What Most Longevity Advice Misses - with Dr. Greg Burzynski

We are all looking for an edge on longevity and high performance. And today's episode is all about the top five breakthrough medications and supplements you probably don't know about, but you should.

Well, it's just disappointing seeing people getting sick. And you know that if you deployed certain things earlier, this could be a different narrative. Aging is a disease, right? And if we get cancer, we should find it earlier, ideally. And now we can catch it super early and we can deploy certain things to do that. And then if you know the mechanisms of these diseases, you can hopefully do things even better. If you understand how cool, hopefully the future will be the next five, 10, 20 years, then you want to put in the effort to be as healthy as possible now to make it to those breakthroughs. 80% of it we can do with lifestyle, right? With just stopping the abuse. The next 20%, I feel, is where I shine. And I can deploy certain things to get you that extra.

I'm looking for every edge I can get right now. And that's really who this is for. If you're listening to this podcast, it's you. Hey. Hey. Welcome to Capability Amplifier. I'm Mike Koenigs. I'm here today. Say hi.

Howdy.

This is Dr. Greg Brzezinski and we are all looking for an edge on longevity and high performance. And today's episode is all about the top five breakthrough medications and supplements you probably don't know about, but you should. So I already mentioned Dr. Greg. He grew up in a cancer clinic, not visiting but actually working there. He watched his dad treat patients and he saw the devastation in the families that were destroyed. System related delays that cost lives. Now he became a board certified internal medicine physician with a fellowship in integrative medicine and worked as an internal medicine doctor in a cancer clinic and now owns his own concierge longevity clinic which is called Restore Longevity. That's R E S T O R. You'll know what that's for in a moment. Now he shifted his focus to longevity because he felt he had to make a more meaningful impact to prevent disease decades before it arises. You may have seen him on Fox, cbs, NBC and Performance Health. He's also been featured in Medical News Today, Women's World, Biohack yourself. And he's treated professionals from four seasons, Exxon Mobil, just to name a few. And his clients are executives who want a doctor that understands how elite performers operate and stay on top. So Dr. Greg brings oncology level rigor to prevention and he uses every tool in the toolbox, including advanced diagnostics Molecular testing, cutting edge protocols to find out what's coming and stop it before it takes you out. I know a little bit about that. Cancer almost took me out a few years ago. Well, 12 now, thank God. But today, he's going to share five medications and supplements I haven't even heard about. So, first of all, awesome to have you here, Mike.

Thanks for having me. Beautiful intro. I have to live up to it now.

All right, well, you don't have to work that hard because you actually live it. But I want to begin with a little bit of a backstory before we get into the big five. And it's the moment that changed everything, when you decided to leave traditional medicine and focus on concierge longevity. So what made you shift gears completely?

Oh, it's just disappointing seeing people getting sick. And you know that if you deployed certain things earlier, this could be a different narrative. So it was really frustrating just people being in that sick care system. They had families, they had their life to live. And some of them, these people were young. They drastically. Their life course shifted.

Yeah. Well, I remember earlier today, I mean, he basically said you couldn't stand watching it anymore. And I totally relate to that, for sure. So now, the other thing that's super interesting about you is your dad, who you grew up in a. A physician family. But more than that, he's. He's a visionary.

Exactly. I was spoon fed medicine since the early days, just kind of decided medicine was the course. And I was lucky. I was blessed. I saw patients that were suffering but also getting better. And then all a different way of thinking about medicine, too mechanistically. So I was exploring. I was just seeing other people in the community, people right now that are doing a lot of longevity things. 20 years ago, even. So I was an early adopter. You'd say, all right.

And I do want to go a little bit deeper because you also saw kind of how things go sideways in medicine. So you need to talk about some of your experience there and as much as you're willing to want to share.

Well, aging is a disease, right. And if we get cancer, we should find it earlier, ideally. And now we can catch it super early and we can deploy, employ certain things to do that, and then if you know the mechanisms of these diseases, you can hopefully do things even better. The hallmarks of aging kind of show us that. So earlier the better. And just using all the tools in the toolbox.

All right, so let's move on to the big five. So you mentioned something today I had never heard of. It before P24. What's that? And this is. Yeah, I'm just curious. Some of these, I mean, you just ravel off a whole bunch. I'm like, we got a new show.

All right, so everybody knows about rapamycin, my form and. But these are other things. Right. So P24, also known as cumulysin, is a peptide type, is a protein protease that can digest your protein way better. So everybody knows ether protein, plenty of protein, especially as you get older. But what if you're not absorbing it? So this is something that you can take once a day to get that protein into your body.

Okay. So compare that to if I'm taken, you know, some sort of digestive enzymes, or is it lipa Lipase, for example, I help helps with fat absorption. I still have it. I struggle with that.

Right.

Because I only have half my colon after cancer, essentially.

So you can add that to the stack. Right. Because if especially you're more of a meatatarian. Right.

Yeah. Been full carnivore now more than two years.

So that could be something good for you.

Okay.

Right. Because again, maybe you're just not absorbing and your body needs it, obviously.

Okay. And how long does it take until you actually notice something? Shift change?

So the reports from that company note, even after a couple weeks. A few weeks. So it's a downstream effect with many things like improved sleep, strength, all these good things.

Okay, I'm totally in. I want that. So let's get hooked up. All right, next up, Diasatinib. How do you say it?

So, dysatinib.

Okay.

Brand name Sprycel. Now, that's an oncologic and also known as a tyrosine kinase inhibitor. And why is it important? Because it is a senolytic. That is something that can get rid of the bad cells, the senescent old cells. There's a Mayo Clinic clinical trial that showed people with pulmonary fibrosis had better outcomes when they combined it with quercetin, which is a supplement.

Yep.

So if we want to believe that now, there's more studies being done, obviously, but it looks like they're showing these benefits. Now there's an Alzheimer's study that hopefully will show some benefits. Now, it's just one molecule, keep in mind, but it's another mechanism to help people hopefully live better. Now, of course, discuss all these things with your doctor. And don't just buy this off of a website, because that's not responsible.

Yep. Okay, good. I'm glad to remember that. So. Because I wouldn't Next up. So I, I want to know just a little bit more, like, what would I notice if I started taking that?

Well, a lot of these things, if you're already optimized, you might not notice the difference right now if you have one of these diseases that's been, you might get better movement, you might get better energy, things like that. Now, if you're pretty healthy, you're probably not going to see too much. As with a lot of these things, with maybe peptides, you see the needle move. You can maybe see things in the blood work that will move the needle. But generally speaking, you're going out a bit of a faith assay here.

Okay. Because one of the things that I make a point of doing is I'll do like, I'll do heavy supplementation peptides, and then I will quit everything for like 60 days. But the one thing that's super consistent is I eat a lot of meat, I feel great. It's definitely optimized for my body. I drink a lot of water all the time, but I'd be able to see that. So what I would challenge us to is I'm about to do blood work. I want to try as many of these as you would recommend if you were my doctor. When we get to the end. How's that?

Beautiful. Yeah. Think about it this way. If you have many cancer cells in your body, this might be something that can eliminate them. Right? Because that's what it is. It's basically getting rid of the cells that your body doesn't need. It's kind of like the buffalo herd joke. How do you make the buffalo herd run faster? Do you know?

Is it running away from something bad?

Very close.

Okay.

You just shoot the old buffalo. Okay? So you get rid of the senescent old cells. The guys that are causing inflammation could be precancerous or cancerous. Now, you're not going to feel those cells if they're in your body because you're life. Right? So that's where you may be getting benefit.

Okay. All right, so. And also I think of it like friction, so. Very good. All right, next one. C60.

C60. This is a supplement, Carbon 60.

Okay.

And it is an interesting supplement because it is a free radical scavenger. Typically dispense in olive oil. Now, there's industrial and pharmaceutical grade. So pharmaceutical grade is the one you should have. And in a study in mice in 2012, it showed these animals lived 90% longer. Okay. Now, later studies were not done, but there's studies in the works. And humans as you know, it's really hard to prove that, but what I see with my patients is it can help them do better. For example, if they're doing a triathlon or doing some sort of a race, they have better endurance. I took this when I went overseas for a wedding. I felt amazing when I got over to that overseas destination. That was an economy and none of the luxuries of a fly flatbed seat. And same thing with the wedding. So I think it's a great compound to use to take those free radicals and scavenge them. Kind of put out the fire.

Okay, see you, man. So I'm just curious, would that do anything in high altitude? Are there benefits there improving your VO2 max? When you talked about marathoners or high performance athletes?

Potentially. I had one patient in Colorado do that race, and he's a sea level dweller with me. And heat felt is one of the things that helped move the needle.

Okay. So I'm going to the Amazon in a few weeks. I'm going to be in high altitude for 10 days. And generally my body doesn't react well to that.

So you might want to try that and train for your VO2 max. There's actually a training protocol that I'm starting in clinic that'll help people improve their VO2 max without exercise, using a bag technique with another group. So if you go to high altitude, you can hopefully do better.

Okay, good. You just made me think of a potential bonus, so I'm going to look at Anya right now. That's a good bonus idea. Okay, good. All right, we're. We're making stuff up here. We're making stuff up. All right, Next one. Sodium phantobutyrate.

Phenylbutyrate. All right. Okay. This is a histone de acetylase inhibitor, affectionately called a HDAC inhibitor. It works epigenetically. Initially approved for urea cycle disorder. It takes the ammonia and just scavenges away. But the cool things are, is that it is showing it is able to help in aging in animal models. And also it is being studied in Alzheimer's right now. So it was actually approved for ALS in combination with tdca. The drug company made a new molecule out of it. Unfortunately, it was withdrawn. But the Alzheimer's disease study still is going forward. Now, with a lot of diseases, you have to understand they are studied when the patient is really sick already. Okay, now, that's a disappointing thing, but if you have maybe a bit of cognitive decline, you have some of these headwinds, I call them, you might want to deploy it earlier because what it does is it tries to improve the inflammation in certain parts of the cell and has neuro regenerative properties and it tries to fix things in that way epigenetically and it's super well tolerated.

All right, and how will I feel when I take it? Is there something I notice? Is there something that's going to show up in the blood? What, what are some of the noticeable effects or effects that might not be noticeable, but they show up?

Your mind has better sleep because it does also bind glutamine, which can make people have more energy. Right. So you're not going to probably have more energy, but you might have better sleep as a counter. It's one of those things. Also, you might not notice much if you're in really good shape. So if you're living at 10 out of 10 life, you'd probably be like, this is another thing that I'm taking. I hope it's working, but molecularly it's probably doing something.

Okay, great. Last1 is slgt2 drugs.

Right. Also known as the flozins. So these are kind of like the metformin.

How's that spelled?

SGLT 2.

No, I mean the flozen.

F, L, Z O I N. It's a category. Right. So the medicines that come to mind are Jardiance, Farsig. These are medicines that are used for diabetes, but they're showing benefits in longevity in the animal studies, in the ITP group, especially at nih. So people that are on these medicines.

Those of us who don't know what those mean, what is that?

So it's an interventional testing group where NIH can study compounds and they have strict criteria to see which compounds can actually move the needle in mice. Right. So very few candidate molecules make it to the finish line. For example, rapamycin made it acarbose. This is another one that made it. So in humans we already have good data. If you're diabetic and you take this, your heart disease risk goes down, your kidney risk. So I'm not saying you need to get diabetes to get this, but if you're insulin resistant especially, you should consider this. If you have a, a 1C, that's not perfect, consider it. Some people don't want to get on the GLPs. Right. Well, this is a great alternative as well. And it's also not an always thing, it's a sometimes thing. Sometimes. Right?

Yep.

Yep.

Okay, good. And back to the how does this show up in terms of test results? Where would it show up, what would the indicators be?

Well, here you'll have a definitive movement of your sugar. Right. So if you wear CGM and there's many brands out there, you'll see that hopefully improve. If you're like many people, you have a bit of a spike in the morning, hopefully that'll go away. And if you're pre diabetic or diabetic, this will hopefully get you out of the. The danger zone.

Yep. Yeah. What I noticed when I'd be wearing a cgm, I, I did it especially when I converted to an all carnivore diet and I noticed I stayed remarkably flat. And my general rule that I found where I'm most optimized mentally and physically is first thing I do when I get up, I make a steak. The moment I feel hungry, I eat a steak. And then towards the end of the day, before six, if I'm hungry, I eat a steak. Now in between at night, I might have a little bit of carb, but I just noticed I'm flat as hell. Even if I drink some alcohol.

Amazing.

Yeah. Now, I definitely err on the side of higher glucose levels. So it's definitely something some don't feel.

Well if they're elevated, I think.

Right. Yeah. What I have in my worst. I used to have this thing happen. I have no idea what this is, but if I ate a glazed donut, for example, I would actually get. It would like I'd go blind for a little bit of time and it might have been a migraine, but I have no idea. Do you have any idea what might have been happening? Because I wasn't obviously wearing any blood sugar and I don't eat glazed donuts anymore.

So this is before you were so healthy.

Yeah, for sure, for sure. But I've had it happen when I haven't eaten for a long time. I definitely notice, like I get a narrow vision.

Well, sugar in excess is a toxin. So for. And if you had a.

With no sugar, it's like when I haven't eaten it. Oh, when you haven't yet and I have a crash.

Okay, well then it's the opposite. You could say. Right, you're just becoming hypoglycemic.

Right.

Because you're just not getting the energy that you need.

Okay. All right, good to know. So next one is, you know, most people I know are wearing every gadget. They're going out, they're doing. I call it biohacker farmer medicine, where they're going and getting all the scans and I shouldn't, I don't I'm not slamming anyone, but like right now there's a lot of organizations that are out there. They're oftentimes financed by private equity. They're go get a scan, they might be guru led. And most people I know, they start up, they pay a lot of money. They're super frustrated because they wanted to meet the guru or get some sort of hyper personalized care and know we're wearing aura rings, whoop rings. They follow the gurus. So a lot of data overwhelm, no strategy. So what's your prescription now? What are you doing that's unique or different? And how are you kind of breaking the mold that I think, you know, this industry has been damaged by so many gurus trying to monetize so quickly, selling high price stuff.

Exactly. I mean it's good that these tests people are doing number one. But then I think they're overwhelmed and they see not the guru, but somebody that's a distance from them and they may not have all the tools to help these people and they sort of get disappointed and they're not getting better care. So they can't put all this data together and give the right recommendations, the nuances. This is why it's important to be in my situation, which I've seen a lot of disease. I have what we call a good gestalt. Right. I see somebody across the room I kind of already knows going on. It takes a bit of time to get that. It's a visceral feeling. You put the data together and then you say, what does this person need to be a 10 out of 10 to be that? A student. And I think I can do that for them.

All right, and let's go a little bit deeper into your framework. So first of all, your organization, it's restore r e s t o r. So first of all, where did that come from? And then talk a little bit about the protocols that you're following through your framework.

Well, it's a bit of a play on words. So if we want to get a little nerdy here, it's the MTOR pathway. So that's why there's no E at the end. And MTOR is one of the most well studied pathways in aging and longevity. Also in cancer, it's upregulated. So as we do certain things, we need MTOR to be elevated. But now we're finding with for example, use of rapamycin, we want it to be slowed down just a little bit. And we know now that we also have the hallmarks of aging Right. So these are 12 things that tell us why the body is aging. Right. Because longevity medicine is not really for the 25 year old. They're living their best life, they're going out, everything's 10 out of 10, hopefully. But as you cross the threshold, you get into your 40s, sadly, things go a little worse.

I never noticed that occasionally I get.

A little me fake.

I totally have. I mean I, I hit 60 this, this April and thank God I made it this far.

You look great, by the way.

Oh, thanks. I appreciate it. Yeah. All right, so keep on going. I'm sorry to interrupt you with all.

These pathways, all this biology, molecular findings that we're having. Especially today, I want to target these things with all the things in the supplement world, in the pharmaceutical world, and of course optimize the lifestyle and first and foremost make sure nobody is having anything deadly that'll knock them off because you're going to find out one way or the other. But I hope to not have that be the situation that it's a life ender and that's what really motivated me in the first place.

All right, so I think let's go back around to we're not giving medical advice or making recommendations on the air just so we get that covered. And I'm sitting here saying, hey doc, we've spent a bunch of time together. I'm really curious and I don't mind being a guinea pig for anything that gives me an edge. So when you, if you are going to prioritize these, each of these five based on what you know about me without having looked at my blood so far. So we've got P24 DASA, dasatinib. Okay. C60, sodium phenylalbuterate. I hope I pronounced that correctly in the SL GT2 drugs.

Right.

So let's go through what you know, what you would suspect if you were analyzing me. If we can do that safely, I was giving you permission to give me some ideas.

So I don't think you're diabetic or pre diabetic. Right. So your glucose levels are pretty optimal. It sounds like, like you mentioned in, in general.

Yeah. As long as, again, as long as I'm eating very regularly, I definitely spike if I touch carbs and I just avoid refined sugar.

I would use, use that medicine, the SGL2, the flozen, if you're having a bit of a feast, perhaps, but I probably would not be a first line recommendation for you.

Okay.

Now if you're going to travel, I think C60 would be a Good thing to use around that time or if you're under a lot of stress, burning both ends of the candle, very easy. You can. You can take it daily, take a break. As you mentioned, you take supplement breaks.

Yep.

The sodium phenylbutyrate, that's a niche product, I would say. I assume your brain MRIs are great. You don't have any cognitive issues.

No, but both my parents passed from that. So one died of. Let's see, my dad died of. His mom died of Alzheimer's and dad dementia. Okay. And that's been in the past two years. So they made it into their 80s, but they definitely showed cognitive decline around 80. And I'd rather just drop off, so.

I would probably get more data to see if you have any Alzheimer's genes or other neurodegenerative genes.

Okay. Chemo shrank my brain noticeably in a brain scan.

So you have atrophy of the brain.

Yes.

Okay. And you've had cancer, right?

Yep. Stage 3A, colorectal radiation and chemo.

Okay.

And surgery.

So this molecule also has a benefit as a what we call differentiating agent. And it tries to make cells that are not normal. Normal and die peacefully. So it is not a bad idea if you would want to be on a low dose, because it could do two things. Help you with the brain and also maybe get rid of any cancer that could be cooking. Because we're sadly probably cancering on some level, but our body's getting rid of it. So that's something that you might want to think of. It is definitely not something people. Most people know about, but I would say it makes sense in your situation.

Yeah.

All right.

And you had told me about potential couple cancer tests that were tissue oriented. Those are some bonus rounds here. But is that anything you're able to talk about?

Certainly.

Okay.

So we have imaging, which you're doing, which is great. Now, imaging has a resolution problem, Right. Because it doesn't capture anything, let's say less than half a centimeter. Now, you can have billions of cancer cells already, but you wouldn't find them on the imaging scan. So there are blood tests, which are called MRD tests, which is minimal residual disease testing, which can look for the cancer you previously had and see if it's recurring. And you can have a negative scan. If that test is positive, it could be predictive of having a recurrence in, for example, 12 to 18 months in some cases. So it's like a canary in a coma. Right. Now we have liquid biopsy tests, which look and screen for cancer, this is different. This for people that have had cancer and they can sniff out that type of cancer either based on your old tissue you had that's in the path lab somewhere in a paraffin block, or they have assays that are tissue free. So in addition to your regular check ins with the oncologist, you should get everything they're doing. Obviously check for CEA markers, but you should also do one of these tests and hopefully they're doing it for you. But I'll send you those analysts.

Great.

Tempest and Signatera are the leaders in that field.

Great to know. Fantastic. Okay, what next? So we went through.

Did we.

Did we go through the P24? What's your opinion of that one?

I think that's a good one for you. Yeah, I think very little downside. I'll do that today. All right, great.

And then was there any. Any other that we didn't cover? Yes.

I think that's it. Yeah. Okay, good.

All right, so. Well, let's do this. So who is your perfect fit? Like, when you think about who you love to optimize, who you have great results with, who first of all, see the value in optimization, doing the kinds of things that you're doing and who walk in the door, see results quickly and they just want to stick around and say, what else you got? What else you got? What else you got?

That Exactly. People that have a reason to be here, first of all. Right, so some people don't want to give up certain things and that's totally fine. I respect autonomy. But if you understand how cool, hopefully the future will be the next five, 10, 20 years, then you want to put in the effort to be as healthy as possible now to make it to those breakthroughs so you could be there for everybody. Right. So somebody that's already respecting their bodies is number one. These are my ideal people. I would say people that are. Are just okay with being overweight and drinking too much. They're not the perfect fit. I want.

There's some fairly uncoachable.

He want coachable, coachable humans that understand to stop 80% of it we can do with lifestyle. Right. With just stopping the abuse. The next 20, I feel, is where I shine and I can deploy certain things to get you that extra. Right, Right.

So it's just high performers who see the value. They want, want more. And the way I like to frame it is. And I'm talking to you, so that would mean you probably have more money than time and you want more of the time and you're also in a place where you've got, at least on a predictive level, less in front of you than you have behind you. I fit in that category. Like, I'm looking for every edge I can get right now. And that's really who this is for. If you're listening to this podcast, it's you. All right. I'm sorry.

Machine, right? You want a time machine? Totally. Yeah.

Yep. Yeah. And now that my son is older, I'm really, really motivated for seeing his. What's next?

His kids, hopefully one day. Grandkids. All that for sure.

Okay, and so where do they go? How do they start the relationship? And we've got some goodies and giveaways to give them too. So one of them was that protocol we talked about. What do you think of that as a. As a bonus for people?

I think that's a great idea.

Okay, what's the name of that bonus that we talked about?

The.

I'm totally putting you on the spot. Anya. What was the name of the bonus we talked about? So the altitude preparation and.

Yeah, so that name is still. We haven't put on the website yet. I know.

That's why we made it.

That's why. It's just.

I'm like, I want that, so why not make it for everyone who's listening today?

My wife's way smarter. What do you think? What's the name?

Breathing. Breathing what? Okay, so we made that up. I totally put them on the spot. It's my fault. But here's what we'll do is go to restore longevityclinic.com start. That's where you'll be able to get an opportunity, first of all, to talk to Dr. Greg. If you'd like to have a conversation with him, talk to him about your longevity, your protocol, doing some of these in depth tests, also accessing some of these tools and resources, and also get this protocol that we literally made up for me on this. But I figure you want it too, and they'll do the work in the background and we'll figure out a cool name. So by the time you go there, it'll be up.

What do you think of that?

What do you think of that for making stuff up on the fly?

I love it.

All right, good. So is there anything that I should have asked you that I didn't, or something you'd like to say as we leave right now that is really important?

I think we're living in amazing times, really exciting times. So the time of taking action is now. And I'm stoked for the breakthroughs that will be happening, especially with AI. Hence why this makes sense now why you should start getting healthy, knowing what risks are ahead. Yeah, I think 20 years ago it would have been called anti aging and there was more fluff. But now I think the world's different. So I think now's the perfect time to get healthy and live your best life.

Yeah, couldn't agree more. Well, my friend, been a total pleasure spending time with you.

My pleasure. All right.

And the next step is yours to take. So head on over to their website. We're putting that up right now. It's Restore longevityclinic.com start that way you'll get the free goodie. You'll get some tools and resources. You'll have an opportunity to talk to Dr. Greg. So say goodbye. This is Capability Amplifier is great. Great spending time with you and we'll look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Bye.

Bye.