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[00:00:28] Speaker B: 1280 the Patriot is WWTC Minneapolis St. Paul FM. One hundred seven point five k two hundred ninety eight co Minneapolis intelligent radio with SRN News, I'm Bob Agnew in Washington. Florida residents prepare are trying to repair the damage caused by Hurricane Milton and cleaning up debris. Governor Ron DeSantis warning that even the cleanup phase can be dangerous and even deadly in some cases. We're now in the period where you have fatalities that are preventable. We have had fatalities because of interaction with downed power lines and water.
We are seeing hazards that are still there. And Florida residents returning to their Gulf coast homes after evacuating those same areas for Hurricane Milton. Former President Donald Trump says all the lawsuits against him amount to what he calls pure election interference.
[00:01:21] Speaker C: The public really gets it. My question was, will they get it? And the public gets it. And the Supreme Court got it, too. Thank goodness.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: The former president interviewed this week by the Salem radio network. And this is SrN News.
[00:01:38] Speaker D: This week.
[00:01:38] Speaker B: In the town hall review with Hugh Hewitt from Hurricane Helene. And now, Milton. Americans are hurting businesses, just completely obliterated. We're still not sure of the death toll FEMA claims it's broke. How many millions, if not billions of dollars has the Biden administration siphoned out of FEMA? We've got all this and more.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: Tune into the town hall review Saturdays at 09:00 a.m. and 07:00 p.m. and Sundays at 05:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. on am 1280 the Patriot this Christmas.
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This radio station is always on, but sometimes you need more content that you can take with you anywhere. That's why we invented the salempodcastnetwork.com. you'll find all the great hosts on this radio station, plus a few more like Charlie Kirk, Dinesh D'Souza, Trish Regan, Jenna Ellis and Dennis and Julie. There is literally no end to what they can teach you. It's like radio on demand. And just like radio, it's all always on. Find out what you're missing. Download the app salempodcastnetwork.com dot. The following program was pre recorded and the views expressed do not necessarily represent those of this station or its management. This is open your eyes radio with Doctor Kerry Gelb.
[00:05:48] Speaker D: Good morning. I'm Doctor Kerry Gelb, and welcome to Wellness 1280 on open urge radio. Please listen as I discuss the newest information in the world of health, nutrition and sports every Saturday morning at 06:00 a.m. central time on am 1280. The Patriot also, please share your thoughts by emailing
[email protected] and visit my new website, wellness 1280 dot, where we have all guest links. Wellness 1280 info and previous shows Wellness is taking over the Patriot Airways for the next hour, sit back, grab a cup of green tea and enjoy part two of my interview with doctor Robert Lufkin. So last time I mentioned that we were going to talk about coronary artery calcium score and who would be better to talk to that than a radiologist? So tell me about that.
[00:06:36] Speaker C: Yeah, this is an interesting test that people can have done for look at the, literally, as the name says, the calcium that's in the coronary arteries, which are the arteries that supply the heart. And it's done with a ct scan. And those arteries are the arteries that get clogged up when people have a heart attack. And the calcium that the scan shows in the arteries is a marker for disease. And the way it's done is a simple test takes about 15 minutes of relatively small amount of radiation through the chest. And then we measure the amount of calcium in those arteries. And you get a score based on that from zero up into the thousands. Even a zero score means no calcium, and that's a good sign. And then each bit of disease will have calcium, at least the majority of them, all the way up to very high. And this calcium score has been correlated with risk of heart attack and as a reliable marker for heart disease. In fact, NASA, the space program, uses it on their astronauts when they're qualifying them to go into space and other things like that. The disturbing thing about the calcium score is despite how powerful it is and how much benefit it has in most states, in the United States, it's not covered by insurance, so you have to pay out of pocket. But fortunately, it's relatively inexpensive. It can be $100 or $200 and you don't need your doctor permission to get it. You can just call up an imaging center and say, hey, I want to get a coronary calcium score and get this scan. And the interesting thing about it, it gives you an idea of what your risk is for coronary artery disease. And there's actually the amount of calcium in the general population increases with age. So you can see how you're doing relative to another 50 year old or another 70 year old or another 90 year old relative to that, whether you're above or below below the score. But there's one other interesting benefit for calcium scores. We touched on statins in the last episode, and these are, of course, the ubiquitous drugs that are given to people at risk for heart disease to lower their ldl cholesterol. Well, scientific societies, including the American College of Cardiology, now recognize that a zero calcium score is enough that patients can go off statins if they have no other risk factors for it. So if you're considering going off statins, but your doctor is giving you pushback, talk to them about a calcium score and see if that will help with the decision.
[00:09:18] Speaker D: Evan with the calcium score, what percentage? I've seen that about 20% of the score is actual calcium. So the other 80%, does that mean it's soft plaque? Doctor Justin?
[00:09:30] Speaker C: Well, yeah, that's a good point. Soft plaque plaque is the narrowing of the blood vessels. And there's an entity called soft plaque which doesn't calcify or hasn't yet calcified. So people think, well, I have a zero calcium score, I'm off the hook. Not necessarily. You may have soft plaque, and it's still an area of debate what the risk is for this soft plaque, but the calcium score will not show the soft plaque. And what test can you do for that? The coronary CT angiogram, which involves more radiation and the injection of a dye, a contrast agent in development vessels, can show that. We touched on that on the last episode, but that will show the narrowing from the soft plaque. But there's still a lot of controversy and debate on the value, the added value of the extra radiation, the extra scan from this more involved CTA to show the soft plaque. For a lot of us, just getting a coronary calcium score, the basic one, showing the calcium may be enough.
[00:10:37] Speaker D: And do you think that a calcium score is a better indicator of risk for heart disease than cholesterol?
[00:10:45] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, I think cholesterol, as we touched on before, is a risk factor for heart disease if we look at hazard ratios. But it's a very small risk factor. There are other things that are much more important, like triglyceride level, or how high your hdl is, or your type two diabetes risk, your pre insulin or if you're a smoker. All these things are much more significant than ldl cholesterol and coronary calcium score the same way. As we talked about before, half the people coming in for heart attacks, or actually, most people coming in for heart attacks, more than half have a normal ldl cholesterol.
[00:11:28] Speaker D: If someone has their triglycerides are high, their hdl is low, their hemoglobin a one c, is a little bit high, you know, within the pre diabetic 5.7, the 6.4. But they come in and that calcium score is zero. At that point, would you say that's more important? Your risk of a heart attack is almost zero, although you still could get a heart attack. But if you change your diet and you start doing the things, the things that we've talked about in the previous episode, you'll be in pretty good shape.
[00:11:59] Speaker C: Yeah. The problem is, and the things you mentioned, that triglycerides, the hdl cholesterol, the glucose metabolism, the prediabetes, those are all markers for metabolic disease. And metabolic disease, as I talk about in the book, and this is a wake up call for me, I wasn't aware of it. It is, in my opinion, underlying all the chronic diseases we're facing today as a root cause, all the way from obesity, diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's disease, and even mental illness. So just because you have a zero calcium score, if you're metabolically ill, then you may be at less of a risk for a heart attack. But that metabolic disturbance that you have can manifest as Alzheimer's disease or can manifest as cancer, or increasing insulin resistance, increasing inflammation, or it may eventually push you over on the cardiovascular risk, because it's a continuum, you know, as we grow older, everything waxes and wanes, and we need to keep an eye on everything.
[00:12:59] Speaker D: I think that's a good point, because one of the problems in the medical system is we're all siloed. The cardiologist doesn't talk to the neurologist and neurologists doesn't talk to the optometrist, and the optometrist doesn't talk to the internist, and we're all silent because we're so busy. But we really need a generalist to put it all together.
[00:13:16] Speaker C: Yeah, totally. And family medicine, people, primary care, internal medicine, to some extent, have that generality and that can help people say, radiology, what are you doing in metabolic health and longevity? Well, one thing the radiologist does is the radiologist looks at the coronary calcium score. They look at the brain of the patient with Alzheimer's disease. They look at the cancer all over the body. They look at the effects of diabetes. So radiology, in a sense, is one of those bridging specialties that we see many things, but that you're spot on with that Silo, that problem, the specialization is so important for detailed information, but it limits us when we're dealing with chronic diseases that are driven by an underlying metabolic problem, like with, like we're talking about, because you can easily miss it.
[00:14:06] Speaker D: My understanding is that if the calcium score is bad, they'll give you a statin. But my understanding also is that the calcium score still increases with a statin and aspirin and will increase 25% a year. And that the only, one of the things that may work is getting your vitamin D level between 50 and 70. And I don't know if you have any experience in that. Have you researched that at all? But you know of a way to reverse and the calcium score, if yours is poor, to make it better or at least stop it?
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yeah. The conventional wisdom is that the calcium score is the calcified plaque, as we talked about, sort of the scar in the vessel, and it typically doesn't reverse. And arguably, the goal may not be to reverse the calcium score, but the goal is that not to have it progress, because typically, as you mentioned, with heart disease, we're going to see a progression of 20% to 30% per year. So if you can get the progression down to 10%, that's a win. But it points out the problem of tests like calcium scores or even ldl cholesterol is that they, they're not tightly tied to the disease. There's some new tests come out like endothelial reactivity because the endothelium and endothelial glycocalyx are at the root of vascular diseases all the way from hypertension to, you know, in some sense, macular degeneration and Alzheimer's disease. And there's, there's new tests that's now approved with insurance where it has a little thermistor on each finger and it measures how well your endothelium reacts to a blood pressure cuff.
[00:15:39] Speaker D: This is Doctor Kerry Gell for open your eyes. Radio my guest, doctor Robert Lufkin. We'll be back after the break.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nearsighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps its getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones or maybe because kids now spend less time outside my genetics probably arent helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It has proven and to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
[email protected] dot if your approach to.
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[00:17:45] Speaker A: Went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming near sighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones, or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot, being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It is proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
[email protected] dot we're back.
[00:18:47] Speaker D: This is Doctor Kerry Gelb. You're listening to wellness pro radio on open your eyes radio on AM 1280, the Patriot. I'm speaking with doctor Robert Lufkin. Lies I taught in medical school. Well, I know doctor Lufkin is not going to be lying to anybody. He's a great guy and all he cares about is helping people. He has a great book. Check out his book. And he, and on his website, you could go to his website, which is robertlofkinmd.com and he has a chapter that you could read about the book. If you like it, then you can pick up the book. Otherwise, just get it anyway. It's a great book. So we would, let's talk about another lie. Let's talk about the obesity lie. We talked a little bit about in the first segment, the first last week about it. Because if you look on the beach back in the seventies compared to people now, people are so heavy, it's crazy. Talk to me about obesity and why we're so heavy.
[00:19:43] Speaker C: Yeah, great question. I think part of it hinges on our understanding of what causes obesity. As we talked about last week, the recommendation still to this day, if people have a weight problem, they're told to exercise more and eat less. So if we look at that, first of all, we all know from experience that exercise is not a great way to lose weight. I mean, there are many, many health benefits of exercise, but weight loss is not one of them for the simple reason that exercising works up an appetite and will cause you to eat more. The other one is eating less. And that assumes that a calorie is just a calorie. All calories are equal. It doesn't matter what you eat. Well, we all know that's really not true.
The reason is it's based on the metabolism of the three fruit groups. Your audience, I'm sure, knows the essential ones, fat and protein, and then the non essential ones, carbohydrates. The carbohydrates trigger a hormone called insulin which causes fat to be stored. So if I eat foods that contain a lot of carbohydrates, I will store fat and gain weight. If I eat foods that contain a lot of protein and fats, ill gain less weight because they wont be stored as fat as much in a simple way. And we all know that from experience. If I eat two potato chips, which are largely carbohydrates, theyll go to be stored as fat and ill wind up eating the rest of the package. Whereas if I eat two hard boiled eggs with, lets say, the same number of calories, I wont feel a compulsion to eat the rest of the package.
The energy wont go to weight, wont go to fat, and ill be satisfied.
[00:21:28] Speaker D: So you're not going to eat twelve eggs.
[00:21:32] Speaker C: Unless I was cool hand luke.
[00:21:35] Speaker D: So let's talk about another lie, the diabetes lie, which kind of goes with obesity and insulin. Insulin, tell us what insulin does to the body. People could have high insulin for 20 years before their blood sugar goes up. And insulin is just as damaging if it's high to the body as blood sugar. Tell us about that.
[00:21:56] Speaker C: Yeah, I mean, backing up just a little bit on all the chronic diseases I mentioned. They don't start when the doctor diagnoses it, when the doctor tells me I have diabetes or when the doctor says I have Alzheimer's disease or I have cancer. These diseases start typically years to decades before the doctor diagnoses them. And if we wait until things are messed up enough to, the doctor can see it. We've missed an opportunity for treatment. And that's why I'm advocating for these lifestyle changes, start them early on in life so we can do that. But the diabetes is a perfect example. The insulin is a powerful, powerful hormone, has many life saving factors, but it also tells us to store fat. It also stimulates growth when it's high. It has many untoward effects that drive the symptoms of diabetes, along with the high glucose things like you mentioned, retinal blindness, number one, cause of amputation, surgical amputations, number one cause of renal failure and dialysis, and many, many other diseases. All the other chronic diseases I mentioned, diabetes is a huge risk factor. Alzheimer's disease, type three diabetes.
[00:23:14] Speaker D: So do you think we could reverse diabetes with lifestyle?
[00:23:18] Speaker C: Absolutely. And it's not my opinion. I mean, and throughout the book, I give you my opinion, but it's my opinion based on interpretation of the articles. So my advice means nothing. It's rather what I can read in the articles, and I show a lot of, I show many peer reviewed articles in the book that I base my judgments on. And you can show the, you can show your doctor those the book, and they will list the references in there.
And I urge everyone to look at the original articles and make their own decisions.
[00:23:50] Speaker D: There's a problem with the organizations such as the American Diabetes association, the Cancer, the American Cancer Society, cardiology societies, because there's a lot of influence from industry.
And you've mentioned about the American Diabetes association and Davita. And can you explain that whole issue? What happens with these societies? And they need money. I mean, so these big corporations have a lot of money. So that's, it's like, you know, why did you rob the bank? Because that's where the money is. And it's the same thing. You know, these big corporations that make all the money they have to fund, they wind up funding these companies, like these organizations, the American Diabetes association, the American Medical association, the different American Cancer Society. So can you tell us some stories about that? And then I want to discuss that a little bit about the problem, because where else are they going to get the money, right?
[00:25:01] Speaker C: Right. I mean, we mentioned in the last episode about vegetable oils and how harmful seed oils are. Yet the American Heart association, which one would assume would be a reputable source for health information about heart disease, recommends vegetable oils as a heart healthy choice. Well, if you go back and look at the history, in the middle of the 20th century, the American Heart association received a multimillion dollar grant, which basically launched them from a company called Procter and Gamble. Procter and Gamble was a developer of Crisco oil, which was one of the original seed oils. And they have a very strong tie there. You mentioned the American Diabetic association. They have ads on their website for recipes that recommend patients take food with sugar in the diet, which I disagree with, because sugar is a carbohydrate, it spikes insulin. And their recommendation is just to cover the, quote, cover the sugar with insulin.
That doesn't work because the insulin reverses the acute effects of the sugar, but it doesn't reverse the chronic effects. But if you look on those ads, the sponsors for that particular ad is the Vita corporation, which is a renal dialysis company. So there are all these kind of financial ties and perverse incentives there. The thing about diabetes, and we talk about this in the book, is that type two diabetes, which is the major kind, is insulin resistance. And it's thought, it's taught to be a chronic progressive disease that doesn't reverse. And you just get sicker and sicker. You lose your toes, you go blind, you get a heart attack, you get all these things happen down the road. And taking insulin doesn't change that. Many of these chronic diseases still occur, even with great control. With insulin, what they don't say is there's another option for treatment, and that is with dietary control, where you remove carbohydrates. And for the majority of patients, not all, but the majority of patients can significantly reduce their medications or get off medications altogether. And when they do that for type two diabetes, it's no longer a chronic progressive disease.
Instead, it's under control and reversed. And this is the information that's not being made available to people.
[00:27:33] Speaker D: Talk about, I'm going to say Fred Astaire, Fred Stairtainous from Harvard Medical School that was recommending that people eat seed oils and control their cholesterol to prevent cardiovascular disease. And then it was found out later, I guess it was in 2016, that he was actually taking money from one of the sugar organizations.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And we talk about that in the book, a couple people from the Harvard nutrition department. And the problem is, it's not just Harvard, but I. But our nutritional departments are basically paid for by the food industry, just like the food pyramid is funded by the food industries there. So it influenced their decisions. Like, the medical industry is funded by pharmacology education, at least. So the problem was. Yeah, he took money in this and did not declare it at the time, which is a scientific conflict of interest. And the.
The money was to downplay the role of sugar in cardiovascular disease and upplay the role of fat. So that's the message. That ldl cholesterol, eating fats will kill you, but eating sugar won't, when I believe it's actually the opposite.
Healthy fats are good for you, and sugar will actually is more likely to give you a heart attack than a steak or a pad of butter.
[00:29:02] Speaker D: So what can these organizations do to raise money? Because they get the easy money from the big companies. They have the money. Where else can they get money? So that's where the problem lies.
[00:29:13] Speaker C: Yeah, that's a great question. I mean, some organizations have ethical boundaries. They don't take money from obvious conflicts of interest, and they can put up barriers like that, but that puts them in a major disadvantage because they receive much less money. It's not an easy. It's not an easy solution by any means. But you go to the American Dietetic association, which was funded or actually founded by a religious organization, or at least strong ties to a religious organization, which, nothing against religion, but that organization has a strong dietary agenda, which has influenced the teaching American Dietetic association. My mom would go to dietician conferences and they were sponsored by Coca Cola and McDonald's. And I this is the world we live in and what could go wrong, right?
[00:30:07] Speaker D: Yeah, what could go wrong? We're speaking with Doctor Robert lies. I taught in medical school. Fantastic book. I know doctor Lufkin isn't lying to anybody. He's out there trying to help people. This is Doctor Kerry Gelb. You're listening to wellness 1280 on open your eyes. Radio on AM 1280, the patriots. And we'll be back with more information right after this short break.
[00:30:36] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nurse sighted. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones. Or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably arent helping her a whole lot being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It has proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn
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[00:32:39] Speaker A: I went to the eye doctor the other day with my daughter Maggie. I was shocked when the doctor told me that my daughter was already becoming nurse eyed. It turns out that this problem affects more than 40% of Americans. My eye doctor thinks this disease is getting worse. Perhaps it's getting worse because of kids prolonged time spent playing with smartphones, or maybe because kids now spend less time outside. My genetics probably aren't helping her a whole lot, being nearsighted myself. But the good news is that the doctor told me about a new FDA approved product called Mysite. This specific one day contact lens is already worn by thousands of children in the US. It has proven to slow down the progression of nearsightedness. And best of all, Maggie loves these contact lenses. The doctor taught her how to use them. Now it is so exciting to see her have even more success in the classroom and when she plays sports. I recommend you visit openyoureyesradio.com to find an eye doctor that specializes in this treatment program. Learn more at open your eyes radio.
[00:33:40] Speaker D: We'Re back. We're speaking with doctor Robert Lufkin, MD, lies I taught in medical school. He's been very generous with his time, and he's helping us to get healthier, feel better, and talk and talk to us about some of the things we learned in medical school or optometry school that are no longer true. So let's talk about anti aging medicine for a little bit. But I mean, that's something that I'm very interested in. And tell me about mtor. I know most of my audience doesn't know anything about mtor. What is it? And if we block mtor, can we live longer?
[00:34:18] Speaker C: Yeah, great, great question.
The book, it's second to the last chapter. Its penultimate chapter is about longevity. And I didn't start out writing a longevity book, but I realized if you decrease the risk of all these chronic diseases, is we're going to improve our lifespan. And mtor is, is an amazing molecule. It wasn't discovered until the end of the 20th century. It's arguably the single most important signaling protein that we have. It's conserved over biology in billions of years, all the way from yeast to human beings, essentially unchanged. And it's a signal switch that signals the presence of nutrients in the environment and nutrients are present, tells the cell to grow, turns on inflammation, and this can be a healthy thing. When nutrients aren't present, it tells the cell to stop growing, otherwise it'll die and then turn on healthy things like autophagy. So mtor is a switch that goes back and forth in a normal situation, it should be in both states throughout our lives. And that's a healthy thing. What we're finding with aging and with chronic diseases, mTOR is turned chronically onto this on state where we're bombarded by new nutrients all the time, growth mode is turned on all the time. And in the book I make evident, I show evidence why mTOR overactivation is at the root cause of metabolic disease and drives everything from type two diabetes, to cancer, to Alzheimer's disease, to cardiovascular disease, to mental health. And interestingly, there's a molecule that turns mtor off called rapamycin. And not only does it work on almost all those chronic diseases in the animal model, and in some cases in humans, for which it's FDA approved. Now, when it's given to animals in a longevity experiment, it's the single most powerful longevity drug that's ever been discovered, that works in every single animal model. It's been tested on all the way from yeast to mammal, and it results in a ten to 20% increase in lifespan. And now it's FDA approved for humans. It's used by millions of people for other indications, but now there's a growing population of people that are taking rapamycin as a longevity or life extension drug off label.
[00:36:45] Speaker D: So rapamycin has been a graft rejection medication. So talk about the difference in the dosage for graft rejection grows for somebody who's taking it for longevity.
[00:36:56] Speaker C: Yeah, graft rejection, the mechanism, it suppresses the immune system and it's there. It's a daily dose. It's arguably one of the most powerful, one of our frontline drugs for renal transplants or other transplant rejection drugs, and it's very, very powerful for that. It's FDA approved for transplant rejection. It was the first FDA indication.
When you tell your doctor, I want to start taking rapamycin, they will run screaming from the room, because why would you want to do that? Because they conceive of it as an immunosuppressant. Well, what's been found is that on weekly doses and in humans, Joan Manik has shown this, that it actually improves immune function in elderly people as tested by a viral challenge, by a vaccine or other tests. And when you take this weekly dose, a single dose, once a week, you get the benefits of turning mtor down without the immune system effects of a daily dose, like in renal transplant.
[00:37:54] Speaker D: And what would the weekly dose be? About six, five, six milligrams? Is that about right?
[00:37:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And nobody really knows because it's difficult to measure mTor directly. And, you know, the longevity effects are in humans, are difficult to tell. But the dosage is based on some human experiments. Again, back to Joan Manic and others. And it's typically the most popular dose is about six to eight milligrams once a week.
[00:38:19] Speaker D: Now, mtor build is builds, you know, builds protein. It's protein synthesis. And the brain, for the brain cells, muscle cells, other cells, is if you're taking a small dose like six milligrams a week, do you have to worry about that? It's going to affect the brain cells or the muscle cells for sarcopenia.
[00:38:40] Speaker C: So that's great question because it's typically older people that take rapamycin. And these health, these longevity benefits in mice, interestingly, occur even when you give it to the mice, the equivalent of 60 years of age, you start them, they actually still get the health benefits of the rapamycin. But, yeah, the side effects, rapamycin has a great safety profile, and there don't appear to be significant side effects at this dosage.
Certainly anything to do with the brain or sarcopenia. In fact, there's even an argument that the turning down mTOR is beneficial for muscle growth because you have autophagy and you clear out the old, damaged cells.
But the sarcopenia question has been looked at, at least so far. Taking rapamycin doesn't increase sarcopenia, which is a big deal in older patients.
[00:39:38] Speaker D: For mtor, what are some of the good things to turn on mtor? If you want to build muscle and you're growing, a growing kid, somebody who's growing and you want mtor to increase, will intensive exercise or oxygen or leucine rich proteins, will that help?
[00:40:02] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And all those things for growing, you hit on it a growing organism in youth, when your bones are growing, your brain is maturing in adolescence, all those things, oxygen, insulin, growth factors, growth hormone, they all stimulate mtoR. But once you reach about 25 years of age or 30 years of age, things reverse. And the growth stimulation you get from mtor being turned on, actually, I believe, and many people believe have negative consequences. And it begins to drive the chronic diseases of aging, the hyper function diseases.
[00:40:39] Speaker D: And we talked about caloric restriction before. I don't know if it was this segment or last one, but things that could turn off, natural things that could turn off mTor, like caloric restriction, maybe plant proteins. Can you talk about some of the natural things that turn down mTor?
[00:40:58] Speaker C: Yeah. And caloric restriction, not surprisingly, is the single most powerful lifespan extension in animal models, even more than, even more than mTOR. But the problem is, is the animal has to be, it's uncomfortable to be caloric, restricted for a long period of time. But if you think about it, turning down mTor, turning down nutrients, you're simulating caloric restriction. And that's the things you mentioned. Oxygen, glucose, insulin, growth factor, and then certain leucine type amino acids, certain branched chain amino acids will also stimulate mTOr. So you can get some of the effects of mtor turning down, it's believed, with intermittent fasting, with shorter periods. Some people believe going into ketosis can affect it, although others argue ketosis isn't the same as turning mtor down. And you actually have to go to true fasting to do it. But a metabolically healthy diet and healthy lifestyle that I talk about in the book will turn mtor down, I believe, and I take rapamycin, but I would never take rapamycin or recommend anyone taking rapamycin and with the hope of improving their health without getting their lifestyle things in order first, because there are benefits that we don't even understand about lifestyle that are going to probably outweigh the effects of rapamycin.
[00:42:23] Speaker D: Thanks for sharing that. You do take it. Tell us about how you feel since you started taking it. Do you feel any difference? Do you see any difference?
[00:42:33] Speaker C: Great question. I feel great.
I didn't feel any difference when I started it. But full disclosure, I was doing a lot of things. I was doing intermittent fasting, and I still do that. I changed my diet. I exercise more. So there were so many moving points. It wasn't a controlled experiment, even of n of one. But some people notice Alan Green as a physician in New York who has probably the largest experience. He was in his seventies, and he noticed his heart function was going down. He was just getting tired. He was an old man. And he realized from the studies that one of the things that rapamycin does, and this has been shown in animal models now, it increases cardiac ejection fraction and literally gives people more energy. That was his motivation for taking rapamycin. And he noticed it almost immediately. He had more energy. And I don't want to misquote him on it. He, you know, he's talked about it a lot on, on our podcast and elsewhere.
[00:43:37] Speaker D: Have you noticed any increase in energy from it yourself or you really can't.
[00:43:41] Speaker C: Say, well, I have a lot of increase. I have a lot of increased energy. But part of that may be from the intermittent fasting. You know, being in ketosis sharpens your mind because you're in hunter mode. You know, your, your vision gets better, your hearing gets better, your brain gets sharper because those are the animals that survived. When you're in ketosis and hungry, you're going to be sharp. And those who didn't have sharp, all those things may not pass on the gene. So ketosis itself has benefits. But to answer your question, I haven't noticed anything particular about the rapamycin.
[00:44:17] Speaker D: One of the things that are interesting is that insulin and glucose increase mtor. And we talked about the dangers of insulin and glucose. If your insulin is high, your insulin resistance, and you're going to turn up mtor, and that may make you fatigued, I would assume.
[00:44:32] Speaker C: Yeah. And the mtor, turning up mtor with the inflammation, it's going to turn up inflammation. It's also going to drive all those chronic diseases. So having your glucose elevated, it's going to turn on mtor, and that's going to be a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, cancer, all the things. So they're all related. At this root fundamental level, it all seems to make sense, although it's extremely complex. A friend of mine said, hey, understanding metabolism is not rocket science. It's much more complex.
[00:45:04] Speaker D: We're speaking with doctor Robert Lufkin. Doctor Lufkin lies. I taught in medical school. Fantastic book. You're listening to wellness 1280 on open your eyes, radio on am 1280, the patriot. And go to his website, robertlufkin.
And he also has all the social media, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, you can find out all about him. And if you go to his, if you go to his website, you can read his free chapter. We'll be right back.
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[00:48:41] Speaker D: Doctor Robert Lufkin, this is Doctor Kerry Gel for open your eyes radio. He's teaching us so much learning, so much myself to make myself. Doctor Lufkin, a lot of people like to cheat a little bit when they eat. They may want to a piece of a cookie or a cake. And I understand you could sprinkle something on. You could use an assault shaker so you don't absorb the sugar. Tell us about that medication.
[00:49:07] Speaker C: Doctor JustIn yeah, there's a, there's a diabetes medicine, FDA approved called acarbose, that, it's interesting. The way it works is it blocks the gut absorption of carbohydrates, so slows the absorption of carbohydrates. And people are starting to use this off label, too, for longevity. Well, why would they do that, other than we know that eating carbohydrates triggers all this metabolic dysfunction and can lead to chronic diseases. But there's an interesting study that you may have talked about with your audience, the interventions testing program before, where a bunch of mice that's run by the federal government are divided in two, and then they're given one intervention, a drug, and then the other group is allowed to live, and they only live three years. They're mice. And so when they get rapamycin, this study showed that the ones on Rapamycin live, you know, 1020 percent longer than the ones without rapamycin. Now, if you give acarbose the same study, there's a little bit of benefit from acarbose, a smaller percentage effect. So acarbose has an effect on longevity. But the fascinating thing is when you combine rapamycin plus a carbose, there's an additive effect that's greater than either one individually. And this sort of surprise outcome is one of the reasons that I wouldn't trust taking any single drug without doing the lifestyle changes, because it just shows there's so much complexity going on with all these different factors and interactions with, with mTOr and amp kinase and sirtuins, all these signaling molecules that we shouldn't be so arrogant to think we've got it figured out that rapamycin is the way to go. Lifestyle has worked for hundreds of thousands of years. Let's start with that, and then we can add on our biohacking drugs later.
[00:51:01] Speaker D: You mentioned it before, autophagy, and I didn't ask you to explain that. If you can explain that. And what's our best strategy for clearing out these senescent cells?
[00:51:11] Speaker C: Yes. Senescent cells are old cells that have reached the end of their effective life, and they can have.
What's wrong with that? Well, they may not die and they're called zombie cells. And some of them can make SAsp inflammatory products that we've heard about from the viral epidemic we had a few years ago. These inflammatory cytokines and other things can happen from these senescent cells.
Autophagy is autophagy. It's just self eating. It's when the body begins to break down these cells and specifically goes to the zombie cells, it can identify the old ones, the damaged ones, and clearing that out, it keeps them from releasing the inflammatory products, but also makes room for new cells. There are certain drugs that are specifically senolytic dosatinib as a prescription one. And then there's physetin, quercetin, that are supplements over the counter. But the interesting thing is a metabolically healthy diet was switching mTOR into this favorable location specifically activates autophagy. And autophagy was the subject of a Nobel prize a few years ago, in this century, relatively recently.
[00:52:37] Speaker D: And do you take any supplement for autophagy ficitin like you mentioned, or do you take a z Pac once a year or twice a year? Supposedly that has some autophagy also. Is there anything that you particularly take for yourself?
[00:52:53] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm reevaluating my nutrient supplement stack right now. I mean, I take vitamin D just, just because my vitamin D levels are a little low. But I'm actually in the process of kind of relooking at things. As far as, you know, senolytics, nad supplements, all these other things. And I don't have the answer yet, but I'm going to put it in my newsletter as soon as it comes out. So if you want to know, you can just check that out. It'll be coming out soon.
[00:53:23] Speaker D: I know some people are now taking the PD, Pde five inhibitors, the viagras or the Cialis Levitra. Very small doses for vasodilation help decrease in Alzheimer's longevity. Do you have an opinion on that? And you take it for longevity?
[00:53:45] Speaker C: I absolutely do. And it's fascinating. These drugs block, they enhance nitric oxide production, phosphodiesterase inhibitors, and it's typically for erectile dysfunction. I mean, that's the biggest application. But if you think about it working on the blood vessels, and it's all blood vessels of the body, why would we only worry about one organ in men when this will benefit all the blood vessels? So it's actually now being, being used as a lot of people's longevity stack. I take it on a daily basis for that. And there's some experiments now, similar project, not the ITP hasn't shown it, but similar longevity experiments with animals showing that taking this can actually improve longevity. So it's very exciting, the use of these.
[00:54:35] Speaker D: And which one do you take and how many milligrams?
[00:54:39] Speaker C: I'm taking tadattlefil, and it's five milligrams Q day.
This is not a, this is not a recommendation. This is educational purposes only. This is not medical advice.
[00:54:50] Speaker D: That's why I'm asking specific for you. We're not giving any medical advice here. You have to see.
But this is so, you know, I interviewed Kyle Gillette, who was a very bright young doctor, and he was telling me there's a two and a half dose now.
[00:55:06] Speaker C: There is?
Yeah. Over. And, you know, speaking about those, it's over the counter. No, not over the counter, but I'm sorry. Yeah, pharmaceutical. But speaking about nitric oxide, you know, there's a number of products from various companies that, that are supplements that can increase nitric oxide.
They're beet based products. Or there's one company, N 101 Nathan Bryan works with, that's very. In their tablets you can take dissolve under your tongue, and you can get significant nitric oxide effects with those as well without going to the root of a prescription.
[00:55:50] Speaker D: Tell me a little bit about environmental toxins. I mean, people, I think, ignore environmental toxins and detoxification, and that's a very important part of our health. I've done podcasts on that.
I spoke with doctor Joe Pisano, who's an expert on environmental toxins. Tell me where that fits into your book. And what do you think about that?
[00:56:13] Speaker C: It's huge, and it's an underappreciated area.
We can get our lifestyle completely in order with all the things. We can take all the rapamycin, a carbose we want. But if we have, you know, mold in the basement or mercury toxicity or lead toxicity or Lyme disease or, you know, maybe microplastics, they're certainly, you know, raising their, their head there. It may, for some people, it may be the, you know, the fabric that their clothes are made of. Instead of nylon, they're made with these other things, or maybe the teflon on their frying pans. I think it's something that is underappreciated, and it requires a lot of questioning and a longer questionnaire than many doctors can do in a routine visit. You just don't have time to ask all the questions about the environmental toxins. And that's an area where conventional medicine doesn't do very well, but it can have huge, huge consequences.
[00:57:18] Speaker D: I mean, that's something that people really have to investigate, people that go from doctor to doctor and they can't find an answer. Sometimes it's the environmental toxins that's bothering them.
[00:57:32] Speaker C: Go ahead.
[00:57:33] Speaker D: No, go ahead.
[00:57:34] Speaker C: No, I was just going to say Mark Hyman has a great, from the Institute of Functional Medicine. If you google multisystem questionnaire, MSQ questionnaire, they have an online thing that, it's a bunch of questions, general questions, because many of these toxins have weird symptoms like, oh, my headaches or my arm hurts or I have bowel disease. But anyway, it's a list of symptoms and depending on how many you pick, it may point towards an environmental type toxin. It may not narrow it down, but at least raise the alarm bells that you need to dive in further and you can download that online and score yourself with it.
[00:58:11] Speaker D: And in the last 30 seconds, if you could just give me a little bit about the lives of Alzheimer's.
[00:58:17] Speaker C: Wow.
That Alzheimer's is, it's basically incurable based on beta amyloid. I think there's a lot of evidence we talk about in the book that it's multifactorial and some things like a ketogenic diet in some patients may actually improve it so that there is hope for Alzheimer's patients. But we need to look at other causes other than just beta amyloid.
[00:58:41] Speaker D: I want to thank doctor Robert Lufkin for joining me today. He's unbelievable. Such a nice man. He wrote a, a great book that could help you run out and get his book. But Doctor Lufkin, you tell us, where can people find out more about you get your book and about your web presence.
[00:58:59] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Well, please visit me on my website is robertlufkin lufkinmd.com.
and if you want, you can download a free sample of the book, audiobook and a chapter of the book. And I'm also active bunch social media, so reach out to me there as well. I'd like to hear from you.
[00:59:19] Speaker D: This is Doctor Kerrygo. Thank you again to doctor Robert Lufkin. Everybody stay healthy out there. I'll see you next week.
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