Ep 181: Ask Me Anything with Dr. Doug Lucas

Paleo can look the same as Mediterranean, can look the same as the dash diet, can look the same at right when you start getting down to the core of these things because they are animal based protein with a little bit of fruit and vegetable and not much else.

Welcome to the Next Level Income show where it's our goal to take your income, your investments and your life to the next level. I'm your host Chris Larson. If you haven't yet, get a copy of our book for free at our website next level income.com. that's www.nextlevel levelincome.com. just click on the book link and I'll even send you a copy if you put your address in. On today's show, we welcome back Dr. Doug Lucas. Dr. Lucas is a double board certified physician. He completed his foundational training at Stanford University and started a traditional orthopedic surgery practice in Durango, Colorado. After five years in the traditional medical model, Dr. Doug pursued his second fellowship, board certification and status of Fellow in Anti aging and metabolic medicine. Armed with this knowledge, he started optimal Human Health, M.D.O.H. was created as a platform for experts to help patients achieve their health goals. The incredible success of OH patients mixed with the need expressed by Dr. Doug's osteoporosis patients pushed him to develop Optimal Bone Health MD a sister company that shares resources but focuses exclusively on bone health. Dr. Doug and his team uses extensive blood, functional and genetic testing to help create custom programs through a membership style concierge service on both platforms. He's grateful for the opportunity to service patients, help them live longer and longer by focusing on improving their health span. Man. Dr. Lucas, great to see you again.

Chris, awesome to be here again. Loving doing these.

Yeah, we've, we've. You're a regular on the show. You're a regular. More than, more than I said, I think besides everybody but me at this point, which is, which is hard, hard to beat and what's, what's great is every time I have you on the show, we get a lot of questions, we get a lot of feedback, a lot of positive feedback. But we wanted to do an ask me anything segment. So we wanted to have some questions that tend to pop up frequently. These are questions that I get, questions that you get. We put it out on social media so we'd like to run through some of these. A lot of you have heard Dr. Lucas before on the podcast. If you, if you haven't gone back and if you haven't go back and listen to the prior episodes where he's been on. He was just on episode. I think it was 156 was the last time, if I remember correctly. And I'll go double check that while we're popping up on here. But while I do that, Dr. Lucas, please share with the audience a little bit about your new book that you have that just came out.

Yeah, thanks so much. I, I've got it right here. It's also over my shoulder, but yeah, so I wrote a book specifically on osteoporosis called Osteoporosis Breakthrough. And we're going to talk a lot about a lot of stuff today that is not bone health related. And the company that we started to help us to see patients, the way that we really want to see patients is, is built around optimization. One of the things that happened pretty early on is that I recognized that this, this framework that we were, that we had developed to treat patients was perfect for reversing osteoporosis and other chronic diseases. But osteoporosis is a really underserved community. So we kind of created this, this niche side of our practice where we have different labs and kind of a different approach, different workout, everything. And I wrote the book to, to lead into that. I just provide for people a jumping off point if they have the diagnosis or they have a friend or a family member because it, it is a very confusing space.

Yeah. And it's, it's. What's wild is I raised bicycles as you know, for, for a couple decades, starting actually over 30 years ago now at this point, which is kind of amazing as I think back, what's interesting is cyclists, even, even elite cyclists or especially elite cyclists don't have great bone density. It's one of the reasons I stopped racing. I started getting back in the gym, lifting heavy things again. And as we get older, not only do we do we lose muscle mass, we find it harder to build muscle mass, but we also lose bone density. And spending time in the, or, you know, seeing surgeons say, oh, this patient doesn't have, you know, good bone quality, you know, that's going to lead to probably a less than optimal outcome. But also it can, it can shorten your lifespan. So what the statistic is, you know, if you, if you break your, if you break, you fall and fracture your hip, what's the likelihood that you're, you're really never going to make it back at that point if you're, you're older?

Yeah. So actually after the age of 60, this is when the kind of, the fragility fractures really take place. But I will say I have patients in their 30s, 40s and 50s with osteoporosis. So don't, don't wait. But the, the scary statistics around hip fracture are that if you have a hip fracture there is a 30% chance, male or female, that you won't make it to the 12 month mark. So 30% mortality rate and that's with surgery, that's with, that's with all the best care. Of the remaining then 60%, half of those, or another 30% rather, will require full time care, meaning that lose their independence. And, and for me that's actually more concerning than the mortality rate because could argue the mortality rate is in older individuals. That's true. But this loss of independence, I've seen it happen in very young individuals and it's really concerning. So then that leaves 30% that quote, unquote, regain independence and that regaining independence does not mean that you're back to where you were. And oftentimes you do not, you do not get it back. In fact, of that group, only half of them can walk across a room unaided at the six month mark. So it is a game changer. And that's with all the right surgery. That's, you know, you and I have been in these cases, right? We fix, quote, unquote, fix these things. But the change to the body is real.

Yeah, no, again, I've seen it. My grandmother's been through it and she's just never gained back the same physicality that she has before. She made it past the 12 month point, but she's picked up weight, she's lost muscle mass and she just doesn't move around the way she used to and that has led to a decrease in her mental clarity, which is, which is unfortunate. So I know there's, you know, the, there's stark statistics as you presented, but these things are kind of insidious the way they kind of creep in. But I want to shed some light on how, you know, we can take, take action and affect our health. And many people may be listening if you haven't heard Dr. Lucas on the show prior and say, whoa, whoa, whoa, Chris, I pulled this episode, this podcast up. It's next level income. What are we talking about health here? Well, if you're a coaching client of mine, you know that the number one thing we start with are your health goals. Because if you don't have your health, well, what good is money? But money can also help out with the health side of the equation. So we want to, we want to talk a Little bit about how you can improve your health, how you can improve your productivity, but also as you build your wealth, how can you continue to enjoy more of that? So it's all right with you, Dr. Doug. I'm going to start off with the first question that I got. Um, I've heard this, you know, from friends that I, I tell about, you know, my experience about working with you. In full disclosure, you're my personal physician. People say, well, why can't. What is. What does he do? What does optimal human health do that my doctor doesn't do? How are they different?

Yeah, yeah, great question. So I talk about this a lot. We have a YouTube channel that I'll plug real, which is called Optimal bone Health with Dr. Doug. And, and I get so, so many comments and really frustrated, angry people. Because when you're, when you're young, healthy, like us, who think we are, oftentimes we're not. But when you're young and healthy and you're not leveraging your, your medical system, a lot of times you think that you're all the care that you need. On the flip side of that, for my bone health patients, they are. They have a problem that they want help with and they're not getting the care that they need. So they are their side of this equation where they know, you know, my doctor can't talk to me about nutrition. I ask him about supplements and he just says calcium and vitamin D and that's all he'll talk to me. I ask him about my gut health and, and there's, you know, he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he'll just refer me to a. Another doctor or a gastroenterologist who then know what you know to talk about. And so when you look at the medical system the way that it's set up right now, we are really good at some things in the medical system. Know if you, you know, if you have a hip fracture, you will get likely surgery within 12 to 24 hours, and that surgery will be great and you'll have all the care in the world. Amazing that we can do that. If you have a heart attack, you'll be in the cath Lab in under 60 minutes. Like, that is remarkable care. However, if you have a chronic dis, Diabetes, heart disease, dementia, osteoporosis, our system is terrible at preventing and managing these things because it takes a comprehensive approach. Doing that comprehensive approach and then really working with people like, like myself and Chris, you know, we, we want to feel better. We want to have More energy. We want to, you know, be able to tackle more things. We have a mission in life. We want to serve more people. To do that, we need to have the energy, optimize the lifestyle, you know, have a coaching team that we work with based on our goals. We need to know what kind of exercise to do, what supplements to take, but yet still have access to the other cool things like if I need hormones, if I need to, if I want to take peptides, if I even need pharmaceuticals that my traditional doctor has never heard of. You know, we can do all those things and that's, that's what we do.

Yeah. And I think it's. Look, it goes. We've talked about the similarities before which between the financial world and the healthcare world. The financial world is broken in a lot of ways. Right. We don't teach people about, you know, financial literacy. They can't understand the complexities behind financial products, the fees, the costs, all these sorts of things. The health care system, as you said, and you know, you're a phenomenal surgeon, you're able to go fix these things. But what if you're not sick? What if you just want to feel better? And you know, one of the things like with bone health, it was like vitamin D, it's like, well, your vitamin D levels are fine. That doesn't mean they're not optimal. Right. So it's. Yeah. How do you, how do you do that? I'll let you, I'll let you take.

Yeah, yeah. So I have a list. We asked the same thing to our, our email list and we posted this on social media. And I have, I have, I don't know how many questions here. Probably 40. There's a couple of like general groups of questions here. And so, gosh, I think the, we get a lot of questions on hormone replacements. Just hit that one first. And, and so we, for, for both men and women, we will, we optimize hormones. We can use peptides for hormone optimization and supplements, lifestyle, but a lot of times we end up replacing hormones. So this is a couple of questions specifically on, on women. And this is, I talk about postpausal or perimenopausal hormone replacement a lot and it is good for so many things. The questions here are really around who shouldn't hormone replacement. So let me just answer that in kind of like a two, a two part answer which is who should consider hormone replacement. And the answer, in my opinion is that from a health span perspective, want to continue to optimize hormones. And while it is totally natural For a woman to go through menopause, it is not optimal to lose sex hormones. And that's controversial statement. But if you think about what happens for a woman when she loses estrogen, she'll go through the symptoms of menopause, the hot flashes and the night sweats, that goes away. But the things that reliably happen are that you will lose bone density, there's an increased risk of dementia, your arteries get harder, the risk for cardiovascular events, all that stuff goes up. So all those chronic diseases that I mentioned earlier, all of them become a more likely risk if you are absent of sex hormones, specific estrogen. So if you want to optimize the way that you function, your skin, your energy, your libido, your sex life, all of it, maintaining hormone is, in my opinion, the right thing to do. And that's for me, estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone. That's not how it's usually done. For the record, however, there is a risk benefit to everything, and there are risks associated with hormones. So then the question is, who shouldn't consider hormone replacement? And for me, the. The big we talk about, there's really three. There's breast cancer, and I'll get into that. There's blood clots, and then there's cardiovascular risk. So it would take this entire podcast time to. To get into all of the risks. And I do this on a regular basis, and you could probably search YouTube or podcast and find me talking about this. But the risk hormones are way overstated. There are risks, but I think in general, we can safely say that hormone replacement done the way that we do it, with estradiol, with micronized progesterone, with topical, both estrodial and testosterone. When done in that way, the risk of the increased risk of breast cancer is basically mute, meaning that there probably isn't an increased risk of breast cancer. However, if you have breast cancer, if you have a history of breast cancer and are at an increased risk of recurrence, or if you have a strong family history and are at increased risk, that's when I think you really need to be worried about that. If you don't meet those criteria, though, then you really probably don't need to worry about that. Obviously talk about this with your own doctors. Um, the blood clot thing, totally eliminated by using topical, so not an issue.

Interesting.

And then the increased heart disease risk that comes if you are over 10 years out from menopause, then there's a kind of a bigger question of, okay, what's your cardiovascular family history? What you Know, do we do imaging to evaluate that? And that's a, that's a one on one, you know, customized risk benefit ratio thing. So I do end up putting in on hormone replacement who are, you know, over the 10 years out. But this is a very complex conversation that you should not take lightly because that increased risk, cardiovascular event or stroke is real. So long answer. But that's a, that's a complex topic that I, I do hear questions on that a lot.

Yeah, so it comes down to just like financially, right? It comes down to, you know, what, what your individual situation's like. And, and I gotta, I gotta follow up to that. But one of the, one of the questions that I have that came in also you brought up is you mentioned peptides. What, what is a peptide?

Yeah, great, great question. So I'm recording on this on Friday because it's such an interesting field where there's a lot of conversation about peptides, but a lot of times it's not defined. So a peptide is essentially a short protein. So if you consider a protein as a series of amino acids, a peptide is defined as either less than 50, some people would say less than 46, but it's a short series of amino acids, essentially a part of a protein. Peptides are generally naturally occurring. So if you look for peptides in the body, you'll find them all over the place. They're very similar to horm hormones and a lot of, and in fact some of our hormones are peptide hormones. So like insulin is a peptide hormone. And again they're just, they're just short signaling molecules. So we can harness the potential of these things and we can either inject them or sometimes some of them you can consume orally and they're stable and they can act as signaling molecules in the body. And so you'll see, you know, there are numerous different categories and we talk about body composition, muscle mass. There's some that you would use for skin, for system, for, for neuro optimization, dementia, quote, unquote prevention. I can't say it cures it. So there are so many things that you can do. The challenge with peptides is it's a relatively un, it's an uncontrolled space. So they're not made by drug is usually things, things like. Yeah, right, that's like insulin obviously are made by drug companies, but a lot of the other peptides are by. Because they're naturally occurring, they can't get a patent on them, therefore they can't secure the financial benefit that they need to produce.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

And so that being made by compounding pharmacies. So there's questions of quality. You know, there are also some direct to consumer companies that are out there which I would strongly recommend avoiding. Not because the quality isn't good, they're obviously under less scrutiny, but it's the dosing that's the challenge because these things are powerful, you know, and if you're from somewhere and the doctor, a doctor who's really well trained in this, I have a certification in this, if you're not getting the dosing and you're just guessing, you could really do some harm. So they are powerful things under scrutiny, but they're great molecules that have a lot of potential and we use them quite often.

Yeah. And look, it's like, it's like a pharmaceutical. Right. You wouldn't just go take a handful of pills out of a bottle because your doctor said, hey, this is something good to take, or your friend said, this is something good to take. I think that applies, applies to everything. The, the follow up question, though, I had you mentioned you were talking about based on your genetics. I get this, I get this question a lot. And this isn't, this is, this is one of those ones that's come up multiple times. What is, what is genetics based medicine?

Yeah. So, you know, we call this precision health. Their practices, it'll, that's their kind of shtick is where precision medicine, whatever we do, is custom for your genetics. Genetic space is new. It is. You know, the human genome was sequenced in the early, I think late 1990s, early 2000s, somewhere around there. So the data that we're using is all relatively new. And when we talk about, in my space, we're talking about These things called SNPs, which are, it stands for single nucleotide polymorphisms. SNPs are the changes in the genetic code that can have substantial variation. Meaning that if, you know, we look at your SNPs versus my SNPs, it can really change, you know, the way we respond to different things. What we look like, our performance capacity. Right. Like, you know, you have very strong performance snips. I think I can share that openly or, you know, obviously.

Thank you, doctor.

Yeah. You know, I mean, you look at, look at Chris's genetic, you could see it, I mean, just across the board, like he was genetically stacked, good athlete, and that's great. But a lot of these things we can use, we can use to help decide, you know, what kind of diet is for us. Do we tolerate dietary fat or do we not tolerate saturated fat? You know, are we a rapid or slow metabolizer of caffeine? Do you have, you know, MTHF are really popular. Want to talk about what's your methylation potential?

Right.

So we can use, we can use genetics to help us to design a customized program and used to be very heavy on it. We used to test it on everybody. It was part of the program. We peeled it out and now we make it optional because we found that, yes, it's helpful and, and I prefer to do it always, but there is a point at which it, it doesn't necessarily change what we do depending on the starting point, because most people's starting point is so not optimal that I don't, I don't necessarily need the genetics, you know, to be able to say, look, this is where you need to start. So I love it. I think it's great. We're going to really see, I think the next 10, 20 years an explosion of the potential of this. For now, I think it's cool, it's helpful, but it is not required.

Yeah. What I've seen from my personal experience is, you know, when you're trying, when you're, you've done the big stuff, you've moved the big levers and you're trying to figure out little things. Like for me, I was trying to figure out, like, what specific fats to incorporate in my diet and I, I started eating coconut. Coconut fat. I was like, oh, coconut. Well, that's, that should be good. Like, that's healthy, right? Dr. Doug? Coconut.

I mean, well, and depending on your.

Genetics and yeah, I, I, I started eating more coconut in my, my cholesterol and my, my, my triglycerides went like through the roof. And yeah, it was crazy. So it is, it is. I've found, personally, it's really helpful, you know, when you're trying to optimize and figure out, hey, what, what is causing this. If, if, you know, the obvious answer isn't necessarily there. Is that, is that a fair statement?

Yeah, yeah, it's. And especially the more dialed in we get. And that's again, why we peeled it out, because we don't want to do it. But a lot of times we'll do it later because the number of recommendations that we end up coming up with if we have genetics and biomarkers and somebody doesn't have an starting point is just overwhelming, you know, like, look, you need to take these 50 things. It's like, wow, that's too much.

Yeah. All right, next question.

Yeah, yeah, the next one I got. So this is, this is a conversation that you and I have had with a number of different people. And so there are kind of two questions I'm going to stack here, so I'm going to read them. So one is what is it that lacks in a vegan diet so as to make it suboptimal? Can you supplement this lab safely? And then I want to pair that with if you were to not eat fake meat or any processed vegan food, could you do it properly and be healthier than one who consumes meat? Interesting. There are a couple others in that same category, but let me just.

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Dress plant based and this is something that I've always, I've always talked about in the health optimization space but as I've gotten into the bone health side of things I've really had to to ramp this conversation because in the bone health world there is this, the, the ph theory of both health but also for bone health. So the theory in acid, an acid bloodstream or body will cause bone loss. And so people are always worried about drinking alkaline water and not meat because it's acidic and, and people end up going down this plant based pathway. So now I talk to so many women who have started eating a plant based diet because in men because they're worried about their bones. So here's what happens because I see I have everybody that comes in, they track their food, we know exactly how much they're consuming macro and micronutrients. So across the board they're woefully protein deficient because it's just difficult to get enough protein through plant foods. And when you do, the absorption is suboptimal and the amino acid components of the proteins are not complete. And you have to, you can mix them to get complete proteins but you have to be very intentional about it. And even then they're still not absorbed as well.

So yeah I even noticed like my pea protein supplement that I use from time to time, it, it takes twice as much of that as whey or some like beef protein compared to that.

And so when.

Very bulky. Yeah, yeah.

And so when you're doing, when you're saying, Well I get 20 grams of protein through my pea protein, well, but that's not the same as 20 grams of, of steak. Right. Like you can't do one to one comparison and you know what the actual, you know, ratio is? It's hard to know. Some people would say it's 20% less, some people would say it's 40% less. And so we would see this very, very consistently. And then when you start adding up the micronutrients, we know that they're going to be B12 deficient, most of the B vitamins deficient, they're not getting creatine, they're not getting choline, they're not getting likely enough zinc. And so there are just multiple micronutrients that you're not going to get through a plant based diet because they are only available animal products. So then the question is, is can you design a plant based diet with supplementation that gives you adequate protein that you could thrive on? And the answer is maybe. Clearly there are people that thrive on a vegan diet. It exists, it's out there. Just actually listening to somebody who's a 35 year vegan and you know, claims that her health is amazing and so a plant based diet can work for some people. The thing is, is that I think that that's not common. Um, I think that because of the anti nutrients in plants, the, the phytates, the oxalates, anti nutrients, the anti nutrients, the potential for the plants to be, to be toxic for your body, to cause gut dysfunction, to cause inflammation, all the stuff that is now in plants, because we live in a toxic world. So you know, in the US especially our grains pretty much globally have glyphosate in them.

Right.

Even organic, just so people know glyphosate.

Is roundup and it. Yeah, it's. Yeah, Google that.

It is a lot of things. Right. And you don't want it in your body. And yet if you were to do a P test on pretty much everybody, even if they're eating a completely organic diet and it's plant based, you're going to see it because you just can't avoid it.

Yeah.

And so the challenge then is, you know, could it be done? I guess it could be done. And I've seen people that eat a well designed vegan diet, but it is really hard. And most people that I see that are eating a plant based diet are mostly eating a lot of processed food. So that goes to this, this question about if you were to not eat fake meat or any processed vegan foods, right. It's tough because when you go down this, this way you end up consuming a bunch of processed garbage. One of our tenants about nutrition is to eat whole, unprocessed or minimally processed foods and you can do on a vegan diet. But it is really, really hard for somebody like myself and for Chris. You know, our protein goals are, you know, going to be upwards of 200 grams potentially. If I'm trying to be anabolic, you know, I'm going to be 250, 300 grams of protein. I cannot eat that through. I mean it's, Is it possible? I guess it's possible, yeah.

But the gut, and I can tell you the gut, the gut distress when you go through that. But the other thing is, you know, when you just take a step back and you think about it by definition like a grain is a processed food because we can't, we can't consume a piece of grass, right? We just don't have the gut, the gut structure like a cow, for instance, that does that. So I think it, I think it is interesting if you just kind of peel it back and say, wait, I'm, I'm not for processed foods, but I'm going to be a vegetarian or vegan. Well, what are you going to eat? It's really, really challenging if you want to take that at its face value. But I want to ask another question. So it, people are vegetarian or vegan because it's, it's healthier according to the, the science, isn't that right?

Yeah. So this is, nutrition science is a frustrating space. So you want to find a positive study on any, any type of eating, right. Whether it be vegan, carnivore, paleo, Mediterranean, whatever, right. You can, you can look up any study that is on those things and compared to the standard American diet, it's going to be better. It's the board doesn't matter what it is. However, you will never find well designed large trials comparing any of those things to each other.

So yeah, it's a.

Which one, which one's better? Well, and again, also it comes down to genetics. It comes down to, you know, how are you consuming it? And so it's, it's really tough to compare styles. And this is why, you know, when we, when we bring somebody into the program we will out, you know, like, what, what are your beliefs around nutrition? Because you want to, you want to have a hot debate and ask somebody their beliefs around food. Right. It is as much a belief system as is politics and religion. I mean, it is, it is powerful. And so we can work with that. I have a couple, not many, I have a couple patients who have continued to eat a plant based diet because they, you know, they believe strongly in the ethics or the, I think, I think incorrectly, but around the environmental side of it. And they want to do that and we can do that. Like, I can help you do this and we can sort of create a better way of doing it. Um, but, but it, but you really have to understand what your purpose is and you really have to get to the root of, okay, you know, is this the best thing for me? You know, and, and you know, I, I, we could talk about what you and I eat, but I mean I find that most people do better with some plants, but definitely less. And I eliminate grains pretty much in everybody. I think beans are not a good food source for anybody.

Nutrients.

Yeah, yeah. And so I, you know, you start cutting some of these things out and then it really, some of the eating styles start to look the same. Right. So like Paleo can look the same as Mediterranean, can look the same as the dash diet can look the same at, right. When you start getting down to the core of these things because they are animal based protein with a little bit of fruit and vegetable and not much else.

Yeah. And that's, I think that's, you know, when you go to it, it's like, oh, the Paleo diet. People like, oh, it's meat based diet. You know, it's like, well, wait a minute, I'm Paleo diet. It's basically a vegetarian diet with, with healthy protein mixed in with, with animal based protein.

Right?

Yeah. And this is the interesting thing. My, I actually had this debate with my sister several years ago because she was vegetarian at the time and she was pointing out the data and I said, well, show me what kind of meat they use in that study. I said, is it, is it, you know, wild caught fish? Is it, you know, free range, local, locally sourced beef? Is it like the elk that's in my freezer? You know, what, what is actually going into these people? It's not just meat, because meat is not meat. Just like you mentioned, you know, there's, there's grains out there, there's vegetables out there that are contaminated. So I think, you know, people have to be Conscious of that. And unfortunately, the data is just not. The studies just aren't really great when it comes to that is what I've seen.

Yeah. And I, I'll just add one more, one more piece to that to put a bow on it, which is in the bone health space. Get. I'm actually doing another video on the ph balance thing and I get, I get such heat about my position on it, but the data is actually very clear. If you look at fracture data in big studies, you know, big cohort studies, if you eat a vegetarian or vegan diet, your risk of fracture is two to three times higher than if you are an omnivore.

Well, that stuff, yeah, that's across the.

Board, tens of thousands of people. It is the same thing over and over and over again. Amazing about that is that vegan and vegetarians also are generally making other healthy decisions. Right. So they're more likely to have better sleep, to have better stress mitigation things. If you compare that group to omnivores, they're generally going to be healthier across the board, less likely to smoke, et cetera. Yet even with that advantage, they still have a higher fracture risk.

Interesting. So, yeah, you have selection bias. Yeah, you have selection bias because there's, there's correlated variables when it comes to that. That's, that's very interesting. Okay, so something. I keep seeing your, your finger pop up here. And I went through a period, I don't know, a year and a half right before we started to work together a couple years ago. I wore my aura ring, which I've been a big fan of. I've. I've. People may have heard the story how I found out I had Covid two days before I had symptoms because I had my aura ring on and it popped up on my app. I wore my Garmin and I also wore a whoop strap all at the same time. And I'm a. Yeah, there you go. I'm a data nerd. I love all this stuff. I was wearing a heart rate monitor, you know, as a, as a 15, 16 year old teenager riding my bike. I take my heart rate every morning. I track all this stuff. So it's kind of in my blood, you know, and I'm, you know, engineer nerd. So what, what are wearables and how can they benefit your patients or people in general?

Yeah, this is a really fun space. You know, you kind of mentioned so three of the really popular ones. So aura whoop Garmin watch now I think does a really great job. And there are A number of other devices that are out there, but in essence, the group as a whole is just wearing something on your body that can deliver some kind of biometric data.

Right.

And so. Okay, yeah, so sorry, I'm interested.

Yeah. If you could just break that down. What is classify like or give some examples of what biometric data is.

Yeah. So you're, you're looking at some kind of data that's going to help you to determine some. Some output. Right. So aura, for example, I mean, the aura measures a lot of stuff, but it will give you temperature.

Right.

So here's what we both have one on. So it'll give you. Give you temperature, like your body temperature, like you mentioned. And that's one of the biggest things that it'll use, along with heart rate, to determine if you have an immune thing going on. I've seen the same thing. I had Covid Other, other viruses, same thing. Like your, your biomarkers will. Will tell you beforehand. So it'll give you those things. But Aura, I think, is best for sleep. Right. So it'll measure heart rate variability. It'll measure your heart rate as you go into sleep. It'll can do a pretty reasonable job of determining what type of sleep you're in. Deep sleep, REM sleep, light sleep. And then it can start to, to process all these things with algorithms to give you some scores. You know, it's. It's scoring our sleep every night. It's giving us a score that comes out on the other end of how recovered we are. WHOOP does the same thing, but Whoop leans more on the, the training side, so it's looking more at stress throughout the day. How hard did you train? Did you get recovered? How much sleep do you need? I hate that metric on the whoop.

Yeah. You're like, I can't sleep 10 hours a night. Yeah. I have children and responsibilities.

The gap. The WHOOP has this great graph. It'll show you what your, what your sleep, how much sleep you're getting and how much sleep you need. And I'm like, man, I hate it. I hate watching that gap just get bigger and bigger, you know? But I, I like the data, same as you. I'm a data nerd. I like the data because when I do see that gap getting bigger and bigger, it's like, well, I either need to sleep or train less, right? Like. Like one of the two, because if I keep going, I'm going to break down. And so I think it can give you some of those leading data that are, that are really great to utilize. They can be over utilized for some people, they can cause anxieties for some people, they can really over overdo it. But I do think they provide some really interesting, especially when you start getting into the space around cgm, which stands for continuous glucose Monitor. Really powerful tool for people that have metabolic dysfunction, you know, to figure out like what is my response to certain things. It really helps people to understand glucose metabolism and how they can control their diet. So those are really cool things. And then right now the research is just, just running at lightning speed. So there's going to be some really cool stuff on the market. Probably some implantable types of things that are going to be, you know, looking at blood markers of stuff. So lots of interesting things out there. We're all going to have to decide how much data we want to share and how much data want to know. But I think the technology is going to hit that point, you know, over the next probably few years to decades for sure.

Yeah, I think it's super exciting. And when you combine AI in there and you look at the, look, the fact of the matter is we're going to have a shortage of doctors, of specialists in certain areas. And if you can, if you can have an app that helps you determine how can you make healthier choices. We used to have a saying and you know, as a, as a manager and I worked with, you know, reps and different people saying is, what's measured matters, right? So if I sit down and we go through something and we're measuring it. So if I'm measuring my sleep and I get up every morning and I see my sleep score and I'm like, not so good. I drank too much, I ate too late. I, I, you know, I, I didn't go to bed at the right time or my, my room was too warm or the dog kicked me or whatever it might be, then we can start making better choices. And, and sleep is, is, is a foundational piece of health, right?

Totally, absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

And being able to measure it, I mean, I, you know, I just got off of, of a call with a patient before we hopped on here and he said, well, I think my sleep is good. You know, I give myself seven hours, right? He wakes, he sleeps from 10 to 5 and I'm thinking, well, he's got good sleep, he's got good quality, but it's too short. And if he had one of these we wearables, he would be able to see, you know, you're not, you're not getting enough rem Sleep, because that happens later in the evening. I bet he's absolutely REM sleep deprived, which means he's going to have issues with anxiety, depression. When you process your, your emotions, it's, and it's predictable. Right. So if you can increase that, that REM window, then you're going to have less issues. Going to need journaling. And he does a lot. He's awesome. He's got a great morning routine, but he's doing all this meditation, mindfulness, you know, prayer, all this stuff because he's, he's finding enough process his, his emotions and his thoughts and he should do those things. But I think he really needs those things because he's not getting enough REM sleep.

Interesting. How about that? Yeah, so it is, I mean, you're pointing out like you and I've worked through this process. This isn't just you come into the program and you go on a bunch of different, you know, supplements or, or drugs or these sorts of things. You work with the patients at an individual level, you optimize the diet and it's, it's really a holistic approach. We have, I think we have time for one, maybe two more questions before we wrap up here, Doctor.

Yeah, here, I'll just. This is my last one because I get this one kind of a lot. So this patient, probably not a patient, this person asked, because if they were my patient, they know the answer to this. I'm on a new supplement plan, taking over 10 supplements a day. Is this necessary or can I consume this through food intake instead? It does not feel natural.

Yeah.

And yeah, I mean it's a, it's a great point. And I, you know, sometimes I've made social media posts of the supplement stack that I take in the morning and people will say you don't need that, right? Like you don't need that eat a vegan diet or you don't need that eat a carnivore diet. Because that, because that's the answer. Restrict more. But the, the truth is, is that our food supply is devoid of, of nutrition.

Right.

Especially if you're eating processed foods. But even if you're eating a really well formed diet, it's likely going to be deficient in things like magnesium, things like copper. It is tough to get everything you need through supplements and I'm sorry, through food. And we are also living in a more stressed environment. Right? So the more stressed we are, the more b. We need. The more stressed we are, the more other micronutrients we need and we're just not Getting them through the food we take. So we have an issue on both sides of the equation. We need more. We have historically, naturally, and we're getting less through our food. So we can't increase the amount of food that we're consuming, because then we'll have a caloric imbalance. So what do you do? You supplement. So I would argue, yes, it is unnatural. However, we do a lot of things that are unnatural. Right. Like hormone replacement is unnatural, but yet.

Staring at this computer is unnatural, right?

That's right. I am surrounded by a number of LED lights. That is clearly unnatural.

But you look good on screen, so there you go.

Thank you. Yeah, I really appreciate that. I've been working on the lighting in here. So there's a lot of things that we do that are unnatural, and we do them to optimize our health. We do them to improve our comfort. Right. So I think for supplements, is it possible to overdo supplements? Absolutely. Right. You want to use biomarkers to understand why you're taking something, or if something doesn't have a biomarker, then at least understand the purpose behind it. And then you got to get behind it. Understand. Is something you need to be on forever, or is this something that you should pulse, like we do with a lot of things. You know, we'll go through cycles of different things. It just takes again, this. This very strategic approach to understand why you're taking something, how long you need to take it. What are you taking it with? Are you in an anabolic phase? Are you in a catabolic phase? This is where working with somebody who knows more than you can really help to design something where it makes sense. And then you. And then you question it. You know, you open up that pill bottle, you're like your 10th pillow bottle in the morning. You're like, oh, I'm gonna take all these capsules. Because a lot of times that's 10 supplements. And if that's 10 different supplements, that might be 30 capsules, right?

Yeah. Oh, yeah.

That could be a lot.

Yeah, it could be hundreds of dollars. And look, that was. That was the next question, actually, that, that I had was how do. How do. How do I know what supplements to take? And you just mentioned. So you supp, you test, you supplement, and then you retest.

And this is the challenge too, with, with like, with genetics, because if you have biomarkers and genetics and then you. You add a couple of things in there, you know, talk about longevity, anti aging, and you can come up with a very big stack very, very quickly and this is why, you know, be careful how much information you get, because you might get too much.

All right, so before we wrap up and you share with the audience, the best way to get a hold of you last question. Will insurance pay for this if they, if a patient comes and works with you?

Yeah, the answer is not a chance. And unfortunately, the reality is, is that your insurance company is part of the system which I described earlier, which is if you have a heart attack, they will pay. If you, you know, if you need acute care, they will pay. And that's what it's for. That's what the system has been built for. The system is not built for this idea of feeling better than the average person. As, as I say in the podcast, aim for optimal, not average. The system is designed for average. So if you want to aim for optimal, you're going to have best in yourself. And whether that's working with a company like mine or it's simply just, you know, buying the supplements that you need and doing all the research yourself, you're investing your time or your money or likely both, because you to perform better. So insurance companies, unfortunately, they're just not interested in this. Now, there is sort of a, an in between there where we talk a lot about cardiovascular imaging and using the system for some of the things that it's good at. And then, yeah, there is a path there where we can recommend that, you know, imaging centers will, will load your insurance. But for the most part, our services, the supplements that we recommend and most of the things that are prescribed are not covered by insurance.

Gotcha. Well, I can say that I've been doing this for over seven years now. I've been looking at genetics, I've been looking at diet, I've been looking at supplementation. I've been doing testing on a regular basis. It's made a marked difference in, in, in my life and my family's life, without a doubt. So if somebody's listening today, Dr. Lucas, and they want to get a hold of you, they want to learn more about your program. What's the best way to do that?

Yeah, so it's going to be to just go to our website. So optimal human health.com and we are updating everything right now. We've got some really exciting things coming. So the YouTube channel I mentioned, if you're interested in Bone health, is Optimal bone Health with Dr. Doug Lucas. And then starting actually before this podcast airs, will be my podcast, which is going to be more of a monocast style, really trying to, to simplify messaging about complex things and you know, kind of short, bite sized podcast about topics that people are always asking us about. That's going to be the Dr. Doug show and that'll be on all, all the normal things. And so check out any of those things. You'll find other ways to get a hold of us. We've got some really exciting development coming out.

Awesome. Well, you are going to continue to be a regular on the show here. Dr. Doug, thank you so much for sharing your insights today. We'll make sure if you have further questions, send them in, send them to infoxtlevelincome.com that's infoextleincome.com and we'll make sure we compile those and get get those to Dr. Doug and we answer them on an upcoming podcast. Dr. Lucas, thanks so much. Awesome.

Thanks, Chris.

Hey Chris, here again. I hope you found this episode valuable. Now I have one more thing to gift you. We have a page for my coaching clients where you can get a free code copy of my book as well as much more from previous guests on the show. Just check out nextlevelincome.com coaching to get a free copy of my book, audiobook and much more. I'll send you a copy of my book and cover all the shipping costs as a thank you for listening to the podcast. Also please like share and take just 90 seconds to give us a rating on Apple Podcasts.