Brain.One’s Thoryn Stephens and Stark Health leaders explores how AI, data, and holistic care are shaping the future of brain optimization.
Subscribe: iTunes / Spotify
Apply to be a guest on our podcast here
Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Thoryn Stephens (Founder & CEO of Brain.One), Todd Vande Hei (CEO of Stark Health), and Dr. Alice Nguyen (Director of Naturopathic Medicine at Stark Health) share insights on AI-driven health protocols, the power of sleep and nutrition, and how technology and lifestyle work together to improve cognitive performance and extend human healthspan.
About Thoryn Stephens
Thoryn is a prominent business and web analytics professional with expertise in complex data problem-solving, data architecture, consumer insights, testing/personalization/recommendations, and systems development. With fifteen years of management experience, he is responsible for growth and strategic development within companies such as Amgen, Unilever, American Apparel, and Fox Networks (Fox Broadcasting, FX Networks, and Fox Sports). His documented skill in analyzing user behavior data produces actionable results across a wide variety of platforms and applications.
About Brain.one
BRAIN.ONE, an evidence-based AI, designed to help us optimize our brain health with measurable results.
BRAIN.ONE offers customized protocols grouped in core pillars nudging incremental behavioral changes through microhabits grounded in scientific findings.
Watch Full Interview:
Full Unedited Transcript
We’re gonna get into one of my most favorite topics, brains. Awesome. Yeah. First of all, let’s, let’s get some background on, on your organization. Sure. Tell us about Brain One. Yeah. Um, so briefly about my background. Um, I’m a molecular biologist by training. Uh, I worked in biotechnology the first half of my career, uh, focused in small molecule drug therapeutics. Uh, so I was part of the genomics team. That would be, uh, a team to characterize molecules. We then synthesize, mutate, and then look for, um, you know, different types of either activation or whatever it might be in that particular mechanism. Uh, worked in biotech for a number of years, transitioned into data technology. Uh, and then ultimately about two years ago, I was doing private equity work and decided I needed to come full circle into, uh, really my passion in science and was doing some work, uh, with the. Um, the group at Columbia University called, uh, neuro Rights Foundation. And what I saw was that there was really a need to help educate humans to better understand their brains in the nervous system. And that was the genesis. And so Brain One is a platform, um, focused primarily in B2B, and we work with practitioners. We work with organizations, uh, that are looking to provide protocol driven, um, essentially, um, protocol driven. Health improvement, uh, to put it that way. And so we started off in brain and, uh, we use ai. Um, we can dive into, uh, but that’s the concept is we’ll take a, um, a peer reviewed scientific paper, run it through ai, develop a protocol and a protocols, a series of micro habits and steps that people can follow to optimize and improve their help. How many protocols do you have? We have over 500. 500. How do you determine what direction they’re, how do you decide what protocol to create? Yeah, there’s just so much information parts to that. Yeah. So we started off again, um, with a hypothesis. So you guys have heard dementia is preventable, right? So generally, uh, that comes from a paper called the Lance 20,017. They identify 12 modifiable risk factors. Um, and so dementia is something that, you know, generally brain help, but dementia specifically that, um, we have a lot of, um, just empathy for. And so we would take that paper and feed it to the ai. Generate a protocol that then someone could download and follow. Um, again, looking at these 12 modifiable risk factors, um, and then ultimately for the improvement of their health and their brain, those risk factors, are those genetic risk factors? Not necessarily. Um, they’re actually all, actually, no, they’re all modifiable risk factors. Um, so there are things like environmental, um, and behavioral changes that you can make to ultimately help stave off dementia. So those could include TDI, it could include alcohol consumption, it could include. Uh, micro habits as we call ’em, but things like just eating connection, you know, connecting with other humans, and how do you measure against the impact of the inputs that you provide to, you know, impact those risk factors. Sure. Yeah. So we have a multimodal approach. Uh, so we started off with assessments. Uh, so the majority of cognition and, um, mental health research has been with, uh, essentially qualitative assessments. So, um, how do you feel today for general anxiety and depression? We have, yeah, seven as an example. So we started off with, uh, assessments and then we went into biometrics. Uh, so we have over 300 biometrics that are flowing into the platform today, and then biomarkers. Um, and so for our baseline understanding, we have essentially a kit someone can get in the mail and there’s six blood biomarkers, and then there’s about five different cognition tests that they can go through. So subjective and objective measures, and that provides the baseline, and then they would follow again, this protocol, 12 week. Um, focus in these modifiable risk factors and then we do a pre post. What, what is some, what’s, what are some of the protocols look like for this particular test? Yeah. Um, so the protocol protocols can be, um, it’s a combination. Uh, so we, we look at, uh, first off micro habits. So micro habit could be a thing that you do. Cold clenching would be an example. Um, and then, uh, the micro habits form a protocol and then those form a program. Essentially, and so a, um, a protocol would be comprised again, of micro habits. So those are gonna be, um, everything from nutrition, exercise, sleep, stress, connection, you know, as the baseline. And then we have specifics for things like TBI as an example. So one of our partners is a Super Bowl champion named Malik Jackson, um, at Santa FL. And he and his NFL athletes are again. Holistic TDI support. And so we have this baseline of nutrition, exercise, sleep, and stress. Again, more of a functional medicine approach, and then also, um, layering in other types of interventions, which could be glutathione, NAD, hyperbaric, I’m sure a lot of the things you guys have here at Sark Health, so Interesting. Let’s talk about, um, o opportunities Sure. For improved brain health. Yep. What are you guys, what are you looking at for optimization? Um, yeah, so we would look at things like cognition, executive function, processing speed. Um, those are things that we would directly measure ultimately. Mm-hmm. And, and what kind of interventions would you have after you set the baseline to really, I don’t know, help me get to a point where I can close my eyes and meditate or float Yeah. Float, you know, yoga, yoga style. Yeah. Um, that’s What do you have for that? Yeah. I don’t know if we have anything quite for that. That’s what I want. Um. But yeah, as an example on the TB side, do you think that’s possible? Hang on. It could be. I’ve heard amazing things with the yogis in India for sure. Yeah. I’ve read stories about some things like, you know, finding yourself on the outside of the building Yep. Which you’re ones inside of. That’s the kind of stuff I’m looking for. Cool. I don’t know if we can help you there. Okay. But, um, we certainly have seen very strong improvements. Um, so one example is we had a, um, a case study. A guy came in, he had, uh, TBI, but what was crazy was the TBI was about six. For seven years before, um, and he thought it was healed. And then we did an, he did a, uh, an EG. So it’s the AVI EEG device, if you guys are familiar. Yep. We know Wabi well, they’re based in Denver. And, um, and he basically did a pre and a post. And in that case, his protocol, um, was that combination, uh, that was NAD plus the hyperbaric. And after a 12 week protocol, it was very clear that he had a, um, improvement in electrical activity in. And did he just also describe that he was able to experience that difference? Um, yeah. He felt there was a qualitative difference in his life, a hundred percent, but he also didn’t know that there was still an issue from this TBI many years before. Um, so that’s a case study we’re gonna have to publish. It’s so interesting because we see so many patients come to us with, with cognition issues and they’re, they’re high performing people. Yeah. Yeah. But they are horribly impacted by the ravages of systemic inflammation. Sure. They really can’t think clearly. They’re using all of their intellectual energy just for work or something. Mm-hmm. It falls apart when it comes to their personal lives. Yeah. It certainly falls apart when making frequent, regular decisions about food and sleep. Mm-hmm. And meditation and exercise. Um, how do you, what do, what do you think the impact is on. Changing protocols to enable people to make better decisions on those basic inputs. Yeah. Um, that, that if, if, if there’s a way to have someone walk through our doors or the doors of any facility that, uh, is focused on health optimization, what are like the biggest levers that you can pull to enable them to better step into changes that they need to make in their lives? To become healthier in general? Mm-hmm. So, you know, we talk about longevity and like the biggest longevity hack is sleep, which you guys know at anyone, right? Um, we’re all dealing with a, uh, lack of sleep, generally speaking. And so again, that’s what we’ve seen systemically is just sleep and nutrition. Um, generally are two of the, you know, biggest, um, areas where we start because you’re not gonna be neurologically active. Sleep period. Um, it doesn’t matter what supplements you’re taking and your micro habits. Um, so we really focus on that foundation, um, first and then would recommend something, um, a bit more advanced from there. Um, that’s usually the baseline. And do you get into tools to enhance sleep as well? Or you just recommend bump your rim from, you know, 30 minutes to. An hour 30 or, sure. Yeah. There’s certainly tools. Uh, we’ve been doing some interesting testing with like, if you’re familiar with those guys, um, by oral beats as an example, um, in pre and post. Um, so yeah, there’s, we’re, we’re agnostic essentially to the interventions, but there’s certainly, uh, ones that we could recommend. But Do you have favorites? Um, I do personally. I mean, again, I, I live in Colorado, so, uh, for me and my management of my autonomic. Nervous system and stress cold punching would be an example. Um, I have one at the house, but I also go with the river. Um, so that’s something I use regularly. Also, breath work. Um, and do you find that cold punching improves your HRV? Um, I’ve seen improvements in HRV with cold punching. And what kind of frequency? Um, frequency. Like per week? Yeah. Yeah. Usually two to three days a week. Yeah, depending. Okay. And do, is there a correlation? To time in the water temperature. Yeah. So those are usually variables, right? Literally, uh, time in the water and in temperature. Um, I actually haven’t done a detailed study on that, but the water in the rivers, especially now is, it’s about 40, 42, 44 degrees. So you go out into the river. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So, and it’s also moving water, so, wow. 42 degrees. Yeah. We’re spending 42 degree water ever. We Oh. In the winters? We go during, in the snow, like, yeah. Literally it sounds beautiful as well. It’s absolute. Yeah, absolutely. What’s the impact of beauty on brain health? Um, you know, we, we have a, a amazing team. Uh, they’re, some of the, the women on the team are really focused in beauty from within. So again, the idea of nutrition, actually helping improve your, you know, constitution. So that’s something we’ve definitely looked into. What, what would you say is the most exciting part of your work? Uh, the exciting part of our work, I would say it’s the change that we see in the human. You know, ultimately, um, and that idea, so again, my background’s in molecular biology. Um, and so if you think about the gene expression model of D-N-A-R-N-A to proteins, most people think that, you know, you’re just, you have a genetic predisposition and there’s nothing you can change. Uh, but the reality is that, you know, 30 to 70% of your gene expression is actually dependent on your. Environment. Um, and there’s caveats to that depends on the tissue and the context circumstances, but you know, just as a rule generally somewhere in that, in that range. And that’s quite profound because even though you may have a genetic predisposition to something, again, your environment is everything. Uh, and so that’s been one of the most awesome things to see is that people improve their environment relative to who they’re surrounding themselves with, um, you know, experience in nature or whatever it may be, that they actually can improve their health. Correctly, which is something that also came out of the lance paper. Um, I’m gonna switch gears a little bit. So there, you know, obviously we’re talking about dementia and Alzheimer’s and just neurodegenerative diseases as general, and we’ve seen that a lot of medications, the pharmaceuticals has come out and, you know, the key past key decades have been just completely ineffective. Yeah. Or in fact, harmful, right. Causing brain bleed and all that. Not really. Are you seeing anything, at least in the pharmaceutical realm where there might be some glimmer of hope that there is potentially something that could be working? They’ve done so much money into this. Yeah. And it’s just that we don’t have much to show for it. Mm-hmm. Unless there’s something that you’ve seen that we have not seen, or he probably doesn’t know about. Well, what we’ve seen, ketones would be example. Um, and again, that’s not direct pharma, but you know, the idea that, again, um. By having ketones in your diet can be a neuroprotective, essentially molecule. Um, so that’s something that we’re diving into, but there does seem to be like, er, that in, have you heard of that? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ketones, um, there’s a lot on creatine. Yeah. Like study about 20 grams a day. Yes, absolutely. But, uh, but I guess nothing in the pharmaceutical room, huh? Not that I know of. Yeah. To be honest. Uh, which, you know, again, like SSRIs, we haven’t had any major. Which is why KE is an example. You was fast tracked by the FDA specific to mental health. Actually that’s, that segues into the next topic, I guess. You know, right now there does seem to be a push to develop, um, at these compounds derived from some of these psychedelics. Mm-hmm. That would actually help with neuroplasticity. Sure. But not have the same. You know, psychedelic, psychedelic, fun. What do you think? The fun gets pulled up. Yeah. Yeah. Fun. Yeah. Um, I think it’s an interesting hypothesis. Uh, I’m a big fan of psychedelics. Uh, I had my first foray into the jungles of the Amazon when I was 15, and I drank, uh, chuma. And, uh, that’s chuma. Chuma is, um, it’s the native term for San Pedro, or Meslin is the primary alkaloid. Um, and so. Uh, I personally feel I have a very deep ayahuasca practice and, uh, you know, I think that these are very positive molecules. Uh, again, in the case of ayahuasca, DMT is the primary alkaloid, but then there’s harmony, tetra harm. There’s a number of other, um, molecules that are also antidepressants, cyclone. So, you know, it’s really the concoction and the symbiotic effect of the whole tea, essentially. Um, so I don’t know, like by removing this psychedelic experience, again, people find healing them. That’s awesome regardless. But, um, I like the old fashioned now. How about nutritional interventions? What do you see to be the most effective When it comes to just food? Yeah. Or, or cheap or removing other foods. Yeah. Um, well first off, intermittent fasting in that concept, you know, most humans don’t, you know, we’re constantly eating. Especially in America. And so just the concept of having a 12 hour fast, um, I would say, you know, on that side, uh, is very profound. Uh, I also, we’ve seen firsthand, we work closely with nutritionists. We have multiple on the team and we also hear miracle stories, um, of women who, you know, maybe are perimenopausal, um, or haven’t had a cycle, and then they’re actually able to get their cycles back through nutrition and food. Um, so we see, you know, we’ve heard this multiple times. Um, so anecdotally, um, the power of nutrition is, it’s quite literally everything. So, so foods that essentially drop inflammation mm-hmm. Avoiding foods that create inflammation. Sure. So basic things like seed oils and gupton and Yep. Things of that nature. Yeah. Uh, the dairy, um, eggs for some people. Yep. Yeah, not for me. Um, thanks for you. I have a funny, funny anecdote though. So I, uh, I live in Colorado and I broke my clavicle two years ago. And I went to the Steadman Institute. Are you familiar with Steadman? So they’re number one ortho orthopedic in the United States. And, uh, I go into Steadman and she does the x-ray. And she’s like, her clavicle is broken. I was like, great. It’s my health protocol. And she’s like, and threw me a sling. And so my health protocol was, IM immobilization. I was like, great. And then what? And she’s like, yeah, I’ll see you in six weeks. And I was like, okay. Like that’s, you know. Number one ortho in the country. So I went back to my network nutritionist and I was like, guys, I broke my clavicle. What do you recommend? And they were like, collagen, bone broth, uh, you know, hardy stews. And so I was making bison stews and I was traveling and she said, come back in six weeks. And I ended up going back in about four and she does the x-ray. And she looks at my clavicle. She’s like, oh my gosh, it’s completely healed. She fused the bone. What have you been doing? And I was like, focusing on my nutrition. And the doctor was like, we never would’ve thought of that. And it blew my mind. Literally the number one orthopedic in the United States never would’ve thought of recommending nutrition as a way of again, and that’s part of a holistic plan. I mean, it was, IM mobilization, but it was nutrition, and she was amazed at how quickly that bone healed. So just as a personal anecdote, I think the power of food is everything. It’s so basic, so isn’t it? Yeah. It’s strange how we’ve lost such connection with. Simple things a hundred percent like sunshine and good food and sleep sunshine. Literally. Yes. I hope nobody figures this out ’cause you and I are out of job. So, uh, let’s talk about the, the future of brain one. Where, where do you, where do you imagine it heading and what kind of impact do you sure hope that it has on the world? Yeah, so our vision is to reach, um, our mission is to reach a building humans. Um, and the vision is around hyper-personalized health protocols, right? And so. Um, you know, you go back, uh, I mean they had, um, essentially the food pyramid investment example, you know, which was actually not that old. You realize that was only like in the nineties is when the food pyramid really literally in the nineties, I think there was a food meal that prefaced that I thought the food grills after. No, it’s before, huh? Yeah. Positive. Yeah. Yeah. And trust you. Right? But, but so that concept, right again, of, um, you know, that, that all of us in this room have a. You know, food pyramid that we’re all supposed to follow with, of course, the foundation being carbohydrates and grains and so forth. Uh, it’s just so archaic. I mean, quite literally the fact that, especially in now, in this day and age, so what we’re developing is, uh, we use AI in multiple models. Um, and so again, one is we’ll take a paper, a scientific paper, we’ll run it through, we’ll get a protocol that someone can follow. Where we’re going is the concept of an adaptive, AI driven health protocol. And so, you know. Todd, you wake up in the morning, you have your, you know, data coming out of your Garmin and your aura. Um, and I think this is actually where the wearables are falling short, is that they don’t tell you behaviorally they don’t make recommendations. They’re like, oh, your HRV is is low. Maybe you shouldn’t, you know, do x Just data. Just data. Yeah, exactly. And so that’s the piece that we’re really bridging is around the behavioral modification. So if your HRV is low, and maybe you didn’t do cold punching last week, let’s recommend something else to manage your autonomic nervous system such as. Okay. Um, and so that concept that you can basically go into grade one on a Monday and you click a button and you get hyper personalized protocol for you, that’s adaptive. So the concept of adaptive AI is something we’re very excited about. Huh, that’s so interesting. And can you, can you add additional inputs of course, in addition to like a wearable device? Yeah, yeah. Like lab results, DEXA scans. Yep. Yeah. So at the moment we have like 50 clinical assessments. Um, and then we have, uh, over 300 wearables flowing into the, um, the platform today. And then, uh, we do have some biomarkers and we’re really expanding that and standardizing that whole panel such that we can ingest ’em, um, and then help the user make a, um, an informed decision, but also providing data governance around the adjustment of that data. One, uh, I think terrifying trend that we see is that people are literally going to chat GPT and uploading all of their blood work, which I’m sure you’ve seen. Yeah, I, I strongly suggest that patients don’t do that. Every single patient has, listen, you don’t know what they’re gonna be doing with that data. 100%. It’s absolutely terrifying. And there’s zero governance, there’s zero data protection, um, you know, in these mechanisms. And people are just doing it ’cause they don’t really care. Uh, we hear this all of the time and it’s, it’s, again, it’s quite terrifying ’cause you don’t know that, you know, what will happen with that data. Um, yeah, I mean, we see what’s happening with, you know, 23 and me and all that. And as a molecular biologist, I never did 23 and me for that reason, actually. Just sign know. But yeah. Um, I did. You did? Yeah. Yeah. So my dad is out there. Yeah. It’s been resold. Don’t worry about it. I don’t think it’s very, so, um, what about, what about, uh, specific outcomes that a consumer may want? Rose and I, for example, were, we were just talking about butts. Yeah. Which is one of my favorite topics. Okay. For practical reasons. Sure. Uh, let’s just say, uh, you know, I wanted a larger set of complexes, Uhhuh, and, and, and I’m also getting feedback from the system that indicates that I should be focusing on some of these other things too. Right. Maybe enhance deep sleep or whatever, and this is what you should do for that. But what about my own personal goals? Yeah. Are you able to, in the future, input those and Yeah. I don’t know about, um. Buts buts per se, but um, certainly that is a input we could discuss. Yeah. That hasn’t come up over the first time. Wow. I can’t believe it. We can optimize anything to be honest. Yeah. I, I can, I can imagine. Yeah. Just curious. And you can also be, uh, uh, headaches or Sure. You know, some other problem that maybe a little bit more severe than a shovel butt, which is a very severe problem now. Yeah. Especially now. Not now in, at your age, but you know, when you’re 80. Okay. That’s a serious problem. Uh, we’ll talk about this. Okay. I mean, we could optimize for it. Sure. Yeah. Okay. So, so cool. So it’s gonna be highly customizable and incredibly personalized, potentially day by day, incorporating goals that are maybe over longer periods of time as well. Yep. Things that you maybe don’t do every day or multiple times a day could be like your cold punch. Yep. Um, and it will just tell you in the morning, yeah, this is what you should do. Or whenever you want, you just specify and then it will, you know, come up with. The optimized protocol for that moment, again, based on the data. Um, something else actually, we’ve recently started testing. Uh, so we have, again, over 300 wearables pulling in. And, uh, you know, each wearable has whatever, 20, 30 different metrics. Uh, but we’re also trying, um, we’ve been testing voice biometric as an input. And the reason why that’s so profound is about, you know, one third of the US population has a wearable, um, you know, I’m wearing Woo, many. Do you have or? Uh, usually about three. I ran into some friends the other day and they’re like, horn, are you okay? You know, it was like, yeah, I’m great. And they’re like, you’re wearing two watches. And I was like, yeah. I mean, that’s normal. Um, we’re actually doing an IRB approved study at the moment, looking at the variance of, um, wearables and H RV and so forth. Uh, so the impact of wearing them on HRV, not the impact actually. Yeah, like the psychological impact. Yeah. Well, that’s fair too. Yeah. We could have a whole discussion. Just on that. Yeah, that’s interesting. So, but, but the voice piece is very interesting. So you can go in and you can leave a voice note 30 seconds and then that basically translates into a biometric. And, um, I am, you know, patient zero essentially. And so we did a time series and we were able to correlate, uh, voice and what we call a coherence with heart variability. And there was strong and medium correlations with that. And the reason, again, why it’s so profound is that if you don’t have a wearable. Like our parents, our grandparents, you can go in and leave a voice note and actually have a scientifically validated, you know, essentially correlation to HRV. Um, another example is facial scanning. Uh, we’re looking at a number of vendors there and just did a scan the other day and I was a 62nd scan, and that scan, uh, was nearly on par with my aura relative to HRV. Now I’ve seen hypertension, uh, coming out of face scans I’ve never seen HRV that was pretty, pretty profound. When I was in med school, I had this, um, uh, teacher, neurology teacher. He was actually a functional neurologist. Awesome. And he, uh, this, it’s a class of chiropractors who really can specialize in, um, like physical exam. Yeah. So it was quite terrifying talking to this doctor because he would look at your face and he would be able to, like, he would say, oh, you’re kind of drooping a little bit on that left side. And he’d be able to like track it back to where. A quote, potential lesion in the brain existed. Wow. And he’s, oh yeah. There’s like probably something there. You’ll probably have ALS in about 15 years. And we’re like, oh my God, don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me. You know? Yeah. But it is, that’s, this is back to 2012. Wow. We didn’t have any of this kind of data, AI or anything like that in discussion that we knew of back then. Mm-hmm. But now, like I think about it, like the sensors are just way more sensitive than the human eye. Hundred percent wake up. Yes. So, dang. Yeah. Like that’s, that’s gonna be very interesting. It’s interesting and it’s exciting. And again, uh, you know, one of our areas that focuses around, uh, environmental toxicity, you know, we’re all exposed on a daily basis to a plethora of environmental toxins. You know, phthalates, fragrances, the impact on the engine, you know, endocrine system data fragrances is just so impactful. So that’s part of the vision is that you can just do a, you know, a scan, a voice, um, put in, you know, a biometric, and then at least it starts to indicate, um, you know, the, the spectrum of toxic. You may have been exposed to and thereby you could modify your behavior to obviously not be exposed, but that’s really the goal. Well, that’s really interesting because that maybe will eliminate some of the annoying things that we have in our household that I have to, the hoops I have to jump through, like the pots and pans and, and the special skincare products and the. You know, um, razors. Razors on, not forever. Super complicated. Maybe some of it’s not necessary. That’s what I’m saying. Okay. It’s all necessary. Whatcha talking about the data is gonna show that it is. Maybe, maybe I’ll just be squeaky clean. So, yeah. That, that’s actually pretty interesting right now, at least in the testing side, from the clinician side. Uh, for example, in environmental toxins, that’s blood. That’s urine, right? That’s hair. Yep. You know, again, validity of that is Sure. It’s kind of questionable. Yep. You know, but if we’re able to see that from just skins, that would, that would be pretty, yeah. Fascinating. Pretty fascinating. Yeah. Between face IRAs, voice, I mean, that could get the mainstay in some of the claims that I’ve seen with some of these, uh, devices or the biometrics. They’re pretty far reaching. Um, I did a, a head scan, like a group, um, that’s out of the Four Seasons. Uh, they’re all sports iq. And he knew down to the species of the, the bacteria in my gut where I was having an issue and I had just done a blood scan or blood work a week before for insurance and it was spot to the T and that was through a photometric based, you know, head scan. So, damn. And again, I’m very discerning as a scientist, I wouldn’t have believed it had I not just been blood and it was like completely spot. So, interesting. Wrap this up. What, what are you most excited about in the future for yourself? For your own personal benefit, what technology, what protocol, what can you imagine that doesn’t exist right now that you think it will? That’s a great question. Um, for myself, I think some of the things, you know, we’ve, we’ve touched on, but again, how we’re using AI to help personalize the human health experience that is, I think that is something that’s truly missing today. Um, and the amalgamation of all of these, you know, millions of day. Points into something that could profoundly help and ultimately heal the human. Um, so that’s really the vision that we’re working towards. I love it. That’s beautiful. I love what you’re doing. Great. Thank you. Super exciting. Yes. I can’t wait to be a part of the whole party. Sure. Thank you. And test more, do things, do more things. Indicate that I don’t have to use the special, uh, floss, which breaks and gets to critique. Oh, yeah. And all the things I to do that just aren’t just ridiculous. Yeah. They make life hard. Right. Yes, this thing, the steel pan and such. Well, thank you so much. It was great to see you. Great, thank you. We appreciate it. Appreciate what you’re doing here, sir. Thank you. Do you guys have any question, Troy? I dunno if you need to wrap this up. Questions or did you guys any questions? Uh, I got one, uh, question. I’ve been reading a lot or hearing a lot about free, like excessive free, like 25 grams plus whatever the number is. And impact that has on your neuroplasticity? Sure. Can you elaborate or any of you guys elaborate on that, Alex? I personally don’t use too much green tea myself, so, um, you know, using 20 grams and above, I think the studies have shown that it’s more for, um, and it’s not long term too, it’s really difficult to actually run long term studies because number ones incredibly expensive. Um, one of my ND colleagues actually owns. In the company and he told me that to run a study just on vitamin D, which is one’s products or K two it out of pocket for his own company, he actually had paid, I believe, $800,000 just for that study. So with the creatine in particular, they say that, you know, 20 grand and above or just 20 grams, great for improving some of the symptoms of, you know, dementia or neuro degeneration. Um. I don’t know if long term That’s a good idea. So because of the liver toxicity, not necessarily the liver toxicity, it’s just anything in excess. Yeah. You know, especially like any supplement, you’re not supposed to be taking like high doses for long period of time. You’re gonna cause a lot of problems down the, like down the line. So, uh, but cream in particular, everyone was very interested in it and I’m guessing you should pulse dose, if anything. So smart. Yeah. And 20 grams is a tremendous amount. That’s like, you know, a large amount of power to ingest. And for some people just five grams can give you guess. Yeah, yeah. There’s, there’s a lot of GI distress that you can actually get from just even two grams. So now there are different formulations. Yeah, they do have liposomal, they have, you know, that I haven’t tested g liposomal yet in patients to see if they tolerate that better, but, um, I think there’s gummy ones, but man, you’re gonna be a lot of gummies that’s like a crap ton of sugar in or two. So, um. I think between five to 15 really kind of depends. But again, if the person’s not eating much protein and or if they’re eating vegetarian, then they’re gonna have to prioritize that a little bit more. And that is, uh, impacted to a certain degree by the sex as well. Right. Well, women in general don’t eat much protein. Right. Period. So, so theoretically men don’t need to supplement this much with creatine because they’re eating more protein if they opt to generally have a hard time. Yeah, I think I did. I did an analysis. I think if you ate 150 grams of protein a day, you would get about five grams of preteen just spread out throughout the day if you ate from a high quality source. Well, first off, thanks for, thanks for your guys talk and doing the work that you guys are doing to help us all figure out on the other side. Um, I was listening to a. A Lane Morton podcast on the way over is about the importance of muscle. And give a really interesting example, specifically diving into cancer prevention. Um, potentially, you know, uh, building and sustaining muscle being as much as, you know, 300% more effective at decreasing, you know, the rate of mortality with cancer. And so he was making this comparison that often. Uh, people are hyper-focused on, uh, say artificial sweeteners as it relates to cancer and, uh, but, but not say lifting weights in this case. And it’s like stepping over, you know, a hundred dollars bill to reach for a penny. And so I was curious, and I think it also pertains to what Todd was saying about like your personal motivations inside, maybe like brain one, but does it rank particular? Lifestyle changes or things that would have the greatest ROI, perhaps on brain health or longevity or overall health. And then, you know, I think there’s also kind of a sub factor, which is, you know, maybe there you have a sub motive of wanting to reduce sugar or something like that. And can the, like, will the platform help you identify that? Yeah, that’s an awesome question. Uh, we haven’t researched that specifically, but anecdotally our. Heard, uh, a number of stories. Uh, a good buddy of mine, his name’s Frank Greasy, he’s an influencer. He had a heart transplant and he has a 19-year-old girl’s heart in his body right now. Um, look him up, just, uh, doing amazing work. And he wholeheartedly believes it is, um, due to his muscle composition that helped him actually pull through that entire experience. Otherwise he feels he would’ve been dead. And so we hear these stories anecdotally all the time. Um, I don’t have any data yet to share around it. Wholehearted believer, especially as humans get older, one of the best things they can do again is, is weight training. So wholehearted. Yeah. I mean even, even beyond weight training, right? Let’s just say in my routine I go, you know, I’ll do a, I’ll do a nice bath, I will go for a daily walk with my dogs. I’ll try to meditate and then, you know, we have, you know, we’re all entrepreneurs or busy and it’s like, cool, I can do one of these today and you know, could I possibly go. And see like, oh, well I can see the impact as it’s relative to my, you know, if I walk the dogs on the beach, it’s, you know, I actually see better than if I, you know, did a ice bath over here and I went to, you know, does it, does it kind of factor in those things? Is that a potential It could in the future? We’re not looking Yeah, I know. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Back to the sugar and cancer concept. Yeah. Yeah. Um, that’s partly why you guys know who David. Right, right. Why in his book he describes the use of metformin as helpful, right? For just longevity. Right? Uh, but there’s a much better solution to that. You can just build bigger glutes. There you go it back. It really could be anywhere in your body, but I think that’s one of the most practical places to put it. Um, because the larger your, your musculature. The larger your storage facility for blood sugar. Does that make sense? So if you have another 5% of muscle, your fasted glucose will likely be lower than it was previous to adding that muscle. And so if you can add a healthy amount of muscle to your body, perhaps not too much leading to things like sleep apnea, but but more than you currently have, uh, theoretically that will help prevent cancer because. Cancer needs sugar throughout. I think David, David p that’s, he, uh, uh, wrote about that in his book, the Four or something. I think it was like Four Horseman. Four Horseman or something. Yeah. This is maybe one of the horsemen out, out the outlive. That’s the book. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When it comes to cancer, uh, and we don’t treat cancer that, uh, like that’s, that’s not within our patient population. However, we do come across patients who, um. We have this one patient, we’ve interviewed him actually, but um, I identified something that was off in his complete blood count and I was like, there’s something wrong here like this. This is odd what I’m seeing. You need to go to your PCP, get the referral to hematologist. And they end up diagnosed him eventually with multiple myeloma. Now he’s a really healthy guy, came into an incredibly healthy, great muscle mass surfs on a regular basis and. Essentially, yes, he has his diagnosis and uh, and he’s going to the best like, uh, multiple myeloma oncologist in the world. And at this particular point, his doctor said, okay, you’ve had this for three years, or at least be diagnosed for three years. If you continue on for two more years and continue to be healthy, the chance of you dying from this cancer is going to be zero. Like you’re gonna die of something else. So, and for the most part, for him, he continues to train. He comes here regularly, you know, um, he’s in the sixties. Um, he’s actually on TRT, you know, um, really trying, try to preserve that muscle mass. Now, when it comes to cancer in general, the thing that will kill patients, especially if they’re going through treatment, is actually what they call cachexia is muscle based. This is the same with hiv aids that cachexia that muscle. VA is gonna kill patients. So sometimes what they’ll do again, they’ll use TRT, they’ll use other anabolics. That’s actually where it’s indicated. Some of those other medication, more hardcore, um, more powerful anabolics, but preserving that muscle mass is crucial. And you know, when you have older parents and you see as they get older and become more frail, it’s, it’s terrifying what will happen if, like, for example, the fall, ’cause the stats are very clear. They will die if they’re, you know, after the age of 60, they have a fall, they break a hip, the chances of them dying. Is 30%. So preserving your muscle masses, you know, again, we’re in a gym, we’re kind bias, but that really is, it should be the primary, um, objective for equal majority of people. Um, I used to work in, in the biohacking space and, uh, it was a, it was a fun time, like during the keto craze, I called it. They were, you know, preparing, uh, sticks, going to the bathroom and stuff. See who had the darkest color. Uh, yeah. But you know, I think one of the challenges now with law of wearables is people are ditching ’em. And this was, I think you were talking about Todd’s, is there’s a real possibility of people becoming a hypochondriac. And, you know, I, I fell into this and now I wear these and it’s, I try not to look at them actually as much or, or look at. More just macro data over time. Um, but, uh, yeah, I’m curious maybe individually how you all like kind of address that with people and also the secondary component, which is attached to that, which is how effective the placebo is. And so it’s kind of like you, you know, you’re doing psychology on them individually of like, don’t come to obsessed, like stay positive and you know. Trying to almost, yeah, psychologically, like disassociate if you see a red or a scary or something like with, with your data or with, when you’re working individually with people and, you know, I think people get scared of those things. Yeah, I can, I can talk about that. I, um, so one thing that we recommend is people not look at the data the first thing in the morning, and that they check in with themselves and give it a period of time, and then look at the data. Uh, and again, as I mentioned, we, uh, we just got approval for an IRB study looking at variance between the different devices. And I will tell you just two days ago, my aura and my whoop, even though it was trending and they were different and they were basically telling different stories. So I think it’s, that’s part of the reason we’re doing the research we’re doing is to help root that out because it is terrifying. And if you look and it’s like, oh, you had a horrible night of sleep, and you’re like, but I thought I slept pretty well, you know, when you’re looking at the data, it can become paralyzed. So I think there’s a massive, um, you know, uh, concern on that. It’s very valid. Yeah. For, for patients who are very anxious, I’ll just tell ’em to stop. Like, you gotta stop, like just chill. Like, I’ll give you an example Todd, right here. So he’s, can I speak about your pain violation? So, you know, Todd has AFib, atrial fibrillation, and, um, this is Genetic Gut and really. He’s on a medication right now called IDE that will suppress that HRV. So, and we look this up, we’re like, Hey, like, you know, his is in teens. Wow. And you know, he doesn’t freak out about it, but he was like, oh yeah, like 16, 17. I was like, Hey, that’s gotta remind you. Don’t, don’t come now. I’m gonna freak out about the data. He’s like, remember we can’t use that data. Anymore that HRV is not valid because of the medication that you’re on. So, you know, these are things that the practitioner has to know about all of this too, by the way, to make sure that the patient just doesn’t completely freak out and all that stuff. Now, um, that said about placebo, though, I will say placebo can be a great thing. Like it’s not always a bad thing to have a placebo effect. Um, we treat love men here, uh, either on testosterone or HCG or foam feeding. Increase their testosterone if needed. And you know, sometimes we’ll have patients come in, they’re doing their blood draw and they’re on one of those things, HCG for example, and they’re like, yeah, five foot. Great. And then look at their levels. I’m like, well, it didn’t improve much, you know, so it’s very interesting humans, and, you know, uh, it’s, it’s a very interesting thing to be in the clinical space and see all of these variances. But I’m actually kind of curious, doing your IRE so far, which device is coming out? Or is is at least showing to be more accurate? I can tell you the least accurate is Alpha Watch. Uh, and it depends on the metric. So, um, generally speaking, when I’m training, uh, I’m using Aura for sleep and garment for activity. Uh, so I can get back to you with the data looks like shortly. But Garmin generally is, is my go-to for activity. Um, um, how are the, the, is it eight sweeps? A eight, yeah. I’ve heard good things like the bed. Yes. It, it does do a gathering as well. It supposedly does. Yeah. Yeah. I didn’t use one yet, but I’m very, I’ve heard amazing things from our, our audience. The reason we don’t have one is because it’s not clean enough. Explain. Well, I mean, first of all, I mean, I do have some concerns that there’s a lot of em f that’s in that. Like, well, it’s just water circulating though, right? But it’s also the device that’s connected to it, like next to it. Yeah. And the fabric is not organic. And the fabric, I, I don’t know if it’s organic and also offgassing, so what’s that third good offgassing from the fabric, you know, chemicals. That’s her, so, dunno. Yeah. Yeah, he’s sensitive. I, I listen, I, I handle lots of things. I’m delicate. Delicate. I can talk, but, but maybe you can try the eight sleeves and get back to this. I see. If you get all toxic, I’m already a, a believer. I mean, honestly, well just, I’ve heard great things about it. The concept together of having that over time sleeve. That’s very well proven. So, um, yeah, not cheap. They’re about four, 5,000. Yeah. Yeah. Probably worth. And we pull that data in the. Sorry, what are the main KPIs that you guys track? Uh, when it comes to brain optimization? So it depends on the, on the user. Uh, but we have a baseline where we’re looking at a series of blood biomarkers. Um, that’s gonna be Omega-3, omega six ratio, EP alum acid. And then we also have a series of cognition tests. Um, so that’s gonna be processing speed attention. Um, and so forth. And so that’s usually the baseline. They go into 12 weeks. And then we have a prenup post, uh, that we’re measuring against. Uh, we also do pull in again, uh, the basics of all the biometrics. So HRV would be another measurement of the autonomic and paray. What’s the interval that the user needs to do the, uh, block? Uh, we do it every, I mean, it can be, we do it every 12 weeks. Um, generally is what we look at, uh, quarterly is what’s also recommended by one of the tests that. Uh, most people are not looking at any of these biomarkers to be clear, but, um, there’s a number, number of tests out there off the shelf. Anything else? Um, yeah, uh, I was curious, Todd, do you have particular, particular, um, I would say like. Points of measurement that you’ll do with individual clients, like, like grip strength or like hanging from a bar or, there’s a lot of people, you know, there’s kind of these fascinating indicators. It’s like, oh, if you can, you know, you talked about falling and breaking your head, but there’s one where it’s like, if you could get up without, like with your legs crossed, that’s an indicator of longevity, certain grip strength, um, and some of these other things that I think, I think people. And don’t really think about, but, but if you simplified it to like the most basic terms, it could correlate to the strength of your nervous system, your brain health, and then like your response with your physical body. Are there some of those that you, you know, are really fascinated with? Maybe like, or put some of your clients through? Yeah, actually we have, we have far too many to list. Uh, we have a philosophy called the Wheel of Health, and there are 10 spokes on it. I’ll just rattle ’em off quickly. Body composition is one, so we use. DEXA results, we’re looking at lean mass, um, visceral, a post tissue, subcutaneous fat. Uh, we have cardiovascular health, so we’ve got a long list of, of measurements including, uh, rest and heart rate and, and non lab tests, but we also have lab tests as well that inform the rest of that particular scope. We have strength and there’s a, there’s like, I wanna say four or five strength tests. One is the grip strength test, which we do very frequently. Another one is the dead. Another one is the farmer’s carry. Uh, we’d be missing a couple now. The functional, uh, strength test, that’s the three. The, the grip strength for sure, and the kind of functional ones are the dead hang and the farmer’s carry just a no. Yeah, those are really interesting indicators because some people can’t do a dead hang, for example, ’cause that shoulder problems. Well, if you have shoulder problems from a longevity perspective, you better fix your damn shoulder problems and then it can do that particular version of the strength that you failed because of your shoulder problems. Does that kind of make sense? Um, we also, uh, look at hormones, so thyroid, uh, sex hormones, et cetera. Uh, we look at sleep recovery and stress. So we use a broad range of metrics that are, um, referenced from wearable devices. Uh, we have detoxification pathways, so there’s mostly labs. We have gut health. Um, what, how many tests? Stool panel. Oh yeah. That’s the worst test that we do. Yeah. Is a miserable test. You have to poop into a french fry thing. It’s terrible. Put that multiple times. I dunno, I shouldn’t be saying this in front of you guys. It’s very personal. Uh, we also have, um, nutrients, which is a combination of micronutrients that need to be on board to perform in a healthy manner or an optimal manner. And then we have macronutrients as well that you should be targeting to accomplish what you need to be healthy in a holistic way. We have a bunch of orthopedic tests that inform that particular spoke as well. And so all of those things, I can argue that orthopedic health is. Important. I can also argue that mental wellbeing is the most important. No, no, no. Body composition is the most important. No hormones, no sleep, recovery and stress. It depends on my mood. I mean, every single one of ’em are so critical. And the interesting thing is, is natural methods of which you’re a fan. Lifestyle, exercise, nutrition, and stress management. When you pull the right levers in those categories, they’ll improve several of those folks all at the same time. And, and so when you eat really well. Your wheel expands when you sleep really well, your wheel expands. Um, when you exercise in a comprehensive way, it expands. If you just lift weights and you sit up into the bench and, and check your Instagram account, that’s not gonna do it for you. You also need to do non-exercise activities or genesis, like walk. You have to train your heart in the right way, which would be, uh, needing intensity to stay safe. And would also be you O2 max type training, which is very, very different. So the idea is that, well, here’s the overarching philosophy. If you trick your body into believing that you are a hunter gatherer, even though you work in an office or something or in a restaurant, you, you will become healthy. And that means getting sunshine and moving a lot. Every once in a while you sprint. Every once in a while you lift up something that’s heavy and difficult. Can you squarely hard? And most of the time you’re relaxing and resting and not in a state of stress. Your body will think it’s being used the way it’s designed and the fascinating outcome is that you become extraordinarily healthy in that process. So that’s kinda like the philosophy, if that makes sense. Yeah. Very, very cool. Do you, is there, um, do you guys do any DNA testing? Because I kind of go back and forth on this ’cause I’m like, you don’t do these 10 things, don’t. You know, unless you maybe have like an N-D-H-F-R gene. Um, but there are also people who, you know, are obsessed and they’re like, oh, I don’t have this metabolite that breaks down this thing. And so, you know, that’s why I’m not building any muscle. But it’s usually a lot more reasons than that. But, uh, yeah, I think you should answer this one as soon as I touch on the fact that mental wellbeing Yeah, it’s important too. Yeah. Yeah. So, so like, you need to make sure that you are. Are optimistic and social and excited about things, and that will inform a lot of your, your health overall. Right? And so if you become obsessed or fearful or trying to, uh, reveal this scary genetic predisposition that you have, you already are creating a problem. So chill. One of the most important things I think is critical to, to ponder is the epigenome. And you understand what the epigenome is, uh, which means that you are really in charge. The thoughts that you have, the loved ones you’re surrounded by, the exercise you do, the food that you ingest, the sleep that you get, those are all really affecting your genes, and you’re turning off the wrong, wrong genes. You’re turning on the right ones, and you come out the other end, the very best version of yourself, and you did it. You also did the other. So I think that’s one of the healthiest ways to think about you and your health is that you are in real time right now on the drive down here or whatever you’re gonna do next. You are creating a state of exceptional health or not based on all of those things I mentioned. That’s the important way to think about your health. It’s a deep sense of responsibility and it’s also empowering when you really start to. Okay, so we do some genetic testing. Um, and it, it really is, it’s one of the most complex things, like when it comes to looking at, uh, SNS and, and the genome itself. Um, I learned about FTH far back in 2008. My first mentor basically taught me all about, like, or at least introduced me to that concept. And of course, there are other doctors who’ve actually written about this. In, uh, the past few decades, but a lot of ’em who are really smart about it and really understand it will say, okay. Like what’s interesting is that, uh, take for example, MT four, there is a marker, a blood marker that people tend to look at a homocysteine to determine whether or not that gene is really, truly faulty. You could act, that’s actually more important. Marker is about the expression of that. And just because you have like potentially one defective gene ish, it’s not a hundred percent completely defective. It just means that the enzyme activity is actually reduced maybe down to 25, 20, 15%. But you can actually support that pathway quite well with co-factors and the right co-factors, the right formulas of nutrients. Um, I supposedly have one of the variants, them THR, but if I were to take a look at my homocysteine and it’s never high. Rarely is it high. Now, if I take methylated vitamins, even though my home system is not high, then it’s actually gonna driving nuts. And that’s actually what I saw with a lot of patients. They’re like, oh, I got this gene, and they start taking methylated vitamins and they start going back, shit crazy. And I’m like, no, no, no, no, no, you gotta back off. You gotta back up. So you know, sometimes what I’ll do, first of all, if you have some sort of genetic defect that is really serious, you’re most likely not going to survive to this adulthood by. Way, like meaning Huntington’s disease or anything like that. But there is, for example, like, um, one cardiac gene that we look at. It’s, uh, believe it’s nine P 20. Oh, is it nine P 21 is all numbers and letters. I have to, it’s late in the day guys. Sorry. But that one is supposedly if you have it, you have elevated risk of some sort of cardiovascular, uh, cardiovascular event. So yes, if you know that information. Then you should be empowered by it and make sure that you control and address everything that you can actually control and address so that you would lower your risk of an event. So don’t be like an angle, you know, walk, sleep well, manage your, split your stress well so that you don’t really allow for that gene to be fully expressed. So, um, that’s our approach is that yes, you, we are all perform with some sort of set of variation, genetics, but. It really depends on whether or not our environment is actually going to, um, really influence this expression a lot. So we actually have a lot more control than, than, than they want us to think. That’s what I would say.
