LS 37 - Cenegenics, A Proactive Approach to Age Management with Dr. John Rush

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Our great podcasts, visit hartmanmedia.com welcome to the Longevity Show. Informing listeners on the important aspects of health, wealth and happiness to ensure you live life to its fullest. With fascinating interviews with top authors and gurus in the field, along with the latest news in the science and technology of longevity, we're going to reveal expert advice and amazing secrets of living a life, happier life. And now, here's your host, Jason Hartman. It's my pleasure to welcome Dr. John Rush to the show. He is the COO of a company you may have heard of. They're at the forefront of the anti aging revolution. And that company is Senegenix Elite Health. And we will talk today about how you can take a very proactive approach to age management and experience more health, vitality and wellness throughout your life and hopefully extend your life a little bit as well. John, welcome. How are you?

Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here.

Well, it's good to have you. So tell us about Cenegenics. I'm fascinated by this. When was the company founded?

We just had our 15 year anniversary. So it was founded in 1997 by Dr. Alan Mintz and John Adams. They were business partners. They had just sold a radiology.

So why Cenegenics? I mean, was there something that happened about 15 years ago in the world of science where it brought about this new form of medicine?

Yes. Dr. Mintz had been reading some articles generally focused around nursing homes, and nursing homes at that point in time were where people went to die. The articles that came out were saying people were dying in nursing homes not because they were bad places necessarily, but because people stopped moving. And there was an interesting study that said if you give men especially, but women as well, testosterone, you increase their muscle mass. So nursing home patients that were laying in beds got into wheelchairs. Those that were in wheelchairs got up and walked around. They actually increased their muscle mass. And that has all kinds of health benefits. So Alan postulated, hey, if it's good enough for there, let's see what happens when we do it for people younger than just the elderly.

So that was basically testosterone therapy then, Correct? Is that the correct way to say it? Okay. All right, now, how many areas of the Cenegenics program are there? I mean, there's exercise, there's hormone supplementation, the telomere area, I guess, for lack of a better name, does that cover it or is there more than that?

It's more Than that, the four areas that we really focus on are nutrition, nutraceutical supplementation, exercise, and hormone replacement when clinically indicated.

Okay, which one? Let's just kind of go into those four different pillars of the program. And where should we start?

I love nutrition. It is a huge part of your health, and it's a huge part of the problem in America with obesity, the epidemic of diabetes. We are just eating incorrectly as a nation. And what we tell our patients, if you want a very good snippet, is to eat what God made in its most natural state. As you know, when man gets his hands on something and processes it, the more he processes it, the worse it is for you. We stay away from soda. We stay away from bread. We love water. Drink as much water as you can. And again, eat what God made in its most natural state. When you go to the grocery store, stay around the outside of the grocery store. I always tell my patients, the devil lives on the inside. If it comes in a bag or a box, you better think twice about eating it.

Right, right. Yeah, very good point. Okay, so would that mean that you'd be in favor of raw food?

Absolutely. We want to make sure that there' st bacteria free, et cetera, but there is no issues with raw food and.

Anything else on the nutrition part. How about nutrition supplementation besides just eating unprocessed foods? Of course. That's great advice.

Right. That's the other pill. We've gone from nutrition to nutraceutical supplementation. We believe that you should supplement what you eat based on blood tests. So we encourage our patients to get blood tests on a quarterly basis. We're talking about your most precious asset, your body. It doesn't matter how much wealth you've accumulated over your lifetime if you're not around to enjoy it. So you check the oil on your car periodically. If you're a business person, you do your financial reviews on a quarterly basis. Here's your most precious asset. Let's review it on a quarterly basis. What are your vitamin levels, your vitamin D level, your vitamin B levels, your folate, how are you doing with inflammatory markers, cholesterol? What are your hormone levels? If we are going to do hormone replacement, if that is clinically indicated for you, where does it get to? Everybody reacts a little differently. So check on those things regularly to find out what is optimum for you.

So doing blood tests and your program's kind of interesting because you actually have the phlebotomist come to the person's home or business, right?

That is correct. When you sign up for the program that day, a phlebotomist calls you again. If it's late in the day, they'll call you the following business day and they'll make an appointment with you around your schedule. They'll come to your home, your office. We have international patients that are flying through. They'll go to an airport lounge and draw your blood. It only takes 10 to 15 minutes, but we make it as convenient for our patients because they're all very busy professionals.

Let's talk about. And we'll go into the other two areas too. But let's talk about how you start with this program. I mean, you come in for this health screening and there are other programs out there that are like these executive health screening programs or health evaluations at big, well known hospitals and so forth. How does the Cenegenics program differ?

We differ from those executive health evaluations at the Mayo Clinic, John Hopkins, et cetera, in that they're looking for disease. They are an early detection system. And if you don't have disease, they pat you on the back, they give you a very nice report, say everything is normal, come back and see us next year. We do not do that. We look at all of those areas of your health and say, yes, while this may be in the normal range, it is certainly not optimum for you. Let's get this into the optimum range. And that's when you start and feel so much better. What I tell people I do is I see very successful people who have had that success at the expense of their body, and I help them get their body back.

How does the program work? Talk to us about the specifics. You set an appointment, you come in, it takes a day, right?

Right. When you call, you sign up for the program. As I said, the phlebotomist will call you that day or the next business day. They will make an appointment and draw your blood. We usually make the appointment for the Elite health evaluation about two weeks after you sign up. At that time, we also send you an entire health history evaluation form. So we want to know your past medical history, your family medical history, any medications or supplements that you're on currently, how you exercise, what types of exercise do you do, how often, what you eat, what do you eat on your best days, on your worst days, do you have any problems or issue foods? All of those things are very important so that we can get a sense of you before you come in. And then me and my team, which is an exercise physiologist, nutritionist, and myself Review all of that before you even get here. So we have all of your blood results, all of your health history evaluation that you've sent us back. And you generally come into the office about 9am and you're done by about 3 to 4pm so it's about a six to seven hour process. The first two to three hours is with an exercise physiologist. We start with height and weight, of course. We do a DEXA scan for bone density and body fat analysis. We ask you to come dressed like you would if you were going to the gym because you're going to be doing sit ups, push ups, grip strength and a VO2 max where you ride the bicycle with a mask on your face. I'm sure you've seen athletes do that. We also do a carotid intramometial thickness ultrasound of your carotid artery, which is a very good predictor of cardiovascular problems and stroke down the road. Then you eat a healthy lunch with our nutritionist. You've ordered that when you first got here. We don't give our patients a diet or a meal plan, but teach them principles of a low glycemic index diet. And you start that program right when you're during your day of your elite health evaluation. And then after lunch you're with me or the physician at Cenegenics, whatever location you go to, and we spend anywhere from an hour and a half to two and a half hours with you. We go through all of those labs that you've had, your past medical history, your family medical history, and really dive into those. What do they mean to you? How do we get those optimum for you? And at the end of that, we put you on a program that includes those four pillars that we already talked about, the nutrition, nutraceutical supplementation, exercise and hormone replacement, if clinically indicated, after you leave that day. Then once a month we send you anything that I've prescribed to you. You also have access to our exercise physiologists are nutritionists. We have Cenegenics Living Online which helps you with nutrition, shopping and exercise goals. We didn't talk about exercise, but we can we do blood tests again eight weeks after you come that initial time and then every quarter thereafter. And then we adjust your program based on those blood tests. So it's very highly individualized to you.

Let's go to those other two pillars that's interesting to know about how the day works when you start the program. How many people have been through the program so far in the 15 years over 25,000 now.

And it's very interesting to note, Jason, that over 10% are physicians and their families. And that's how I started. I was a busy executive. I kind of left clinical practice for a while, went back to school, got an MBA and an mha. And I was working for a health insurance company and had rose to be the senior vice president of medical management. And with that had a lot of travel and wasn't exercising and was extremely out of shape. I called Cenegenics just like any other interested patient, became a patient and just have loved it so much. It's become a passion of mine. I joined as a physician, I opened the Cenegenics Washington, D.C. office, and now I'm the chief operating officer.

So those offices are, I assume those are franchised operations, right?

Very similar, yes.

Okay. Oh, very similar, but not exact. I mean, they're not corporate owned, Right?

Not exactly a franchise. But we do have our physician partners that run each of the Centers. We have 23 centers in the United States and Puerto Rico and 35 partners. We have partner track physicians. Those are physicians that have trained at Cenegenics and are building their Cenegenics practices as well. Over 56 of those now.

Fantastic. Okay, good. Now that we kind of understand that program, we've talked about a couple of the pillars. Let's go on. And where did we leave off on the different. We've got those four areas. Yeah. Exercise. I mean, do we really even need to talk about this? It's so obvious, right?

Oh, my goodness. Jason, listen, this is what I tell every single patient sitting across the table from me. If you are not going to exercise, you are going to waste your time. And when people call about the program, I say, if you cannot exercise, if you will not exercise, you are going to waste your time and money to come here. Do not even come here. You must exercise. And we all know how important that is.

Absolutely.

But we are all busy professionals. And so we have made exercise into a science. We divide exercise into two categories, cardiovascular and resistance training. So that cardiovascular we like to do in a high intensity, interval training fashion that really helps with your cardiovascular fitness. And then resistance training is important for everyone to build muscle. Muscle is metabolically expensive. Everybody knows that it is difficult to obtain your muscle, and you've got to work at it to keep it. That muscle needs energy. It will take that energy from your fat stores as free fatty acids. Even the women who come in and initially say, you know what, I don't really want to look like a Woman bodybuilder, I say don't worry, that's up to you as to where you stop. But you do need more muscle mass and more muscle tone and even the women love it.

Yeah, very, very interesting. Just out of curiosity, of those, I think you said 25,000 people so far.

Yes.

In the 15 years. What's the breakdown? Gender wise? Is it, you know, for some reason I get the impression mostly men do this. I don't know why. Maybe testosterone therapy.

And you would be correct because our marketing is more geared to men. It's about a 60, 40 split of men. We have tried to market to women in the past. It's been very successful. As far as the response, Women respond, but they don't sign up in the same rate that men do.

What do you attribute that to? Just out of curiosity, do you have any thoughts on that as to why that is?

This will be a personal thought, not necessarily speaking for the company, but I think that women are looking more for a quicker fix. If you tell a woman that you have to eat right exercise and the hormone replacement and nutraceutical supplementation, and in three to six months you look better, feel better, it's a harder sell, if you will, than to a man. And I think men, especially successful business types have. A lot of our professional men have had sports careers in their past, either in high school and college, some even pro. And then they've just kind of let that go and put that same passion into their business. But they're not doing the workouts. And so when you get back into the exercise, and this is Jason, I'll ask you this question. What gets worse in your life when you exercise?

Well, nothing. Everything's better. Unless I do it with an injury. Exactly. Yeah. Just out of curiosity, on the exercise, I mean, you mentioned cardio and resistance training. Where would, for example, yoga fall into that? Or Pilates or some of these types of exercises?

Extremely important. And thank you very much for pointing that out. I tell my patients to do it in between, but if you start with that as well. A flexible person is a sexual person. Flexibility is very important. So whether you do that after your warm ups or at the end of your exercise, it is extremely important. I always like to tell our patients to have one day a week of just dedicated to yoga or Pilates. That really, really helps.

Okay, fantastic. Okay, so let's go to the next pillar. I really want to get into some of this sort of cutting edge stuff that deals with the DNA and the telomeres and learn about that. A bit. Tell our audience about it.

Okay. Telomeres are like the ends of your shoelaces, those little plastic things that keep them from unraveling. And telomeres do the same thing with DNA molecules. They keep them from unraveling. When a DNA molecule divides, that is for cell division, telomeres tend to shorten. And again, on a personal note, I think this was God's plan. There's no real genetic material in there because as those cells were dividing, you wouldn't want to lose any of the genetic information that tells the cell what to do once it's divided. However, when those telomeres shorten enough, the cell cannot divide anymore and it dies. So the theory behind PA65, or telomerase, is to increase the length of your telomeres and or at least stop the shortening of those telomeres, thus preserving the cell's ability to continue cell divisions.

And that's really what happens. I mean, it seems to me that the body is just one big copy machine. And when the copy machine stops, when it runs out of toner, I guess, or something, that's when we die, right, Jason?

I think I'm going to use that. And if you allow me, I'll put it in our marketing materials. That's a great analogy.

Sounds good. Just give me credit.

Yes, sir.

But, yeah, I mean, that's how it works, Right? So what do the telomeres do? They keep it from getting damaged somehow, right? Correct.

Correct. But every time the cell divides, they shorten a little bit, and so their ability to do that is degraded just a little bit each time. So if you can preserve that telomere length, those cells can continue to divide, and therefore the copier can keep running. You will have a longer life.

So when you treat the telomeres, you do this through this TA65 supplement, then?

Yes.

Okay. Is there any other way. Is there anything else you can do for them to make the copy machine work longer?

Not that I'm aware of. Current research has not caught up to that. This is the only thing we have.

And so when you supplement for lengthening the telomeres, do you notice anything or feel anything different, or is it just something that you do if you're 50 now? So hopefully you can live to be 120, for example.

Yes, there is a noticeable difference. Now, I will also say, Jason, that we're doing a whole lot right. We're eating better, we're supplementing that nutrition, we're exercising, we've lost weight, we're sleeping better, we've Replaced those hormones that needed to be replaced to get to an optimal level. So the TA65 on top of that. But our patients report better skin and hair and nails. Those cells replicate a lot. So they see that their hair is a little thicker, their skin is a little bit more elastic, a little bit more vital, they have better stamina. All of those things are helped by TA65.

Yeah, very good. Yeah, really interesting. I mean, any thoughts on how soon you notice this type of stuff? Is it, you know, for some reason I kind of get the feeling that it's a really long reward cycle on that, or do you notice it in a couple of weeks, 30 days? I don't know.

So here's what I tell my patients to expect, and it holds very, very true. So you leave my office with a plan. Okay? We walk downstairs, our patient care coordinator sets your order. You get that order, let's say two days after you leave the office and you start taking your supplements, you start eating better and exercising. And I'm going to get labs again in eight weeks. And it takes, let's say, a week to come back. Then I tell my patients, check in with me. Let me see you. A lot of patients lose 8 pounds, 10 pounds. But we put them back on the DEXA scanner. Let's say they've lost 10 pounds, they've lost 15 pounds of fat. They've lost 15 pounds of fat and put on 5 pounds of muscle. So that's a net 10 pound loss. But they look so much better. That's the mirror test. I tell patients, don't even get on the scale anymore. Look in the mirror and when you're trading fat for muscle, you just look and feel so much better. So I always tell my patients, you give me three months and make a decision. You make a decision and they will. They never leave, Jason. They are just so happy with the way they are progressing.

They always stay on the program. But here's the problem. When you're doing all of this good stuff at the same time, it's hard to tell what really did the trick. I know everything does the trick. But for example, if you just want to keep your life the same and take some TA65, I'm wondering if that'll work because just exercising and eating right alone with nothing else will help.

I always tell patients that, Jason, you can eat right and go to the gym seven days a week if you want, but you're still not going to get the results that you see in our ads that you talk to our patients about why? Because One plus one equals three here when you're doing all of those. And let's just take men for an example. Men lose 1 to 3% of their testosterone production per year from the time they're in their late 20s or early 30s. So going to the gym all the time, while it will give you some improvement, is not going to build muscle for you to the extent that you need to, because you don't have the catalyst on board. That catalyst is testosterone. There's other areas as well. You hit the nail on the head when you said it's not just one thing, but it's all of them together. That is what creates the virtuous cycle.

What about side effects? Whenever you start messing around with hormones, I just get really concerned about side effects. You know, baldness, all the problems that steroids cause. Right. What's the difference? And what are some of the risks there are, if there are any.

Okay, we're going to talk about that in just a moment. But you. You threw out a word there that I have to correct you on, and that is steroids. We do not use steroids. We will not use steroids. Those are outside of our purview. And something that we don't go near. We only use bioidentical hormones, nutraceutical supplementation, exercise. As we talked about. Let's talk about side effects. And there are some you hear all the time on TV now, is it low T? Go to your doctor. And I have a lot of patients that came in, said they went to their doctor, they did the blood test, sometimes reluctantly, and they were normal. So they wouldn't give them testosterone, but they were getting a D. They were at the very low end of normal. What I told you earlier is we would like to see you at the optimum level. For you, it makes all of the difference. But there are side effects and measurable side effects that we pay attention to. And that's why we do blood test, eight weeks, blood tests eight weeks after you start, and then every quarter to monitor and make sure you're not having any side effects and to make adjustments to your program to mitigate or not have those side effects. One of them is your blood could get too thick. That's called polycythemia. That happens to about 2% of men. It doesn't seem to be an issue for women, not in the medical literature that I've read. But if that happens, we send you. There's two things you can either reduce or stop the testosterone. Most of our patients are not going to do that anymore. Because they're feeling so good. But you can just go down to the Red Cross and donate a pint of blood. It helps. Most of our patients only have to do that once or twice, and then that is not really an issue. Some men convert that increased testosterone into estrogen. Well, men don't want estrogen around. A little bit is fine, but too much can be problematic. But all you would have to do is take Rimodex 1mg twice a week and that problem is alleviated. So it's really knowing what the potential side effects are and how to mitigate or stop them.

Is one of the concerns that if you supplement with testosterone, for example, that your own body will say, stop making it because it senses that you're introducing it from the outside or senses that there's enough already?

Well, it doesn't stop. It does reduce the amount that it makes and will also reduce the amount of sperm production. So that's why in men who want to have children, we give hcg, human chorionic gonadotropin, which stimulates your own production of testosterone and. And sperm.

Okay, good.

But after childbearing years, that's not generally a concern.

Okay, what else should we know? I've taken you on a couple of tangents, so excuse me for doing that.

Oh, no, it's okay. And this conversation, Jason, is pretty much like we have with patients who are, you know, looking to join or even when you come. I don't have a set script. I want to address your concerns. Another program that has been very successful with cenegenics is our heart disease and stroke prevention program. So we do genetic markers of cholesterol and breakdown of cholesterol. Over half of the people in the United States who have a heart attack have normal cholesterol profiles. So you really have to get underneath just a quote, unquote, regular genetic cholesterol profile to see what your genetic makeup is, what are the size of each of those particles for the LDL, the low density lipoprotein, high density lipoprotein, etc. To find out exactly what type of cholesterol your body is producing and metabolizing, and then treat that to prevent future heart attacks or strokes. That is extremely important and a program that we've had a lot of success with.

And so the standard medical establishment isn't doing that, are they?

No. And many of the insurance companies who, by the way, do not work for you. Well, obviously we do not have that issue.

The only thing I could say about the insurance companies is that they're working more for me than Obamacare will be.

Exactly. I will agree with that.

You know, if you, if you want to reduce the population, just add socialize healthcare to the mix.

There you go.

I could not agree more, that's for sure. It's amazing. I hurt my shoulder and I had to get an mri. So this was just last Friday, and I was referred to an imaging clinic. And I called them up and said, you know, when can I get in for an mri? And, you know, they asked me some questions about everything and about my shoulder. And they said, well, you know, you can come in tonight if you like, at six o'. Clock. And I just couldn't believe it, how much I love capitalism, you know, because after hearing and reading and doing shows on these stories of healthcare in socialized countries where you hear about, you know, weights from eight weeks to eight months for an mri, they said you can come in tonight. Amazing.

It is amazing. I think they're the statistic. I read recently there are more MRI machines in the greater Pittsburgh area than all of Canada.

You know, I don't know why we keep trying things that don't work, but just gotta learn our lesson the hard way, I guess. But, you know, it raises an interesting question because you mentioned insurance, John. What about insurance in the Cenegenics program? You know, does, does any of it qualify? Will participants be able to get some of this paid for by their insurance companies?

We do not participate with any insurance of any kind. However, we will give you a bill for our services that you've paid with your credit card. And a lot of our patients use that for their medical savings accounts or health savings account. They have a medical reimbursement account, etc. It will qualify for those tax deferred.

Plans, but not for insurance. I mean, have you heard any stories about patients getting partial reimbursement or anything?

Yes, some of our patients ask especially for the lab, and some of the insurances out there will reimburse the patients for portions of the lab that I order.

Okay, so back to the subject at hand. We got to wrap up here, obviously. Did we talk about all four pillars?

Yes.

Okay, good. So we've covered that. What else would you like people to know? What else should I have asked?

The only thing that I want to emphasize to people is where you are in your life. You know, when you're not feeling right, when you wish you had the body that you used to have. Come see us. Getting back to my own personal story. I was about 240 pounds. My waist was 38 and I was 36% body fat. That was when I was 47. So fast forward now I'm 52. I'm almost 50. My waist is 31. I haven't been a 31 inch waist Jason since high school. I am 11% body fat and I weigh 195 pounds. It is amazing the transformation. Remember when I asked you what gets worse in your life with exercise? Everything gets better. So sleep is better, my cognition is better so I remember better. I remember patients names now all the time. Libido and sexual function is better, energy level is better. So if you want that life back that you've worked so hard for, come see us.

Yeah, fantastic. Good advice. Well give out your website. Tell people where they can find you.

Dr. Www.cenegenics.com Fantastic.

Well, Dr. John Rush, thank you so much for joining us today. And to all the the listeners, live long and prosper, as Mr. Spock would.

Say, thank you very much. Jason.

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