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Advanced Biohacking and Longevity Strategies Clinicians Should Know with Dr. Sanjeev Goel and host Dr. Ben Weitz.
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Podcast Highlights
Dr. Sanjeev Goel is a physician, speaker, and leader in longevity and health optimization based in Canada. Often known as the “Happiness and Longevity MD,” he blends functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, and emerging longevity science to help patients extend not just lifespan, but healthspan and vitality. His website is www.sanjeevgoel.com and PeakHuman.ca and he hosts a podcast called Peak Human Labs, available on YouTube at @PeakHumanLabs.
Dr. Ben Weitz is available for Functional Nutrition consultations specializing in Functional Gastrointestinal Disorders like IBS/SIBO and Reflux and also Cardiometabolic Risk Factors like elevated lipids, high blood sugar, and high blood pressure. Dr. Weitz has also successfully helped many patients with managing their weight and improving their athletic performance, as well as sports chiropractic work by calling his Santa Monica office 310-395-3111.
Podcast Transcript
Dr. Weitz: Hey, this is Dr. Ben Weitz, host of the Rational Wellness Podcast. I talk to the leading health and nutrition experts and researchers in the field to bring you the latest in cutting edge health information. Subscribe to the Rational Wellness Podcast for weekly updates and to learn more, check out my website, drweitz.com. Thanks for joining me, and let’s jump into the podcast.
Hello, Rational Wellness podcasters. Today we’re excited to welcome Dr. Sanjeev. Go. Dr. Goel is a physician, speaker and leader in longevity, biohacking, and health optimization. He’s known as the Happiness and longevity. Doctor, I’m glad you’re so happy. He blends functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, and longevity science to help patients. Extend not just lifespan, but healthspan and Vitality. So, Dr. Goel, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Goel: Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
Dr. Weitz: Great. And you’re practicing in, is it Toronto, CA, Canada?
Dr. Goel: Yeah, just outside Toronto. One of the, you know, bedroom communities outside. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. How’s practicing in Toronto?
Dr. Goel: It’s good. I mean, you know, I was just thinking that, you know, Toronto’s one of the hotbeds of many innovations and wellness medicine, you know, it’s one of the top, it’s also a good place there for that and a lot of innovation happening. That’s cool. AI is happening. A lot of innovation happening from AI here in Toronto too, so it’s a place where things are happening for sure.
Dr. Weitz: That’s good. Is ai good or bad?
Dr. Goel: It’s a complicated question. You know, I definitely use AI and, but you know, I think in for our mental health and all that, there’s a lot of concerns I have about impact of AI on our health.
Dr. Weitz: Right. For sure. So what you led you into longevity medicine?
Dr. Goel: You know, I’m a family physician. I graduated, picked family medicine because I couldn’t decide on any particular part of the body to work on, and I just found it so everything, so interesting. And so I, you know, I was really trying to find the right answer. And as a family physician I did many different things, you know?
Dr. Weitz: So what is the right answer?
Dr. Goel: Yeah, the right answer is that we have to give people the tools to go and understand their own bodies. The most personalized, customized treatments, I think are the best solution right now. Right. And I think we have to rely on science and we have to rely on ai. And I’m very hopeful about the future, but that’s, but looking, we have to look in the body as a whole. And that’s why I think family medicine’s still by far the best option that way.
Dr. Weitz: Cool. So what’s the difference between HEALTHSPAN and lifespan?
Dr. Goel: Yeah I mean we obviously, the number of years aren’t as important if the, if those years are in suffering or in pain. And the idea of health span is to maximize the good quality years that we live. And I think a lot of longevity [00:03:00] physicians are all focused on that, on this aspect that is not just about the number of years, but the quality of of years that have been lived.
Dr. Weitz: So what does it really mean to be a longevity physician?
Dr. Goel: You know, I think a little bit of is again, a may be maybe a misnomer because it is we’re really focused on lifestyle and prevention of chronic diseases because these are the diseases that cause people to, to have shorter lifespan. So we’re doing whatever we can to help people maximize the health span and many people would recognize this as a lot of these things are just, you know, diet and nutrition and exercise and proper weight, lean body mass. What can we do to kind of, you know, improving mental health, not having depression, anxiety, all of these things together. One would call longevity medicine,
Dr. Weitz: right? Unfortunately, conventional medical care really does not do a good job with this. Why do you think that is?
Dr. Goel: The incentives aren’t there. The, you [00:04:00] know, we get paid in Canada. We have a single payer system, which means that we get paid. People in the system get paid per visit. And what that basically incentivizes people to come to the doctor to just see us for whatever reason that is. And that’s how, you know, doctors wanna spend a couple of minutes per patient, you know, maybe five minutes. And so when you’re incentivized that way you’re incentivized, see your patients regularly, and you’re not really focused on prevention and the long term solutions. So I think the system is structured like that, you know? Yeah. We have, it is true, a sick care system. We’re very good at fixing bones and injuries and. Things like that. But we’re not good so much at the long term.
Dr. Weitz: So it’s kind of interesting that in Canada there’s a single payer system and it’s pretty much a sick care system with incentives not to really individualize care or spend a lot of time with patients. And here in the United States. We have an insurance run system, and yet we have pretty much the same sick care [00:05:00] system where doctors are paid a small amount of money by the insurance company, so they’re incentivized to see a large number of patients and not individualized care and not spend a lot of time with their patients. And it’s kind of interesting that they both end up in the same boat.
Dr. Goel: Same idea. I mean, if you want to call this your payers, the insurance companies who’s max in incentivized to pay less out. So they, you know, their interest is they’re not really focused again, on the long-term situation.
Dr. Weitz: You would think that a system like what Canada has, should be concerned about the overall health of the patients because. In the United States Insurance Company a is only concerned about maximizing the profit so they can have the stock go up so the CEO can get his bonus and for all they know next quarter or next year they’re not responsible [00:06:00] for your care. So they have little interest in your long-term health, whereas in Canada, the system is going to be responsible for paying for your care for all those years, so you would think there would be a built in incentive to get people healthier so you don’t have to pay out for all this sick care.
Dr. Goel: I think there are, you’re right. I mean, it’s not a com. There are some, and maybe there are some improvements from the Canadian system compared to the American system. You know, I think that, you know, let’s say like public vaccination and things like, which we know are very good benefits. We used to,
Dr. Weitz: we used to think that.
Dr. Goel: Yeah. So that’s, there’s the thing, so obviously, you know, we have, we used to get paid for doing physical exams, for example, just general physicals, right.
Repro that, because I think what’s happening is that there’s just so much pressure on the system. And there’s so much potential things that could be done and they have less dollars. So I think system is, you know, [00:07:00] and the first things that go are things that you do not see immediate gay gains. People don’t see immediate gains from like, psychological counseling, for example. Right. So that becomes one of the things they remove, even though, you know, there’s long-term benefits providing mental health care to patients.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, it’s really short term versus long term.
Dr. Goel: Right.
Dr. Weitz: Most of the benefits of diet and lifestyle and functional medicine are things that take a long period of time.
Dr. Goel: Yes. Yeah. And these governments are in for four years, so they’re only concerned about, you know, what happens in during the term and they get reelected again. That’s really what the issue is.
Dr. Weitz: So how do you manage to thrive in Canada? Are you outside of the system?
Dr. Goel: Yeah. I’ve decided to go outside the system because I just want to work with people who are motivated and want to get better and want to see me when they need to see me. And, you know, that’s, I want to work with the latest technologies and you know, the, unfortunately that is, requires, you know, people to invest in their healthcare.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Goel: And when it’s government paid, then people have a different mentality about how they use the system.
Dr. Weitz: Right. So what are some of the drivers of aging and what can we do about some of these? I know there’s been some major papers written about, you know, some of the major pathways that are involved in aging. What’s your take on it?
Dr. Goel: You know, I like to, now I kind of say there’s three main things that I kind of tell people to focus on when they’re thinking about aging. First is that. Hormesis, the idea that you know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. So I think just that, understand that principle, we can then apply it to whenever we see potential interventions for aging and see does it actually make sense? So for example, you know, fasting, which is. In effect a stress on your cells when they have less nutrients around your cell will adapt and get rid of waste and become more efficient. That’s proven. That’s a proven longevity intervention. Another thing might be exercise. So ESIS is one [00:09:00] principle I like to say, talk about. Second thing I like to talk about is, the, there’s the endless cycle of growth and death, which is happening all the time in our body. We need to understand that and not, and if we’re in tune with that then I think that’s also promote longevity because for, like, for example, some people taking growth hormone per for example, and I think that. Taking endless amount of growth, hormones gonna make you live longer. I don’t think that we have the evidence for that. And potentially you might even live a shorter life. That’s because we do need cycles of decay and death to get rid of this make, to make space for the new. So that’s the second principle. Understand the cycles of growth and decay. And the third one is in being in rhythm in harmony with your internal and external rhythms.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Goel: And I think when people live outside those rhythms, they have increased stress, which leads to shorter life.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. We will make that the basis for this talk. Well, let’s start with the hormesis. So when it comes to hormesis and putting stress on the body, yeah. And of course exercise is a stress on the [00:10:00] body. Most people think that yes, when you exercise, you build your body up. But really, in fact, exercise is a way to break your body down, but then your body rebuilds stronger, better, and, same thing with other things that put stress on your body. You mentioned fasting. Let’s go into some of the details about what’s the best way to fast. Some people recommend skipping a meal. It’s common to skip breakfast. There’s some dated indicate it’s better to skip dinner. Should it be done systemically or can it be done haphazardly? Is it better to just do a complete one day fast or a three day fast? And then some people are trying to make it less painful. So you just buy this box of food that’s low calories and you just do that. What’s your take on what’s the best way to do fasting?
Dr. Goel: Yeah, that’s a very good question. I don’t think there’s an actual answer for everybody that’s exactly the same, and I [00:11:00] think people need to understand where they’re at, what their body’s like, what their health conditions are like to figure out what’s, what works for them. But we can go through some of these and I can kind of give you my thoughts on them.
Dr. Weitz: Sure.
Dr. Goel: But you know, I can tell you like somebody with me who’s relatively lean. If I was to start, you know, fasting for days on end or regularly I would, it wouldn’t necessarily suit my health, but but I think first let’s start with, you know, what we call intermittent fasting, which is relatively shorter periods of of fasting. Anything from, you know, 12 to 16 hours a day, let’s say, would be, you know, I think generally, right?
Dr. Weitz: So that basically means you, you stop eating at a certain time and you don’t eat till, you know, maybe a little bit later in the day you have to have a later breakfast or you skip your breakfast.
Dr. Goel: Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Which I think is ironic ’cause for so many years when we were coaching people about nutrition, about breakfast, you know, I’ve been doing this a long time for like 37 years. Yeah. And one of the mantras was you have to eat breakfast. It’s the most [00:12:00] important meal. Everybody skips breakfast and that’s why they’re fat. So you have to eat within a certain period of time of waking up.
Dr. Goel: Yeah. Yeah I agree that, and I think that even for me, let’s say this morning, I only started eating maybe at around 11. And I’m hoping to finish by eight and then I’ll be done. But I think it’s, the evidence looks better to skip the evening meal. You know, it just looks better. Right. But I think we can push the morning a little bit. We don’t need to have start at 7:00 AM Right. We can push that later. Me a little bit longer ’cause we wanna shorten the eating window. Right. And I think that’s the clear, that’s the part that we have the best evidence on is that just shorten the eating window to give your body time to you know, just have period without food, which I think is right. The key principle, like, you know, you know, for some people it’s gonna work that they skip more of the breakfast, some people skip, it’s gonna work better for them to skip the meal in the evening. But you know, I think it’s just shorten that eating window don’t just be perfect. People are asking, you know, because it’ll be 16 hours or 14 to [00:13:00] 12, whatever I say, you know, just, we don’t have to be so rigid there.
I think just the principle and even you have people now doing, it’s called, I think eating in the morning and eating late later in the night, evening and then skipping the rest. Don’t eat anything during the whole day. Is another option, which sometimes could look better for, you know, for one’s lifestyle. So I think we have a lot of potential options there. With regards to longer periods of fasting, they say that up, you know, up once you start hitting over two and a half days, then we get this rejuvenated rejuven or regenerative stem cell release benefit from fasting. So I think that’s hard to do but probably a very good thing. Like you did, like you mentioned, there are some companies out there once called ProLon, which has a fasting mimicking diet five day. You eat whatever’s in the box and it basically mimics your fasting, tricks, your body into fasting. And people see they have a lot of relative health benefits for you.
Dr. Weitz: And it does that because essentially it’s low calorie, right?
Dr. Goel: Yeah, it’s about six, 700 calories. [00:14:00] But I mean, it’s not that you could just do it yourself. I think they have kind of created the formula of a certain ratio of macronutrients that still doesn’t activate the, you know, the regular insulin levels.
So I think it has
Dr. Weitz: you know, I, it is hard to understand that, especially since there’s not a lot of protein there, which means if there’s not a lot of protein and you’re not eating a ton of fat, then most, it’s really carbs.
Dr. Goel: You’re right. I don’t know exactly how, why You’re right. What I wonder if it’s just a regular 600 calorie diet would work. I don’t know what, how it’s working that the way they’ve done it. But I mean, the studies look pretty good. Their meta people’s metabolic parameters do improve, but maybe that would improve anyways if they just ate 600 calories a day for five days.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Goel: Who knows? You know, and you know, they have. Their bars are maybe have a little high fat in them and you know, but it’s it’s interesting. I don’t have a complete answer for that, but it looks like they have some research to back it up.
Dr. Weitz: [00:15:00] Right.
Dr. Goel: And then and then there’s the other alternate fasting of, you know, eating one day regular and then don’t eat the second day and then come back. So I think it’s another type of way. And then there’s another one where you eat five days and fast for two days. So five and two. So there’s multiple different regimens and I think it’s, people gotta figure out what kind of works for them,
Dr. Weitz: right? Yeah, and you know, this is to sort of duplicate the fact that human beings for hundreds of thousands of years didn’t, weren’t able to regularly have a meal every four hours or whatever we do, or have three meals a day. That schedule is really a modern thing. And so our bodies really are designed to go long periods of time without eating and it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Dr. Goel: Exactly. I think that that’s right. We, it is not everything so constant and I think we need to Yeah, appreciate that. Just like I said, there’s, you know, cycles of eating and not eating, and that’s part of, that’s part of how our bodies were designed and we should run away from [00:16:00] that.
Should accept that. And yeah I’m totally in agreement with you. I think that’s exactly what, how our bodies are meant to be.
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Dr. Weitz: Now, part of that program we were just talking about is that it’s actually built into that system that we should eat a relatively low protein diet. And the thought there is, or the claim is that if we eat less protein, we’ll stimulate less growth. And in the body that there’s certain pathways that stimulate growth and there’s certain pathways that stimulate breakdown, autophagy, you know, which is your second principle. And so the claim is that if you have too much protein or if you e even have a certain amount of protein, that you will increase IGF one and growth hormone levels. And that potentially is negative for health because it may increase cancer rates.
Dr. Goel: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a, it is a balance here so that we do need some amount of protein and and growth hormone. Otherwise, you know, that would be a problem as well. So, that’s why I like to say it’s, we should do things in cycles. But for sure carbs and and proteins. They lead to growth hormone release and through the ambulatory pathway. And and when we’re fasting, then we have a different pathway and PK pathway that gets stimulated. [00:19:00] So,
Dr. Weitz: I have some questions about that. I haven’t found that to be true. Okay. I have a lot of patients who are eating a healthy diet, but yet maybe they’re having animal protein three times a day, and I don’t necessarily see any significant increase in IGF-1 levels. They don’t necessarily have elevated IGF-1 levels. And so I’m kind of skeptical about that. And then the thought is that you’re supposed to keep the protein levels low so you don’t stimulate growth hormone. But then after you hit 60, then you’re supposed to increase your protein, so you don’t lose muscle.
Dr. Goel: So are you saying that, that maybe we don’t need so much protein. Is that what you’re saying?
Dr. Weitz: No, I do think we need protein. I think maintaining muscle is one of the keys to longevity, and I’m skeptical that we should restrict protein.
Dr. Goel: Oh, yeah. No, I don’t think we should restrict protein at all. No.
What I was just, no. I think that when we’re eating. [00:20:00] We are really a, we, our body is a protein delivering D device,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. Goel: That’s one of the most important things that we need to take in there. So I think
Dr. Weitz: I agree. And so that’s why I am, I’m not a huge fan of programs that restrict protein.
Dr. Goel: No I’m not either. I think I was just saying that when we’re fat, we should have periods of fasting, of which there’s no really no food or maybe only fats can come in during fasting. Right. But when we’re eating, when we’re eating regular, we should eat protein. It’s very, extremely important. And and maybe just some carbs to fuel our muscles and all that, but I don’t.
Dr. Weitz: Right. And we need all the phytonutrients and the fiber, et cetera. So.
Dr. Goel: That’s fair. Yeah. I, yeah, I’m totally, I mean, where that protein’s coming from, that could be conversation. Yeah. I mean, that’s, there’s, lots of people have different views upon that,
Dr. Weitz: but it’s interesting how there’s been this push pull in the longevity research. For a while there was a lot of data that seemed to show that taking growth hormone and [00:21:00] taking testosterone and things like that, when that was a big part of the longevity you know, medical approach 20, 25 years ago. And and then one of the first studies that looked at reversal of biological aging actually used growth hormone as one of the interventions,
Dr. Goel: the trim trial.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, but yet now it’s kind of fallen out of favor and there’s a lot more talk about, having less growth and focusing on autophagy and the breakdown process. So we get rid of broken down old cells and we recycle. Mm-hmm.
Dr. Goel: Well, I think it’s, this is the, I think you can never go away. It’s never one answer. Right. Yeah. Yet caloric restriction has been shown to extend lifespan in various animals, even potentially humans. But this is where you need to focus on growth, and then you need to have periods where you have autophagy, but you can’t just have one or the other. That’s what I was just trying to say, is that right? It’s never [00:22:00] that simple. It depends also what stage of life you’re in. And of course, lean body mass is critical. I mean, it’s one of the top things we’re doing in our practice is helping people build lean body mass. I would impact when people,
Dr. Weitz: I would point to that doctor from UCLA his name is escaping me, who was one of the first guys to really show that caloric restriction was associated with longevity. Who was in that that. Place in San Diego where they ended up, he ended up having to be forced to eat a very low calorie diet and lost a lot of weight. What was his name? Rory Meels or something like that. [Actually Dr. Roy Wolford, who died in 2004 of ALS.]
Dr. Goel: Oh,
Dr. Weitz: at UCLA. Well, he ended up dying, like in his mid seventies, so Yeah.
Dr. Goel: Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Weitz: Didn’t work out so well for him.
Dr. Goel: No, it doesn’t. You can’t just have chronic caloric restriction and it wouldn’t be a very much of a
Dr. Weitz: right
Dr. Goel: look, talk about health span. It wouldn’t be a very high quality life.
Dr. Weitz: There needs to be some pulsing, we need a certain amount of growth through regeneration. So we rebuild our [00:23:00] muscles and our bones and it’s et cetera.
And our brain cells. It’s like
Dr. Goel: when you the game, you can’t work out every single day. Right. And I found if I just space it out, if I workout space out my workouts by two, three days, I have a better response.
Dr. Weitz: Right? So
Dr. Goel: same idea. I think we should eat. That high protein diet and proper calories and then space it out.
Give a little break,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. Goel: Do it again.
Dr. Weitz: Now, what are some of the other interventions that can help with autophagy and longevity? Besides, besides diet and exercise that you use in your practice. What about things like peptides? What about you know, some of the other strategies?
Dr. Goel: You know, you know, we definitely do recommend peptides here. You know, I run a BPC 157 supplement company,
Dr. Weitz: So is that oral or injectable?
Dr. Goel: Oral though I do also can have access, get patients access to injectables as well. But for sure oral is one of the few peptides that’s absorbed orally. I have seen it firsthand. People’s improvement in gut symptoms [00:24:00] improve. People give all types of stories of, you know, musculoskeletal pain that improves with with this peptide. So, you know, we don’t have great clinical studies. But people’s experience tell us that these things are working. There are other peptides out there that I’m pretty excited about. One is the growth hormone receptor proteins. So those are like epi and taal. And these basically stimulate your own pituitary gland to release growth hormone.
Dr. Weitz: Right?
Dr. Goel: Seem, they seem like they definitely work. And and then that, I think that, results in, in decreased visceral fat potentially increased muscle mass and you know, better quality of life. There’s a couple other peptides that, one’s that, that I’m interested a lot these days in the thymus immune system peptides,
Dr. Weitz: the thymosin beta for and some of those,
Dr. Goel: yeah, peptides data is good for regeneration, but thymosin alpha is more of an immune system peptide may shift your body to less inflammation [00:25:00] and and there’s a Biore peptide called Dimin. Because one of the things we saw in the TRIM trial was that, aging happens over our immune system and the thymus gla involutes around age 50.
Dr. Weitz: Meaning it shrinks.
Dr. Goel: It shrinks, yeah. So if we can help, that thymus can increase, which, what happened in that trial,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. Goel: That one of the things we can do to really reverse and slow down aging.
So
Dr. Weitz: yeah,
Dr. Goel: it’s not just muscle mass, you know, immune system’s also aging. We need to decrease inflammation. So these peptides seem pretty promising, even though you may not notice anything immediately. But the long-term benefit of these peptides may be there. Right. We just unfortunately don’t have long-term studies, but they seem very safe. And, you know, I would consider people to consider going down that road.
Dr. Weitz: Some of the companies come out with more oral peptides, and in some cases they’re taking fragments of TB four and some of these other peptides. What do you think about those?
Dr. Goel: I haven’t, I’ve talked to some of the peptide you know, [00:26:00] people are really knowledgeable in the space and they said, tell me that they’re not convinced these things are being absorbed orally. Or maybe it’s a very small absorption and still injectable is still the way to go, though. I know people are doing some nasal sprays now. You’re coming now with liposomal sub, you know, sublingual version. So yes. Yeah, maybe these things are gonna get better. And I just saw, I was at the Antigen conference last week and there was a company out there was doing a patch through Iona Pheresis, which electricity
Dr. Weitz: right.
Dr. Goel: To see if the BPC and the NAD could come through the skin. Right. So there’s definitely, I think a lot of. Advance is happening here. Yeah. And I hope a couple years we’ll have better answers.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. In the United States, of course the FDA has kind of cracked down on peptides.
Dr. Goel: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I heard about that. So, you know, because, and if you know, these GLP ones are really peptides too.
Dr. Weitz: They are, yeah.
Dr. Goel: They just happen to be medications, but they’re also peptides. And you can see that the Trump administration is concerned about a lot of compounding pharmacies and [00:27:00] people buying red or tru tide. Well, you know, basically from a website and these pharmaceutical companies are saying, you gotta clamp down on this, so this is why.
Dr. Weitz: Wow. Because it cuts into their profits.
Dr. Goel: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And this, you know, these LPs are very powerful, have made a massive difference in people’s health. Again, have used responsibly. I think they’re really game changers.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. There, there’s some downsides, like loss of muscle, which seems to be pretty common.
Dr. Goel: We have to be very careful because people will generally lose some muscle. And like we’re saying, we’re, we wanna build lean body mass. So it has to be done carefully and be monitored.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. The other thing I’ve seen apart from some of the side effects, which can be devastating, is that pretty much everybody who takes season and stops taking ’em regains the weight.
Dr. Goel: Interesting. Yeah I haven’t seen as much of that, but I’ve definitely seen that with a lot of weight loss strategies in the past. But I think people have to start I’ve seen people like start to understand this is the way to eat [00:28:00] and, you know, be, because they’ve been doing that for a while and they, I think their stomach almost shrinks to kind of be in this new way of eating. And so maybe they build some new habits. So, but I think you’re right. It’s very possible that if you, people need to main stay on a main, on a certain dose. Like they can’t just come off it because it works centrally too. It doesn’t just work on the GI systems, work on the brain, right? And a lot of these things like we have sugar addictions where it seems to have an effect on addictive behaviors smoking, alcohol use, gambling. All of these things seem to have the GMPs have an effect on that as well.
Dr. Weitz: You think that’s working through the brain rather than the gut?
Dr. Goel: No, both ways. I mean, for sure it does work on slowing down the gut system. So people have, you know, constipation, they can reflux. All this is because of slower transit time.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Goel: But it’s also, there’s also a central mechanism for glp, it’s working on the brain. We don’t really clearly understand it, but it’s working on dopamine. Right. And the benefits we [00:29:00] get from,
Dr. Weitz: well, because of the gut brain connection, we’d assume anything that’s gonna have a significant effect on the gut is gonna have an effect on the brain anyway.
Dr. Goel: They’re connected. They’re so connected. Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Goel: So one thing in some ways,
Dr. Weitz: right? So what are some of the other strategies to promote longevity besides peptides?
Dr. Goel: You know, I’m, i’m, I, you know, I do offer a treatment called Plasmapheresis in the office.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. Yeah, I’ve heard about that.
Dr. Goel: Super excited.
It’s
Dr. Weitz: I see, listen to David Haase talk about that. Yeah.
Dr. Goel: Yeah. He’s actually the one who taught me.
Dr. Weitz: Oh,
Dr. Goel: okay. I was. Stricken by Lyme disease or something about four or five years ago.
Dr. Weitz: Okay. To
Dr. Goel: go see him in Nashville had two plasmapheresis done, made a huge impact. So, really got me interested in this treatment. And just for your listeners out there who are not familiar, but it’s like an oil change. You wanna consider removing half your plasma and replacing with saline albumin the new plasma that your body forms basically is that of a young person’s [00:30:00] plasma,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. Goel: So it has a temporary rejuvenating effect and we’ve seen, you know, a lot of. We’ve seen a lot of studies look showing that, I mean, definitely in animals. And there was a famous trial of Alzheimer’s patients where they did this every month on Alzheimer’s patients and they showed that reversal of mild Alzheimer’s and stabilization of moderate Alzheimer’s over a year, which is pretty impressive.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Goel: So, you see a number of doctors now offering this type of treatment and you know, I’m pretty excited about that. That, that one of the few things that can actually reverse aging, I think.
Dr. Weitz: Right?
Dr. Goel: Yeah.
Dr. Weitz: How about some of the other IV treatments?
Dr. Goel: You know, we do offer all the full gamut of IV treatments here at the clinic, but you know, exosomes and stem cells regeneration, right?
Like that seem, you know, potentially could have some benefits. Again, we don’t have full studies, but they, these things are powerful. We have used. I mean, we see the impact of exosomes, let’s say if somebody injects them into their scalp for their hair, like we’ve seen for sure, we have [00:31:00] seen improvements there.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Goel: So we know it’s doing something. What
Dr. Weitz: about systemically when people
Dr. Goel: inject? Yeah. I don’t think we, I mean, I don’t have enough data to tell you that it’s having impact.
Dr. Weitz: Okay.
Dr. Goel: Exactly. It has an impact. And yes, I would do it all myself. You know that. I think that’s for someone who’s, biohacker type. I think it, you know, and has the financial means. I think it’s definitely worth doing, going down that road. But we don’t have good enough studies on this. And you need to, people need to pick a good product, you know, company that’s supplying the right product, make sure it’s tested and all this because these things sit in a gray zone.
They’re not yeah.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah. And there’s a lot of controversy. What is the best product and you know, why have some of the results been disappointing? How do we make a battery? Do we have to have a larger, like do we have to grow the do we have to grow the stem cells till there’s a larger number or.
Dr. Goel: Yeah. And then, you know, it depends on which stem cells did you pick? Like what type of stem cells were they?
Dr. Weitz: Right, right. Are they coming from a newborn? Are [00:32:00] they coming from your own bone marrow or your fat cells or where else?
Dr. Goel: Yeah. That, you know, that’s a good point. Are they expressing the right growth factors?
We don’t exact, you know, we don’t know each company’s sales will do something slightly different.
Dr. Weitz: Right.
Dr. Goel: Depend on, you know, what their been where they came from.
Dr. Weitz: Right. And the third thing you like to emphasize in your practice is biological rhythm, which I’m assuming you mean like the circadian rhythm and
Dr. Goel: Yeah. I think teaching people to be aware of their rhythms, I think we don’t live in that type of society that’s so concerned and it’s not become part of awareness, but understanding the impact of light. On our body, the light rhythm, you know, 24 hour rhythm. Understanding that there’s seasonal rhythms to our body as well. You know, here we have a very bad winter in Toronto. It changes what you should be potentially eating what your activities should be like. You know, we obviously have mood changes that happen, so we know that the body does. Change in response to the external [00:33:00] environment and our internal environment. So just like we were talking about fasting, making sure we’re trying to be in tune with our system. I think it’s very important because as soon as the body’s outta system out of alignment is increased stress, which is chronic stress, which we know is linked to all types of diseases, right? People are working, shift workers die earlier from heart disease, have increased rates of cancer. People are jet setting here and there. Or putting their in circadian rhythms in, in disarray,
Dr. Weitz: staying up all night tweeting and then falling asleep in your meetings.
Dr. Goel: Yeah. We have a commander in chief doing this.
We can
Dr. Weitz: only
Dr. Goel: help that example. So I can’t just, I can imagine what his health must be like. Is it because, you know,
Dr. Weitz: so, what are a couple of keys for respecting our circadian rhythm? What are some of the things that we need to focus on?
Dr. Goel: Yeah, like I mentioned with the light exposure, like right, so, you know, making sure we get bright sunlight in the morning, putting on blue light [00:34:00] blockers in the evening. That’s, I think, very important. People try it. Stay away
Dr. Weitz: from screens
Dr. Goel: and yeah, from screens. Like if people might think this is nonsense, but if you just try it, you’ll be surprised how effective it is. And so again, just like slowing things down in the evening, you know, if you wanna get ready for sleep. ’cause sleep is critical. Yes. And if you need to, you need, it doesn’t sleep. This doesn’t just begin at 11:00 PM your body has to prepare for it hormonally, and your mind has to be prepared so that when you get into the bed, you just fall asleep in a second and stay asleep for the next seven hours.
Dr. Weitz: Right?
Dr. Goel: So it’s, it requires, you know, some coordination of your whole body system. So, light would be there. The next thing I would say would be food. And activity and trying to just align them to make sure that, because again, each one of your cells, especially GI tract, has their own clock. So if you start eating and the clock begins as if it’s morning for that organ pancreas, stomach, you know, intestines, all of that. So, and then like I was mentioning, even testosterone for example, let’s talk about that as also daily rhythm as well.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Goel: And you know, peaks in the morning, cortisol peaks in the morning to get you outta bed, then starts to go down,
Dr. Weitz: right?
Dr. Goel: And growth hormone peaks, you know, in the nighttime to help you with restorative repair. And if you eat right before bedtime, you actually suppress your growth hormone. So the body’s built for this that, you know, we don’t eat in the nighttime. Growth hormone gets released, growth hormone leads to a deeper sleep. It causes kind of a repair for the night. And yeah, I think these are the type of simple things that one could be doing for for alignment.
Dr. Weitz: Right, and having a certain amount of growth hormone, as we mentioned, is important because we have to make sure that we maintain our muscle as we get older because falling is such a threat to survival, especially as you get older. And we gotta make sure we [00:36:00] maintain our bone strength as well as our muscle strength.
Dr. Goel: I agree. I agree. Like the number one reason someone’s gonna pass away is from falling down, breaking their hip and dying from a complication hospital.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah.
Dr. Goel: Like that. That is how we see it. That’s how our grandparents, whatever, like they passed away. So I think those are the things we need to focus on. And I guess being, building lean body mass is one of those ways you could prevent yourself from falling and as soon as you become bedridden within two weeks, you lose, I know what they say, 25%, 30% of your muscle mass.
Dr. Weitz: Yeah, it’s incredible.
Dr. Goel: So it is basically the death sentence. If you have a fracture at an elderly age, very difficult to recover.
Dr. Weitz: Yep. Alright, great. So, I think we’re going to wrap right here. Been nice talking with you. How can patients who are watching this find out about getting in touch with you?
Dr. Goel: Sure. They can reach my Instagram. Okay, Dr. Sanjeev Goel they can reach my [00:37:00] website, sanjeevgoel.com. And name of our entity, like our clinic is called Peak Human or at peakhuman.ca. So those are all the different ways,
Dr. Weitz: right? I think you have a podcast as well.
Dr. Goel: Podcast called Peak Human Labs Podcast. We interview other, you know, people who live a peak human life and give us, you know, some tips and tricks for the how to do that.
Dr. Weitz: That’s great. Thank you so much, Dr. Goel.
Dr. Goel: Thank you so much.
Appreciate it.
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Dr. Weitz: Thank you for making it all the way through this episode of the Rational Wellness Podcast. For those of you who enjoy listening to the Rational Wellness Podcast, I would very much appreciate it if you could go to Apple Podcast or Spotify and give us a five star ratings and review. As you may know. I continue to accept a limited number of new patients per month for functional medicine. If you would like help overcoming a gut or other chronic health condition and want to prevent chronic problems and want to promote longevity. Please call my Santa Monica Weitz Sports Chiropractic and Nutrition office at 310-395-3111 and we can set you up for a consultation for functional medicine and I will talk to everybody next week.