. And

26:18

I think the natural reaction when everyone hears that,

26:20

going back to your earlier point, is

26:22

that it's so scary. Yeah. Because if

26:24

I can't trust the system, if

26:27

the food has changed as you said it

26:29

rightly has, our modern lives

26:31

with sleep and social media and technology

26:33

have taken over. And so I think

26:35

fear becomes the

26:38

natural reaction. And

26:40

I don't think that anyone would be seen

26:43

as weak for having that fear because it

26:45

feels like the most natural reaction

26:47

and response to the state

26:50

of affairs. And so when

26:52

someone's feeling this and they're hearing this and they're thinking,

26:55

I'm scared, I remember when I was working with

26:57

a client and something I

26:59

do when I'm coaching clients is I make

27:02

sure that we've had all their

27:04

biomarkers tested, they're working with a holistic

27:06

health coach, I don't believe that they

27:09

should be working on their mental health in a

27:11

silo. And some

27:13

clients will say to me, they'll say, I don't want to know.

27:16

Like, I don't want to know and I'll ask them why.

27:18

And they'll say, because I'm scared what I'm going to find out.

27:21

And it's a really interesting part of

27:23

our society, like you're saying in the

27:25

extreme case that ultimately we're scared of

27:27

death. But our fear

27:29

of death makes us fearful of

27:31

trying to live healthy because

27:33

we don't even want to know that

27:36

we might have an early stage of

27:38

a chronic disease or a terminal illness.

27:41

And so where do we start

27:43

assessing and reconstructing

27:46

our relationship with that fear and

27:48

with that anxiety that comes with just,

27:51

I don't know where to start? Well,

27:55

a key message I want

27:57

to share with people is that it's actually

27:59

so much... so much simpler than

28:01

we've been led to believe. The

28:05

system actually benefits so much from

28:08

us being confused and

28:10

thinking that this is complicated,

28:13

that it paralyzes us. There's been research that

28:15

shows that close to 60% of

28:18

Americans totally doubt their choices

28:20

about the nutritional intake because they are so

28:22

confused. Every day on social media, I get

28:24

people saying, I literally have no idea what

28:26

is safe to eat. They say kale is

28:29

not safe to eat. Oats are not safe

28:31

to eat. Obviously meat is not safe to

28:33

eat. Basically there's nothing left. And

28:36

what we need to realize is the

28:38

confusion is intentional. The

28:41

confusion is intentional because the confusion

28:44

essentially asks us

28:46

to abdicate our internal

28:48

knowing about what's right for us to

28:51

experts. And

28:53

that's not working, right? Because like I said,

28:56

the more we spend on healthcare, the

28:59

more research we publish

29:01

on disease, on nutrition, on

29:03

exercise, the more medical subspecialties

29:06

we invent. There are now

29:08

over 42 medical subspecialties.

29:11

So the more research, the more

29:13

spending, the more specialties, the more

29:15

drugs, and the more surgery

29:17

we do, the sicker we are

29:20

getting. The confusion is the point.

29:22

And so the more we're doing, the

29:25

more confused we're getting. And meanwhile, we

29:27

are being asked to essentially be divorced

29:30

from our internal knowing and our common sense about

29:32

what is right for us. If you sit down

29:34

at a dinner table in

29:37

front of a beautiful meal prepared with

29:39

love, with people you love, and it's

29:41

from the farmer's market, and

29:43

it's freshly prepared, you know

29:45

that is healthy. You know that is good for you. We

29:48

are now being so confused that

29:50

we sit down and we might see the kale

29:52

and think, oh my God, but the oxalates, that

29:54

might hurt me. And you

29:56

get good sleep. You feel incredible the next day.

29:58

You walk outside first thing in the morning. morning instead of

30:00

getting straight on your computer, you feel incredible. We

30:03

actually know what is healthy, but we have

30:05

been so put through

30:07

the washing machine of the cult of

30:10

evidence-based medicine and trust

30:13

the experts, trust the science that

30:15

we are so petrified to trust

30:18

ourselves. All you need

30:20

to do is look at the wild.

30:22

There is no chronic disease epidemic or

30:24

obesity epidemic amongst any other animal species

30:27

in the world, and they have no

30:29

experts, no research, no

30:32

doctors, no chronic disease epidemics.

30:36

It's because there is an intuitive

30:38

sense of what to do that

30:40

we have been told to distrust.

30:43

I think there's two main things

30:45

that people can do to really

30:48

get back to

30:50

understanding what their body

30:52

is saying. The first is

30:55

free. It involves no wearables, no

30:57

tech, no lab tests. It's literally

30:59

just reorienting to

31:01

realize that symptoms are a

31:04

gift. Every symptom

31:06

you're feeling is a signal

31:08

from the body. It is a way

31:10

of the body communicating with you to

31:13

tell you that it needs something different.

31:16

When the needs of the cells are met, we have

31:18

health. And when we do

31:20

not meet the needs of the cells or we

31:22

overburden them with toxins or things that they can't

31:24

handle, we get illness. We have been told to

31:27

smash symptoms. If you have a

31:29

headache, take an Advil. If you

31:32

have indigestion, take an adacid. If

31:34

your knee hurts, grab

31:37

an anti-inflammatory medication. It's

31:39

all about killing symptoms.

31:41

Instead of looking at

31:43

them with curiosity, we

31:46

really need to realize that all

31:49

symptoms necessarily and

31:51

fundamentally come from cellular

31:53

dysfunction. They can't

31:55

arise out of thin air. They are

31:58

a result of cells not being able to handle.

32:00

functioning properly. So when you have a symptom, you

32:03

need to basically just ask yourself, what

32:06

is my body trying to tell me? What

32:08

is my body trying to tell me? And

32:11

then realize that it's

32:13

a pretty limited set of things that we

32:16

can actually go to to meet the needs

32:18

of the cells. And one of the frameworks

32:20

I love is to think of my 40

32:22

trillion cells as like my babies. They're like

32:24

my children and I'm the mother. Like the

32:26

whole me is the mother and the cells

32:28

are all my little children and together somehow

32:30

they make up me. But babies

32:34

can't speak to you with words. So

32:37

they cry when they need something. And like

32:39

any mother or father knows, you just will

32:41

quickly run through your checklist. If the baby's

32:44

crying, does it need a diaper change? Does

32:46

it need milk? Does it need to sleep?

32:48

Is the temperature off? You fix those things.

32:50

You run through the checklist. It's not an

32:52

infinite list. And then

32:55

the crying stops. And the way

32:57

that our cells are crying is

32:59

through these chronic symptoms and diseases

33:01

that we have. And the

33:03

way that we approach the cells is

33:05

through the simple things that we

33:07

can do every day. It's how

33:09

has the food been? Are we

33:11

eating the most nutritious, unprocessed, real

33:13

food that is organic and not

33:16

covered in pesticides? Are we avoiding

33:18

the unholy trinity of foods that

33:20

crush our cellular function, sugar, refined

33:22

ultra-processed grains, refined industrial seed oils?

33:25

Food, got it. Okay, how's my food been? Sleep.

33:28

Am I getting enough sleep? Am

33:30

I getting enough quality, quantity, and

33:32

consistency of sleep? Movement.

33:35

Have I been moving? Have I been

33:37

moving my body regular throughout the day?

33:39

Or have I been stuck in a

33:41

chair yesterday, today, just planted and not

33:43

moving my body? How's my

33:45

stress? Have I been expressing

33:48

good boundaries? Have I been controlling what

33:50

I'm looking at on social media? Have

33:52

I been letting lots of fear inducing

33:54

sensationalist media into my eyes? Have

33:57

I gone to therapy this week? Have I been reading my

33:59

safe or inspirational texts that keep

34:01

me grounded. Toxins.

34:05

Have I been exposing myself to toxins? Have I been

34:07

using the synthetic air fresheners and

34:09

putting all the scented lotions on my body

34:11

and eating non-organic food and not filtering my

34:13

water and being around a lot of air

34:15

pollution? Take stock of that. So

34:17

you look at really these

34:20

five main controllable pillars of

34:23

food, sleep, exercise, stress,

34:25

toxins, and take

34:27

stock. Take honest stock.

34:30

How are you treating your cells? And

34:32

why are they crying with these symptoms?

34:34

So number one is look

34:37

at your symptoms as a gift. Start

34:39

to interpret how your body is talking to

34:42

you, how your cells are talking to you.

34:45

Take honest stock of how you're living

34:47

and then change course. And

34:49

I think many people will find that when you do that, you realize,

34:51

oh my God, there's actually a lot of little things I could be

34:53

doing. I need to get a good night's sleep. I need some water.

34:56

I need to have a nutritious meal. I need to take

34:58

a few deep breaths. And a lot of things actually will

35:00

get a lot better with that. The second

35:02

piece is a little more technical. And

35:05

this is hearing your body through tools and

35:07

technology that's only been available to us for

35:09

like the past two to three years. Incredible

35:12

technology that can tell us more about our body

35:14

and the inner workings of our cells than our

35:16

doctors have ever even been able to know about

35:18

us. So this includes

35:20

things like wearables that can tell us

35:23

our heart rate variability, our step count,

35:25

our heart rate, and our sleep. This

35:28

is biosensors, which are brand new in

35:30

our world and accessible

35:32

for the first time ever. And right

35:35

now, there's really only one main biosensor, which is

35:37

called a continuous glucose monitor. There will be more

35:39

in the future. But this can literally tell us

35:41

an internal lab test of our body, show it

35:44

to us on our phone, our glucose levels 24

35:46

hours a day and tell us exactly how the

35:48

foods are eating and the way we're living and

35:50

how we're sleeping is affecting this key metabolic

35:53

biomarker. And then

35:55

we now have direct to consumer lab testing

35:58

where we can see like a hyper-carbon. I'm

38:00

so glad you asked this question because when

38:02

we're thinking about symptoms

38:05

as gifts, so often

38:07

the thing we reach for to kill

38:09

symptoms is an anti-inflammatory medication. It is

38:11

the Advil, it is the Tylenol or

38:13

the Flexeril or whatever it is, yeah,

38:15

the Motrin. And I really

38:19

want people to step back and

38:21

think about the concept of

38:23

inflammation for a second. Inflammation

38:26

is the immune

38:28

cells of the body revving

38:31

up a huge response,

38:33

essentially a war in the

38:35

body in response to

38:38

some type of threat. Inflammation

38:43

fundamentally is biochemical

38:45

fear. And

38:48

inflammatory conditions are totally overlapped with

38:50

metabolic conditions. In a way I

38:52

talk about in my book, the

38:55

trifecta of bad energy, the things

38:57

that actually lead to metabolic dysfunction

38:59

in the body are three things

39:01

that I talk about in the

39:03

book which are chronic inflammation, mitochondrial

39:05

dysfunction and what's called oxidative stress

39:08

which is reactive damaging molecules in

39:10

the body. Together, those all work

39:12

together to create metabolic dysfunction. And

39:14

chronic inflammation is one of those

39:16

things. And if we think

39:18

of inflammation for what it is, which

39:20

is the cells of the body

39:22

being afraid of something, what

39:25

we have to ask ourselves as

39:27

individuals is, what is

39:29

my body afraid of? We

39:32

have to be asking that question before

39:34

we reach for the Advil because

39:37

we can often identify it very quickly.

39:40

Maybe it's afraid of the

39:42

fact that it's staring at

39:44

war imagery on this device

39:46

in your hand, like

39:49

literally 10 hours a day, that

39:51

we are literally having to internalize the

39:54

suffering of 8 billion people through a device

39:56

that we hold in our hands and our

39:58

bed. We know that that image, literally

40:00

creates chronic inflammation in the body. You

40:03

talked about this with Michelle Obama, about

40:05

how we're having to process, what

40:07

was it, like terabytes of more

40:09

suffering than people had to actually,

40:11

in one day, than people had

40:13

to process in their whole lifetimes.

40:16

So that could maybe cause some chronic inflammation. But

40:19

then going through the rest of the list, is

40:21

the fear maybe the synthetic

40:24

toxic glyphosate pesticide that's covering

40:27

the food, the Cheerios that you're eating, is

40:30

it the fact that you got five hours

40:32

of sleep last night and your

40:34

body's like, holy crap, like I'm so

40:36

tired. This is, what is wrong? What

40:38

is going on? Is it the toxins

40:40

in the environment? So if

40:43

we think of inflammation as biochemical

40:45

fear and we ask ourselves, why

40:47

am I taking this anti-inflammatory medication? Instead

40:50

of just asking myself, what is causing

40:52

my body fear right now? It will

40:54

lead us down such a more empowering

40:56

path of truly with

40:58

compassion, giving the

41:01

body what it needs to feel

41:03

safe, as opposed to hitting the system

41:06

that is trying to help us over

41:08

the head with a hammer of medication

41:10

that will not take the fear away.

41:12

It will only numb the

41:15

reaction the body is having to

41:18

something very real. That's a

41:20

fantastic answer. I'm so glad I asked as well,

41:22

because I think that's the

41:24

challenge, right? It's become such a habit. It's

41:26

become such a automated response

41:28

to just reach for it. And

41:31

what's even more worrying about it is

41:34

this idea that we

41:36

are disconnecting every time from

41:40

our intuition, from

41:42

our communication

41:44

with our body to communication with all

41:46

the cells and what they're trying to

41:48

say. And the more we

41:51

disconnect, the harder it is to reconnect every

41:53

single day when you're having that experience. And

41:57

I feel like we've tried as time

41:59

is going. in

46:00

the right direction. Through travel, I have

46:02

learned that being in a new place

46:04

provides our bodies and minds time to

46:06

unwind and relax and step

46:09

away from our daily stresses. As you've

46:11

probably experienced, it takes a few days

46:13

to start to unplug and unwind and

46:16

that shouldn't have to start once you

46:18

reach your destination. In fact, it can

46:20

start when you begin booking your vacation.

46:22

booking.com takes out the stress of booking

46:25

your trip as they will make your

46:27

vacation tailored to your wants with the

46:29

utmost ease. They offer a

46:31

variety of different accommodations throughout the

46:34

US. If you want something

46:36

more relaxing for the whole family, they

46:38

can suggest beachside vacation homes. If you

46:40

want something a bit more adventurous, they

46:42

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46:45

and outdoorsy, such as a cabin in

46:47

the woods at the bottom of a trailhead.

46:49

Wherever you choose, they will accommodate your desires

46:51

to try new experiences, to get out of

46:54

your mind and out of your comfort zone

46:56

without the stress of having to navigate where

46:58

to even begin booking a trip and deciding

47:00

what to do. I often find

47:03

the hard part about planning a vacation

47:05

usually stems from deciding where to go,

47:07

where to stay and what to do. When

47:10

planning my trip, I'm constantly debating what type

47:12

of vacation to take and where to go.

47:14

And when I don't know where to start, I

47:16

can turn to booking.com. They make

47:19

it easy to book accommodations for any

47:21

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47:23

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47:26

leave things up to chance when visiting

47:28

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47:30

booking.com eliminates the stress of booking a

47:32

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47:35

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47:37

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47:39

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47:41

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47:44

be on booking.com, booking.yea.

47:47

In a sense, I would argue that almost

47:50

every medication that we're prescribing

47:52

for chronic conditions is

47:56

representing this disconnect that we're having

47:58

right now. anti-medication,

48:01

but it's the framework that we have.

48:03

It's the framework that we have that's

48:06

causing the problem and that

48:08

actually feeds straight into the pharmaceutical

48:11

company's bottom lines, but not necessarily into

48:13

the bottom line of human thriving. I

48:15

think all you have to do is just look at

48:17

the reality of what is happening,

48:19

which is that how does

48:21

the healthcare system work? If you

48:24

have depression, you see a psychiatrist and you

48:26

get an SSRI. If

48:28

you have polycystic ovarian syndrome, you see the

48:30

OBGYN and you either get calomethine or birth

48:33

control pills. If you have high cholesterol, you see

48:35

the cardiologist, you get a statin. If you have

48:37

high blood pressure, you see the cardiologist, you get

48:39

an ACE inhibitor. If you have obesity, you see

48:41

the obesity specialist, you get WAGOVI. It

48:44

goes on and on and on. If you

48:46

have diabetes, you see the endocrinologist, you get

48:48

metformin. The

48:51

thing that people need to

48:53

internalize is that in

48:56

that system, the more of

48:59

those drugs we're prescribing for

49:01

those symptoms, the

49:04

rates of all those conditions are

49:06

increasing as we

49:08

prescribe those medications. This is

49:10

the definition of unsustainability. This

49:13

is the definition of at

49:15

a societal level, this approach

49:17

not working absolutely for individuals.

49:20

Some of those medications will help them. There's no question.

49:22

There are people I know who have depression, who got

49:24

on SSRI and they felt a lot better and it

49:26

gave them the motivation they needed to make the other

49:29

changes. But because

49:31

these drugs do

49:34

not actually affect the physiology

49:36

that leads to the disease,

49:38

they just manage the downstream

49:41

manifestation of the physiology in

49:43

a symptom-specific way, they

49:45

don't actually help us solve the real problem. In

49:48

every one of those cases, we know that

49:50

dietary and lifestyle interventions, which actually get at

49:52

the trifecta of bad energy, which actually quell

49:55

those issues and meet the

49:57

needs of the cell. But

50:00

in many cases, those work as well or better

50:03

than the medication themselves. There is

50:05

good research in Cochrane Reviews, which

50:07

is an organization that does huge

50:09

meta-analyses of research that shows

50:12

that simply

50:14

exercising 150

50:16

minutes per week is equivalent

50:19

to an SSRI for

50:21

the treatment of depression. And instead of having

50:23

a 20 plus percent side

50:25

effect profile of SSRIs, there's a less than

50:28

2% side effect profile of exercise, which

50:30

is also kind of amusing to think about that

50:32

the side effect profile is like, you know,

50:34

feeling sore, right? But it's not like something

50:36

like gaining a bunch of weight or losing

50:39

your libido, like what you might have with

50:41

the SSRIs. So there

50:43

are different approaches for these things that actually

50:45

would not only get at

50:48

those diseases, but also ease

50:50

the physiology that's leading to these other things. And

50:52

I think what people, it's both empowering

50:54

and scary to realize that a lot of the

50:57

smaller annoying symptoms that we

50:59

deal with when we're

51:01

younger, like the PCOS, which is

51:03

the leading cause of infertility in the United States,

51:05

so many people, I'm sure this is happening in

51:07

your friend group too, like so many people are

51:10

dealing with infertility and getting IVF, erect,

51:12

tail dysfunction, gout, migraine, chronic pain,

51:14

depression, anxiety, these sort of annoying,

51:16

but non-lethal symptoms are often, they

51:18

often can be the warning signs

51:20

of that physiology happening that will

51:23

become louder cries later. It'll

51:26

become the things, the real diagnoses, like the high

51:28

cholesterol and the high blood pressure and the high

51:30

glucose, that then can be

51:32

the loudest cries of all later in life, which

51:35

are the things that kill us, which is the

51:37

stroke, the actual heart attack,

51:39

the Alzheimer's dementia, the cancer, the chronic

51:41

liver disease, the chronic kidney disease, the

51:43

chronic lower respiratory infections, these things, all

51:46

of which are on the spectrum. They

51:48

are either caused by or accelerated by

51:51

metabolic dysfunction. That's a statement of scientific

51:53

fact that our system in

51:55

its intervention-based model conveniently

51:59

ignores. And I

52:01

think two things I would just mention to kind

52:04

of help people really internalize this. So

52:07

people might say like, okay, you're saying a lot here,

52:09

like you're saying that Gout and Alzheimer's are on

52:11

the same spectrum and or that cancer and PCOS

52:13

are on the same spectrum. But what

52:15

we need to realize is that the body

52:17

has over 200 cell types. We

52:21

have over 200, I think it's 221 different types of cells in the body. We've

52:26

got the retinal cell, we've got the glial cell

52:28

in the brain, the

52:31

astrocytes in the brain, we've got endothelial cells that

52:33

line our blood vessels, we've got hepatocytes in the

52:35

liver, we've got ovarian theca cells in the ovaries,

52:37

we've got all these different cell types, which very

52:39

amazingly all came from one cell, which is awesome

52:42

and differentiate into these different cell types.

52:45

And like I said earlier, every single

52:47

cell needs energy to function

52:49

properly. So if mitochondrial dysfunction,

52:52

but because of our environment, is

52:54

happening in the body based

52:57

on which cell type it's happening in, the

52:59

ovarian cell, the astrocyte in the

53:02

brain, the endothelial cell in the

53:04

penis, the retinal cell, it

53:07

can look like almost anything. It's like

53:09

the great masquerader because an underpowered

53:12

cell in the brain can

53:14

look like Alzheimer's, chronic pain,

53:16

depression, migraine,

53:19

depression, anxiety, a underpowered

53:22

cell in the liver can look like

53:24

fatty liver disease, an underpowered cell in

53:26

the ovary can look, can express as

53:29

infertility, an underpowered cell in

53:31

the endothelial lining of the penile artery can

53:33

look like erectile dysfunction. A dysfunctional cell

53:35

can look like a million different things,

53:38

but these are branches of

53:41

fundamentally the same tree. And

53:43

the secret is, which is the secret that I'm

53:46

on this planet to share, is that

53:48

if we focus our energy on

53:50

healing, that underlying process, it

53:53

actually would make things so much simpler. Unfortunately,

53:55

it would very

53:58

much change the economic... reality

54:00

of the healthcare system, which is why

54:02

this isn't being adopted and not happening.

54:07

But that's not a problem we need to take on.

54:09

We have the tools to actually, outside of the system,

54:12

by trusting ourselves, get at that root

54:14

cause, which the system, unfortunately, because it

54:17

is so large, has

54:20

no incentive to do. And if

54:22

you're open, I'd love to speak to that for just one second. I'd

54:25

love to hear the question. Because

54:28

I think people might say, doctors are good people,

54:30

and wouldn't the healthcare system want us to

54:32

be healthy? And I think

54:34

it's really, again, this is not meant to be scary.

54:36

It's meant to help people understand why they need to

54:38

take ownership of their own health at this moment in

54:40

time. And I

54:43

think it goes back to when

54:46

I was in my surgical residency, I was trained to

54:48

become a head and neck surgeon, nine

54:51

years into medical school

54:53

and training. And I was

54:55

heading out to start my private practice. And

54:59

the mantra that everyone said to me in the

55:01

hospital from my senior doctors was, get

55:04

ready because you eat what you kill. And

55:08

what that means, this very grotesque

55:10

mantra, it's a euphemism that means

55:12

your livelihood is dependent on how many surgeries

55:14

you book and do. You

55:17

eat what you kill. So you obviously

55:19

aren't killing, but your bottom

55:22

line, your entire income is just based

55:24

on how many surgeries you will do and how

55:26

many patients you can see. And

55:29

right now, the healthcare industry is

55:32

a four trillion dollar industry. It

55:34

is the largest and

55:36

fastest growing industry in the United States. And

55:39

it is a business. It's a business

55:41

is designed to grow. And based

55:43

on the way that healthcare is financed right now,

55:45

which is that we make money when we have

55:49

more people in the

55:51

system for a longer period of time, having more

55:53

things done to them. Chronic disease is the ultimate

55:56

cash. for

56:00

our system. There is literally no

56:03

financial incentive to get a chronically

56:06

ill patient out of the system, which is

56:08

why acute illnesses are no

56:10

longer, like those they're in and out,

56:13

right? But a chronic disease and especially

56:15

a chronic disease that starts in childhood,

56:17

which is now what we're seeing so

56:20

much more. The most lucrative thing for

56:22

the largest industry and the fastest growing

56:24

industry in the United States is a

56:27

chronically ill child, which we are seeing

56:30

those rates go up monumentally. 30%

56:33

of young adults now have pre-diabetes.

56:36

This was a disease that no pediatrician

56:38

in their entire career would see

56:40

75 years ago. 20%

56:44

of kids have fatty liver disease. This was

56:46

a disease we only used to see in

56:48

older alcoholics. It's now the leading

56:51

cause of liver transplants. Kids,

56:53

of course, are dealing with monumental mental

56:55

health and behavioral crises. The

56:58

thing to note though here is

57:00

that I know probably at this point,

57:02

hundreds of doctors that I've worked with, and there's not

57:04

a single bad person I've ever really met in medicine.

57:07

Every single person I know who went through

57:09

all this training, they all went into this

57:11

system to help people. They all went into the

57:13

system to do good work and to cure and

57:16

had the best intentions. But

57:19

the stark economic reality is that the

57:21

largest industry in the United States, which is designed

57:24

to grow, makes more

57:26

money when we are sick and make the

57:28

clouds every element of how

57:30

we practice medicine in the United States

57:32

and actually gets all of us and

57:34

me in the past believing that it's

57:37

all the right way and it's the best healthcare

57:39

system in the country. It clouds everything

57:41

from how research is done, how research

57:43

studies are set up, to

57:45

how doctors practice, to what we're learning in

57:47

medical school, to

57:50

how residency training happens and

57:52

how the guidelines are written. And

57:54

so fundamentally, I think just having

57:56

real eyes open with what underlies

58:00

every element of the system and how your doctor might

58:02

not even realize how they're playing an a part

58:04

in this Fundamentally intervention

58:06

based system is step

58:08

one for making the decision

58:13

To take matters a little bit more into your

58:15

own hands and maybe bring your doctor along with

58:17

you on the journey But the reality is is

58:19

that we have an intervention based

58:21

system the system profits and we're sick

58:25

Metabolic dysfunction is the root of most of our symptoms

58:27

and diseases in the modern American world and

58:30

it's quite simple to fix talking

58:32

about young people and I think that is a great place

58:34

to start and focus on because I

58:36

think We would hope that

58:38

with all of the technological advancement and

58:40

healthcare advancement that we'd be setting up

58:43

the future generation for success and

58:45

in some of the research you share in the

58:47

book you also went on to share that 45%

58:50

of teens are overweight or obese and 77%

58:54

of young Americans are too unfit to join the military

58:56

and this point really stood

58:58

out to me the generation born today is

59:00

not on track to outlive their parents and

59:04

That is a clear sign that there's

59:06

an issue Because with all the

59:08

other advancement that should be clear that we should

59:10

be able to outlive The

59:12

previous generations and you talk about

59:15

how there's seven policy changes that

59:17

you think could be executive orders That

59:20

would start to fix things tomorrow and I wanted to

59:22

highlight a couple of them that I think we could

59:24

talk about because I

59:26

think that It

59:29

almost even if we realize that

59:31

currently it's in the

59:33

individual realm of influence that we need

59:35

to shift It's healthy

59:37

for us to understand what those big challenges are

59:40

So one of the I mean the first one

59:42

is ban farmer ads on news outlets currently 60%

59:45

of I'll let you say Number

59:47

one ban farmer ads on news

59:49

outlets. It's hard to overstate

59:51

how important it would be For

59:54

the president the next president coming into office

59:57

to just sign an executive order that says

59:59

ban and pharmaceutical

1:00:02

spending towards advertisement on TV.

1:00:04

The reason for this is

1:00:06

very simple. 60%

1:00:10

of the advertising dollars that come

1:00:12

into mainstream media are from the

1:00:14

pharmaceutical industry. And this is the

1:00:16

point that just really keeps

1:00:18

me up at night. The

1:00:20

customer of

1:00:23

the people making the news is not

1:00:25

you. It's

1:00:27

the pharmaceutical company. They are

1:00:30

paying the bills. They are the customer. You

1:00:32

are the product. And

1:00:35

so because the pharmaceutical company

1:00:37

is the customer, the

1:00:42

information that we are getting from

1:00:44

our news sources is going to

1:00:46

be shaped to have a favorable

1:00:48

message about that industry. And that

1:00:50

trickles down into culture. That trickles

1:00:52

down into what we believe and

1:00:54

what we think is normal. And

1:00:57

so unlike so

1:00:59

many other countries in the world that

1:01:01

do not allow pharmaceutical advertising on TV,

1:01:04

that simple shift would change

1:01:06

the way we're seeing and

1:01:08

getting information. And

1:01:10

they could still of course share

1:01:13

about medical innovation and drugs, but

1:01:15

not with a stranglehold on their

1:01:17

neck of their livelihood,

1:01:19

of the dollars that produce

1:01:21

the show. And I think a

1:01:24

fascinating thing that you notice in

1:01:26

culture recently is that independent media.

1:01:28

So people like you, people like

1:01:31

Joe Rogan, Barry Weiss,

1:01:33

people who have

1:01:36

independent platform. And all

1:01:38

of the potential consequences may cause death,

1:01:40

may cause this, may cause that. And

1:01:42

I'm like, this has to be a

1:01:44

joke. Like this can't be serious. Like

1:01:46

Ryan Reynolds must be at the end

1:01:48

of this advert and it must be

1:01:50

something funny. Like it can't be real.

1:01:53

And it's fascinating to me that it is

1:01:55

real and that it has

1:01:57

been gotten away with for this long. I

1:01:59

wonder, Have you ever looked at how, and

1:02:02

again, I'm not expecting you to know this, I'm just intrigued

1:02:04

by it, but have you ever looked at if

1:02:06

that happens, if we ban farmer ads

1:02:09

or news outlets and

1:02:11

those 60% ad spots disappear or reappear with

1:02:13

opportunities, have you looked at how that would

1:02:15

affect the economy? I'm just fascinated by what

1:02:18

a dent it would have on

1:02:20

the GDP and the economy and all of

1:02:22

that because I wonder the cost that they're

1:02:25

weighing up in their heads based

1:02:28

on everything else you've said. There

1:02:30

will have to be an

1:02:32

economic adjustment if

1:02:35

and when we hopefully adopt a

1:02:37

good energy framework for the future

1:02:40

of healthcare because

1:02:43

right now there's a devil's

1:02:45

bargain happening between

1:02:48

over $10 trillion of industry,

1:02:52

the $4 trillion of healthcare, sick

1:02:54

care, and

1:02:59

the $6 trillion

1:03:01

of processed food and

1:03:03

industrial agriculture, which

1:03:05

are a revolving door

1:03:08

of financial

1:03:11

support to each other. You create

1:03:14

people who are addicted to ultra-processed foods that

1:03:16

take them to their bliss point, they start

1:03:18

eating themselves to death, they become customers to

1:03:20

the healthcare system, and then

1:03:23

the healthcare system does nothing to actually change the

1:03:25

root cause of what's hurting them and they go

1:03:27

back to going straight to the food. The

1:03:30

chemicals associated with industrial agriculture, the ultra-processed

1:03:32

food industry that's creating all this franken

1:03:34

food and the healthcare industry are in

1:03:36

a devil's bargain that all are

1:03:39

keeping humans sick. Yes,

1:03:41

I think that if we

1:03:43

really radically reimagined what it

1:03:45

would look like to turn

1:03:48

the arrow of humanity in a better direction,

1:03:50

it's going to change a lot of

1:03:52

its economics. But what I'm really hopeful

1:03:54

about is that there's so many incredible

1:03:56

companies that are aligning profit with

1:03:58

how to make a better world. Absolutely.

1:04:00

That's totally possible. And

1:04:03

one of the reasons that I co-founded

1:04:05

Levels Health, which is a

1:04:07

company that allows access for people to

1:04:09

these continuous glucose monitors that help them

1:04:12

understand exactly how the food they're eating

1:04:14

are affecting their own metabolic health in

1:04:16

real time is because it's

1:04:18

an example of a company that as

1:04:22

we add more value to people in

1:04:24

understanding their health and their own bodies,

1:04:26

that's good for the company. And you

1:04:28

see this across so many things. You've

1:04:30

got the incredible sleep companies happening. You've

1:04:32

got Ate Sleep. You've got really incredible

1:04:34

food brands that are cropping up, focus

1:04:36

on regenerative, good soil and low glycemic

1:04:38

and no artificial chemicals. You've

1:04:41

got meditation apps like Calm.

1:04:43

You've got so many things cropping up. And

1:04:45

I think it's just gonna have to be

1:04:47

a re-imagination of

1:04:50

what the economics of this look like. And I will

1:04:54

say like there have been efforts

1:04:57

to try to shift

1:04:59

the healthcare system towards a model

1:05:01

that aligns human health with profit.

1:05:06

You may recall that under

1:05:08

Obama, under President Obama,

1:05:10

there was the Affordable Care Act. And

1:05:12

there was this effort to create what

1:05:14

was called value-based care. And

1:05:17

value, the definition of value is, it's

1:05:19

an equation that is outcomes over cost.

1:05:21

You want good outcomes for the lowest

1:05:23

cost. That would be a high value

1:05:25

intervention. And so the way they

1:05:27

set this up, which is amazing, like, because right

1:05:29

now it's fee for service. You get paid as

1:05:31

a doctor for what you do. That

1:05:34

would have you get paid for adding value,

1:05:36

which is better outcomes over lower cost. And

1:05:38

there's nothing higher value in healthcare than

1:05:40

eating real unprocessed organic food. That's just

1:05:43

the reality. If people eat real food,

1:05:45

healthcare costs plummet and do all the

1:05:47

other things, sleep and move, et cetera.

1:05:50

So this is actually, it's an

1:05:53

unfortunate story that ends poorly, but there

1:05:55

was an effort to move towards value-based care

1:05:57

where doctors would actually get paid significantly.

1:06:00

more by Medicaid and reimbursed more for

1:06:02

their work if they provided good outcomes

1:06:05

over low cost. This

1:06:07

program got corrupted

1:06:10

by the pharmaceutical industry because

1:06:13

when I look at good

1:06:15

outcomes as a doctor, good outcomes

1:06:17

for health, I'm thinking about one

1:06:19

thing and one thing only, which

1:06:22

is are the cells of this person in

1:06:24

front of me functioning

1:06:27

better? Are they functioning properly?

1:06:29

Is there a functional cellular

1:06:32

biology happening inside this patient? Because if that's the

1:06:34

case, they will not have symptoms or disease. Unfortunately,

1:06:38

quality in this program

1:06:41

was defined by things like medication

1:06:43

adherence. So the outcome was actually

1:06:45

co-opted to be actually how many

1:06:48

of the patients on the doctor's

1:06:50

panel were on the appropriate long-term

1:06:52

medical therapy. So for instance, for

1:06:55

asthma, I remember one of the quality metrics

1:06:57

that a doctor could report on was what

1:07:00

percentage of their patients with

1:07:02

a diagnosis of asthma were

1:07:04

on long-term albuterol therapy. So

1:07:07

quality got called

1:07:09

basically like adherence

1:07:11

to drug regimens as opposed to what

1:07:14

quality really is in health, which is

1:07:16

a body that is functioning properly. And

1:07:18

all doctors and all people need to

1:07:21

realize that a body

1:07:24

on medication is not, that's not

1:07:26

the outcome we want. We want

1:07:28

a body that is healed, cells

1:07:30

that have healed and that actually

1:07:32

become functional. And my mom is

1:07:34

literally the definition of this problem

1:07:36

where everyone, including her

1:07:38

and all her doctors thought

1:07:41

they were practicing good outcome

1:07:43

medicine, where she was on all her medications

1:07:45

and all her little biomarkers, the little knobs

1:07:47

were being turned on her LDL and her

1:07:49

glucose and her blood pressure, but

1:07:52

her cells never healed.

1:07:55

And therefore she ultimately got the cancer and

1:07:57

she ultimately died very prematurely. So

1:08:00

that's kind of the framework I would say for

1:08:02

that. Yeah, absolutely.

1:08:04

Another one that I want to push out, which I think

1:08:06

is in line with what you're saying here, is

1:08:10

stop federal funding for academic departments who

1:08:12

take money from pharma. It

1:08:14

is really wild. The

1:08:17

FDA, which

1:08:20

is a government agency, and many

1:08:23

academic centers get

1:08:26

up to 75% of their budget from

1:08:28

pharmaceutical companies. So you would think the FDA

1:08:30

would be fully funded by taxpayer money, and

1:08:32

they would have taxpayer interest in mind, but again, it's

1:08:34

no. And

1:08:36

they did a report where there

1:08:39

were over $181

1:08:41

million of conflicts of interests reported, essentially

1:08:48

academic researchers taking money from industry,

1:08:50

and these are academic and

1:08:53

NIH, researchers,

1:08:55

and so right there, it

1:08:58

just changes who we're working for.

1:09:00

And so I think if people are going to

1:09:02

accept federal

1:09:05

dollars paid for by taxpayers to do

1:09:08

research or to do anything touching health, it

1:09:12

cannot also be taking money from industry because

1:09:15

then you end up having split interests. Well,

1:09:18

yeah, I mean, it seems so obvious. It's

1:09:22

almost so painful to even think

1:09:24

that these basic measures

1:09:29

that seem like easily drawn parallels

1:09:31

can't be stopped, and they haven't

1:09:33

even got close. Well, when you

1:09:36

think about the realities of it and why

1:09:38

these things haven't happened in almost

1:09:40

every single state in the country, the

1:09:42

elected representatives, a huge percentage

1:09:44

of their constituency is employed by

1:09:46

food, farming, or healthcare. So

1:09:50

anything to rock that boat is not

1:09:52

gonna be politically advantageous, and this

1:09:54

is why someone like RFK, I

1:09:56

think, is really gaining a lot of momentum, the

1:09:58

most popular... independent candidate I think

1:10:01

in the last hundred years because he's actually just

1:10:03

saying a lot of this stuff plainly.

1:10:05

And I genuinely don't think it's

1:10:07

ever gonna work to try and get some of

1:10:09

these things through Congress because there's just so much

1:10:11

compromised interests. I think a lot

1:10:14

of these things would have to be just

1:10:16

straight executive orders from the president to say,

1:10:18

we're gonna make these changes because the

1:10:21

direction America is going is

1:10:23

it is not good. Yeah,

1:10:25

it would be great for someone to

1:10:27

do a real analysis on how you

1:10:29

switch to build purposeful, profitable companies and

1:10:32

what that looks like as an economy because

1:10:34

I think people get so scared, people

1:10:37

who are motivated by money and power

1:10:40

and control get so scared by what happens

1:10:42

if you suddenly switch it not realizing that

1:10:45

there are so many purposeful, powerful ways of

1:10:47

doing the same thing and

1:10:49

in ways that actually help people. The

1:10:52

other one that I wanted to pick out, and there's seven here, I'm only

1:10:54

picking out a few. The last one I

1:10:56

wanted to pick out was to eliminate added

1:10:58

sugar from the National School Lunch Program, which

1:11:01

feels like it should be an easy one because

1:11:03

that doesn't really have any economic downside at

1:11:05

all. One of the most astonishing things that

1:11:08

I think has happened in public policy in

1:11:10

the last 10 years is that when the

1:11:12

2020 to 2025 USDA

1:11:16

food guidelines came up for renewal, they

1:11:18

happen every five years, the

1:11:21

Scientific Advisory Board to the USDA

1:11:23

made a strong recommendation to lower

1:11:25

the percent of added sugar in

1:11:28

the diet from a recommendation of

1:11:30

10% of calories

1:11:32

coming from added sugar to 6% of

1:11:35

calories coming from added sugar. This seems minor, but

1:11:37

that's 10% of our calories to

1:11:40

6% of our calories is a big deal.

1:11:43

The USDA rejected their Scientific Advisory

1:11:46

Board's recommendation to lower, saying that

1:11:48

there was not enough scientific evidence.

1:11:51

And this has monumental

1:11:53

implications. We are literally saying that

1:11:56

two year olds, these tiny little

1:11:58

bodies can get. 10%

1:12:01

of their total calories from added sugar in

1:12:04

the face of a world

1:12:06

in which 50% of American adults

1:12:10

have either prediabetes or type

1:12:12

2 diabetes, conditions directly related

1:12:14

to sugar, and our body's

1:12:18

inability to process more sugar.

1:12:20

And 30% of young adults

1:12:22

now have prediabetes. And we're

1:12:24

saying, we're not only saying

1:12:26

it's okay, we're recommending that 10% of

1:12:29

our calories can come from added sugar. This is,

1:12:31

I mean, truly, I

1:12:33

think this is shameful. And I

1:12:36

don't understand why every endocrinologist

1:12:38

in the country isn't using literally

1:12:40

every platform they possibly can to

1:12:43

say, this is crazy. We

1:12:45

need to be saying, in America,

1:12:48

no added sugar. This does not

1:12:51

mean fruit. This means refined, industrially processed sugar

1:12:53

that's added to our food, which is close

1:12:55

to 60% of the things on our shelf.

1:12:58

And that is absolutely wreaking havoc on our biology. With

1:13:01

that compassionate framework towards our

1:13:03

cells, if you

1:13:05

think about what's happening with our mitochondria, sugar,

1:13:08

which turns into blood glucose, it

1:13:10

floats around in the body, and the body

1:13:13

has to do something with that. The body

1:13:15

has to process it. And normally, if you

1:13:17

have the right amount of glucose in the

1:13:19

body, the cells would take it up out

1:13:21

of the bloodstream, the mitochondria would convert it

1:13:24

to cellular energy to power our lives. But

1:13:26

because of all the factors

1:13:28

in our environment that we've talked about that

1:13:30

are ravaging the mitochondria, not only is the

1:13:32

mitochondria broken by all those things, the sleep,

1:13:34

the toxin, the toxins, the sedentary

1:13:36

behavior, but we are overwhelming the body with

1:13:38

like 50 times more

1:13:41

sugar than it's ever had to deal with in human

1:13:43

history. And so imagine

1:13:45

someone coming to you and saying, I

1:13:48

need you to do 50 times

1:13:50

more work today than you've ever had

1:13:52

to do. And you're already going

1:13:54

to be depleted because you're a structure. That's a

1:13:56

great perspective. Yeah. And that's what's happening to each

1:13:59

of our cells every day. single day with this

1:14:01

added sugar. And so what does

1:14:03

the body do with it? The

1:14:05

body says, well, the

1:14:07

mitochondria can't process it. So we're going

1:14:09

to block the cell from taking that

1:14:12

glucose up. We just need to block

1:14:14

it. That literally is insulin resistance. The

1:14:16

body's saying, we can't do it. We

1:14:18

are so broken and you are overwhelming

1:14:20

us. Please stop. That's insulin resistance. The

1:14:23

body blocking glucose coming to the cell.

1:14:25

So of course then blood sugar level

1:14:27

rise, which is happening in 50%

1:14:30

of American adults, 30% of teens and so

1:14:32

many more than that. But that's what we

1:14:34

know. That's the ones that have been diagnosed

1:14:37

with prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. And then

1:14:40

with that extra sugar floating around that can't get into

1:14:42

the cell, what does the body do with that? It

1:14:45

has to do something. So it does the best it

1:14:47

can. It converts it

1:14:49

into fat. It 3D prints that

1:14:51

glucose into triglycerides and fat. And

1:14:53

now 74% of

1:14:55

Americans are overweight or obese.

1:14:58

So it all makes sense through this lens

1:15:01

of we got

1:15:03

to just get back to the basics and

1:15:05

stop literally having public policy. That's essentially

1:15:08

the root cause of how we're just totally

1:15:10

overwhelming our bodies with these things that they

1:15:12

cannot process. And they're saying it as loud

1:15:15

as humanly possible, 74% obesity, overweight, 50%

1:15:18

type 2 diabetes and prediabetes. Why

1:15:20

in God's name are we recommending 10% of

1:15:22

calories to come from

1:15:25

added sugar? So that needs to be an executive

1:15:27

order. Reduce it to ideally

1:15:29

zero or 6% like the scientific

1:15:33

advisory board said and absolutely

1:15:35

do not serve it to

1:15:37

children in federally funded school

1:15:39

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1:15:42

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1:19:00

said, well said. I mean, I

1:19:03

don't think there's anyone who could listen to this and

1:19:05

not feel completely moved

1:19:08

to want to shift in this direction. I mean,

1:19:11

I so deeply appreciate not

1:19:13

only the energy with which

1:19:15

you communicate, but the poignancy

1:19:17

of each and every one of the insights. For

1:19:19

me, I'm listening just, yeah, again,

1:19:22

just feeling like I hope everyone

1:19:24

who's listening and watching, and this is

1:19:26

definitely when you read Casey's book, you'll realize

1:19:28

this, this isn't to

1:19:30

make you scared. It isn't to make you fearful. It's

1:19:32

to make you feel empowered and

1:19:35

pushed in the direction of change because everything we've

1:19:37

been hearing for so long has been doing the

1:19:40

opposite. I wanted to talk to you about this

1:19:42

because a lot of people have said this to me, and I just

1:19:45

invested in a company called Function Health.

1:19:47

I don't know if you've come across

1:19:49

them. Love them. Oh great. I'm

1:19:52

an investor. Oh perfect. We're

1:19:54

both investors. Perfect. So I just invested in a company called Function

1:19:57

Health. I've known Dr. Mark Hyman for a few years. met

1:20:00

the wonderful team and I was very passionate

1:20:02

about how they were allowing people

1:20:04

to do, I believe 200 biomarkers

1:20:06

at $500 a year, which

1:20:09

to me felt like a great investment.

1:20:12

I think one of the things I wanna help people with is

1:20:14

what do you do with those 200 biomarkers,

1:20:19

results, the blood test, the

1:20:21

biosensors. I think a lot

1:20:23

of people, again, look at that list and

1:20:25

you're like, well, where do I go from here? Where do

1:20:27

I start? What do I do? HDL

1:20:29

mean, what does, you know, HOMI-R

1:20:32

mean, what does, you know, uric acid, like what

1:20:34

is all of this stuff? It's so out

1:20:37

of our vocabulary. And

1:20:39

like you said, 99% of doctors in

1:20:41

the book, you talk about this, 99% of

1:20:43

doctors don't understand it or will

1:20:45

say, don't worry about it. That's what I've been

1:20:47

told as well many times before I was able

1:20:49

to start getting tested by my

1:20:51

holistic doctors. All I was hearing is don't worry about

1:20:54

it. Don't stress about it. It's not a big deal.

1:20:56

You're young, you're healthy. And I'm like,

1:20:58

I know I'm young and healthy, but I want to

1:21:00

stay young and healthy. And I believe that requires a

1:21:02

bit more effort than me saying I'm young and healthy,

1:21:04

it doesn't matter. And I've learned about early

1:21:07

stages for me of LDL, of

1:21:10

my predisposition to diabetes because of my

1:21:12

heritage. And, you know, there's so many

1:21:14

things that I'm so happy I know

1:21:16

about today, which has reduced my intake

1:21:18

of certain things that I love or

1:21:20

I enjoy or I've been addicted to

1:21:22

for years, whatever it may be. So

1:21:25

how do people make sense of what to do with those 200

1:21:27

biomarkers? The first thing

1:21:29

I want to say is that the system

1:21:32

again, benefits off

1:21:34

you thinking it's really complicated.

1:21:37

It is not that complicated. Everything

1:21:39

I learned about how to interpret

1:21:41

lab testing, I learned after medical

1:21:43

school. I learned to do my

1:21:45

own research. And I think that

1:21:48

every American adult is totally capable

1:21:50

of understanding their basic biomarkers. And

1:21:52

in fact, we must. And

1:21:55

so what I would

1:21:57

say is start simple and start free.

1:22:00

Every year, if you go to the doctor, they're

1:22:02

gonna order a very

1:22:04

basic set of tests that usually involves

1:22:06

a cholesterol panel and a

1:22:09

fasting glucose test. They're gonna take your blood sugar, your

1:22:11

blood pressure as well. So a

1:22:13

lot of people might be asking, how do

1:22:16

I figure out if I have good

1:22:18

energy or bad energy? And it's very

1:22:20

simple. You start with five essentially free

1:22:22

biomarkers, fasting glucose, triglycerides,

1:22:24

HDL cholesterol, waste

1:22:27

circumference and blood pressure. They

1:22:29

generally come standard on a physical. And

1:22:32

if you have a fasting glucose less

1:22:34

than 100 milligrams to just later, in

1:22:37

HDL cholesterol above 40 for men or 50 for women,

1:22:41

triglycerides less than 150 milligrams per just later, a

1:22:44

blood pressure less than 130 over 85, and

1:22:48

a waste circumference less than 35 for women or 40 for

1:22:50

men and

1:22:52

you're not on medication, you

1:22:56

by our standard criteria

1:22:59

fit the category of essentially

1:23:01

having good energy. That is essentially saying

1:23:03

you are metabolically healthy. Shockingly,

1:23:07

people who meet all five of those criteria,

1:23:10

not on medication, currently comprise less than 6.8%

1:23:12

of American adults. 93.2%

1:23:17

of American adults based on the

1:23:19

most recent research have at least one

1:23:22

of those metabolic biomarkers off or

1:23:24

not in the optimal range. So

1:23:27

that's just step one is just know where

1:23:29

you stand and you can literally like log

1:23:31

into your electronic health record right now and

1:23:33

get a tape measure for your waste and

1:23:35

figure out those things. And

1:23:37

I think a simple way, I'll

1:23:41

just simply say kind of what those

1:23:43

tests mean. So fasting glucose,

1:23:45

like I mentioned, if that's rising in

1:23:47

the blood, it's a symbol

1:23:49

that deep inside your cells,

1:23:51

the mitochondria are overwhelmed. The

1:23:54

mitochondria are overwhelmed from all the lifestyle things we

1:23:56

talked about that are under our control and they

1:23:58

are saying we cannot. nitric

1:28:00

oxide is the chemical in

1:28:02

the blood that dilates our blood vessels and keeps

1:28:04

our blood pressure under control. So

1:28:07

hopefully it's a little complex, but

1:28:09

those five things all

1:28:11

link back to the exact same

1:28:13

thing which is mitochondrial

1:28:15

dysfunction, which is caused by the

1:28:18

lifestyle pillars we talked about. So just

1:28:21

to summarize, those five simple tests that

1:28:23

usually come on every annual physical are

1:28:25

the best place to start. Understand

1:28:27

where you stand on those compared to the range

1:28:29

as I mentioned, and that will give you a

1:28:31

sense of where you are. And

1:28:34

then it's really implementing the

1:28:36

basic dietary and lifestyle strategies to give your

1:28:38

body what it needs so we can free

1:28:40

up the strain on the mitochondria and bring

1:28:42

those things down. They will all start coming

1:28:44

back in a normal range as you free

1:28:46

up the mitochondria to do better work, which

1:28:48

we do through our daily choices. Just

1:28:50

quickly speaking to function health, that

1:28:53

is like the next level. And that is if

1:28:56

it's something that's accessible to you, I

1:28:58

recommend every single person in the world

1:29:01

do this if they can, because it's

1:29:03

over 100 biomarkers, like you said, for

1:29:05

less than $500, less

1:29:08

than the copay that you would pay at the doctor's

1:29:10

office for like 10 labs. And

1:29:12

what that will do is actually give

1:29:14

you a hyper granular picture of what's

1:29:16

going on inside your body and your

1:29:19

metabolism. And I mentioned

1:29:21

that there are three hallmarks of bad energy.

1:29:23

There's chronic inflammation, there's oxidative stress, and there's

1:29:25

mitochondrial dysfunction. And the beauty of the function

1:29:27

health test is that they actually have tests

1:29:29

that will tell you about each of those.

1:29:31

So you can really know what's going on.

1:29:34

And beautiful functional medicine interpretations

1:29:36

that actually help you understand

1:29:38

what they mean. But

1:29:42

I think something that's again, hopefully

1:29:45

empowering and not too scary is that

1:29:48

at the best hospitals and medical

1:29:50

schools in America, like Stanford,

1:29:52

where I went to medical school, doctors

1:29:55

are not learning

1:29:58

how to interpret. So

1:42:00

this is probably one of the most important

1:42:02

ones, which is if we, you

1:42:04

know, our body doesn't know

1:42:06

if it's dark or

1:42:09

light outside, if it's day or night,

1:42:11

our cells don't have eyeballs. And so

1:42:13

we have to tell the body what

1:42:16

time it is by exposing it to

1:42:18

literal photons. The photons go

1:42:20

through our eye, go through the

1:42:22

vitreous fluid in the eye, they

1:42:24

hit our retinal cells that transmit

1:42:26

an electrical action potential to our

1:42:28

super-chiasmatic nucleus, which then translates into

1:42:30

essentially telling our body, it's morning,

1:42:33

that's how it happens. And

1:42:35

so it is really our responsibility

1:42:37

to show our retina cells direct

1:42:39

photon energy, doesn't mean staring straight

1:42:41

at the sun, it means just

1:42:43

being outdoors without a window or

1:42:45

sunglasses and just being outdoors. And

1:42:48

that is a signal that in trains, our 24

1:42:50

hour clock saying, hey, it's morning. So just

1:42:54

to summarize here, circadian

1:42:56

rhythm is absolutely critical for our metabolic

1:42:58

health because so many of our metabolic

1:43:00

genes, signaling pathways and hormones are on

1:43:04

a 24 hour rhythm. And

1:43:06

the way that we can essentially create less

1:43:09

confusion for the body is by regular signals

1:43:11

of what time it is, which we do

1:43:13

by sun exposure in the

1:43:15

morning and avoiding artificial blue light after

1:43:18

the sun goes down, regular

1:43:20

meal times each day, and sleep consistency,

1:43:22

meaning going to bed at night at

1:43:24

the same time and getting up in

1:43:26

the morning at the same time, which

1:43:28

we can measure through the metric of

1:43:30

social jet lag. And we really want

1:43:32

to keep that social jet

1:43:34

lag metric less than two hours.

1:43:37

That's my two hours, mine is two hours, I'm like

1:43:40

already going, oh gosh, how do I solve that on

1:43:42

the weekend? But Casey, I

1:43:44

mean, you've given so many

1:43:46

great practical insights today, I think you've woken

1:43:48

us up to the idea of the challenges

1:43:50

that exist in our society as well.

1:43:52

And what I love where you take

1:43:55

this book is this idea of how this

1:43:57

isn't just a physical journey, it's not just

1:43:59

a mental journey, this spiritual journey of

1:44:02

rising to fearlessness. And

1:44:05

I love that you do that because to

1:44:07

me, I think

1:44:09

often what gets us started when it

1:44:11

comes to our health is fear, but

1:44:14

it doesn't keep us going, right? We may have the fear of,

1:44:17

I need to be healthy because I've got kids now. I

1:44:19

have the fear of, I'm putting on weight. I don't want

1:44:21

to put on weight. I have the fear of, oh no,

1:44:23

I just got diagnosed with this thing and I really don't,

1:44:26

right? So it's always fear that kind of gets us started.

1:44:29

But you're actually saying fear is not

1:44:31

healthy for us, even on a cellular

1:44:33

level. And you're actually encouraging

1:44:35

us to rise to fearlessness. How

1:44:38

do we build that when some of us think we're

1:44:40

manifesting a unhealthy

1:44:44

life for ourselves or we almost feel

1:44:46

conditioned to believe that it's all gonna

1:44:48

end badly or we've had someone we've

1:44:50

lost in our life early on and

1:44:52

we now believe that will happen to

1:44:54

us. Or maybe actually you're listening to

1:44:56

this and you've been healthy so far

1:44:59

and all of a sudden you go, well,

1:45:01

maybe I'm not healthy. And it's so easy

1:45:03

to get into because of how a lot

1:45:05

of this information is also presented is

1:45:08

that we start to feel like

1:45:10

we're just being scared. How do

1:45:12

we rise into fearlessness? I'm a

1:45:15

big believer that the best health

1:45:17

arises when

1:45:21

our cells are living in

1:45:23

an ecosystem that feels safe

1:45:25

and believes in abundance and

1:45:27

is fundamentally rooted in joy

1:45:29

and awe. Because

1:45:31

our cells hear every single thing that we're

1:45:34

thinking through our hormones and through our neurotransmitters,

1:45:36

they know. They know if there's a threat

1:45:38

and they know if there's something to be

1:45:40

afraid of. So I think it's one of

1:45:42

our greatest jobs as humans to create an

1:45:45

environment just like we would for a baby

1:45:47

of a sense of safety. And

1:45:49

I think a lot of people might say, oh my

1:45:52

gosh, that sounds impossible. The world is crazy right now,

1:45:54

but this might sound dark, but

1:45:57

I actually think again, it's like a very hopeful message. The

1:46:01

reality is that we are all going to

1:46:03

die. That is unavoidable. That is the only

1:46:05

thing we can be certain

1:46:07

of. And

1:46:10

so living in

1:46:12

constant fear just

1:46:15

doesn't really make sense. Like

1:46:17

living with curiosity and awe

1:46:19

and appreciation and actually really

1:46:21

diving down that spiritual journey

1:46:24

of exploring what this life

1:46:26

and this whole death thing really means.

1:46:29

To me that leads us to

1:46:31

this sense of starting to really

1:46:34

realize that fundamentally we are part

1:46:37

of this eternal, infinite, limitless

1:46:40

cosmos. We are not separate

1:46:42

from it. We are totally

1:46:44

connected. And that's super

1:46:46

awe-inspiring. And if our health

1:46:48

journey can be

1:46:50

rooted in that, rooted

1:46:52

in the sheer miraculousness of

1:46:55

us being alive at

1:46:57

this moment, of us having

1:46:59

consciousness, of the statistical

1:47:01

near impossibility of being here

1:47:03

and wanting to

1:47:06

honor that. And

1:47:09

I think that's where all really

1:47:11

good choices come from. In many

1:47:13

spiritual frameworks, we talk about attachment

1:47:15

as the root of suffering. Being

1:47:19

attached to things being a certain way is

1:47:21

the root of suffering. And it's interesting as

1:47:23

this plays into our American culture. We think

1:47:25

about what is one form of attachment is

1:47:28

cravings. Cravings are a form of

1:47:30

attachment. We want something. We have this insatiable desire

1:47:32

for something specific and we want to eat it.

1:47:35

But what so many spiritual

1:47:37

traditions throughout history have told us is

1:47:39

that nothing in the material world can

1:47:41

actually reduce our suffering

1:47:44

except connecting essentially with source,

1:47:46

with God. And

1:47:50

that's my framework. But I do believe that. And

1:47:52

so some might say, well, if

1:47:55

that's the perspective that just connecting with God and

1:47:57

connecting with source and spirit, whatever you want to

1:47:59

call it. and channeling sort of the divine within

1:48:01

us that we are a part of

1:48:04

and totally interconnected with, then

1:48:06

why do we have to do all this healthy stuff? Like why do

1:48:08

we have to like eat healthy

1:48:10

and this and that? And I think it comes

1:48:12

down to the fact that as

1:48:15

we make the healthy choices, as we

1:48:18

eat the healthy food, as we get

1:48:20

the sleep, as we move our bodies,

1:48:22

we are creating the

1:48:24

form of the body, the structure

1:48:26

of the body that I think

1:48:29

has an easier time connecting with

1:48:32

source. And if

1:48:34

we are essentially channeling that source

1:48:36

energy and duality, duality

1:48:39

is the root of the

1:48:41

suffering. Duality is that we were part of the

1:48:43

spirit world and we came into this body and

1:48:45

we forgot. We forgot that we

1:48:48

are part of that. We forgot that

1:48:50

we are pure love. We forgot that

1:48:52

we are a piece of God. If

1:48:55

the forgetting is from that duality

1:48:57

when we were born and the

1:48:59

purpose of getting back to essentially

1:49:01

bliss is remembering, I think

1:49:03

it's, I personally think

1:49:05

it is easier to remember when

1:49:08

we have a body that is really functioning

1:49:10

properly. And so my spiritual

1:49:13

journey is rooted in the

1:49:15

choices every day that build

1:49:17

this radio tower. I

1:49:19

am the radio tower, the sensor to

1:49:21

try to connect with that. And when

1:49:23

I'm doing the healthy habits and the

1:49:25

bio hacks and the protocols and all

1:49:28

this stuff, like whatever you wanna call

1:49:30

it, it's actually

1:49:32

in service of building a

1:49:34

structure that can

1:49:36

channel that in the most open

1:49:39

and clear way. And

1:49:41

I think that that's just

1:49:44

my perspective. And I think that, but I think

1:49:46

it's just really realizing that it's

1:49:48

bigger than just these, like

1:49:51

the books and the hacks and the optimization

1:49:54

and the micro things and how much zone

1:49:56

two training to do every day and all

1:49:58

these things. Like if we root. this

1:50:00

journey in a bigger picture of

1:50:02

basically striving for this bliss.

1:50:07

I think that it can really help motivate

1:50:09

us. And then remembering that Daoist principle that

1:50:11

we're a process, not an entity, this is

1:50:14

why we actually have to do the health

1:50:16

behaviors every day. Because every day

1:50:18

we're rebuilding that radio tower that can

1:50:20

connect with source. Every day we're

1:50:22

building that sensor. And so you want to

1:50:24

keep doing the habits with good food and

1:50:27

good sleep and movement and

1:50:29

increasing the toxic stress and the toxins in the environment.

1:50:32

Because you're rebuilding that half

1:50:34

of the duality, the body, every

1:50:37

single day. And

1:50:41

when that structure gets hurt

1:50:43

and dysfunctional, we

1:50:45

get the depression and we get the anxiety and

1:50:47

we get the fear and we get the diseases

1:50:49

and it ends up being distracting from this. So

1:50:52

that's something that really motivates me. And

1:50:54

that alleviates a lot of the fear for

1:50:57

me. But I

1:50:59

think we just all need to understand

1:51:01

that when we are emotionally

1:51:03

sensing fear in the body

1:51:05

from any source, from the

1:51:07

news, from our childhood trauma,

1:51:11

from the email we got, whatever the

1:51:13

fear is, anytime

1:51:15

we're experiencing emotional fear, it's

1:51:18

translated biochemically into the

1:51:20

body through hormones, neurotransmitters,

1:51:24

that fundamentally the body has to

1:51:26

respond to. The body is going

1:51:29

to respond to that fear even

1:51:31

if it's emotional and that will

1:51:33

divert our resources towards defense rather

1:51:36

than thriving. So

1:51:39

each of us needs to take

1:51:41

honest stock of what emotionally, psychologically

1:51:43

is causing fear in

1:51:46

our lives and work to set the

1:51:48

boundaries to limit it. Whether it's

1:51:50

our fear of death, our fear

1:51:53

of some inner wound that happened

1:51:55

in childhood, intergenerational wounds, whether it's

1:51:57

your relationship with your coworkers, with

1:54:00

a final five or a fast five. These

1:54:02

ones have to be answered in one word

1:54:04

to one sentence maximum. Casey,

1:54:06

here's your final five. What is

1:54:08

the best advice you've ever received

1:54:10

or heard? What I think of when

1:54:12

I think of best advice is actually, it

1:54:15

was the motto of my high school, which

1:54:17

was an all girls school. And the advice

1:54:20

or the mantra was, every girl has something

1:54:22

to say. And I would like

1:54:24

to broaden that to every person has something to

1:54:26

say. I think that we're living

1:54:28

in a world, again, rooted in fear, where

1:54:32

people are self censoring themselves

1:54:35

and stopping themselves from expressing what

1:54:37

is deep inside their heart because

1:54:39

they are afraid of

1:54:41

the repercussions of rejection, of

1:54:44

being canceled, of having mean

1:54:47

comments online. And

1:54:50

fundamentally this self censorship that

1:54:52

I'm seeing really rampant, it's

1:54:55

rooted in a scarcity mindset. And

1:54:57

it is representative

1:55:00

of a block of flow of energy

1:55:03

and inspiration through us. And

1:55:06

I think that in many ways, it's blocks

1:55:08

of energy flowing through us that is fundamentally

1:55:10

the root of so much of the health

1:55:12

issues that we're facing today. Literally

1:55:14

metabolic dysfunction is the block of

1:55:17

that sun energy flowing through ourselves

1:55:19

to create human energy. And

1:55:21

so anything we can do to keep the

1:55:23

flow open to the healthy good energy habits

1:55:25

to improve metabolic health through speaking authentically

1:55:30

in what's our hearts, whether it's in a journal or

1:55:33

to your loved ones or

1:55:35

doing things to just move flow through our body,

1:55:37

our blood, dance, move, shake, do

1:55:40

whatever you need to do to get things moving.

1:55:43

But I think that mantra, every

1:55:45

girl, every person has something to say, feels really

1:55:47

resonant now where I see a lot of people

1:55:50

hiding the truth in their hearts because they're afraid

1:55:52

of the repercussions because of the public digital world

1:55:54

that we live in. Well said. Second

1:55:57

question, what is the worst advice you have

1:55:59

ever? How do you receive the

1:56:01

worst advice I've ever heard

1:56:04

is all good things in moderation. I

1:56:07

think that this phrase that has

1:56:09

become so ubiquitous is actually representative

1:56:12

of a real leak

1:56:15

in principles. There are things that

1:56:17

we do not want in moderation

1:56:20

in our bodies, in our temple,

1:56:22

especially in our children's bodies. We have the

1:56:24

best, refined sugar, pesticide

1:56:27

covered, ultra refined grains,

1:56:31

the 80,000 synthetic toxins that are

1:56:33

in our food, water and air that might

1:56:35

be in products that we think are good,

1:56:37

all good things in moderation. I

1:56:39

think we need an intense

1:56:42

reinvigoration of courage,

1:56:45

of people saying what's right and what's

1:56:47

wrong. We're afraid to say

1:56:49

what's wrong right now while literally

1:56:52

around us, Rome is burning. Our

1:56:54

population is getting increasingly sick at

1:56:56

every age and as adults, we

1:56:58

need to have the moral clarity to say,

1:57:01

don't eat this, don't put this in your body.

1:57:04

It's not good for you and people are becoming

1:57:06

afraid of that. And so I think all

1:57:08

good things in moderation is representative of lack

1:57:11

of clarity that is hurting us. Question

1:57:13

three, what's the first thing you do in the morning

1:57:16

and last thing you do at night? Well,

1:57:19

to be totally honest, the first thing I do in

1:57:21

the morning and at the

1:57:23

end of the day, every single day, as I roll

1:57:25

over and I tell my partner how much

1:57:27

I love him. I love that. Every single

1:57:29

day, I'm just being totally honest. That's beautiful.

1:57:33

I think starting every day with

1:57:35

love fundamentally gets

1:57:39

me tied into what I think our

1:57:41

true nature as humans are as part of this

1:57:43

incredible universe, which I think the core frequency of

1:57:45

the universe is love. And so I think anything

1:57:47

we can do to start our days with love,

1:57:49

whether you have a partner or not, a pet

1:57:52

or not, it's expressing love in some way,

1:57:54

whether it's to a person, gratitude

1:57:57

for this beautiful life that we

1:57:59

have. something that expresses the

1:58:01

vibration of love, which I think fundamentally

1:58:03

is the vibration that keeps us as

1:58:06

healthy as possible. Beautiful. Question

1:58:09

number four, what's the lesson you wish to

1:58:11

learn earlier? The lesson that I

1:58:13

wish I'd learned earlier is

1:58:15

to make decisions with my body instead

1:58:17

of with my brain. That's great. In

1:58:20

the Western culture, we are

1:58:22

so focused on thinking our way

1:58:25

to decisions. And

1:58:27

I think my life has transformed

1:58:29

when I have more felt my way

1:58:32

to decisions. I think the body

1:58:35

has such intense innate

1:58:37

wisdom and intuition

1:58:40

and connection with all of

1:58:42

source, but we need to

1:58:44

slow down from the distraction industrial

1:58:46

complex of our world to be

1:58:48

able to hear it. And

1:58:51

once I've tuned in to what my

1:58:53

body is telling me every day through

1:58:55

that upset stomach, that little

1:58:57

sense of what's right and wrong, everything

1:59:00

has become easier. That's

1:59:02

fantastic. Fifth and final question, if

1:59:05

you could create one law that everyone in the

1:59:07

world had to follow, what would it be? I

1:59:10

think the law that would help bring

1:59:12

to fruition the world that I really

1:59:14

wanna see is to create widespread economic

1:59:18

incentives to

1:59:22

return to a more

1:59:24

natural form of agriculture and farming. So

1:59:27

eliminating the pesticides

1:59:29

and creating an incentive structure

1:59:32

for farmers that allows

1:59:34

them to cultivate the earth,

1:59:37

our mother, the soil that we

1:59:40

come from in a

1:59:42

way that is respectful and

1:59:44

really respects the complexity of

1:59:46

the ecosystem, which humans live,

1:59:48

which soil, which all the microbes in the soil

1:59:50

live. We've decimated our soil,

1:59:53

we've killed soil. Soil is a

1:59:56

life-giving and living organism

1:59:58

that is now