#09 Wellness Trends Deep Dive with Dr. Brad Stanfield

I was actually quite horrified with what I saw. Not only was there no clear benefit, but there was clear signs of harm. The system at the moment needs a reset. No vaccine is going to give 100% immunity. Today on the Austin and Matt podcast, we are interviewing Dr. Brad Stanfield. Dr. Brad has his own YouTube channel that I've been following for many years. I think I was he was sub 10,000 subscri subscribers and now he's in the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of subscribers and I think the reason that he's grown so meteorically in this medical longevity health biohacking space is that he really remains true to studies. Uh, we really appreciate a good hot take here on the Austin and Matt podcast. And it was amazing how many times we tried to ask Brad for a hot take and he would go, "Well, there's these studies that say this, so that's probably what I'd follow." And that's the reason I like to follow guys like that is because he really tries to maintain his integrity. Um, he's an MD. He's he's a practicing MD in New Zealand. He has his own clinic. He sees patients weekly. And um I've really respected him because I've seen him change his mind multiple times, which to me is a sign of intelligence. It's a sign of wisdom to not be so caught up in maybe whatever conclusion you think you have that you're unwilling to hear something else and unwilling to even maybe change your mind. And I think it specifically in the medical field with pharmaceuticals and a lot of these things, you have to hold things loosely. To hold things tightly could be to your to your health detriment to your family. and if you're a if you're an influencer or an MD, it could be to your patients detriment. So, I really appreciated seeing him stay true to the science. And so, I to the different studies and um you know, I learned a lot about him. He he has a son uh with with mild autism. And so, we got to talk about that, which is really interesting. Um we talked about stem cells, which was surprising that he didn't sort of maintain our perspective on stem cells. So, I got to go do some more research there. Um we even get into things like mystical experiences and what he thinks about that. What is what is a place for that in the med the medical field. We learn a little bit about him with that. Um and then you know one of the things he became most notable for is uh there was a there's a there's a researcher by the name of David Sinclair out of Harvard and he wrote a book called uh longevity and I read it and loved it and um there's been some controversy around David Sinclair and his product NMN which I've taken Dr. Brad was taking and now he can't take it anymore. And uh there was a moment actually in the last few years where I think David Sinclair came out and said some things and then Dr. Brad went and read all of the studies that Dr. Sinclair quoted backing up his position and responded to him going, "Hey, that's not what those studies said and that's not the conclusions of those studies and what about this, this, and this." And the response was that he got blocked by David Sinclair. So, uh, that really affected Brad and you know, um, you think that everybody in the medical field is trying to to you think you know their intentions and all of a sudden you see there are many in convoluted intentions and he'll you he's even skittish to kind of mention his name. You'll see in the interview and you know, rightfully so. I think I think David Sinclair probably has a pretty good legal team at this point. So, um, it was really fun to talk to him and I think you're going to really, if if you like the health, if you care about your health at all, care about maintaining your health, he's a load of information. We'll link to his, uh, podcast, I mean, his YouTube channel down below. And then also stay tuned at the end because what what he he dialed in because he's in New Zealand. When he hangs up, Austin and I kind of chat. We kind of say, "Hey, let's get some clips and and some final thoughts." But actually, I was listening to it and I was like, "This is a good uh you'll get to hear some of our thoughts when he hangs up." So, if you like listening to us rant about what we just talked about, then at the end of the show, you can listen to us chat for like 20 minutes because I think uh it sort of summarizes some of the ways we felt about it. But this is Dr. Brad Stanfield on the Austin and Matt podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Um if you can subscribe, like, do all of those things, it's really helping us. We are seeing every we're so small right now that every subscribe, every like we are seeing the algorithm pop us and so please if you like us and you you you don't mind. I would really appreciate it. Anyways, on to the show. Thanks. Can you hear us? Yeah. Yeah, I can. I just logged in early just to make sure the settings and everything are all good to go. No worries. Yeah, I figured it's all good. How you doing? Is it 9? Yeah. Yeah, good. You're just waking up? Yeah, 9:00 a.m. Yeah. No, no. My day my day starts early. I normally get up at about 4:00 cuz I've got two kids at home and a third one on the way. So I get most of my stuff done in the morning before they get up. Shoot. Congrats on the third on the way. Yeah. Well, yeah. So, um, due midFebruary, so it's pretty manic here. Wow. All right. Dang. Yeah, you're it's coming up. Yeah. Yeah, that's it. But yeah, no, I appreciate all your support over the years. Pretty cool to hear that you've been following me for about four years. That's Dude, it's wild. I can't believe it. It's funny cuz like you know time contracted a lot during co it's like I don't know the days were years and the years were days but I uh yeah I found you really early on and I love you know it was back in well uh yeah I guess we'll talk more about that actually when we start or whenever I guess we we we've been kind of just rolling into starts basically we're not like oh welcome and explain stuff we just kind of start talking that seems to be the trend nowadays isn't it? If you watch do you ever watch um Chris Williamson on the Modern Wisdom podcast? Yeah sure. So, I mean, he's really good at just starting the podcast and just cracking on. Um, it seems to be the way to do it nowadays. Yeah, it's awesome. And Austin is having he's in Mexico City, so I think he's currently having an issue. Okay, sweet. No worries. Sounds good. Yeah, man. How how's your week going? Yeah, I mean, it's like I said, it's busy as always. Um, there's a bunch of things going on with YouTube, with the um supplement stuff that I'm doing. Um my rapamy clinical study has almost finished completing the data collection. So cool. Um that'll actually finish in under a week. Um and then there'll be a bunch of data clean up that we need to do and then analyze the results published. So there's a lot of moving parts, but yeah, it's exciting. It's really exciting. It's cool, man. I've seen that fundraising going on for that study for a while and it's tight that it finally worked out and you know, it's really fun. Yeah, it's awesome that the community actually managed to get um and and rally around behind this because it one of the one of the key aspects of this is that there's no conflicts of interest to declare. It's not funded by anyone who's going to make a profit and you can't make a profit off rapomy anyway cuz there's no patents. Um since it was discovered in the 1960s, you can't patent anything. Um, so it it's pretty cool that all we're doing is just yeah, running the study, seeing what the results show and um whatever the results show, there's no bias or or anything to to come into it. So yeah, give it to the world. It's awesome. Yeah, man. Yeah, it's cool. Like uh you know, no one has any incentives to do any studies on anything that's not patented. So it's really awesome that that's happening. Uh, you know, it's good for the world and that's what we should be doing, right? Yeah. And and that's the area that I'm really interested in at the moment is trying to find ways to help older adults hold on to their muscle strength because one one of the key reasons as to why people need to go into rest homes and private hospitals or lose their independence is that they they become frail. They they become weak and they can't do the activities that they once wanted to do. So if we can find a way to help people hold on to their muscle strength in addition to diet and exercise um you know that'll be a pretty powerful intervention. So yeah, that's taking up a lot of my time at the moment. That's really Yeah. I mean it it makes sense, right? I mean it's just you fall like we talk about longevity and trying to live forever and fight off disease and it's like well if you fall you're screwed like you know and so let's just not fall. That that's like incredibly overlooked sometimes you know. Yeah. when I used to work in the orthopedic department as a um orthopedic registar so um you know fixing up people's bones and things after they had fallen there's a crazy stat that if people break their hip there's a 50% chance that that person will be dead within one year it soy you know yeah it it's wild so it it's such a marker of frailty if you break your if you're an older adult who breaks their hip um that that's not a good sign you're on your way and and obviously what what we need to do is try prevent that fall in the first place. And one of the key ways to do that comes back to muscle strength. Strength training. Yeah. Even just like I love seeing all the little there's I get them on Instagram and stuff where some grandma goes from not being able to deadlift anything to now she's deadlifting 135 or whatever, but she's stronger and and you know it's like ah it's cool, man. Like I think it everyone's finally learning to just stay strong. like let's let's get the muscle builder or not everyone but you know the the message is getting out and people are learning more and more uh to do that. Yeah. Yeah. I mean we don't need to wait for these studies to roll in. We know that having a high lean protein intake and resistance exercise you you can build muscle no matter what your age. So it's never it's never too late to start. Equally it's never too early to think about these things. Um yeah, where I get interested, where I get quite interested though is even even when we do get um even if we do exercise and have lots of protein in our diet, an 80-year-old person isn't going to build as much muscle compared to a 20-year-old person. Um, and that's where I'm hoping molecules like rapamy will be able to step in and help um, augment that diet and exercise for that for those older individuals so that they can build up maybe not just maybe not as much muscle but but almost as much muscle. That's why I'm crossing my fingers that our data will show. Do you think it'll Yeah. Do you think an older person can generate uh, yeah, I guess there's there's how much could they generate on their own? how much could they generate with rapamy or like some supplemental help and then is how much could a 20-year-old do it and it feels like you think that the bump from rapamy or something is worth it or we're hoping that it's enough of a of a delta to actually say yeah I mean it's and it's pro and it's cheap because no one owns it it's like if it's 10 bucks who cares right and if you're going to even get a couple percentage points improvement then it's worth it kind of thing yeah that that's that's what we hope to show so um one one of the one of the things I just want to caveat here is that we don't have enough research in human in healthy individuals with rapamy. So there's a lot of people who are taking rapamy um off label and to be honest I think that is quite risky because we don't know whether the benefits will outweigh the risks and that's one of the key reasons why I'm doing this rapomy clinical study is to try and answer some of these questions. So if if we just back up a little bit um rapamy works by blocking an enzyme called mTor. Um now mTor when you activate it you you build muscle and you build proteins. So it sounds a bit bizarre that if by taking rapamy and blocking you know this muscle building enzyme that we might be building more muscle. That that sounds a bit counterintuitive, but what seems to happen is that when we get older, so from about the age of 50 to 60 onwards, our muscles seem to recognize that they're getting weaker and they overactivate mTor and almost um in an attempt to try and rebuild their their strength. The trouble is, if you overactivate mTor, then you're not allowing for another process to happen in your cells called autophagy. Autophagy is the cell clearance process. So what we think is happening is that as we get older, our muscle cells are holding on to all of these old damaged components and never flushing them away. So what we hope is that if we use rapamy intermittently, we can block mTor, we can allow this flushing away of the old damaged components to happen and then when we're not taking rapomy, we can rebuild um new proteins and and new muscle and and hopefully we can improve muscle performance that way. So that's the that's the theory. Now again this is a theory that we're testing in our in our clinical studies. It's not proven and I don't think that people should be taking rapamy outside of these clinical studies but that's the overall hypothesis that again that we really hope will work. So is it really countering scinessence in a way? It's it's hoping to phase on and phase off to like attack scessence cells and kind of autophagy and then jump back on. Yeah. So, so it it's two it's yeah it's two separate processes but that's um that's one of the processes that rapamy seems to help with it. So autophagy is is where it's um the cell is clearing away its own um damaged components whereas scinsesscent cells are whole cells that aren't growing or dividing anymore and it it rapamy seems to help flush away those old cells as well. So it's two separate processes but again we we hope that by using rapamyin intermittently we can both um activate autophagy and get rid of some old scinsesscent cells and then we can rebuild yeah new components and new cells with exercise and diet. So do you know how I hope it works but yeah how do they how do you measure scinesscent cells like how do you measure how many scinsesscent cells you have and then you do something and then you have less scinesscent cells or like how do we how are we actually measuring that in a lab or something. So, it it's typically done by biopsies. There are blood markers that you can draw um for scinesscent cells. Uh but then they're certainly not as accurate. And since we're if you're targeting muscles, that the gold standard would be to take muscle biopsies, look um look at those biopsies under a microscope uh and and then you can measure the scinesscent cells. We're not doing that for for my clinical study. The the main reason was cost. in a perfect world would measure all of these things, but it it is quite costly if you're taking muscle biopsies. The the the biggest thing that we're looking at is muscle performance measures. So, the primary outcome for my study is the 30-cond chair stand test, as in how many times can you stand up and sit back down in 30 seconds. So, that's the primary end point. The other end points that we're measuring is the 6 minute walk test. So, how far can you walk in 6 minutes? And also the hand grip strength. So, um yeah. So, so th those are the three measures that we're using for muscle performance. Um, we're measuring a bunch of other things in blood, but again, it would be great if we could do the the muscle biopsies, but it's just quite expensive to do that. You know, one of the reasons that I actually continued to follow you throughout the years, uh, is that you I've seen you change your mind on things and I remember like I did a fast with you and a group for like five days and we were doing different things and then you come out and you'll go, "Oh, actually this isn't as good as I thought. We're going to change." And you know, there's only a few YouTubers that I, you know, I think that actually will change their minds when new data is presented and I appreciate that you've been doing that. And uh that's I think that's why I've maintained. But I've seen you I think I started following you three or four years ago and you were you're between 10 and 20,000 subs, something around there. And you're you're over a quarter million subs now. Like what uh did you ever think when you were starting this YouTube channel that it would be to where you are now? Is this you know what like what was the original original purpose for starting a YouTube channel and did you ever think it could grow to where it is now? Yeah, I never thought it would get to this point. Um I started the channel when I was basically in between jobs. So I've already mentioned that I was an orthopedic registar but I realized that that that type of work and that lifestyle wasn't for me. So I I left that job and I had another one lined up um in the emergency department. when I was going to be an emergency uh physician and I had about 3 months before that new job started and I'd se this is in uh late 2019 and I'd seen people doing YouTube talking about health and finance and and everything and I thought well there is such a need for good health information cuz a lot of what I was seeing was people that were extrapolating single cell research or mice research and they weren't actually focusing on what we know from humans um and and from the clinical guidelines and that's One of the huge reasons why I wanted to start my channel was to create well create a resource so that people could um reference it to actually say okay this is what we should be doing with our diet with exercise with supplements based on human research. Um and I just started by yeah filming videos on my couch. Um and the videos were terrible terrible quality now that I look back on them. And I've actually removed a lot of those videos because they were just I thought they were just Oh, you gotta leave. They're a they're a library, man. They're a library of where you came from. Yeah. Yeah. But I'm just looking at Yeah. looking at the production quality and what it it's horrific. Long story short, though, I I I started the channel. Um and I think that's one of the biggest things that anyone watching this channel uh or or watching this podcast should do is just if you've got an idea, just start. There's so many roadblocks that people put in front of themselves, but you just have to start. And that's exactly what I did. And I had no idea that it would Yeah. grow to this point. Um, how did you edit your first video? Did you do it? Were you like I have downloaded something? Yeah. So, um, I did it in iMovie, I think. So, I I you know, did the thumbnails myself, did the editing, um, yeah, shooting the videos obviously, and the thing that I tried to do was just listen to any comments. So, I I still remember my first comment and I was so stoked that someone was actually watching the video and took the time to give me feedback. So, I just wanted to respond to the feedback. Um, see what sort of topics people found interesting um and yeah, continually improve the content. And I've I still have that mantra at the moment. I'm still looking to improve Yeah. the production quality, the script writing, the thumbnails, the titles. Um, and yeah, just continually improve. And here we are. So, yeah. How many videos How many videos do you think you put out before it was kind of like, oh, this this is becoming a thing? This is that moment where you're like, oh, this actually could become a or you know what I mean? Like, wait, was there a moment kind of hit and it it was it kind of imprinted on you? Yeah, it it took me about four months, I think, of producing two two to three videos a week um to get my first 100 subscribers. And then once I hit 100 subscribers, it it took maybe about four weeks to get to a th00and subscribers. And once I reached 1,000 subscribers, that's when I was that's when I was thinking, okay, if I just continue to improve and continue listening to the community and um yeah, really dialing in the content, maybe this can go somewhere. And so that's when I started to put um even more effort into it and yeah, it seemed to just go from there. So yeah, it's been it's been quite the journey and I hope that people who watch my channel actually find wow, they seem to find it useful. So hopefully we can continue doing that. Have you gotten any blowback? It seems like everyone's YouTube story arc involves a moment of of like the dark knight of the soul like Huberman we saw go through it recently. Have you had any moments where you got blowback either like in the medical community or anywhere else that kind of struck you and and really made you second guess it or was it just easy going? Yeah. Yeah. know there's been quite a few um there there's been quite a few stories actually. So one of the biggest ones was when I first started my channel um and and I I wanted to talk about aging cuz I was I noticed um some you know wrinkles forming around my eyes and I was thinking what where are we with this aging thing? Is there anything that we can do to slow down this process or even reverse it? And I I wanted to be evidence-based. So I looked at people who I thought were credible within the space who were um you know producing their own data um were well published and the people that I looked up to um and and was basically paring what they were saying turned out to well I I thought they turned out to be uh not as good as what I had thought. And once I started to realize that, I I realized I needed to pivot my channel away from those types of people. Um, and there was quite a lot of blowback when I was going through those processes. So, just so that people know, I used to take rveratrol. Um, rveratrol was a much hyped supplement um because it was thought that in worms, in flies, in mice that it was reversing aging. Um and there was a there were a couple of influencers who were um well respected within the aging field that were also taking resveratrol. So I used to take David Sinclair was pretty notable in that group, wasn't he? Okay. Yeah, that's right. That's right. His book, his book took the world by storm. I thought lifespan. I mean, I remember reading it. Everybody I knew read it and then he goes on Rogan and you know it seemed like a lot of momentum built behind Sinclair for a little while. um for a little I think there's still a lot of Yeah, I think there's still a lot of um excitement around what he's doing um and and what he has done. I when I started to actually put my medical cap back on and look at the um look at the clinical studies in humans of rveratrol that I was actually quite horrified with what I saw. Not only was there no clear benefit, but there was clear signs of harm. So we could see that rveratrol in I think there's about three studies that looks at rveratrol in combination with exercise and what we could see is that rveratrol was actually blunting the positive effects of exercise. So um that so both groups were exercising the placebo group was actually um that they were getting the full benefits of exercise but the respirator group were only getting about half the improvements in their muscle performance um compared to the placebo group. So you're you're worsening your your muscle performance. Um you're also uh lowering your testosterone levels as well by taking resveratrol. Um so and and that's been replicated in in multiple studies as well. So there are real harms of taking rveratrol and there's no clear benefits in humans. Um and when you when you have a look at the mice research, there's no clear benefits there either. Um there's a there were a couple of famous studies that were done. Um, one of them is so it's a program called the interventions testing program. Now what's special about this program is that so it is in mice but it runs the same experiment at the same time in three separate labs. So you can see whether the results are true and reproducible because that's one of the the key issues with mice research or or any research for that matter man is is this research reproducible? Um and when those experiments were done there was no lifespan extension effect seen with rveratrol. Um so that so the mice research doesn't show any benefits. The human research doesn't show any benefits but also we can see this harm. So, um that that was an eye openener for me and and once I um once I went through all of that research and presented that research um on my channel and gave the reasons as to why I stopped taking resveratrol, there was a heck of a lot of blowback um because it was it was basically saying that this this person that we're all meant to believe because of his credentials um and and we should be following what what he's doing and what he's saying um is essentially nonsense. And so, yeah, that there was a lot of people who thought that I was just, you know, uh, trying to clickbait my way to to fame by by purposely um, yeah, saying that this wasn't ideal. Um, yeah. So, that that's just one example of Yeah. of blowbacks that I've received on my channel. Yeah. And you know what you know what's so funny about resveratrol for me because I'm not trained, you know, I can read I can read studies, but not like you. Uh and so one of the one of the things for me was just seeing that they were bought by a big pharma company for like $6 or $700 million and then shut down like and so you know being in being a businessman uh usually big pharma doesn't shut things down that they find uh profitable especially or or you know things that are uh effective especially products that maybe they acquired for hundreds of millions of dollars. And so every time I tried to dig into that, like just what was going on here, it just felt handwavy. It was kind of like, oh, well, there's still an, oh, it it's like no one would actually say what it looked like, which was it looked like they bought a false bill of goods, and then they put it in their labs, tried it for a long time, and was like, this is a wash. Let's move on. And that's what happened. Uh, but that was one thing that you pointed out. I remember your channel, I think, was the channel that I followed that broke the news for me at least around resveratrol and then questionably NMN and some of those things. It was wild. Yeah. Yeah. No, it you're completely right. Um big farmer if they're putting down hundreds of millions of dollars to buy some intellectual property, they're not going to let that go without a fight. Um because it's a heck of an investment. And yeah, as soon as you start pointing that out, you point out the flaws in the original Sinclair research. Um it's it it's not nice to read. I I felt um yeah, I felt quite hollow inside cuz again it's someone that that I thought was um legit and what was changing the world and and I thought there were going to be all of these breakthroughs from his lab and his research that were going to come to fruition in humans. Um so it was quite disappointing I suppose to realize that that wasn't the case. I mean any any man isn't Oh, sorry. Go on. Well, how cautious does it make you because I imagine you get approached to to sort of pedal a lot of products. I imagine people are coming to you all the time like please sell sell this or sell that. What's your Yeah. What's your process like? How careful does it scare you a little bit to push something knowing that you know in 10 years research could be totally different? How what's your how do you how do you deal with that? Yeah, it's tricky because I've made I've made a lot of mistakes on my channel and I think it's important that people know these mistakes so that they don't make their um these mistakes themselves. So, Rveratrol is one of them. I used to um I used to say that I take Nmen supplements and I had an affiliate link um to an Nmen product that was um because at at the time there was a lot of companies that was selling Nmen, but it was fake. So I thought that it was a service to the community to to let people know that I was taking this particular brand of enem so that they knew that they if they wanted to take it as well they would also be taking you know a a good brand. Um but again when you have a look at the mice research the human research there's no clear evidence of benefit. Um so so once I realized that it it's not necessarily that there's harm from it but there's no clear evidence of benefit. Um so there's been about 15 different human studies now. Um, and I I did a video summarizing all of those studies about six months ago. And again, it's it for me it didn't justify the cost. So that's why I stopped taking it. But because of all of these mistakes, I'm incredibly cautious now about what I what I put in my own body and what I let people know that I'm taking. Because if you if you start taking um supplements that have got potential from, you know, single cell research or mice research, you can end up taking like a hundred different supplements. Um and and many people do do this, but you don't know what interactions those supplements are going to have. um whether there is a true benefit from taking even one of those supplements. If there's any harms like we've already gone through with rveratrol, there's genuine harm there. Um you know, other potentially harmful supplements is antioxidant supplements. We we know from multiple lines of evidence that if people take antioxidant supplements, it blunts the positive effects of exercise. So when you exercise, you release oxidants because you're stressing your body. And that short burst of oxidant stress seems to signal to the body that it needs to become more resilient. it needs to become stronger. So if you're taking antioxidants, you blunt that response. So you blunt the positive effects of exercise. So So there's it um I've significantly changed I suppose my approach to supplementation because of these mistakes. Um and again now I'm incredibly cautious. So there's not yeah the I suppose the the one remaining supplement that's um that I take that I don't produce myself is omega-3. Um, that's the only one. Um, so I I I take a I designed a multivitamin and mineral supplement with a couple of other ingredients in it. Um, but yeah, the only one that I don't take uh that that that I don't produce is um omega-3. So, yeah, I'm just incredibly cautious now. And have you I guess as a followup because I know there's uh uh Charles Brener I think Nick NR he does NR and there was a huge you know NR vers NN and and Charles was really you know slapping Sinclair around with some of his research and everything. Um what's been the fallout from NR? Like is that because he he was really I mean obviously he's like the CEO and the or at least the science the chief scientist of the company. So what's NR doing these days? So in the human clinical studies there's some research to suggest that NR reduces markers of inflammation um which is you know potentially great but again if you if you combine that with exercise what's that going to do because again you inflame your body when you exercise. So by taking a potentially anti-inflammatory supplement are you blunting the positive effects of exercise? Sure. We don't know. So, one of the things I think it's that's important is that people look at functional outcomes with studies. So, you know, say with creatine, we know from multiple um clinical studies that creatine improves muscle performance for and and that's when we measure um you know, say the uh bench press or you know, measures like that. So, so we can truly see that yes, creatine supplements are beneficial for muscle performance. We don't know the answers for NR, nicotenomide ribocide. Um, we don't know whether these supplements will reduce heart attacks or strokes. Um, we don't know whether it will reduce all risk in Yeah. or injuries in in old adults. Um, so again, people can people can point to biomarkers in the blood to say, "Oh, look, it's doing X, Y, and Zed." But functional markers are re are truly where it's at. Um, so I don't take NR again because I'm not convinced that well that there's just not enough research at the moment. If if there was some if there was a study showing that yes, this um this improved muscle performance or reduced heart attack risk, then yeah, I'd probably start taking it, but we don't have those studies at the moment. Yeah. Right. Would you mind explaining what NR is real quick? Yeah. So NR is a So it's a form of vitamin B3. It's a precursor to a molecule in our cells called NAD. Um so NAD is used in a bunch of different enzyme reactions um in our cells and it's if we didn't have NA NAD we would we would die. Um there's a suggestion that in certain types of cells as we age NAD goes down. That that is still actually quite controversial. Um and why I say that is uh in humans with there is a study showing that older adults who exercise their NAD levels in their muscles are basically the same compared to younger adults. So um it it it is it is quite controversial to say that NAD falls as we age. It it it's very easy for um to explain that with marketing spin but it whether it's actually true or not in humans is is still to be debated. Um but anyway that that's how um these types of companies will will sell their supplement. They will say NAD levels in our cells is critical. It falls as we age. Therefore, if we take NR or Nmen as precursors to NAD, we can help to restore NAD levels, we can be healthier. We can live longer. We can um jump higher. But again, we just don't have that. In my view, we don't have convincing evidence of that. What do you think around I know you because I think your channel I remember it started out kind of longevity and then I remember you rolled out a I think you I don't remember you rolled out a video or told the discord or something that it was expanding because of everything learning about longevity that a lot of this stuff isn't panning out but let's focus on health in general and that will help everybody live longer. Um, what what what do you think about kind of Brian Johnson and he's spending all this money to try and live forever and uh you know I appreciate it from a viewer standpoint because he's willing to spend a bunch of money to tr to be an N of one experiment to try a bunch of things on himself but when you see the holistic view of of scientific research today do you think we are really knocking on the door of of long of you know immortality you know and And not that we're there, but maybe in 20 years with ML and these kinds of thing and machine learning and AI, we're getting there. Or or do you think it's mostly hype? I've I've yet to see something that that would radically extend maximum lifespan in humans. Um there we know we do have we are quite excited about rapamy because of what we see in mice and flies and worms but we need to translate that into human research. So we don't know but in in mice that that extends both male and female lifespan by about 20% or or just over 20%. So possibly through using intermittent rapamy maybe there's something there. Um but again we're we're very early on the research journey with that. Yeah. Um a lot of people are excited about um epigenetic reprogramming. Um now I I'm not a I'm not a chemist. Um so I I'm a clinician so I I don't know um how much of that should be believed or how much of it is hype. Um that there are certain individuals that have a history of hyping things up who who are looking at epigenetic reprogramming. So again, I'm skeptical, but hey, let's hope it it pans out. Um, in terms of what Brian Johnson is doing, I've not kept up so much with what he's doing to be honest because I just don't find it that interesting. Um, so in in N of one experiments, you know, if if something works for one person, that doesn't mean that it's going to work for another person. And it it's the same if something doesn't work. Say if Brian took a supplement or a medication and whatever reason it doesn't work for him, it may work for someone else. So the in medicine we've got a thing called the evidence pyramid. Um and that's how we try and grade levels of or or different types of evidence and and right at the bottom is case reports or N of one experiments. So it it's not particularly reliable. So, um, obviously, you know, Brian is free to do whatever he wants to do with his health and spend his money, go for it in in however way he wants to do it, but if if I could offer a critique, I think I think he would do a lot more benefit for the world if he funded clinical studies of rapamy or or other molecules that that are quite interesting because that's where if we run it in a clinical study and we compare it to a placebo and we're looking at functional outcomes. We'll be able to see, you know, whether some of these molecules that have come from the interventions testing program, whether whether people should be using it or how we should be using it. Um like there was a uh I think about a month ago, Brian came out and said that he had stopped taking rapamy and and people were up in arms on Twitter about this um and and asking me because I know that I'm doing a rapamy study and it I just I don't really know how to respond to that. Again, he's taking a bunch of other things that could be interacting with rapamy. Just because it doesn't work for him doesn't mean it's going to work for other people. What do you do with that end of one experiment result it so um yeah I I people ask me about Brian but I just don't know how to respond to it to be honest. It's hard to draw conclusions out of him because of because of the way he's doing things. It's hard to draw say it's good or bad. It's just interesting. Are there any YouTubers or influencers that you really lean on? Like I don't know if you listen to like Huberman or or is there anyone that you listen to to like help you stay up to date? Um there there's one uh channel well two channels actually that that I um often look at. One of them is called Nutrition Made Simple um by a guy called Gil. He's a um he's also a a physician. He's a wonderful resource. Um another resource that that I often look at is Physionic. Um, so he he he his actual name is Nick. Those two channels are are are really really good. Um, they are evidence-based. They they don't hype things up. Um, and every now and again we we do podcasts together. Um, but if if I want to stay up with the the latest clinical research, I look at the clinical guidelines. So there's a guideline database called uptodate.com. Now it it costs about $600 a year to have that, but I use that resource in my clinic. Um, so if if a patient comes in and I want to make sure that, you know, there's been no new treatments um for that particular condition that I've diagnosed the the patient with, I'll look at upto-date.com. Um, you know, I I look at um, you know, clinical journals like the New England Journal of Medicine. So I I'm I'm looking at those types of resources. Um, I I think that for clinicians, if if we were relying on, you know, people like Andrew Huberman and whatnot for our research, I think um I I would I would be worried because that that's one person's view of the research. Um whereas say with the clinical guidelines it's those guidelines are written by um a committee of the the very top performing um clinicians in their fields who who actively participate in research who see patients um themselves and are very specialized within that field and and and that's where we're getting our guidelines from. Um so so you're far more likely to um yeah to to have evidence b true evidence-based medicine by following those guidelines rather than um say say what any one person would would uh any one person's opinion. Interesting. Yeah. I think that's why I listen to your channel is because I don't think I can read all of those things that you're saying uh and interpret them to the level that you can. So I kind of you know rely on YouTubers to not that I am obfiscating my responsibility to learn. Uh but I can read them and go I think it's this but then really when you come back and say oh it is this then that that's helpful to kind of get that that professional opinion. Do you do you feel you had to become more of a researcher as opposed to a clinician in doing the channel? Like do you feel that you're spending much more time reading than you are practicing these days or I don't Are you still practicing full-time or So I'm I'm not practicing full-time anymore, but that that's because it does take um a lot of time to do these to do the YouTube videos. Well, um so there there is quite a lot of time readings, but I'm I'm still working at the clinic every week. Um and as as part so any well at least here um in New Zealand it's part of our ongoing um medical practice that we have to do certain amounts of um so it's called continued medical education CME. I think that that's a worldwide um thing that that needs to happen that that every clinician needs to go to a certain amount of hours to to educate themselves about the latest you know treatment or or diagnostic uh methods. So it it yeah um there is a lot of reading but every clinician and physician should be doing that reading anyway. And one of the questions I had was how much do you how much weight do you give to meta analyses? Because when I when I was researching I come from the computer science field when I was researching I found that there's like metaanalyses sometimes which are research done across just a spectrum of research that's already been done. and I found it was less reliable. But in the medical field, and I don't know anything about medical field, but it feels like there's a lot there's a lot more studies done in general, so there's a lot of metaanalysis that's going on. I'm just kind of curious how that works. Yeah. Yeah. So it it depends on the meta analysis. Um so it it it gets a little bit technical, but say for example, there's a a classic saying garbage in garbage out. So if the if the meta analysis based on their inclusion and exclusion criteria, if if they're only including garbage studies and then combining those garbage studies together, you're going to get garbage out. Whereas if you've got a really well-conducted meta analysis um that that only includes, you know, say randomized placeboc control clinical studies, um the results from that metro analysis are going to be far more accurate. So, one of the organizations that does these types of metro analyses is called Cochran. So, on my channel, I'll often be referring to Cochran because um they they've got a very very stringent way about how they conduct their reviews. Um and so if if they you know combine the research and come up with the result, that result is high or much more likely to be correct compared to someone else who's done a meta analysis. How how did you come down on the vaccine during co did you ever publicly talk about that or was that just something internal and private? I'm kind of curious how you evaluated that since that was something we all kind of had to go through and evaluate for ourselves. It felt like Yeah. So it's a contentious topic obviously. Um it is. It is. Yeah. Yeah. So, and and I think that I think we need to separate out um the the vaccine research compared to things like vaccine mandates and lockdowns. Um so, so the the because that became very very um political. what what what I think is important is if we actually focus on the vaccine research. Um not whether people, you know, should have had vaccine passports and whatnot because I I I um I disagree with uh with telling people that they couldn't go out of their homes. I disagree with um the pressures that people had to take this vaccine. Um because as soon as you pressurize people to do something that that the the inner child comes out and you don't want to do that. Um so so I I I I think it's important to to make that distinction that the the policies around CO I think and and the and the science communication around CO was woefully inaccurate um and and left a lot to be desired. However, the the vaccine research now now that we've sort of separated the two um I I think was actually amazing. So if we have a look at um say the the mRNA vaccines, this technology had been in development for I think the past two decades um and it went through all of the safety um studies that that it needed to have gone through um and it was approved by the FDA through all of the correct channels um and even now to this day we still use the mRNA vaccines. And you know, I've had the vaccine, I've had multiple um booster shots. Um but again, just because I've taken the vaccine doesn't mean that other people should as well. It's their own health decision. And I think that that's where um people Yeah. I I think that's where the scientific community really let the public down is no vaccine, for example, no vaccine is going to give 100% immunity. So when people were saying, you know, get the vaccine, you're not going to get CO, that's obviously incorrect. Um, and if people say get the vaccine, there's no side effects, that's obviously incorrect. That that what what should have been communicated is that the benefits of that of the COVID vaccine vastly outweigh the risks. That that is how it should have been communicated. Um and and hopefully well not if if there is another pandemic which crossing our fingers there there's not in now our lifetimes but if there is another um vaccine pandemic uh uh pandemic hopefully lessons can be learned from this one because a lot of mistakes were made along the way. Oh that's a great answer. So you're confident in mRNA technology will be will yield a lot of fruitful things for the for humankind though? That yeah that seems clear. So cool. I I think I think if you try and strip away the emotion from it and again if you separate the discussion from vaccine mandates the the sure terrible communication around the vaccines and and you just look at the research um and and this technology it it is very exciting. Um yeah. What do you think about RFK then? He's coming in and he's I I listened to him on Rogan because Rogan had him on like two like a year and a half ago, a long time ago and he has all these stories from the 80s and 90s where he's just fighting big pharma and you know, you don't know whether to believe him or not. It sounds convincing. Uh but he's he's pretty because it's not the v he's like I think he's saying it's not the the vaccine. It's not the the dead virus. It's all the adgivants that they put into it to give you an immune spike. that is the problem with a lot of these vaccines. Um, but I guess I was just wondering if you have an opinion on RFK because I know he's a pretty polarizing figure and kind of what you again not politically like but just from his science and his and his approach there. Uh, what do you think about him? So, I think it's great that say with the make America healthy again, I think it's wonderful that he's brought attention to health. Um, I think we we do need to fix our food environment. Um, we we do need to, you know, take away the the added sugar and the salt and all of the colorants and, you know, all of the So, our food environment is filled with hyper palatable, as in very tasty, calorie dense foods. And so, it's no wonder that we've got this obesity epidemic. Um so so we we absolutely need to fix our food environment and and um but I I suppose I just get a little bit concerned about uh some of the other things or or his policies to try and fix our food environment. So um say for example I I just mentioned food colorants. Um I I honestly think that that whole discussion is a massive distraction. We need to be removing you know the high fructose syrups from our foods. We need to be removing sugar. We need to be removing salt. We need to replace it with um you know whole foods, high fiber, fresh foods. Um and and I think focusing on food colorants is distracting away from the things that that actually matter for our health. Um I think when it comes to vaccines you know say with the MMR so measles moms rebubella vaccine that's a wonderful vaccine that unfortunately because of a now retracted article that was published in the Lancet uh and and this is I think early 2000s or or I think it was early 2000s that that made a a very weak link with autism. Um now that study has been thoroughly debunked. Other studies have been done conclusively showing that there is no link between vaccines and autism. Yet this is one of the things that RFK Jr. will um will talk about and and fearmonger about. Um that's where I I suppose I have an issue with with what he's saying. So, you know, some good, some bad with him. Yeah. What do you think about the autism? I'd call it a a an epidemic. Uh because I think that one of the things that's I don't know whether he's right or wrong, but I feel like he's been the only person I've ever heard that's even just addressing it. Like it's kind of like we have these meteoric at least in the US and I think it's you know a lot of places too. We have these meteoric rises of autism coming up in and it could be cell phone towers or it could be anything, right? We don't know. But I just I really haven't even heard a conversation around trying to figure out where it comes from. And so he just seems to be like a guy who's just saying that's the answer. And I recognize that it might not be the answer, but no one else is like, "No, it's not. It's this." Or, "No, it's not. It's this." Everyone's just kind of like, "You don't know what you're talking about?" It you know what I mean? Like it feels like why how do we how do we figure out where this is coming from if that's not it? You know? So I I think it it's twofold. the the the main reason as to why we see this autism spike is because we've massively changed how we diagnose autism and and the the types of symptoms that are included within that autism umbrella. Um so yeah, it it it's primarily a change in the diagnostic criteria now including a lot more people under the umbrella of autism. Okay. So, so since we've expanded that that diagnostic umbrella, it's obviously going to pick up way way more people. Got it. Um, it it's it it's also now more recognized. So, say for example, I've got um my 4-year-old son is diagnosed with autism, and the the reason why he was diagnosed with autism was because we knew to look out for it. Um, so some of the some of the things that he was doing was that he was incredibly he was incredibly unsettled. He he would do this thing where he would stand in one place, but he would um spin around like a spinning top. Um and and that's that's a classic sign of autism. He wasn't speaking. He wasn't making eye contact. Um so so there there were a bunch of reasons as to why he was diagnosed with autism. But now that now that he had that diagnosis, we were able to put in early intervention. So he's been seeing um a speech language therapist. He's been seeing an occupational therapist. Um and and because of these different uh strategies to help him, he's now making great eye contact. He he's speaking, he's forming sentences. He's far more uh his threshold in terms of his behavior is is much much better. Um but again, but because we we knew what to look out for, um he was included in that um in that diagnostic uh field. And I I' I'd go as far to say now it it's a very mild version of autism, but but he's still got that diagnosis. Um so yeah, I just think people are more aware of it and that the criteria to be included as autistic is now much much broader. And the reason why we wanted to have not not wanted but the reason why we were accepting of that autism label was that it allowed us to get public funding. So funding from the government to help with some of this therapy. So it it's not that um it it it's not that we we see the the autism label as a burden. It actually helps us to get funding to help our son. So um yeah, that that that would be my my overall answer to that. Does Aspberers get a similar level of help and and fun you have it? It's it's all included now within the autism spectrum diagnosis. Yeah. So so that that's the thing. you see this meteoric rise of autism, but it's simply because the the diagnostic criteria has massively changed to basically include Asperes and and a bunch of other things that that didn't used to be included under autism. Interesting. I've I've spoken with like a lot of older people that do kind of feel we have more maybe it is just because it's being diagnosed and measured, but they feel that there's a lot more autistic kids around as they walk around. And I wonder if there could be I mean we have so many new things in our environment that they didn't have that wasn't there 80 100 years ago. Just out of curiosity like if there was one thing in our environment that you wish people could could really reduce whether it's like blue light. I don't even know if that's a problem or not or if it's you know radio towers or sugar obviously. Yeah. Yeah. What is like what is one thing you wish just society could just tune down and it would just help across the board? Salt. Salt. Salt. Yeah. Salt. So, so, so salt's not not to do with autism or anything, but just in terms of the the amount of salt within our packaged foods and our restaurants and um our sauces and everything. If we could basically just remove that, it would massively reduce um you know, it it would it would massively reduce the the taste of our food. So, hopefully you would reduce how much food you're actually eating. Um it would reduce your blood pressure. Uh it it would be it would be wonderful if we could just get just remove the salt from our foods. Um but in in in terms of autism um I so I I looked at this quite heavily um when my son was first diagnosed with autism about what are the potential risk factors for it? um and and what can we do to to reduce the chances of you know having another autistic child or um and long story short that there's we don't exactly know what seems to cause it. There are some there are some potential links. It it does seem to run a little bit in in families. So there's there's probably a genetic component to it. Um there may be something to do with how the child is is born. So if if the um if the baby goes under significant stress or or more stress that than what what's normal during the um during the pregnancy or during the delivery, maybe that's got a link um in in terms of like oxygen deprivation and things um during birth. Um it possibly to do with, you know, maternal smoking, uh potential drug use. Um it it it's it's really really variable that we we've got weak links and potential connections, but we we don't exactly know. Overall though, I I think um people are really really concerned about it because we see this spike in autism diagnosis. But again, it it's because the diagnostic criteria has changed and it's because it's more recognized now. So, I I think I think people back in the day if if a if a child at um at primary school was a bit quirky, you you might I think I think back in the day you just say, "Oh, yeah, he's just a bit quirky." Whereas nowadays, you'd say, "Oh, well, potentially he's got autism. Potentially he needs he needs some help in these specific areas with maybe his speech or or something like that." So, I think nowadays it's just it's more recognized and the diagnosis criteria has changed. Do we know is there any physical uh like I've heard that they have more aluminum in their brains or metal metal in their like I don't you know I don't know I've heard a bunch of reasons is there anything actually measurable physically in a human to go that is a sign or you know something like that or is it just behavioral? So there there are some so so uh my son underwent a genetic test to see if there were any mutations that are linked with autism. Um and and luckily he he doesn't but there are some genetic links again um that that you can measure in the blood but otherwise not really like there to to my knowledge at least there's there's no conclusive evidence showing that um well aside from things like lead but but this is kind of like back in the day when we used to have lead pipes and whatnot um but that that's more associated with IQ and things um I I'm not aware nowadays of a blood test looking at heavy metal content. Again, it's aside from issues that were previously fixed in the past um that's linked with autism. So, you know, say I I wonder if you're bringing up aluminium because of that's one of the added ingredients to um to some of the vaccines to help the immune response. And I think that's been that's maybe been the argument I've heard is that that metal goes to the brain and blocks it all up or it passes the bloodb brain barrier. Again, I'm I'm just paring like things I've heard. I don't No, no, I don't. I hate you. So that's why you're here. The the so everything is to do with quantity, right? So in in our normal I I remember seeing a study looking at this. It in our environment there is aluminium, right? So all of us will be consuming some aluminium every single day. and the amount of aluminium in a vaccine to to try and uh boost the immune response to that vaccine, it was like 100th of the amount uh that you're exposed to in a in a regular day. So, you know, when when you start when you put it into perspective like that, you be, oh, well, obviously there's going to be no link with autism. And that's exactly what we see with the um with the research that looks at vaccines. there is no link with um with autism and vaccines. Um yeah, it it's it it's not just me saying this. A bunch of people have looked at it rightfully so. Yeah. Um and it it has been disproven. It's so wild. I mean it I think it just leaves so many questions like we it's like it's like as a as humanity we can't figure it out. I mean yet uh we're making chips away but like even just to your point it's like there's no just blood test. Oh, you have it or it's a spectrum and so you have 10% of it or there's just there's no, you know, I actually have started thinking of it. I wonder if you've ever thought of autism more like a a feature in humanity instead of a bug. Uh, you know, because there's have you heard listened to the telepathy tapes or anything like that? Uh, the the Have you heard of the telepathy tapes? Do you know on this the podcast that just came out? It came out like two weeks ago. It's number one on podcast, right? It's it's it's above Rogan and and everybody else and it's and it it follows these families um of nonverbal autistic children and it seems to turn out that they are all psychic and they can all talk to each other and they all have like it's reproducible and it's it's it's a wild it's wild. I mean, it's number, you know, it's number one in the world right now for podcasts and it's called the telepathy tapes. And I've started to think, you know, and and to be I mean, uh, Elon has self-admittedly said he has Asberers or autism, you know, and and and just I'm kind of well, and a lot of our seems to be in computer science. A lot of the really really good computer engineers seem to have a little bit of that. And so in some ways I actually see it as a benefit to humanity because their brains can do stuff that a normal brain can't do. And maybe it's evolutionarily positive sort of I I remember looking at a stat about CEOs in the um say Fortune 500 uh and it they are massively over represented in terms of autism. um a lot of them are autistic and and I think that is because to to a certain degree and and depending on the severity of your diagnosis, autism can help you really focus in on on a particular task and just manically yeah zero in and do some pretty amazing things within that field. Um and I think yeah, you've already mentioned Elon. I think he's one of those people that can just dial in to a particular problem. um become all consumed with it, solve that problem uh in in a way that you know haven't before and and move on to the next one. Yeah. Um so yeah, I I I agreed that it this is the thing I I I've got firstirhand experience with this and and yes, my son's only mildly autistic. Um, so I I I can't speak for other more severe cases, but you know, I I wouldn't change my son for the world in terms of I I wouldn't want him to to I need to be careful how I say this, but I I wouldn't if if I could wave a magic wand and take his autism or autistic features away. I wouldn't because that would remove a lot of his personality um and potentially what the the uniqueness that he'd be able to bring to the world. So yeah. Yeah. Yeah. the future we might be asking how we can make our kids autistic rather than how to bore you honestly. Well, because we don't we don't know what we need to be like to exist alongside AI. We've never done it before. So, and it's here it's coming actually. It may I was curious what is AI looking like for you? Like how is AI interacting with your life and where do you see it making differences in the near future for you? So, I use AI a lot in terms of script writing. So, I'll still do the research, but in terms of actually formulating the script, it it helps me um yeah, to write sentences in a in a cleaner, more effective way. And in in terms of as a research tool, it's it's great as summaries, but it's only as good as the data that it's got access to. So, a lot of the um a lot of clinical journals that they just because of copyright laws and things, they don't allow say chat GBT to access the full texts. So chat GP yeah unless you could get that information um it it's not going to be nearly as good compared if I did have that information. Um I think it's wonderful at preclinical things. So finding out how particular proteins fold and um particular drugs or molecules that can um match those proteins and and do quite interesting things. I think that's really exciting. Amazing. Um but I I think if if people say will will will AI replace doctors and and whatnot. Um to to be honest I I hope it can one day because we are so inundated with the aging population like my clinic to see me and most of my patients don't actually know that I've got a YouTube channel. So I I'm kind of representative of other GPS within New Zealand. um the the weight list to see me is about two or three months and it it it's only it's only getting worse because of the aging population with the complexity. So if AI can can help treat and diagnose um potentially less complex patients or or help us uh treat complex patients in a more effective way, that's wonderful. But but I don't think that it will fully um replace doctors. I think it will augment what we do and and become more effective. Yeah. But I don't think it'll replace us. I I want to like ask you kind of a strange question. Matt and I go back and forth on this a lot because he's got kids and we talk about like when do you introduce technology to kids. Uh I imagine you see a lot of kids. You have kids. What's your What's your plan? And I know we're all just like grasping because this What's your screen plan for today? Yeah. What's your screen plan? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um it's a tricky one, isn't it? There there are multiple observational studies showing that the more screen time a child has, the the worse they seem to do in in a lot of different areas in terms of socializing, um their general behavior, their schooling. But those studies can often be um biased. So, say for example, and this might be a sweeping generalization, if you're um I if a child is watching, say 4 hours of um of TV compared to a child who's watching half an hour of TV, maybe the the child with 4 hours of TV, their parents are super busy and they're not that they're not as engaged because they need to work longer hours to pay the bills and whatnot. Whereas the um the child that grows up only having 30 minutes of TV, maybe their parents are more around because that they're either wealthier or they've got more grandparent support or there's more social connections there. Um and and and it's just a healthier environment for that child to grow up in. So is it the is it the TV time or is the TV time more of a reflection on what's actually going on in the household? And I I from my understanding, we haven't quite teased apart what's going on there. I think um so w with my kids we will have about 30 to 45 minutes of TV time in the evening after dinner um and and then we'll switch it off about half an hour before going to bed for the kids so that they can wind down. But that that end of the day it it's kind of it it's nice for them to watch The Lion King or Finding Nemo or you know some of these um stories that that they really enjoy. Um, and and I I struggle to see how that would be a bad thing for them to watch 30 to 40 minutes of TV with us after they've had a really active day socializing. And I I just struggle to see how that's a bad thing. But hey, maybe the research will come out one day and say categorically that it is bad. But yeah. Yeah. I had I have three kids and so they're uh 8, six, and four. And we, you know, one of the things I started doing was I just started d uh well, it all I've determined there's a quality to TV. And so I've classified it as like there's just junk food where, you know, if you go on a YouTube rabbit hole and it's just shorts and it's bright colors, every, you know, loud noises, they're just they're just getting stimulated through something and I'm like, that's a bunch of junk food. Um, or you can give them like a movie that has that's real life, like humans, not CGI, and all of a sudden it's a slower moving plot. It goes along and they can kind of dive in and follow along a story. I I think the TV the quality of the TV can be different. And and actually even uh there was a moment when I was going to make a a small thing kind of like Netflix explained or like a little 10-minute thing and I started contacting a bunch of agencies who have made Netflix shows and they I talked to this one guy and he said what's interesting he's been in like kids entertainment kids you know shows for a long time and he said if you remember in the 90s uh well it started with an episode and then it got broken into two episodes or like two you'd have a 12 minutes and 12 minutes with a with a break and he said the trend now does to break it into three episodes because now you have seven minutes break and and and it's just closing that dopam dopamine loop. It's kind of like problem resolution done, problem resolution done. And and to me that was the sign of oh that actually would probably hurt my kids is if once you're watching three and 30 minutes instead of one episode, one story line in 30 minutes seems to have a qualitatively I feel like I can even tell with my kids when they get off where they watch the whole movie, it seems way better. they're added to everything's better versus just you know what I mean of like all the bright lights and things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I agree and it will be interesting to see what the research shows. Um I I think one of the things that that we also need to be mindful of is social media and and what age kids should be starting to have access to social media. And you know at this stage I I would not want my kids below the age of say 16 to be on social media. Absolutely no way. Yeah. Like I've I've got so a son, then I've got a 2-year-old daughter, and then another daughter on the way. There's no way that I want my 13-year-old daughters to be on social media. That is that is wild that some parents allow that to happen. Um and and I think, you know, yeah, I I think the research is is pretty clear on this now as well, that having social media before Yeah. before certain ages is not healthy. Didn't Australia just ban it for 16 year olds or below 16? Didn't or Yeah. Yeah. I'm conflicted about the same. So, um I I just while I think it's it's fine for recommendations to be made and this kind of harks back to what we were talking about with co I don't think that it should be the government's responsibility to tell parents how to parent. So, you know, sure you can come up with a policy to say to parents, look, we highly advise that um yeah, that your kids don't go on social media before this age because of X, Y, and Zed. But then it's up to the parents to actually figure out how they want to parent their kid. Um I I think Yeah. But you know Yeah. It's tough because I don't know whether to throw in that freedom of choice. I don't know whether to throw social media in the bucket of kind of that or is it in the bucket of smoking? Like you know if you watch TV for five years and it blasts your brain and we know that then is it like tobacco and nicotine or alcohol and it is it that detrimental? Like if it maybe is then maybe it should be regulated. Um, but I I'm more along the lines of what you're saying is, you know, kind of live and let live and let everybody make their decisions. But, but maybe there is some sort of like something, you know, if it's if if you can prove it it's as bad as tobacco, whatever that means, then maybe it should be till 18 or 16 or something, right? Like, who knows? Yeah. But it's also then how do you enforce it? And yeah, totally. Like, are you Yeah. I mean, are you going to find parents if if you find out that their kid is on social media? Are you going to take that child away from the like What do you do? So, I don't know. I I think enforcement I think say for tobac Yeah, exactly. I think for tobacco it's relatively easy because you to buy it you have to show ID. Fair enough. But yeah, to I just don't know how you would enforce these things. Nor nor should I think they should be enforced. I think yeah, parents should figure out what they how they want to parent their child. Well, and it's getting more complicated the parenting and the government parent relationship with like transition surgeries right now. I I think that's a very tough one to have a look at. Have Have you has that like is that is that as big of a deal in New Zealand as it seems to be in mainstream media in the United States right now? Yeah, I've had a couple of patients at the clinic. Um the the policy here in New Zealand is that if a if a young person is undergoing um you know identity changes with their with their gender basically we just refer them on to the specialist services that um yeah so so that they can get the help that they need. But I my my view on it is I don't think that this should I don't think any you know puberty blockers or surgeries or anything permanent should be done until that person is 18 years or older. I think I think the mind underos way too many changes to to be making those Yeah. Because if if you if you do like you're sterilizing kids I just don't see how that's I I just can't get on board with that. I mean I mean I I know I know everybody says this but like if you can't get a tattoo how are you going to change your body's function forever and that's not in a similar category and it it's permanent changes as well. So I yeah it's wild to me that that this has happened and I think it will be a medical scandal to look back on. You know, medicine's made a lot of ch a lot of mistakes along the way. And while we learn from our mistakes, this is a big one. And I think it should have never happened. Yeah. Because there's some of the most visceral mistakes when when it's in medicine, we read back in history and we're like, "Wow, they were like stone age people." But really, we could be doing the same thing for sure. Yeah. They were doing labbotoies long time ago, you know, and you're like, "Right." Yeah. And and one of them uh Yeah. Like blood bloodletting. So when people had pneumonia, I think that this was even in like the 1940s or 50s. I think it was that late that if someone had um yeah an infected lung, you would you would take out some blood, you would literally bleed the P. Wild. Um and this was in textbooks until shockingly recently. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how these decisions get made. It's how much of this is has to be since you're since you've practiced, how much how much autonomy do you have as a clinician to kind of do what you want? Yeah. And has it changed and how much has it been kind of mandates? You have to do this, have to do that or or Yeah. What's been your experience being in the field with it? So medicine I think um I think one of the strengths of clinical medicine is that we are I think open to our mistakes like for example um one of this one of the mistakes that that medicine made in terms of diet was the fat-free craze. So, while saturated fat is is not great for us, unsaturated fat is is wonderful. And and we've got um there was a study recently showing that the a Mediterranean style diet that's got unsaturated fats like extravirgin olive oil and whatnot. And it compared it to a low-fat diet. The Mediterranean style diet had lower rates of heart disease compared to the low-fat diet. Um and so so so that that's one mistake that that medicine pushed was the fat-ree craze. and and and as a resulting mistake of that um early v early early versions of margarine um so you're trying to replace butter with margarine because apparently it was healthier. Early versions of margarine um was made using a process called hydrogenation and that was um that was filling margarine with trans fats. Now trans fats is even worse than saturated fat. So what was happening is that people were switching butter to a a worse version of margarine um and actually causing more heart attacks. Um so it you know it it is these mistakes that that medicine has made but yes we do learn from and I think we we try and publicly say we have mucked up this is what we've learned from it and this is our path forward. Um and and you know to to your point um earlier Matt you were saying how I've you know changed my opinion about a few things on the channel and and I think it's important that we do recognize where we've made those mistakes and then course correct. Yeah 100%. I mean, where Yeah. Where do you fall? Matt and I I don't know if uh Matt told you this. I was offline for a second when I was fixing my audio, but we almost started a stem cell clinic. We were really close. We had funding. We had a location in Mexico. We started getting injections ourselves. Started feeling great. It helped fix my ankle so I could start running again. Where do you fall on stem cell research and how do you see that landscape unfolding in the future? My understanding is that say say with injecting stem cells into your knee to to fix the knee when clinical studies have been done where they give so so both groups are blinded as in the people don't know whether they're receiving the stem cells or a placebo um when when those studies are done there's basic there's no difference in in terms of recovery time um and whatnot. So, I'm I'm not convinced at at its current state and and and this may change in the future. Sure. I'm not convinced that there's evidence that um the stem cell technology is is ready for prime time. If it was, then you know, I'd be using it in my clinic that um and and there'd be many clinics in the USA and New Zealand and Australia that would be doing these. Um there there's a there's another type of injection called PRP which uses your body's own platelets and and plasma and things to plateuminate itself. Is that what it stands for? That's that's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah. And again it was the same thing where multiple placebo control studies have been um done looking at say knee arthritis or knee pain, hip pain, you name it where they they do these studies and there's no difference between the placebo and the PRP injection. So that's why PRP is not recommended in clinical medicine. So um I I think uh one of the criticisms of clinical medicine is that it moves slowly, but it moves slowly because you only want to to roll changes out if there's good evidence behind it. And and that's the approach that that I take with my own health and with what I'm, you know, say the supplements that I I put into my own body. Um, so I I think it's both a it's both a feature and a bug that yes, clinical medicine is slow to move, but when it generally when it does recommend something, it it's recommending something because there's strong evidence behind it. Do you agree with the statement then? I mean, because you're in medical and I think some, you know, MDs, they they you can go on either side of this, but I think a lot of people critique the medical world as uh sort of not trying to heal anybody, just trying to like, you know, they're not addressing, you know, if you heal people, you lose a customer, those kinds of things. And I don't think you're that kind of person. Um, but do you think that you have you do you find that's like when you look at the system systemically, do you think that it's solving that it's healing people, it's doing that or is it a little bit of like what's your opinion on that sort of opinion of, oh, the medical establishment is just there to squeeze money out of everybody and and you know, not really fix you up. Yeah. So, there's multiple things to say about this. Um the the the first point that I'd make is that we are so overwhelmed in terms of our waiting list and seeing patients. We we we do not want to do anything to to drive demand up because again my weight lists to to see me as a GP is is is wild. I I've got no Yeah. So I don't want to do anything to drive demand up. If anything, I want to try and drive demand down for our services because um yeah, we're just not seeing patients enough. However, the system itself is broken and and what I mean by that is so much of the funding goes towards the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, not at at the top where we should be focusing on diet, exercise, you know, preventing heart attacks and strokes rather than treating heart attacks and strokes. So, um yeah. Yeah. So, so two things can be true at at at once. We are not as clinicians, we we do not want to do anything to drive demand up because demand is just ridiculous for our services. Equally, the this the system at the moment needs a needs a reset because it it's it's not focusing on prevention. It feels like I see that like I like at least in the US, I mean it's like everybody who's boots on the ground like teachers, everybody I know that's a teacher, they love teaching. They're in it for the kids. They want to educate the world. they want to and and this the kind of people you want teaching your kids but then they get fed up with the system the educational system so like you know administrators and they're just they're like this system needs to be changed and I think it's similar in the medical profession that you're treating patients and I think everybody who becomes a doctor it's pro for the majority I think they're trying to help people but then you enter this system that you don't you don't get to control like not and no single person gets to like make sweeping changes at least not today and I think it's a really a real shame like how are we How do we get to here? That's like, you know, it's like we have all these huge systems that are that are crumbling, but everybody who's still in it, at least on the ground, is still trying to help. It's a quagmire. I don't even know how you start fixing it. I don't I don't know how you get in there and make real change. I think I think a lot of deregulation needs to happen. Now I don't know what it's like in the states. So I can only kind of parrot other people's opinions who practice in the states but from what I gather say for example um hospitals I I'm not aware I I think there's a a rule in place that clinicians are not allowed to have ownership of hospitals. Now that's a problem because to to design proper systems that that work really really well. You want the people involved who are actually delivering the health care to be designing the systems themselves. And if you don't have ownership of those systems, it can be really difficult to actually implement changes. So it it's laws like that that I think need to be repealed. I I think um I think you need to let clinicians and nurses and pharmacists and physios do their job and not have administrators and whatnot getting in the way. Um, and I think there's a lot of uh misaligned incentives and and a lot of laws that just need to be repealed so that again doctors and clinicians and everyone else can just box on, do their job and help help people, which is what we want to do in the first place. Do you know the economics? I don't know if you've ever owned your own practice, but one of the things that I've heard in the US at least is for uh just general family family practitioners that are just family doctors that something like 70 80% of their revenue is coming from writing prescriptions and if they they basically said if they weren't writing prescriptions they would they wouldn't be able to stay in business. Is that do does that ring true with where you are? Is that have you heard that or like just as far as the economics of running a doctor's office? Is it is it true that the bulk of the revenue ends up being prescriptions? So that's certainly not how my clinic is set up and certainly not what goes on in New Zealand. I'm just trying to think how that could potentially happen that so I I'll I'll caveat this if so in the United States my understanding is that there's a bunch of companies that are almost like pill mills. All they'll do is have one consultation or not even that with a with a patient. Um and then they'll just write prescriptions for them for eternity. Um that's not healthcare. That should be banned. Um it's drug deal. So I I I Yeah. Well, no cuz you're you're not you're not delivering standard of care. It's like like say for example GLP1 medication. So, the trials were done where both groups were exercising, they had nutritionists on board, they were they had great diets, but you could see that the group that took the ampic compared to the placebo had had greater weight loss. So again, this what what that tells us is that this treatment should not just be prescribed to to people and then people are left to their own devices. They need to be counseledled with their diet. They need to have good exercise routines. they need to we need to make sure that these medications aren't causing undue harm. Um, but that that's not what's happening in these pill mills. So, I can Yeah. Yeah. I I I I don't exactly know how that that can be enforced better in the United States because I don't practice in the United States and that's that type of um uh setup doesn't happen in New Zealand. But I I I can see how Yeah. certain pill mills will just be writing prescriptions and rightfully so they should be criticized and shut down. Conflict. It's a conflict of interest. Basically, you're just massive. Massive. Yeah. Totally. Oh, that's cool. When Elon comes out and he says, you know, the government should just sponsor us in because it's going to cut government costs. I feel like that's just dumping more money into the ambulance as opposed to like what you're saying, the ambulance level rather than going to preventive measures. It seems like we need to add less crutches if we're actually going to fix it, not more crutches. That's how it seems to me. So, so I the the push back that I'd have towards that and I I do not think that the government should be sponsoring ampic. I think one of the uh and I've heard a few US doctors talking about this cuz these those types of medications are way way way more expensive in the in the USA compared to the rest of the world. And one of the big reasons for that is the way that pharmacies and insurance companies work in in terms of um dispensing those those products. So I don't exactly know the ins and outs, but that's that is an area that that needs to be fixed to reduce those costs. Um, what I would say though is that a a bunch multiple multiple multiple studies have looked at diet and exercise and how much weight can be lost over the long term with diet and exercise. And quite a famous meta analysis was done. It it combined I think it was like 10 or 15 different studies over a long period of time. So these studies needed to be done over at least 12 months. Dang. and patients were losing 2 kg 3 kg on average and and and that they would be sustaining that and that was it. So that's why medications or those types of medications have really changed the game because if we use those in combination with diet and exercise you know patients are losing you know 10 20 30 40 kilograms it's a game it's a step change. Um the the the biggest issue at the moment is that people aren't prescribing those medications in the correct way. As in they're not supporting patients in the way that they should be. And those medications are so expensive because of the ways that insurance companies and pharmacies and whatnot have um set up their systems. Yeah, I had heard this stat that if the again it's all sort of US-based, but they said if if if we could drop the average waistline like they just use waistline as a proxy for longevity almost and they just said if you could actually drop the average waistline in America by one inch. So you're 30 the average is 35 inches and we got to go to 34 inches in the whole country could just all lose one inch. they were just like a trillion dollars would be saved in health care costs because of the the material the actual improvement of everyone's health from losing one inch on everybody's waist. I thought that was a pretty cool way to think about it uh to as far as even if you're paying for it, you know, like the cost of healthcare would just drastically go down because everybody just loses an inch. Thought that was that was that was a cool way to think 100%. And and and and this is where just thinking about further upstream, what can we do as a public health measure, um you know, in in a perfect world, our food environment or our environment in general, we we wouldn't need ampic or whatever to stay at a healthy weight. We would um when you go to the supermarket, you'd be buying foods that um that keep you fuller for longer because they're high in lean protein and fiber. They're low in or ideally no salt. They've got lots of potassium in them to again drop your blood pressure. Um, and I I just I wish that Yeah, I wish that incentives would align so that we could do that. Like food companies that they just want people to keep coming back and and buy their products and the best way to do that is to create hyper palatable foods that have got lots of calories in them. So there's just such an incentive mismatch here um that if if someone could fix it would do a worlds of good. Yeah. Yeah. the best tasting and the worst foods are the cheapest and the best foods for you and the healthiest foods are triple the cost and you got to and now you have to decide what do you want to do and that's that's a terrible position to put a whole economy in. This is the push and pull that that I'm struggling with in terms of my position. Oh, sorry. I've just got a mower out here. Um, in terms of my position about regulation, because if you regulated that um, food manufacturers can no longer add sugar and salt and fructose to their to their products, um, that that seems on the surface to be a a wonderful policy position, but it's more regulation and I think we're inundated with regulations at the moment. So, yeah, I I mean, I'd be curious to see what what you guys think about that. The Oh, tax weird regulation. Yeah, I thought about saying x number of added sugars or x number of total sugars. Like, you know, you get a couple of those and it's you have a 300% tariff, a 300% charge. So now a Snickers bar is eight bucks, 10 bucks and like you can still get one if you want, but you got to, you know, but I know there's after I mean it's, you know, enforcement is has to be taken into consideration to your point earlier because you can make up laws, but then the ability to actually enforce those seems tricky. But I do think there's some way you could tax unhealthy foods. I think there could be some, you know, everybody should be able to have some. I'm not saying you can't have cotton candy when you want to eat cotton candy, but I don't know. I It's hard. It's hard. There's got to be a way if you're on food stamps to be able to get good food cuz like if you're if you're on food stamps, it's so easy to go get honey buns and coke. And it's so hard to go get, you know, grass- raised beef. Like it's impossible. And it's more expensive. So you you probably run out because you only have Exactly. Yeah. You get one stick for the whole family. Actually, I was I want to ask you I'm I'm actually vegan, but how with regards to meat and and I guess organic vegetables and everything, like how do you shop? Is there any do you go all organic or is that is that not real? What are your thoughts on like it's different in New Zealand? Yeah, it probably is way better. Yeah, I guess. or yeah, I can't speak to the to the USA, but um a lot of research has been done looking at pesticides and um and the impact that they have on our health. Um as far as I can tell though, so long as you wash, say you got fresh fruit and vegetables, as long as you you rinse your fruit and veg, the the amount that actually gets into your system, it it's very very small. And a lot of research has been done looking at whether that quantity has any effect on our health and it doesn't seem to. So to me or organic is just another name for expensive. And if I think about the the patients that I see at the clinic, if if they cannot afford or organic fresh fruit and vegetables and therefore they won't eat fresh fruits and vegetables, that's not a great that's not a great solution. So, I would rather that they um would still eat those fresh fruits and vegetables, but just make sure to rinse them and and I think it's as simple as that. Do you think it's maybe marginal improvements versus like are you doing 30 push-ups a day? Like, who cares if you eat organic or inorganic, but if you do 30 push-ups a day and 10 pull-ups a day, that's probably outsized benefit to picking organic or inorganic. Yeah. Yeah. I think we live in a world of hyper optimization that is often more detrimental than useful. And I think yeah, organic foods are are one. It it simply means that you're spending more money for probably not any gain. H do you ever get fatigue in this space of like because I certainly have of just oh and then you just you just keep bouncing from thing to thing and it just seems like and it's hard to tell and so h what's your experience with that kind of being inside it and on the like YouTube health side it just feels like fatigue you know supplement fatigue or or or not even just supplements but working out and that just seems like there's a million things you could do and you really could just spend all your time doing them. I think I used to get fatigued about it, but then but this is sort of early days in my channel where I was kind of hopping from one thing to the next like any men and resveratrol and and a few other things. Um, but you know, now I've kind of accept is probably the wrong word, but realize that there's always going to be some headline about this supplement or this exercise routine or or this food and and most of it is just noise and that the stuff that's not noise will will just keep coming through. Like for example, people have been talking for decades now about creatine supplements. Creatine is not going away and that's for a good reason. there's truckloads of research behind it. So, I think it can become fatiguing if you're trying to chase the latest trend, but the stuff that really makes a difference for our health is not going away. We know that we need to have fresh fruit and vegetables. We know that we need to have good amounts of lean protein. Uh we know that we need to exercise. We know we need good sleep. All of that stuff is is the foundations of health. Um and I I think if you just focus on that and and mostly ignore the rest, then the fatigue goes away. Do you have mindfulness practice? Um I've not so it it depends on you're about to have a child in a month so you probably have no time to do any kind of mind practice. Just so to be clear I mean you know but generally speaking you know what are you how do you approach it? Yeah. So, I I use um my mindfulness is when I'm, you know, deep in work and I'm not thinking about anything else and I'm just, you know, cracking out a script or I'm updating something on the website or I'm thinking about a particular trial. Um I find that really useful because my mind just yeah locks in on that. Everything else goes away. Um and I find that quite mindful. Um it's the same for when I go for a run. Um I I find that yeah everything else goes out of my mind and I'm just exercising. So I I think that's where I try and get my mindfulness from. I don't necessarily set a particular time in the day to do it. I I just try what whatever I'm focusing on. I try and just focus on that and and just get absorbed by whatever I'm doing in the moment. What's your screen time? Would you share your screen time with us? Well, I mean, most of my work is in front of a screen, so it's not great. Oh, okay. What about your phone? Does it do you do you have an iPhone? Does it track for you? Terrible. Yeah. Yeah. Again, it it's not great because I'll sometimes have um say if I am uh working out or if I'm doing something, I'll be listening to a a podcast. But again, I um it it depends on on your approach with this. Like if if I'm locked in on what someone is talking about on a particular podcast, is that mindful? Yeah. I I' I'd probably argue that it is because, you know, gen what one of the things with mindfulness is that you're trying to slow down the mind and and be present. So if if you're say even now with this podcast, I'm looking at you know, my camera and my screen and whatnot, but I'm locked into our conversation. I'd argue that that is mindful. So yeah, I suppose how you Yeah. define it. Yeah. Flow state. Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Um, going to like it's talking about things like mindful practices. Uh, I saw this. This was probably in a Joda Spinza documentary that I saw this. So, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Jod Spinza, but let's put him aside for a second if if you know of him. Yeah. Yeah. There was a apparently a Japanese scientist who studied if people could feel emotions while they're looking at water and then they put the water under a microscope to see if it changed the structure. And apparently it does. I I don't know. Well, I haven't double checked that, but that's what that's what the documentary said. And so, for like two or three years now, whenever I'm about to eat, because I grew up with the tradition of blessing my food, I will sit and try to think a happy thought and then send it at my food, which is so silly. But I do I do wonder like when does the medical world start incorporating if we do, let's say we do find that there's a link between consciousness and reality? I guess there is a link because we're we exist. But but if we can start to see that like positivity affects the things around us, affects our food and things like that. When does the when would the medical field ever be able to start studying that or be open to it or has it happened? Has have you ever heard anyone talk about like connecting a mindful practicess to their their food like the actual stuff that goes in their body? I guess I suppose it's a bit it's a bit disconnected, but say for example, if someone is in a positive state of mind, they're they're more likely to be practicing healthy life habits, right? That they're more likely to be eating better and looking after themselves and being more present in their um social connections and whatnot. So um while I don't know whether you're say physically changing water because of thoughts um you know I I think that um there is a huge recognition in the medical world about how important mental health is and and your state of mind is. So, you know, that's one of the things that that we screen for in the clinic, particularly say, um, postnatal depression, and this is on my mind, um, because obviously we're about to have a a third child of of our own, but one of the questionnaires that we'll go through with new mothers is around their mental health. Um, you know, cuz if they're not, if they really are struggling, obviously that's not going to be great for their health. It's not going to be great for their child's health. Um, and it's not going to be great for the rest of their family. So, you know, in in in that way, um I think medicine is heavily studying it. Um but more of an indirect way, I think, compared to what you're talking about. What do Go ahead, Austin. Well, I'm curious about the the postnatal depression. Like, is there anything for dads as their wives are struggling through stuff? Is there any sort of uh I don't know, therapy for dads to be like, "Hey, your wife's going to go through something very difficult. Her body is going to get like kind of wrecked for a while. here's how you need to be supportive and here's how you need to deal with that different energy going on in the house is is and is that something that you'll be thinking about like how do you take care of yourself when your wife is going through something so difficult? Yeah, it's a really interesting question cuz men are often forgotten in this process. Um, and I I don't I don't ever think to be honest that there would be a solution that's pushed by the by the medical world um for men's health in in that regard. Um, I think and and I I don't get me wrong, I think there should be I think I think men do need to be supported through this process because it's a massive life change for them. your your your body under goes huge changes as well when your um uh when you have a child of your own naturally your testosterone levels go down. This has been proven out. So um yeah, there's there's huge psychological and physical changes that that men go through with with child care. Um, but in terms of support, I just don't think that and and particularly in in today's world, I don't think that there's that push um wrongfully. Again, I I think men do doing this do need the support, but I just don't see it happening from the um yeah, from the medical world. I think it's more we get help from our friends, from our ex from our fathers if if we've still got our fathers in our um in our family. And I think I think more and more at least this is what I've experienced um with with my friends who are now having children um I I think it is more recognized about how much more involved fathers are in their um in their child's life compared to say what was happening in the 1960s um and and how we do need to stand up and and be there for our be there for our children you know support our wife um or or partner um yeah but again I I I don't think that unfortunately it's going to come from the medical world. I think it's more again friends uh and our own fathers. What uh more of a deep question here? Uh what what do you think is sort of the meaning of life? What do you think is the point of being here? What do you think about spirituality? What's your like you're because you you know we're all just humans living here and there's seven billion of us. What do you how how do you look at the world? This is a question I struggled with a lot particularly um in my second year of university when I'd reached medical school and I yeah kind of went through a crisis of meaning um that was really really difficult to pull myself out of and um the one the one thing that that came to my well the thing that kind of pull me out yeah what happened what what brought you in first I kind of realized I on this conveyor belt. Um I was just like everyone else at medical school. Um and that there was nothing I felt at the time. There was nothing special about me. I was just this generic blob. Um and and that that frightened me because say at high school I you know I was into sport. I had good friend group. Um there was a bunch of things that that made me me and I I suppose I just lost my identity. Um, and it it took me a while to to figure out Yeah. to to kind of rebuild myself. Um, it was a dark period, but yeah, it took a while to rebuild myself. But coming back to your question about meaning of life, I find meaning I find incredible meaning in building things that can potentially outlast me. And that's what I'm trying to do, say, with my channel. That's what I'm trying to do with my children. Um and and you know I've I've got a bunch of goals say with research and then also you know with with the supplement line that I'm creating I'm hoping that it it can outlast me and that I can yeah leave a lot of positivity behind cuz I I don't know what the meaning of life is but if I can make the world a better place that that's surely got to be a good thing. And and that's that's all I've managed to to figure out, I suppose, now. Um or or or rely on that when when times are tough. It's not just about me. It's about Yeah. building a a better future for my kids. Do you think there's something more intangible to us, like a spirit or a soul or something, or do you think we're mostly material? Yeah, I don't know. I you I was brought up in a very Christian household. Um, and I started to waver a little bit in my faith in university and then it completely went away when I went through um, the concentration camps in Germany and Poland. Um, and I was just thinking, how, you know, I I've been brought up with this Christian loving God. How possibly could this have happened? Um, yeah, with with the type of God that that I was raised with. Uh and and yeah, that's why I just needed to find different different meanings of life. Um yeah, which is just about building a world that's yeah, I get a lot of meaning for from building uh and and particularly knowing that something hopefully will outlast me. But I is there something extra? Is there an afterlife? I I don't know. I'm skeptical. But in the meantime, let's make this Yeah, let's make this world as good as we can. Have you ever had a supernatural experience? Seen an alien or felt something beyond or you know anything that you would tip you would actually typify it as hey that was that felt felt beyond just like gravity and and the like. Yeah. Um at the time it felt like something ethereal. So, uh, when I was, I think I was about 16, I went to, so it's called, um, it was called World Health Day, I think, and it was this massive, um, gathering of Christians from around the world, and you, you got to see the Pope and whatnot. This and it was held in Australia. And at that time, um, it felt, sounds cheesy, but it felt like I had the presence of God living within me. Um, but now, you know, looking back on it, it was just it was just a sense of hope and connection uh and happiness. I I I I don't I don't think it was to do with an ethereal Well, yeah. I don't think it was to do with an ethereal being. Yeah. I think it was just the emotions I was feeling at the time. It was a Yeah, I understand those. I know. I think Yeah, I get that. Um, I'd be I because you guys have obviously talked to a lot of different people there. I'd be curious to hear your thoughts about whether you think there are Yeah. that there's an extra being. Um Oh, wow. Yeah. Uh I'm like 100% on aliens on like physical aliens just because of how I've got the statistics of how how populations coming to existence. And I think that like if you look at how it seems like most populations follow like a sigmoid pattern, like they'll start exponentially up and then eventually they taper off. And so the chances that you're right at the beginning, like the area under the curve is super small. Anywhere else has a much higher probability that you would fall under there. So I I assume actually came from a different race. That's that's like where I stand. But I think that's only this dimensional. I think if we're talking about like beyond that cuz you know who's the god of the aliens or they they could just be robots from different civilization or who knows what that would even be. I think that's really compelling and I love hearing people people's thoughts about it. I'm not sure, but I choose to believe there's one. And I almost think that choosing to believe makes it more real in some sense. Um I don't know, at least the because I believe that the universe is a cause. It it seems to be that there's a cause and effect chain going on. And if I could create the effect of believing in a loving God or loving being or something that's not without a cause, that has to have some sort of cause. And so it's maybe it's like a it's just a what playing with semantics, but yeah, I choose to believe and and it has effects on me that I accept, I guess. Yeah, I think that I've had Cool. Yeah, I've had some I feel like I've had a couple of supernatural sort of experiences where you feel like uh it almost feels like the Matrix, like if you've seen that movie, uh you just all of a sudden you just feel like I'm in a simulation or none of this is real. And you know, quantum physics is actually showing none of it is actually real. And so I don't know. I don't know. So I don't know if that puts me did I go to a Did I feel another dimension and feel that this dimension is just like a thing? Like it's really hard to say what happened. But I do I feel like I've had enough experiences to know that there's more. I feel like there's more than just what we see in front of us and that we have the ability. I don't know if we're like some hyper cool machine that can do it or I don't know how but or if it's the soul or it's that spark of divinity or whatever. I think we can I think everybody kind of feels it. Everybody can can get to it. Um but you know I think that we got to learn how to live life here and love people and get to a point where that that can even be we have time to pause and think like you know if we're just killing each other and going to war then I I think that's I just don't know how people kill people. I don't understand it. It's really problematic like at scale uh that that to your point around uh you know my wife and I we visited uh Berlin many years ago and and then we went to some of the concentration camps and it's really wild that you just think like this systemically happened this systemically like rules were made and like buildings were erected and like all this stuff happened to like really you know do the do this terrible thing. Um I don't understand other than saying maybe we just don't know. Maybe maybe they didn't know. And that not not not just not excusing anything, but just if we can keep growing, maybe it's evolution. Maybe maybe evolutionarily you you grow out of killing your own species and, you know, get to something beyond that. But I like to think there's something beyond this this world. And I think I think everybody can tap in. Yeah. I I really like the idea of progre. So if society can progress to the point where we can ask the right questions. So say with um you know if if we reach a point with science say with um you know quantum physics trying to answer these questions and yeah I I I'm I'm inspired by that that I think one day we will have answers to these questions. We might not we might not even know what questions to ask now. But I think I think the trajectory that we're on, so long as we continue building in a positive direction, I think we'll eventually find the right questions to ask and answers to those questions. Yeah. Have you ever experimented with any sort of psychedelic ide like mushrooms or anything like that? Cuz a lot of people go into that and then come out and go, "Holy moly, this is all nothing and there's something greater." Has that ever been interesting to you? Yeah, I I I think I kind of missed the boat on this in terms of um right now I've just got I've just got too many responsibilities going on to between your kids and your YouTube channel and your clinic. Do you Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think if I was um in my early 20s now and I didn't have so many responsibilities um I I think I would um I think I would partake. But yeah, nowadays I I I just don't want to do anything that would potentially shift me from what I'm currently doing. Like if if I if I went down Yeah. If if I don't stay very busy and and locked into particular tasks, I I mentally spiral quite quickly. And that's that's one of the things I've just had to accept about myself. And I I worry that if I if I went down the psychedelic path uh that that I would end up spiraling. Um, and where do you spiral? Of meaning and what? What happens? Where do you spiral? Oh, well, it it's just yeah, like what why are we here? What's the point? Um, and and that's where I've I've tried to fill that the the the way that I the way that I've dealt with I suppose my own mental health battles is that if I don't if I don't keep running on Yeah. If I don't keep running on the treadmill and I and if I step off Yeah. my mind just just goes. It's a It's a scary place that it goes to. So, if I keep busy, almost use it as a distraction and try and be busy by by doing meaningful things. Yeah. Um then, yeah, I I can kind of escape that. Yeah. And I have found that kids really give you very little time to think about much if you if you at all care about your kids interactive in their lives. They they generally like to take as much as they as you give them. And and they they don't they don't give you much room for existential angst. Uh at least not for a few Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And you seem to be one of our more productive humans on Earth right now. You know, you're actually saving lives, which is way more than I do with my day. So, I'd like to keep you on the track you're on and not encourage you to go anywhere else. I appreciate it. Thank you. Do you get to travel much? Speaking of I am I am going to have to eject. I'm sorry team. I've got um I've got a patient that I'm seeing very shortly. But yeah, this was um a wonderful conversation. It it went a lot of Yeah. a lot of different directions that I didn't anticipate. and it was it was fun to have this conversation with you. I really appreciate you saying yes to talking to us. I've you know, like I said, I've watched your channel for so many years and I really respect what you're doing. Like I said, because I've seen you change your mind more than once and I think that that's refreshing and so I really appreciate that you had that three months where you were like, "Let me just throw out a couple of videos and you're here now." I think I think you're you're going like one to many and you're you're really impacting the world. And so, thanks for doing it. I appreciate it. I'll keep watch I'll keep watching. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you both. Yeah, man. Should we tell where should everybody find you? I mean, I will link to your YouTube channel. Uh, but YouTube and then you got your website, too, right? Yeah. Um, YouTube's probably the best place, but then yeah, I do have my website that I'm starting to put a bit more attention towards. Um, but yeah, YouTube is probably the best way to find me. Okay, roger that. Brad, this was awesome. Thanks for meeting. I love Great to meet you. I love hearing how you tick and everything. It's it's really awesome. It actually brings a lot more color to your channel, too. So, you know, I appreciate it. Yeah. No, thanks, guys. All right. All the best. See you. All right. Good luck with your patient. Good luck with the baby. Yep. Thanks a lot. See you. All right. Oh, okay. He left. Yeah, we didn't tell him not to. That was tight. Let me stop it. Dude, that was awesome. Should we stop it or keep going? I don't know. Let's Oh, we can keep going for a bit. Let's get some clips cuz I I wanted to tell him, but I didn't have a chance. You know, he he bashed on antioxidants a little bit and resveratrol. Y and I just wanted to let him know when when big wine comes after you, buddy, like we'll have your back cuz I think dude, red wine has been leaning on antioxidants and resveratrol since like the 80s, dude. I mean, that's the only thing I know about wine is all I know is it's good for you because of the antioxidants and the resveratrol. Yeah. Yeah. Really convenient side effect of getting drunk if you need to. Yeah. Oh, that was so fun. Gosh, that was so fun, man. I've seen that guy make hundreds of videos and so it's so fun to actually ask him questions and just know him a little bit better, too. Yeah, there's there's been a few times since we started the podcast when I'll be looking at the screen and I can't believe it's interactive because you've seen the person on screen, you're like, "Wait, I can talk to him?" Yeah. Oh, this is a call and response moment, not just like, you know, feed to me. Yeah, it's really cool. The YouTubes are talking to me. It's really nice. an interactive YouTube channel. Yeah, man. He seems genuine. Like everything in my gut says like genuine, you know, we talked to some people where it's like, you know, and I've seen him. I mean, truly, he he was surprised. He I agree. I remember with the David Sinclair stuff and he really tweeted at him and like he asked really good because David Sinclair would say something about a study and then he would go that study says this and this and it was debunked. What what else? and then he'd get blocked and it was like, oh that what a what a yeah what a what a crazy experience to go through when you have these guys who you think are scientifically they're the lead they're some of the leaders in the field and yet you ask them normal questions and they block the biggest names they're supposed to be the best researchers he was excited too obviously I mean David Sinclair got all of us and I don't I don't know enough about him to say that he's like not good or whatever I still think David Sinclair probably has good motives but I don't know that's interesting it's tough game out there. You know, it's a tough game. Yeah. Maybe he needed some bucks. Who knows? Yeah. Yeah. Uh yeah, it was really cool. And it's cool. He's having a kid. Also, I didn't know one of his kids um had autism and that was really fun to talk to him about it. Um because I don't know somebody that has a child with autism and and sort of how they've been approaching it from from being born to I guess four years old as a as an like all the logistics and everything. That was pretty cool. Yeah. Dang, dude. We could talk to him for ages. There's so much interesting stuff in his brain, I feel like, and in the world that he's in. Oh, man. He keeps I mean, his and his his his videos are so dense uh in a good way. like he uh one of the things that he did that I saw no one else does and maybe people do it now is he would take the studies that he found and he would he would just it's it's in his editing uh but he would just pop it up on the screen and and there would be a highlight and he would and he would read that highlight and just the way that he would jump from study to study to like read the measurable results and read it's like he just is like dialing us into like the one sentence that he thought was conclusive or interesting or whatever in a study and so he's like giving you the full study and then like these little highlights and just something I don't even know if he did it. I meant to bring it up, but something about his editing, it just was like it just felt like cool, you're not lying at all. Like you're you're trying to find the quotes out of all this research and then showing it to us and then reading it from the thing to where he just built credibility very quickly. Um because there was no interpretation. It was really like reading it was in it was just reading the scientific papers and telling us who don't know how to read it what it means rather than like extrapolating into other conclusions that weren't drawn. Dude, there's something about the medical field I've always struggled with. Like in computer science, we have this we have this notation like big O notation of understanding complexity. And you can kind of like take parts of your system and you can say, okay, this part of the system has like 1000 points where it connects with the external world. And so the big O on it's this and this other parts like this. We have a we have a hundred of those pieces. And you start doing the math of how complex everything is. And then you know, okay, if I change a bug, is it going to change? We have ways of like measuring like how big could this effect be and it's a very imprecise science even in computer science but with the human body it's like a trillion times more complex and I always wonder like how are they how do you look at Ozimic and you're looking at weight loss but then how do you know about I mean there's a trillion things it could affect how can we not be have more humility when we're recommending stuff in general I don't know the other thing I wanted that I that I thought about um is you know I think it was brought up on Rogan when he was talking to somebody, but 30% of the FDA drugs that get approved are re are withdrawn and redacted within 10 years. Of course. So 30% of the drugs that the FDA goes, "Yep, FDA approved within 10 years." Three out of 10 of those get pulled back because of unforeseen problems. And that's like, and we should talk to somebody who knows about that. I want to know about that's a big mis rate. Like, you know, you're getting a 70. That's a D if you're, you know, in America, American school. Like, it's that ain't great. And yet, we're still supposed to just And that's okay if that's the best we can do. I mean, if that's the best we can do, it's the best we can do, right? I don't know. Like, I don't know if we can do better. But I think that it's being realistic about it and not just thinking, well, the FDA is just right because they just always do the studies and they know. It's like actually they are wrong 30% of the time. And so, it's okay to have healthy skepticism. even to his point, going slower, even even slower than the FDA is going. You might have slower, assuming you can live long enough to figure it out. And I think that's what ends up happening is people get old enough to where they're like, I can't wait 10 years to see if this works or not. Like, I don't I may don't maybe don't have 10 years left. Yeah. I think if you're on your deathbed, you you should be able to do whatever you want. Anything you think is experimentally whatever. Like that's your Even if you're not on your deathbed, I think you should just have the right to do most things. Totally. I mean, hopefully after you're 18, but yeah, I bet we'd learn a lot, you know, and it's like it's like those moments in uh during World War II um because the Nazis did a lot of experiments on unwilling participants in those concentration camps. Um and it's awful. Um and I don't endorse it. Um but a lot was learned actually that that there was there was the knowledge that was gained was valuable although it was achieved in an unethical way. Um, and and I think a lot of insights were were gained there that you really couldn't get otherwise. And so I, you know, I don't think we should be experimenting on humans, but I don't know. They did and they learned a bunch of stuff. So sometimes it's it's hard, it's hard to know what to do. Can we like simulate a human in 3D and like then work on them? It's probably too much. But yeah. Well, and I wonder if the government or not the government maybe more of like the military-industrial complex because it seems to me that's the only place we would have to where you could even like what if so what if some person you might call them a psychopath you might just call them a a medical leader you know what if one of them was like we do need to experiment on 25 humans because we're going to save 25 million humans in the next 10 years and and you're like it's going to be maybe some brutal stuff but we need to do it. It's like, well, we can't do that in the public eye because we are all, the way the media works, it's so emotionally triggering. You know, we have this total imbalance towards emotional Yep. feeling good about it. So, it' have to happen behind closed doors, probably in secret labs and stuff. I honestly think you could actually have people that volunteer to do it. Like, imagine if you're if you get terminal cancer and you got a year to live and you're kind of fine with it and you're like, "Whoa, you're going to give $10 million to my family so I can go get studied on?" They're like, "Okay." like cut him a check for 10 mil and I'm a lab rat now and put me in a coma and go for it. Like I got to believe there's 25 people in in America that would sign up for that like pretty quickly. Dude, there's probably tons. Yeah. And they a million. Yeah. I mean that's uh and they would volunteer into it. I think there's a lot of people just bored with life and they're like I don't really mind dying because I hate the way that my life goes right now. Just like sign me up. If I help people it'll be cool and I'll make money and if I don't my family make money and I'm happy with that. It reminds me of that exhibit. It was called Bodies. Did you ever go and you know what I'm talking about? Slice through a body. Slice through the body. Wild. They were all It was all homeless people. It was all homeless people. That's where all the bodies came from in China. Yeah. It was all that's what they said it was is it was like Oh, I saw one in America. Well, they the h the humans are Chinese and so I think that and they toured around here. Uh, and so they said that it was like unclaimed bodies of homeless people is like kind of how they got them. And you know that, you know, that that's wild, too, because then you read that and then you start looking at these guys and you're like, whoa, you were like, you were homeless. You were a homeless person that that didn't make it and then they, I guess, found your body and preserved it and now they really preserved it. Yeah. Sliced deep froze it and sliced it up for all to see, man. Very thin layers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Brad's super cool, man. It's interesting that he um he was much more I think he was much more trusting of farmer of big pharma than I thought he would have been. Like he seemed to just kind of think that like autism rates are all just due to red re redefining what autism is and there's no it's not actually climbing. Uh and yeah where I wouldn't lean that way at all just from but I'm not an expert and I'm not well researched but tells me there's got to be new factors. Yeah I think it's true that we are redefining it and it's broadened but I don't know if that covers all of the rise. I don't know if it's one for one that because we broadened it now that's as much. I think we have broadened it and there have been other factors as well that are accelerating it and like like it's kind of like CPI in a sense like it could be skewed because of how we measure it every year but then there's also systemic stuff moving it and you have to balance both those and it's hard to tell. Oh it was so cool. Dang. I wanted to ask him like a hundred more questions. I know dude talked to him forever. He's he's a cool guy. Yeah. People should definitely check him out. And he I guess he's still practicing. Um but he's mostly YouTubing. I think he's still practicing to stay sharp. Like why not, you know, still be a practicing. I mean I think like Peter Aia still practices like I think all those all the MDs who have YouTubes I think they practice once a month. They just do something. But you know I think their CE credits going and they stay sharp and active. Yeah. I was going to ask him because I saw his medical license expires in November of 2025 this year. So I was like you gonna keep going? Did you look it up? Yeah. I was just checking him out. It's in New England. It's on their website. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, I guess it's public, so you can make sure he's actually a real doctor. Yeah, he is. And it expires in November of this year, so he's got like 10 more months. But I I don't know what the process is like to renew or if it's worth it for him or I was just curious. Oh, that's so funny. Hey, while we were snooping everything about you, we found out about this about your medical license. Uh, are you going to renew or you renew? So, are you done? What do you think? Uh, yeah, that was really fun. I think he's a great guy. Maybe we'll get talk to him again. really fun. If you ever get to New Zealand, I'm going to visit him, too. He'd be great. He'd be fun to see in New Zealand. I also want to talk to you about the co lockdowns. Yeah, they had uh cuz New Zealand went like I had friends who were who were doing an around the world trip and they were first stop they were in San Francisco and their first stop was New Zealand. So, they go to New Zealand and then CO hits and then New Zealand says all of our borders are closed. No one can go in or out. And they just lived in New Zealand for a whole year. And so their around the world trip got locked and they couldn't even go back to the US because New Zealand was having no one in or out. And they loved it. They had a great time, but he obviously lived through it too. And so, you know, I was wondering what his experience was like, but yeah, that president, that woman, I forget her name. Uh, she was real big on the Twitter sphere at that time. I'm mostly negative. Twitter is kind of rightwing, but yeah, that's right. Uh, that was cool, man. That was really fun. That was fun. Should we uh get out of here?