Episode 79 - Biohacking Your Heart: The Essential Guide with Dr. Michael Twyman

In this insightful episode of the Maxed Out Man podcast, host Kevin Davis sits down with Dr. Michael Twyman, a preventive cardiologist specializing in biohacking and mitochondrial health. Dr. Twyman shares his journey from traditional invasive cardiology to a more proactive and preventative approach. He emphasizes the importance of early detection of cardiovascular issues, which can begin as early as childhood, and the role of advanced testing in identifying and mitigating risks before they become symptomatic.

The conversation dives deep into the critical role of mitochondria in maintaining heart and brain health, highlighting how optimizing light exposure and sleep can significantly impact overall well-being. Dr. Twyman explains the science behind blue light exposure, circadian rhythms, and their effects on cortisol and melatonin levels. He advocates for personalized medicine, tailoring treatment plans based on individual genetic profiles and advanced diagnostics rather than following generic guidelines.

Listeners will also learn about the vital pillars of health—sleep, stress management, nutrition, and exercise—and how these can help maintain optimal cardiovascular health throughout life. Dr. Twyman's practical advice on managing light exposure, optimizing sleep, and the benefits of proactive lifestyle choices offers a comprehensive guide for anyone looking to enhance their health and longevity.

Takeaways:

1. Preventative Cardiovascular Care: Cardiovascular disease often starts decades before symptoms appear. Early detection through advanced testing can prevent severe outcomes.
2. Mitochondrial Health: Mitochondria play a critical role in overall health, particularly for the brain and heart. Optimizing mitochondrial function through light exposure, sleep, and lifestyle changes is essential.
3. Circadian Rhythm and Light Exposure: Managing light exposure, particularly blue light, is crucial for regulating cortisol and melatonin levels, which directly impact sleep quality and overall health.
4. Personalized Medicine Over "One-Size-Fits-All": Dr. Twyman advocates for individualized treatment plans that consider genetic factors and advanced testing over standard guidelines.
5. Importance of Lifestyle: Diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management are foundational for long-term cardiovascular health. Prioritizing these pillars can significantly reduce the risk of chronic diseases.

To learn more about Maxed Out Man and to maximize your potential, visit www.maxedoutman.com or connect with us on Social Media:

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Transcript

0:00
you don't necessar want to wa that long and there's no guarantee you're going to survive the you know the heart ATT attack so you know I'm always about like
0:05
you're gonna have to invest at some point just figure out when do you want to do that welcome to maxed out man helping
0:14
you become the man you were made to be hey guys it's Kevin divis from the
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maxed out man podcast today I'm going to be here with Dr Michael tman before we get started I did want to mention we had
0:26
a few technical difficulties so bear with me for a couple of minutes if you're watching this video uh you will
0:31
see a thumbnail but then we'll get right into it as I do this intro separately in post as they say hey before I also get
0:39
started I did want to mention I have a couple spots open for coaching so if you'd like to work with me on pretty much anything we can talk about business
0:45
life marriage kids hot rods Jeeping whatever you want to talk about I am ready to do it I'd love to work with you
0:52
uh and also to help you with anything you need help with so go and uh shot me an email at KD MaxOut man.com
1:00
and just answer a couple of questions why you want to work with me and what you hope to get out of coaching super
1:05
easy that way I can see whether or not it's a good fit I'll send you an email back in an application we can go from there so let me get Dr Tan's uh bio and
1:13
we'll get going Michael tman MD is a heart attack prevention expert the founder of Apollo Cardiology and a board
1:19
certified cardiologist as a highly sought-after speaker and podcast guest mid Mike has been featured on multiple
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influential platforms such as Dr Gabriel lion show the mindbody green podcast
1:31
with Jason wack wack and the uninflame me documentary on Amazon having worked
1:38
with world-class athletes and high performing entrepreneurial influencers Dr twyman's mission is to educate his
1:44
patients on how to live better and longer by optimizing their mitochondrial function to become heart attack proof so
1:51
thanks for bearing with me on the technical issues let's get on with the episode give me an idea of kind of what you why you got into this um what you're
1:58
doing now and hopefully how we can change the industry as a whole and just kind of spell it out for us give us a little bit more background well thank
2:04
you for the opportunity today D to kind of share this message you know I consider myself a proactive preventive cardiologist that's probably the best
2:11
term I was a conventionally trained invasive cardiologist for many years took care of many many heart attacks in
2:16
the middle of the night and while it was rewarding to take care of patients when they're extremely sick I always kind of felt bad that some of them didn't make
2:22
it and I always thought like maybe there's a better way because if it was just about statens and beta blockers and aspirin we wouldn't be having these you
2:29
know midnight trips to the cath lab so put me down the rabbit hole you know first figuring out about vascular Health
2:35
through a functional medicine lens I know I probably dive into IND theal health and inflammation and such as we
2:40
go today but eventually got to the point where even just adding more supplements and lifestyle inventions weren't enough
2:46
to prevent the events so that's when I kind of discovered the kind of the biohacking world the quantm biology
2:51
world and that's the blue black and glasses and such and so then I really kind of pieced it together oh circadium
2:57
mology is extremely important if you don't optimize your light environment you're not going to optimize your vascular health and that's why there's a
3:02
huge mitochondria behind me and sometimes I go by mic online and such is that if your mitochondria don't work
3:07
well nothing's going to work well so I kind of got interested in doing this you know many years ago and eventually five
3:14
years ago decided this is what I just want to focus on I'm not going to do anything more in the hospital I'm just going to focus on helping patients kind
3:20
of really get to the root cause of their vascular concerns and the practice launched five years ago you know and we're doing very well at this point
3:27
that's awesome so explain to those of us that are not you know it's been a little while since my anatomy classes which I
3:33
actually did have explain what a mitochondria is kind of what its function is and um really what happens
3:41
in terms of disease or healthy mitochondria so the mitochondria or the organells in your cells that make energy
3:47
for you so they take in food stuffs carbohydrates and fats they break them down to protons and electrons and then
3:54
outside the mitochondria it's going to make water carbon dioxide ATP and Heat
3:59
you know ATP is one of the energy currencies but the water is also very important so without energy you're not
4:05
alive that's what a corpse is and the brain and the heart are the most energy-dense organs that have the most
4:11
mitochondria so that's probably why most chronic diseases start in one of those two organs and right now you know about
4:17
every 40 seconds somebody's having a heart attack in the United States so there's a lot of mitochondrial dysfunction and so when you understand
4:23
that it's the pillars of light water magnetism and if you get those pillars right you can support the mitochondria
4:29
you probably are really reducing some of these cardiovascular events wow yeah that's
4:35
um so explain like the blue blocker like go into I guess let's let's just walk
4:40
through kind of your methodology if you want to in terms of like how we Pro you know what we're doing for prevention
4:47
some of the biohacking stuff and all that because I you know it's it's really like this is kind of new territory for
4:52
me I mean I'm I I'm familiar with red light therapy blue blocking we do it
4:57
really as part of a sleep hygiene thing we do the when we do the um the blue blocking thing but um obviously you're
5:03
wearing it during the day um and so kind of walk me through some of those things so I kind of talk about four pillars of
5:11
Health exercise nutrition Stress Management and sleep and they're all important but if you only had to pick
5:16
one you got to sleep like a rock star because without sleep things are not going to go well that's when your mitochondri repair themselves so when
5:24
you you know crush it in the gym and put all the stress on your body if you don't sleep well you're not going to recover from that stress so the glasses that I'm
5:31
wearing for those that are watching it these are the daytime blue blocking glasses anytime I'm inside and I'm not
5:36
controlling the light environment I have these things on because I don't want the melanops and receptors in my eyes to be
5:42
sensing more blue light than they should be blue light is not necess good or bad blue light from sunlight is always there
5:49
to tell you what time of day it is to your body the color of the sky changes throughout the day so right now we're
5:54
recording it's around solar noon so that's 5,500 Kelvin so the body knows oh it's noon time but then when the sun
6:01
would set no more blue photons of light hit the back of the retina and the body gets a signal oh night time is starting
6:08
but our devices are set at the same color as solar noon so I don't want to keep pinging my brain all day long that
6:14
it's noon time so these glasses that I'm currently wearing block about 40% of the blue light and so I wear these anytime
6:19
I'm in front of technology that I don't control the uh the emission of the the light from it but you know the key time
6:26
is post sunset that's really when you don't want to be getting this artificial light in the back of the eyes so there's
6:32
different tents of these classes you know you can of go for like the super hard biohacker ones which are red those
6:37
will block 100% of blue 100% of green but those things are so potent that if I put those on I'll be asleep in half an
6:43
hour I rarely ever wear those things unless I'm traveling and trying to you know mitigate some jet lag but the key
6:49
time is you know post sunset but if you're in front of technology I still think it's worthwhile for most people to consider wearing these things and is
6:56
that the difference between so that as I understand it that's the difference between cortisol and melatonin right it's kind of like that that variation is
7:03
that and does that so doing it during the day does that affect those cortisol levels and melatonin levels or just a
7:10
receptor thing or how does that work no good point so you know it's kind of like a seesaw cortisol melatonin so when you
7:17
get up in the morning time ideally the first bright light that's getting into your eyes is going to be sunlight and
7:23
that blue light from the sun balanced with red light you know is very kind of telling to the body it's morning time
7:29
tells the super Cosmic nucleus the body's clock what time of day it is but blue light is going to start increasing
7:36
cortisol tells the body hey it's morning time get ready to hunt go gather do what you need to do for the day and melatonin
7:43
is being produced during this time but it's not going to be released until there's Darkness then when the sun sets
7:50
the body gets signal it's nighttime no more blue light so cortisol should start to drop and the Melatonin you were
7:55
producing during the day starts to get released but if you continue to look at backlift devices or you have your LED
8:01
lights on the body keeps getting ping with blue light so cortisol is going to be high and melon keep staying
8:06
suppressed so it's very hard to have optimal sleep when you're going to sleep with low levels of melatonin it's a
8:12
hormone it is not a supplement so if you're not sleeping well you have to look at your light environments first
8:18
and is that is that is there a time is there a time so we kind of follow this 321 kind of sleep thing which is you
8:25
know no major meals 3 hours beforehand um no major brain function two hours
8:31
beforeand and then no blue light an hour but is is there an optimal time frame there and I you know I think so many of
8:38
we started doing that at night and people like what that is so weird for you to do that but I think it's
8:45
something that people don't even recognize but if is there a time frame there that you really at minimum right
8:51
like at minimum this is the time frame no I like that that that is a guideline you know I usually recommend people
8:57
consider stop eating three to four hours before they planned bedtime you know those are also known as a zyber a Tim
9:04
Giver is that signal of food coming into your system so when your food comes in the system the body thinks it's daytime
9:10
so the liver and the gut are going to stay awake when there's food in and the body's going to wait about four hours before it shuts off the switch to say
9:16
like oh he's probably not gonna eat anymore and then starts processing the food you ate if you eat too close to bedtime it's gonna you know cause your
9:22
basic metabolic rate to be higher or should say your kind of kind of furnace your temperature is going to be higher
9:28
and you're going to have less quality sleep most likely so I like that idea of at least three hours before bed the
9:35
brain activity yeah I mean it's one thing to watch kind of you know entertainment TV but it's another thing
9:40
to watch like you know highly politicized you know social media and other things that that get you really
9:45
amped up that's you know going to cause problems with your sleep quality and then yes bare minimum I like people
9:52
really try to minimize your screens before bed if possible you know TV is less bad than you know a tablet right in
9:58
front of your face but if you're going to be using backl devices just make sure you're wearing your blue blocking glasses to kind of mitigate some of that
10:04
exposure Yeah we actually have we have the little clip on for because we're you know I'm 51 so time for the readers
10:10
right so I I clip them on and then we have a a special one for the TV you know that way we kind of switch back and
10:16
forth which is good it's a good signal to put the put the phone away and then change my glasses so y yeah for sure so
10:23
what you know you said there's a heart attack every 40 seconds now what are some of the other things that are going
10:28
on from a cardio vascular Health standpoint obviously it's always it's
10:34
been one of the top Killers especially in in male population which is what who
10:39
we're M primarily talking about um you know typically I think most people think of that as a you know hey a 50y old 60y
10:47
old problem right and and we've got a lot of younger guys that listen to this so I'm trying to I want to make sure that we we hit kind of this where we are
10:55
now cardiovascularly as a country uh as a society and then kind of go through some of these preventative things that
11:01
we want to focus on so cardiovascular disease is still the number one thing that takes most people out so it starts
11:09
early you know by the time somebody has symptoms this has been baking 20 30 40 years so most people don't honestly show
11:16
up to a Cardiologist until they're having symptoms you know they're having chest pain or shortness of breath or exercise intolerance then they go get a
11:23
stress test go oh you failed your stress test they go to the cath lab and potentially get a St or bypass surgery
11:29
they fixing stuff way late to the game you want to try to find some people way before they're symptomatic and plaque
11:35
can actually start in your arteries you know in your childhood but you usually don't have enough plaque and arteries to
11:40
present to a doctor to your you know in your 50s or 60s so go looking earlier and that's what my hope practice is
11:46
designed to do is tried to find it at the earliest stages so you have nearly 60,000 miles of blood vessels there's a
11:53
lining in the blood vessels called the glycocalix and the endothelium think of it as a protective gel Cod if that gel
12:00
coat is healthy you don't tend to develop plaque in your arteries but there's many things that damage that gel
12:05
coat smoking which fortunately most people aren't smoking anymore high blood pressure high blood sugars high
12:13
lipoproteins cholesterol which I'm sure we'll probably talk more about you know viruses air pollution there's hundreds
12:19
of things that can damage this protective gel coat but once that coating is damage then things that are floating through the blood such as the
12:26
lipoproteins they start sticking to the arteries like vulc and then they get retained in artery
12:31
lining and then that's kind of like getting a splinter you know in your foot it's going to cause inflammation there's
12:37
gonna be swelling that's what's kind of denied is to starting these plaques to form these plaques can grow for many
12:43
years before you have symptoms they them as like little pimples on the walls of the artery you can't feel them until
12:49
they're like 70 to 80% including the blood flow in the artery but any amount
12:54
of plaque in the artery potentially could rupture and it would be like a pimple popping when that happens the
13:00
blood will clot or coagulate and now you have 100% blockage in your artery and if it's in your heart that's a heart attack
13:06
if it's in your crowded artery it's going to cause a stroke it's a similar process so you want to start looking at
13:12
how healthy is that layer of the artery you know is there inflammation in the artery wall and then there's various tests that we can talk about that look
13:18
at soft plaque or hard plaque in your artery the more plaque in your artery the higher the risk you will have an
13:24
event so you know with health with with medical information right it's like
13:32
there's so much it's just a moving Target to really know what's going on right because I mean there's like and
13:38
there becomes this like causation versus correlation argument there's which data are you believing and which data are you
13:45
not believing so like take something like cholesterol right like and you know
13:50
now we're with the whole Statin thing and the studies that came on can you walk me through a little bit of that
13:57
because I've heard um you know I've listened to different people obviously on podcasts or reading their papers or
14:03
whatever they're like no cholesterol is not a big deal it's totally fine and then we have doctors that are like like
14:09
my for example you know one of my family members she's in her 70s very old school
14:14
doctor that basically said you know she doesn't really exercise she doesn't you know lift weights she doesn't really do
14:21
anything right like it's that Generation Um the doctor's like well you
14:26
don't really have to change anything I'm just going to put you on a stat so she's been on a Statin for many many years
14:32
which um you know I'd love to hear more your thoughts on cholesterol and statins
14:37
in particular just because there's so much crazy information I think this would be a good a good point of education for people so you usually
14:44
start off with that you know cholesterol is not bad for you you know without cholesterol you're not going to be alive
14:49
you need cholesterol to make your testosterone your other hormones you need it for cell membranes you need it for bile aets you need it for the cell
14:57
membranes themselves so without without cholesterol you're not alive but you don't necessar want cholesterol building
15:03
up in the walls of your arteries that's contributing to plaque formation which increases the risk of heart attacks or
15:08
Strokes how does the cholesterol get into your artery that's the story it's the
15:13
lipoproteins so because cholesterol is a waxy compound it cannot float in your liquid blood that would be like oil and
15:19
vinegar so the body makes these compounds called lipoproteins they're lipid protein carriers they of them as a
15:26
cargo ship so the cargo ship fills up full of cholesterol triglycerides which
15:32
is essentially energy for your cells there's phospholipids which are building blocks for the cells and then your fat
15:37
soluble vitamins the as's the D's the es and K's all go inside these cargo ships
15:43
and then these cargo ships are being fed through your blood vessels if your blood vessel lining is healthy that glyx is
15:49
healthy it just slides on by it goes down to your muscle and your muscle downloads the triglycerides and says
15:54
thank you for this energy eventually those lipoproteins you know they're going to make its way back to the liver the liver is going to pluck them out of
16:00
circulation break them down and they're eliminated through the gut that's how cholesterol leaves your body is through the gut but if you've damaged the lining
16:07
of your arteries these lipoproteins get attracted there like velcro and that's where the Cascade of plaque will form so
16:14
you're want to try figure out why is the artery getting damaged cholesterol is not necessarily the initial instigator
16:20
it's always going to be present in the plaque but it's not as simple as saying like take a stand don't change anything
16:26
that's kind of the fallacy is that you know when I was back in the cathol lab you know taking care of these people who were very sick many many many of these
16:32
patients were already on stands if stands were all magical nobody would have heart attacks they are a tool and I
16:38
use them in the right population but they don't always repair all the damage you know sterols are just one of the
16:44
things there's 400 things that damage your arteries and you got to go looking deeper at what's damaging the arteries first but STS they lower the cholesterol
16:53
pool in the liver so the liver makes less cholesterol when statins are being utilized they block an enzyme that
16:59
necessary for cholesterol to be produced so if you make less cholesterol in the liver you then have less lipoproteins
17:04
less cargo ships varrying those through the blood vessels and analogy somewhat like shots on goal the less of them
17:10
floating through the artery the less shots on goal for the artery lining to see this the less likely some of them
17:16
are getting stuck there so they do work for people but they tend to work in people who have you know familial
17:21
hyperemia they have a genetic Abal where they're just cranking out tons and tons of these lipo proteins or they've
17:27
already demonstrated that whatever caused the damage to their lining of the arteries they've already developed a
17:32
significant amount of plaque and you're just trying to prevent the second time that they're going to have a hard attack a stroke and so that's the case where
17:39
STS have significant data is that secondary prevention you're trying to not have it happen again where it gets
17:45
sometimes gray zone is primary prevention somebody who's in their 40s says I feel great my cholesterol is high
17:52
and my doctor's offering a stand should I take it and I always tell you need more data just the blood work alone
17:57
isn't the answer you know the blood work is literally just like taking a picture what you need is a video where are these
18:04
lipoproteins going if they're going to your muscles and dropping off triglycerides cool but if they're going
18:10
into your artery lining and developing plaque that's the problem so look at the arteries that's what you really need to focus on is that like an angiogram is
18:17
that when is that what kind of testing do you do typically for that because to your point I think that's the things
18:23
like high cholesterol well you know you've never had a heart attack youd have no history of any of this you exercise all that kind of stuff let's
18:29
put you on a stattin that's that's definitely not like that's like a shotgun approach to to medicine only
18:34
like we have this one really big bullet that we're going to try to shoot you know yeah I mean an angiogram is one way
18:41
but the the invasive anagrams which I used to perform you wouldn't have got that unless you're having symptoms
18:46
you're having cardiac angena stral breath or you failed the stress test or you're actually were having a heart attack so it's not a screening test but
18:53
there are CT corne angiograms which can be done in patients who are not symptomatic and that's one of the
18:58
preferred test that I will use in certain individuals to really kind of Judge how much plaque do they actually have on the walls of their artery
19:05
there's another test that I often recommend pretty much any man over 35 consider you know is a CP coronary
19:11
calcium scan that test is a lowd do radiation scan that looks for hard
19:17
calcified plaque in your coronary arteries calcium is supposed to be in your bones and in your teeth it's not
19:22
supposed to be in your arteries right so your calcium score really should be a big zero forever but generally if if you
19:28
live long enough you're going to develop some degree of plaque you just want that to be in your you know seventh e8th
19:34
ninth decade you don't want this calcium score test to be positive when you're in your 30s or 40s those are the people
19:39
that have likely some genetic predisposition to having atheroslerosis and if they don't do something about it
19:46
they're the people having heart attacks in their 50s and 60s so the calcium score test is a good risk stratifier if
19:51
your score is zero your risk of having a heart attack over the next 10 years is very low a little over 1% but if your
19:58
calcium score is over a th which I've seen in people under 40 your risk of having a heart attack is over 30% in 10
20:04
years so 30X increased risk of having a heart attack that's what you're trying to prevent is the events and so the
20:09
castom score test is a really good test for people as long as they've not already had an event if you've already had the hard attack a stent or bypass
20:16
surgery you're highrisk treat that person such as high risk but for somebody who's you know more health-minded like hey am I at risk
20:22
that's a good tiebreaker test and where do you get that done is that just like something you can go into your your G p
20:29
and say Hey I want to have this test done or are there particular places that you need to go to have that done they're done at you know many Hospital systems
20:36
and freest standing Radiology clinics you know if you just go into the Google machine Ty you know CT Corner calcium scan near me you should be able to find
20:42
like five to 10 in most big cities the cost of the test is generally between1 and
20:47
$250 um there's no special prep for it you know you don't need an IV you don't need any particular medications to be
20:53
given before you get it and it can be ordered by a primary care doctor it does require a and order because it does
21:00
require ionizing radiation um so you can't just walk off the street you need somebody to quote order the test for you
21:05
but apartment care doctor can order it does not have to be a cardiologist okay and if let's say that you go in and you
21:11
have the test done and you actually show some risk factor you know like you show any kind of calcification are their
21:17
lifestyle things that that's always the argument with and I want you to get into this at in depth as dep as deeply as you
21:25
as you'd like but it's always this lifestyle versus genetics versus you know preventative care versus treatment
21:32
right can you walk through some of that like if I've got the calcium as an example or any other highrisk Factor
21:38
that's been identified what's what's kind of the next step in general right like obviously each patient is going to
21:44
be different sure and this is what we do at our practice is patients come in already having the scan or that's what they want when they're coming to see us
21:51
and so I always talk about like there's a biophysical and a biochemical approach so the biophysical is looking at the
21:57
arteries so if you already come in your calcium score is abnormal we're trying to do other tests to say like is this
22:02
calcium score test old like you developed plaque 10 years ago and your body took care of it or is this still a
22:08
problem right now do you still have a f alarm fire going on so there's tests that can look at that protective lining
22:13
of the artery the endothelium so there's test that look at how elastic the arteries are it's called the max pulse
22:19
or pulse wave velocity test there's a test that looks at how well your body can produce nitric oxide which is the
22:24
gas that dilates the arteries prevents things from sticking to the arteries that test is called an endopat that
22:30
one's a little bit more challenging to get it's a more specialized tool but it tells you exactly percentage wise how
22:35
much the arteries dilate when there's a vascular stressor this is essentially what happens when you exercise is you exercise you force blood over your
22:41
arteries your arteries are dilating we're able to measure that and quantify it for the person that it's healthy or
22:46
not healthy then you can look at the arteries on the side of your neck there's a test called a cored inom
22:51
medial thickness scan it's an ultrasound no radiation relatively low cost and
22:57
generally you can repeat it every 12 mon on and say okay my arteries are staying pretty steady or if you see a lot of
23:03
inflammation in the artery or you see the plaques getting worse then you got to be much more aggressive with the things you're going to find in the blood
23:08
work so we kind of stag artery saying like Okay this is old or is this still
23:14
ongoing and then the big biochemical assessment so typically use either
23:19
Boston Heart Diagnostics or clevand heart Labs they're the two kind of leaders for doing the Advanced Cardiovascular testing but it's three
23:26
big buckets you know there's testing that's going to at the lipoproteins your all your cholesterol metrics there's a
23:32
bucket that looks at all the oxidative stress and inflammation so you're breathing oxygen right now speaking to
23:37
me you're you know burning the you know foods that you ate in your mitochondria engines you know but that makes free
23:43
radicals it makes smoke essentially so you can measure like how much of that smoke is escaping the mitochondria and damaging other cells you know how much
23:50
inflammation is present you know you want your immune system kick on if you got an infection you don't let your immune system always turned on if your
23:55
immune system is always turned on those 60,000 miles the blood vessels are transporting those inflammatory compounds and it's going to damage the
24:02
lining of the arteries and then the third big bck is are there anything that are going to impede your body's ability
24:08
to make nitric oxide nitric oxide is so critical that if you develop low nitric oxide availability you're much more
24:15
prone to having stiff arteries higher blood pressure and then if that persist those are the people that go on to
24:20
developing plaque in their arteries so there's Labs that can look at all three of those kind of domains and you're like
24:26
okay these are the lifestyle interventions that are going to help this one these are the neutraceuticals if you want to go down that route and
24:32
then you can look at certain Pharmaceuticals depending on their person's risk um and so you know back to
24:37
your original question about stens you know they're tools but the people tend to respond best to them you know this
24:43
makes more sense when you do this blood work they're going to be hyperproducers of sterile so their liver is just cranking out lots of cholesterol so it's
24:49
like diing the faucet back that's why you use to stand there they're an apoe3 or two carrier if you're an apoe4
24:56
carrier they T not to respond as well to STS that's a genetic test there's another genetic test called
25:03
slc1 B1 it's long term but that Gene if you have it your risk of having muscle
25:10
symptoms on STS which is the number one side effect of STS it can be four to five times increased and so those are
25:16
the people that maybe don't challenge with STS or if you're going to use the absolute lowest dose possible because
25:23
you know you don't want to cause side effects that then's going to limit the person's ability to exercise which is
25:28
obviously proven to really re promote that person's heal span and Longevity so you know I always talk to with patients
25:34
like they're tools if you have side effects from them we will find another option but you can kind of predict who's
25:39
more likely to respond to them based off of some of these blood work markers my assumption is maybe this is the wrong
25:46
assumption but most doctors are not doing those tests when they put people on statins or is that you know is that
25:53
true or is that or not true no that's true and it's just because that's how the guidelines are written yeah the
25:59
guidelines are put together by experts and they're looking at all the clinical data and they're saying that in totality in a general population this medication
26:06
should work but while that's interesting for population I'm interested in the person who's sitting in front of me like
26:11
how well is it going respond to this individual and so I'm definitely practicing medicine you know to the you
26:18
know standard of care I'm still board certified I can do all the stuff that those guys do that I've done hundreds if
26:23
not thousands of hours of extra training uh to learn functional medicine Quantum ly and how to piece those things
26:30
together yeah we had a I I had another guest that was a physician um and we
26:35
were we were talking about the this term Boutique medicine right and and I don't
26:41
know whether that's something that you which is essentially like you've got the insurance side right which I know I've
26:46
got physician you know friends that are like I'm GNA go be a landscaper now because I'm tired I literally my
26:52
podiatrist started a landscaping company because he got so tired of dealing with insurance um but now it seems like
26:59
there's a growing um not only need but want and availability of of Doc
27:06
practices like yours right where I can go in and get over and above what I would get if I'm dealing with the
27:11
traditional healthc care system is that kind of where your thing where your practice Falls correct yeah when I
27:17
launched the practice about five years ago I was out of network from the beginning because I wanted to deal with
27:22
just the patient I did not want the insurance company to tell me that I could not order this test if it was indicated I with the insurance company
27:28
say like well you have to use this class of medicine so that's when I have a little bit more kind of transparency
27:34
with patients you I'm not paid by the drunk companies I'm not paid by the insurance companies I work for you so if
27:39
I'm recommending a stand for you it's because I think that's the best option for you it's not that I'm getting paid
27:44
to say that for you and so I can be very transparent in my pricing with the patients and what my interests are you
27:50
know I them like I learned this at this event I've done this with you know this many patients it seems to work are you
27:56
interested in this approach and they go that route it's not just cookbook medicine where it's just like the algorithm says your cholesterol is high
28:02
and if it's over this cut point this is the dose of Statin you should take yeah and it's such a you know we we've
28:08
actually we've got Physicians and you know I have kind of a naturopath that does some stuff you know General stuff I'm rarely sick so I don't really have
28:15
to do much in the healthc care world but my my wife and I just met with a doctor
28:21
to she's she's my age so about to be 51 so she's in that param menopausal thing and so we're kind of going through that
28:27
but we're dealing with a physician that is not in the you know her other doctor is like well you're 50 this is what this
28:33
is what your life is like now but to be able to go to this other physician and have him spend 90 minutes
28:40
on a zoom call with us and then you know we pay accordingly right it's it's not
28:46
cheap you don't have your $25 copay but it's to me it's like such a it's almost like going back in time to what what you
28:54
what you think doctors you know were like 30 40 50 years ago and that's what
29:00
I tell people like you're going to invest in your health at some point in your life you're going to do it when you're young and you get to have that Health span are you going to do it late
29:06
in life and then you're GNA spend a lot of money trying to regain what you just lost you're going to spend the money somewhere in your life so it's better to
29:13
kind of proactively do it in my opinion you know a heart attack if you have a heart attack you know today and
29:19
insurance wasn't trying to pick up the cost for it it's going to cost you nearly $50,000 if you have a heart attack out of pocket you know if you
29:26
invest wisely in your health you're probably not going to spend $50,000 to avoid the heart attack but some people
29:31
just don't have that mindset that they're in it for the prevention standpoint they'll wait until they have symptoms like my insurance company
29:37
willover I'm like you don't necess want to wait that long and there's no guarantee you're going to survive the you know the heart attack so you know
29:43
I'm always about like you're gonna have to invest at some point just figure out when do you want to do that yeah it's
29:48
you don't want to you know I I did my um my internship at Blue Cross Blue Shield and and this was back when they actually
29:55
had Wellness care and all this stuff but we called them the Z zipper Club you know I've been super blessed to be able
30:00
to feed into the lives of tons of men from all around the world in all walks of life and I'm very excited to announce
30:07
that I do have a couple spots available right now if you're interested in working with me and we can talk about
30:13
prettyy much anything marriage business fitness parenting being a dad uh dogs
30:19
cars whatever you want to talk about I'm available to do that we want to focus on the things that may be most beneficial
30:25
to you and some things that you may not even know would be beneficial to you you've listened to the podcast you kind
30:30
of know my style if you are interested in working with me I want to try to make it as simple as possible but I also want
30:36
to make sure we're a good fit send an email to coaching MaxOut man.com and just give me two pieces of information
30:43
why you would like to work with me and what that might mean for you what things you would hope to accomplish by meeting
30:50
with me that'll kick off the process I'll reach back out to you we can jump on a call and see whether or not it
30:55
would be a good fit so go to maxed out man.com coaching at MaxOut man.com send me an
31:00
email with those two pieces of information and we'll see if it's a good fit and I hope it is and I hope that we
31:06
can actually connect right like you know we had we had all those guys that if you don't know what the zipper Club is
31:11
because they basically crack your entire chest open and then they sew you back together with a bunch of wires I don't
31:16
know if that's how they still do it but um but but your chest looks like a zipper right so spend the money now
31:23
spend the time now um and unfort it's an unfortunate thing with our Healthcare System system that it's not only it's
31:31
necessary that we have to do that that we can't get actual good care with insurance but you it is it and that's
31:38
not all doctors but I I like that this is available so if I'm a you know a
31:44
30-year old male if I'm a 50 or 60 year old male what are these things that you
31:50
lean into from a prenative medicine standpoint like what things should I be doing what things should I not be doing
31:57
we talked about smoking everybody knows about smoking now obviously but like the these young people are smoking weed like
32:04
crazy and they think that it's no big deal it's still you know so feel free to comment on that we had a I had the guy
32:10
that Advocates and it was super interesting he he's the guy that enter um intercedes for the marijuana industry
32:17
with Congress very cool episode if you want to go I learned a lot I'm not a I don't do any drugs or alcohol or any of
32:24
that kind of stuff but um and then vaping obviously is another big ones can you just walk through son of like what
32:31
things should you be doing at these in these different Decades of life if they change or maybe it's just standard and
32:36
what things should you not be doing and kind of how we get to a point where we are doing everything we can without
32:43
interventive you know intervention uh to maximize our cardiovascular and overall
32:48
health sure so big topic and we'll unpack it you know for all age groups
32:54
you know but to kind of go back on one question part like hospitals do good work if you're in an emergency if you're
32:59
having a heart attack you want them to save your life you know you've been banged up at a car accident you want the trauma surgeons to put you back together
33:05
so they're doing good work but they're not designed for preventive care they're not designed to keep you out of the
33:10
hospital that's on you and ideally you have a doctor or Healthcare person that can work with you on that Journey most
33:16
of the things I'm G to talk about today they're free they're just things that people have to do and build them into their lifestyle so you know starting as
33:24
young as possible you know it's the four pillars find way to prioritize sleep
33:30
probably people in their 20s you know you probably abused your body you stay out late you party do whatever but at some point you got to realize like this
33:36
is not sustainable and then get into a routine where like okay your day starts with your head laying on the pillow you
33:42
charge up your batteries and you dissipated the next day and try not to have two bad days of sleep in a row if
33:47
you're not sleeping well always start with that and a lot of it is your optimization of your ciran rhythms your
33:53
24-hour Cycles what we were talking about earlier you know your light cycles and the timing that you're eating your meals then stress it's ubiquitous we all
34:01
have stress in this world yeah we're getting pinged a thousand times a day text messages emails DMS but that isn't
34:07
evolutionary what we were designed to do to be that stimulated so how do you dial that back down you know your body
34:13
doesn't know the difference between you know a thousand text messages and the tigers's chasing you so what do you do to activate your parasympathetic Branch
34:20
you know are you a meditator are you you know somebody who's doing you bio feedback or neuro feedback or do you
34:26
like you know some of the gadgets the Apollo neuros you whatever you can do to stimulate your veal tone to get that
34:31
sympathetic and parasympathetic Branch back into balance nutrition I'm probably
34:36
not gonna go too deep into nutrition today there's a lot of different you know Waring factions on it but I'll just
34:42
make it simple food if it's real food from other nature it's tied to photosynthesis so you're either eating
34:48
plants or you're eating animals that ate the plants and then it's a job of your mitochondria to break that back down
34:53
into light energy inside your mitochondria that's as simple as to kind of make it for nutrition and then exercise you need some
35:00
combination of strength training so that you have the muscle mass that you need to get you through time and space to
35:06
your 80 90 years old but your muscle is also very important for your metabolism there's different inter lucans and
35:11
things that keep inflammation down this is a lot of the things that my friend Dr lion talks about online and then know
35:17
there's some amount of cardiorespiratory Fitness you need so you know your V2 Max is a very good Hallmark to look at what
35:23
is your propensity to have longevity and that's mostly trained by the higher level of exercise so you have more
35:29
interval type training but most people they need a lot more zone two type training you need to build your
35:35
mitochondrial efficiency with the lower and slower cardio if you get those four levers right you pretty much avoid 80
35:41
90% of chronic diseases now there's yes certain genetic things that are can put people at higher risk but those are the
35:47
exceptions the basics are the basics for a reason and people just got to find a way that they can hold themselves accountable to sticking to those things
35:54
yeah that's the cost right it's free except for time uh you know I had a conversation yesterday with one of my a
36:00
friend of mine who was a previous guest Joe uh Justin rosling chauffer um which is a mouthful which he admits um but but
36:09
he you know he's really big in the rest but we were talking about the cost as you you know we were talking about the
36:15
cost in terms of all right your your your 50-year-old health and fitness self
36:20
has a higher cost than when you are 20 right like it takes more time it takes more effort it takes more deliberate
36:26
action and you know that's Health Nutrition cardio all of that so but it
36:32
really like you know I would rather to your point I'd rather give up the time now making sure that when I'm 50 I'm I'm
36:40
healthier now at 50 than it was at 20 I want to be just as healthy when I'm 80
36:45
obviously there's things that happen my both like my both my maternal grandmother and Grand great-grandmother
36:52
lived to be 103 so I I'm halfway there if I
36:58
if I if I'm genetically gifted from that but you know versus like I don't want to
37:03
give that time up with rehab and PT and you know surgeries and all of those
37:08
things like you'd rather rather go down that road so I think that's that's super important when you talk about um Liss
37:14
right long low intensity steady state cardio which is essentially going out and taking a brisk walk um you know they
37:22
had this movement a few years ago which is basically just get up and do something you know even 10 minutes
37:28
which 10 minutes that sounds like an okay idea but that's not entirely true right like what is the what is the real
37:34
number that we need to shoot for on a daily basis obviously weight training for me I tell women especially if you're
37:41
not lifting weights you need to do that now like if you don't do anything else go lift weights but talk to me about
37:48
frequency and intensity on those on you know both those things would be great so yes it has to be a combination of those
37:54
things you know strength training you bare minimum twice week if you're not you know kind of a gym rat you know just
38:00
to maintain what you got you definitely just want to slow the role on sarcopenia the loss of muscle mass and then the
38:06
cardio you know you know you can do it with walking but typically unless somebody's untrained you know they're
38:13
probably gonna have to do some type of incline or they're gonna have to have like a weight adest or something like that to be able to get the heart rate enough up with just walking alone so
38:20
more zone two type of training you have the low and slope more likely you can do it like on a treadmill a bike an
38:26
elliptical somewhere you can keep the heart rate pretty steady you know my personal zone two training you know goal
38:32
right now is 128 beats a minute doesn't feel much like exercise so I'm mostly doing it on a bite and so I can just
38:37
dial the resistance heart rate hits around 128 you know stop just keep doing it at that rate then um but that should
38:44
be about 80% of the time of whatever cardio that you're doing is that lower and slower type of cardio how much per
38:51
week ideally at least 150 minutes of that type of activity you can go more but most people aren't even remotely
38:57
even close to 150 minutes so you know chunk it down to you know you know a couple 30 minute sessions a week and
39:04
there you go yeah yeah that's only five times a week right like that's just just doing it during the week and um you know
39:10
we we talk about um you know taking a five minute walk after meals fake 10- minute walk after meals so it doesn't
39:16
like you could even split it you you you could split up a little bit but obviously you want that sustained in
39:22
that zone for that for that 150 minutes right is that what you're talking about mainly correct yeah but it's not that
39:28
hard you know it it really takes so little effort and if you think about the amount of time on our phones watching
39:34
Netflix all that stuff which you know get on your treadmill if you want to watch Netflix and actually just do your
39:40
cardio while you watch your show it's it's not that big a deal so um well I mean I want to be respectful of your
39:46
time I think we covered like the preventative stuff like your Basics is
39:51
there anything that we're missing in terms of like things that you would recommend um that do in order to kind of
39:59
step into this more preventative care when it comes to heart health especially so it first start with like
40:05
optimize your shaan rhythms to the best of your ability so an optimal day would look something similar to this you'd be
40:12
up around Sunrise you get morning light into your eyes from the Sun that's the
40:18
first bright light that you would get so no glasses no sunlasses natural light in
40:23
your eyes you do not have to see the sun actually break the Horizon so if there's a hill Hill or mountain in front of you
40:28
you just have to be outside how long the sicker you are the more you're going to need but you know 5 15 minutes that's
40:35
probably good starting point I personally just like to go for a walk at that time of the day just clear the mind and get ready for the day you ideally
40:41
would eat your first meal within an hour of the sunrise that helps set the leptum receptor in your body that helps let
40:47
your body know how much stored body fat you have it your body Burns food differently based off the time of day
40:53
that that food comes into the system you should stop eating 4 hours before you plan to go to bed so that the liver and
40:59
gut can shut off and then we talked a lot about the light you know if you're inside using technology ideally you have
41:06
some type of glasses that filter out some of that high-intensity blue light that reaches your melanopsin receptor but be very tight about it once the sun
41:12
sets your body really wants to Crave that there's a big light and dark cycle once you got that dialed in then that's
41:18
when you can really start playing around with you know the nutrition the exercise because those are just variables if you
41:24
don't get the sleep in the light right that other stuff doesn't matter nearly as much yeah I like that a lot we
41:30
actually you know it the sun comes up at 4:30 we're in Montana so we're up you know 45th parallel right so the sun
41:36
comes up at 4:30 in the morning and it doesn't go down you know it's starting to go down down but it's like light at
41:41
10:30 at night so I actually we had to put up I I bought some darkening shades for our wind our so our bedroom is like
41:48
pitch black and and so that's you know take whatever steps you need in order to create that good sleep hygiene I think
41:55
that's super important 100% yeah and that's definitely the case when you're that far north you know I was in you
42:00
know Finland uh you know the other year and you know there's 24 hours of light as well and then there's six weeks where
42:05
they have no light whatsoever so it's like how do you get around that well you just still stick to a routine where the
42:10
bright light in the morning is really the main thing so you know even though it's 4:30 that's really when your body
42:16
should be up and then if you got to go to bed before that yeah then you take you know protective measures and dark
42:21
room eye mask something that your body doesn't get that signal yeah that's the one hack when I travel like I'm based in
42:26
the Central you know Standard time zone in St Louis a week or two ago I was in Vegas for a business conference I just
42:33
stayed on St Louis times so I was going to bed at like 7 P.M in Vegas and getting up at 3: am in Vegas to stay on
42:39
my regular schedule which then that's that's a good plan if you're in Vegas anyway you can avoid all the all the
42:44
nuttiness that happens after after after that time so Dr tman I really appreciate
42:50
you being here man and thank you so much for the um for the patience with some of the technical issues that have how would
42:58
people find out more information about you learn more about what you do and you know if they need to reach out to you
43:03
for whatever reason especially if they if they're in your area uh how would they do that so the social media
43:09
platform I'm you know most active and on is Instagram my handle just Dr tman you
43:14
every Monday 6 PM central time I do it ask me anything so people submit questions ahead of time or when it's
43:20
live they can ask them in the comments and I'll answer them usually on for about half an hour or so and I also have
43:26
a website Dr d.com has some of the archives the prior podcast had been on and you know some the products sometimes
43:31
I recommend people are like what are those blue blockers I'm like it'll be on my website if you're interested if patients really want us to kind of do
43:37
the Deep dive figure out what's going on their vascular Heth we do have an application on my website somebody from
43:42
my team would reach out you know make sure that you know we can you know help you with the needs that you're interested in and then we set you up for
43:48
the visit in St Louis and Screen your head to toe make sure those aors as healthy as you want them to be awesome
43:54
well I appreciate you being here thank you so much hope you have a great day thank you very much all right I'm gonna
44:00
let's see okay I think we got it I appreciate you taking the time I know
44:05
that yours is still recording I'm going to just end the session and then if you just let it run for a couple minutes it should be it should be uh finished
44:12
uploading and then um I think there's a lot of little um bits that we can grab
44:18
and do some my VA will kind of grab those and do some Cuts so that we can use those for shorts and I'll make sure
44:23
I get those to you um and you can use them for whatever you want awesome all right thanks Dr tman enjoy
44:30
the rest of your day I'm going to go uh I'll probably do cardio a little bit later yeah awesome all right talk to you soon all
44:38
right bye bye if you're looking to really maximize your life and become the man you were made to be head over to
44:45
maxed out man.com and get your journey started today
44:50
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