How AI, Genetics & Prevention Are Transforming Longevity Medicine

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:00:00]:
Everybody has plastic. That’s not a surprise. The only question is how much we have.

Nick Urban [00:00:05]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity, the show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week, we decode the tools, tactics, and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel, and perform at your best across all of life’s domains. Dr. Greg Brzezinski, welcome to the podcast.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:00:56]:
Thanks, Nick.

Nick Urban [00:00:57]:
Yeah. Today we’re going to dive into a world that I have not talked about much on the show yet, and that is the intersection of longevity and personalized health and artificial intelligence, and then also some of the interventions that you’re finding to be the best. Because as you’re mentioning to me offline a minute ago, you are not bound by any one belief system you’re willing to follow. What works exactly.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:01:25]:
And I’m going to use every tool in the toolbox.

Nick Urban [00:01:27]:
Well, let’s set the stage then. Why longevity and health, personalization and AI? Why the conversions of all those?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:01:36]:
Well, let me talk about my background first. I’m an internal medicine doctor. So those people, I think, are pretty analytical. We go through a lot of training and, and we’ve seen a lot of sick patients, and I’d rather see healthy patients than prevent disease. So that’s been my first part of my life as a doctor. Right. And then I think, like a lot of things, you realize we can do way better. So in today’s world, literally almost every week, we have a cooler and cooler discovery coming online where we can personalize our health better and be predictive.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:02:07]:
And in my case, I don’t want to have my father’s diseases. I’d rather be in great shape when I’m his age for my family and everybody. Right. So in my case, I know that heart disease can probably knock me out just like it has my other ancestors. So with today’s technology, getting into the nitty gritty, getting into the weeds, getting to see the vasculature, seeing your genomics, what could be around the corner, I want to see around the corners to prevent those diseases. Obviously, we can’t do everything. We don’t know what tomorrow brings to our best ability. I Want to do that with myself.

Nick Urban [00:02:42]:
And my patients with something like genetic analysis. I’ve talked to a number of practitioners who use it or don’t use it because it seems to be one of those areas where we understand part of the genome and the regulation, the epigenome. And then of course there’s a lot of different genes and SNPs, single nucleotide polymorphisms that like, it’s more complicated than just looking at one particular segment of DNA and then being like, okay, well I have this. There’s exceptions. Like APO E4 is like one of the classic ones that people are very interested in knowing their status of or fearful of knowing their status of. But like, how are you able to use that and not make decisions based on like today’s science, which might be overturned tomorrow?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:03:27]:
Well, let’s talk about the stuff that’s pretty. I think the community agrees upon the cancer genetics. Right? So if you fall into a group of people that has an increased risk of cancer based on their genomics, then I think you should get more screening. Right. So if you have a BRCA gene, you have a host of other cancer genes that increase your risk of having cancer, then maybe it makes sense to get that whole body mri. So that’ll push you more into that trajectory. Right, But I understand what you’re saying. So for example, if you have a diabetes gene that increases your risk of having diabetes by and twofold, then that’s just one thing.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:04:05]:
So it’s, it’s based on the severity of what’s going on. Right. There are certain diseases which may not really present, but I think you should focus on the most important ones.

Nick Urban [00:04:15]:
Yeah, that makes sense. But even then it’s like you might have certain genes over here that predispose you to diabetes and these ones make you more resilient against diabetes. And like which one of these has the more weight? Or if you have like say four or five that predispose you and then eight or nine that go the other direction, then like what do you do net wise, like what’s that actionable change that you make based on that? And it’s like, do we actually know the full magnitude of each of those genes? So it seems to me like, I love the idea of it and I want to like fully get behind it. But even then I’m like, I don’t understand how to interpret this and like make a good decision because I’ve used tools, I want to say eight or nine years ago, starting back then, and, and it’s like the reports at one thing. And then as the new research came out, it turned out that there are limited. I think it was it’s SNPs that they’re looking at. That’s only a small piece of the pie. There’s a lot more there.

Nick Urban [00:05:07]:
And then as the research evolved, it turned out what went from one of my risks went, turned out to be one of my like things I was protected against.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:05:14]:
Exactly. You might have a gene that protects you from melanoma, another one that increases it, so it could be a wash. So then that’s where AI and continued research plays a role. So probably in the next few years we’ll have a better idea what really is important.

Nick Urban [00:05:29]:
Okay, so when you say AI, people have probably at this point heard of ChatGPT, at least I would hope so. Unless they’re literally living under a rock or don’t have access to the Internet. Considering how fast it’s growing and all the companies that are powering are powered by AI and building that future, how quickly they’re all growing. How do you describe the applications in the healthcare space and what do they look like that currently exist and are that are currently developing?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:05:55]:
Well, there’s clearly AI, for example. Have you heard of that one?

Nick Urban [00:05:59]:
That’s explain what it is.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:06:00]:
Sure. So clearly is the imaging component on top of a CT angiogram. So that’s a CT of the, of the coronary arteries and it can help us better distinguish the soft plaques between the hard plaques. So that’s a test I had done and I thought it was very valuable because I got to see quantifying how much plaque burden I had, which thankfully wasn’t very much. So that’s a beautiful component. That is a radiologic tool. So then we have other things that are appearing. For example, we have open evidence, which is kind of like a ChatGPT for doctors.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:06:38]:
You can use ChatGPT, you can use Grok because they’re getting more and more amazing. I think Elon said that in December we’ll have EGI possibly. But he’s always saying wonderful things that don’t happen. So it’s timeline. Right. So in the end, I think it’ll be a confluence of having like an avatar, basically where you have everything bunched together and all your information being analyzed. So you get a whole body mri, it goes to the avatar, you get blood work, it goes there. You have your genomics, you have your wearables, you have your technology like that.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:07:11]:
So it all will be there at our companion that will tell us what’s wrong. With this, how do we fix this? And I talk to companies that are making things like that already, which is amazing. So it just a matter kind of like when will we have these cool things? When will we have that true flying car? Right. Because right now you can put down some money to get a flying car, but how great is that car going to be? We don’t know. But I can tell you, hopefully in the next three or five years that’ll be the reality. With like a optimus robot, you enter the doctor’s office, that’ll be my companion and I can leverage that better in my day to day. I’m using beautiful scribe setting that take out some of the most burdensome work out of my life. So patients come in, they tell me they had a cheeseburger or they went for a 10k that’s already thrown in there.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:07:59]:
Right. And the idea is they’ll even give a good treatment plan for me, hopefully. Right. So it’s a learning model. Right. It’s getting better and better, just like a lot of us are.

Nick Urban [00:08:10]:
Yeah, that’s cool. Do you think there’ll be a time in the near future? Of course it’ll, it could happen eventually that these models will be able to figure out what’s the actual root cause, like the lowest level of cause behind whatever we’re seeing change in the body. For example, if you see high blood sugar, you might look at hemoglobin A1C to understand if it’s a longer term trend. But then again, it’s not going to be like a obviously a deficiency of metformin necessarily, even though that could be a potential treatment or even like berberine, like the natural alternative to metformin, but it might be because of diet or perhaps even like lifestyle stress or something. Do you see a world in which these models can help understand what’s driving the change that we’re currently seeing?% I.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:08:57]:
Think that will be amazing because right now if I see elevated A1C, why is that the case? You could be thin, you could have sleep apnea, you could have so many things going on, you could be just in the gauntlet of the most stressful time in your life. So you’re pumping out cortisol or you just have those genetics unfortunately. Right. So that is going to be teased out, you’re going to probably have that epigenetic component. Right. So if you do a epigenetic A1C, you could catch that even earlier, ideally. Right?

Nick Urban [00:09:25]:
Yeah. In your work, what role are you seeing? I guess what division of the piece of the pie. I don’t really like asking this question really because everyone has a different proportion. They ascribe to each of them. But like when you say genetics is a certain percent and epigenetics is another, or are both just really fundamental pieces, you can’t really do without the other.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:09:47]:
I think people say 2080, right. Or you know, 40, 60, depending on who you believe. So it’s something that’s a bit controversial. But I don’t want to be condemned by my genetics, definitely. I think it’s mostly environment, so. So I like to say you can get the Tom Brady jeans, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to be playing in the NFL. You can totally mess that up. So you still have to put in that sleep, put in that exercise and all those good habits.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:10:10]:
But of course some centenarians seem to just glide into that a hundred year birthday, even though they’re totally misbehaving.

Nick Urban [00:10:17]:
Yeah, yeah. It’s really hard to say what is causative for them because it’s like you can find a example or 2 or 100 here and there’s. But like if the vast majority of the population emulated the same behaviors, are they going to get the same results? Perhaps it’s not like the diet and the exercise and the nutrition. Perhaps it’s other like determinants of health that we haven’t even really like parsed out yet and elucidated, but we will eventually. So it’s interesting to like look at that and be like, we have a lot of information around this still, but we don’t obviously have all of it enough to make like a prescription, a universal prescription where you should definitely smoke this pack of cigarettes over here and drink three bottles of wine per week and that is perfect for everyone.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:11:05]:
Exactly. Wickedly complex things that I did not think about even a few years ago. For example, like toxins. Right. I, I’ve recently been finding many toxins in people and myself included. And it all depends on what sushi we ate literally two weeks ago. So that’s what we’re.

Nick Urban [00:11:24]:
Or, or more recent than that too.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:11:26]:
Oh, exactly. Or where did we spend last weekend? Right. And you try to live your best life. But if, for example, I was in a hotel this weekend for Labor Day and for. It wasn’t the cheapest hotel, but they were still using some ridiculous aerosol that literally my clothing smelled when I came back. And I, and I never want to go back to that room ever. And knowing what I know, I was just thinking, wow, what did that do to my body, but what could I do, really? Right.

Nick Urban [00:11:53]:
Yeah. It’s interesting, like, when you’re aware of the damage you’re doing and then you go into that environment and the damage is done, it’s actually, like, worse for you in terms of, like, the net effect on your biology, physiology, psychology, than if you were completely oblivious and you thought that all that smell did was just, like, uplifted your day, at least you’d have, like, a little bit of nocebo effect there. But, like, yeah, it’s an interesting paradox of, like, knowing too much about health can also add more biological stress.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:12:22]:
Exactly. And that’s also why it’s important to have a reason to be here. A lie, because you can then, as Viktor Frankl said, do anything. Right.

Nick Urban [00:12:29]:
Yeah, I’m glad you brought that up. That’s a really important one. And I’m noticing more and more, like, conversations I have around health and longevity and performance. It’s like, if you don’t have your why sorted out, your North Star, whatever you want to call it, then, like, you don’t have as compelling of a reason to persist when things inevitably get tough.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:12:49]:
Exactly. People can be literally having years left, and they’re based on their true diagnostic test or a test that shows that your time is limited. But it doesn’t matter if you’re just persevering.

Nick Urban [00:13:00]:
When you mentioned doing that toxin testing, what are you using to figure out your levels? Because there’s all kinds of controversies around what is the most effective, and can you actually get meaningful levels out of certain. Out of blood, serum and other tissue types. So what are you using for that?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:13:19]:
Right. I use the Vibrant Wellness panel, and that’s typically a total urine tox. And as well, we’re using a plastic blood test to see what we have based on those findings. So that can be eye opening.

Nick Urban [00:13:32]:
Is that test available to consumers?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:13:34]:
I don’t think Vibrant Wellness is. I think the plastics test might be, but typically patients come to us just to get it because it’s easier to do. Everything under one roof in the plastics.

Nick Urban [00:13:44]:
Test is testing for, like, different plastic metabolites and, like, microplastics and stuff.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:13:48]:
Nanoplastics. Microplastics. So that’s eye opening as well. You. You realize that typically women score higher. Me and my wife try not to comfy, but you can’t help it. Right. So he was a little bummed that she was higher than me and that.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:14:03]:
So we’re now trying to be a little more cognizant of all that.

Nick Urban [00:14:06]:
Interesting. And what are you seeing, are you seeing any trends across the board there? Like, I’m sure people in general are higher than we’d like to see in terms of like total plastic burden.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:14:17]:
Everybody has plastic. That’s not a surprise. The only question is how much we have. And then you sometimes have these connections. You can have a young person that has for example, pretty good lipids, but for example, their clearly scan could already show some soft plaque buildup. So then why is that? And the thought is, well, a lot of that atheroma could be maybe plastic buildup, that’s speeding it up. So if you’re living in that modern world day life, you’re. That’s another hit against you.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:14:46]:
It’s kind of like smoking in a way.

Nick Urban [00:14:48]:
Well, that’s the thing too. It’s like, so say you see there’s some like calcification, some, some plaque buildup and everything even then it’s like there’s so many different factors. How do you figure out, like obviously it’s an art and science, like figuring out what factor is causing and like which factors are correlating together with this, either acceleration or the causation. But like what’s your methodology there?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:15:11]:
Well, you get all the data, you see what the lipids, lipoproteins are, you look at the inflammatory numbers, you look at the homocysteine, you look at the things that can kind of tease out what’s going on. You can look at the genomics part and then you kind of see by exclusion, maybe this is why you’re having that problem. And this is what for example, I discovered just a couple months ago in a young man about 10 years younger than me, who unfortunately had this problem and then he took strides to hopefully get that lower and improve. Right.

Nick Urban [00:15:42]:
Would you see this reflect on other types of testing such as you mentioned, true diagnostic. And they have several tests, their true age test and their true health test, which measure measures metabolites via epigenetic biomarker proxies and stuff like that. Would you see these type of things show up there? Could there be other clues to the puzzle that you’d see there, but not in like a traditional like annual blood labs.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:16:04]:
I like the true diagnostic testing, but I think it’s really hard to include it into the whole puzzle, so to speak. And not everybody does it because there’s a cost to doing business. Right. So if I want to order every test for a patient, I can certainly do that, but then they’re going to pay more. So a lot of people say thank you, I Think I’ll pass on this. So there’s other tests. For example, there’s an epigenetic her test that could be effective. Right.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:16:33]:
And I did one that was interesting. Cardio diagnostics has that test. I don’t know if you’re familiar with it, but it looks at your heart risk without going into imaging. All right. Their goal is to prevent the imaging, the radiation exposure. So I was really excited when my risk came down to a very nice green level. As you probably know, these tests have that green, which is happy. Good go.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:16:54]:
Right. You have the red, which is. Oh, no, this is bad. Well, originally. Right. I was in the orange zone. I was kind of in the zone that was sort of high risk based on what I was doing. But then with my interventions, I got it in the low zone.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:07]:
I got it. Everything else looking great. So it was congruent. So I like that.

Nick Urban [00:17:12]:
If you don’t mind me asking, what did you do or change to.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:15]:
Sure.

Nick Urban [00:17:15]:
Modulate your risk.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:17]:
So I don’t do well on statins. I don’t feel well on them. I’m not on the statin. But I am a big fan of Repatha. Right. So that’s the antibody PCK39 inhibitor. I inject that every two weeks or so. And that makes everything perfect.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:33]:
As far as my numbers go, obviously getting my body composition, my lifestyle pristine is important, but I think that was a really big network effect, rate limiting effect in a way with that. I think it was majority of the motion there that helped me.

Nick Urban [00:17:50]:
Wow.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:51]:
Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:17:51]:
Is there one particular marker that helps with. Or does it help with a lot of different, like cardiometabolic markers?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:17:57]:
So it doesn’t really do anything for A1C or insulins, if that’s the question. I think those are more likely GLP medicines. But that is purely the lipid number. Right. That’ll work on the lipids. And it also has data that shows it reverses the soft plaques. So that’s amazing. And.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:18:14]:
And that’s why I like to do. Because I want to stay ahead of those disease. There’s that atherosclerosis and I feel like that will be able to do that, that job and kind of work like a Roomba, clean up those arteries a bit.

Nick Urban [00:18:25]:
Yeah. And there’s not many things that can actually reduce plaque burden, are there?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:18:29]:
Right. There’s some, I believe, supplements that have been studied in animals, but again, in humans, it’s kind of questionable.

Nick Urban [00:18:37]:
Yeah, it’s like that. And then also like reducing or removing microplastics from the body. Nanoplastics in the body. That’s another area where it’s like, sounds great, but we don’t really have much, much there yet.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:18:49]:
Yeah, it’s really hard because where it’s being deposited too, that’s the sad thing. You can get rid of it. You could do plasma exchange, you could maybe donate your plasma. You could do all these binders, you can sweat it out. But then what about the depositing in the body? Right. That’s the problem.

Nick Urban [00:19:06]:
So with certain things, like the body is very complex and it resolves issues on its, on its own, it doesn’t need any intervention. It just does it all the time without us even realizing, like, before we even have an idea that there’s an issue, a disturbance, it fixes it by itself. When do you see, like the AI biomonitoring being like a effective intervention or is it going to just cause us to, I guess, cause a lot of false alarms where it’s like, it looks like this is an emergency, urgent thing, but then it’s actually something the body will just deal with in a week or so and then be back to normal. But the stress, the fear, the potential, like operation that’s unnecessary can cause other, like, collateral issues.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:19:48]:
Nobody really knows. I think a lot of it is the regulatory aspect. Right. We want to have all these cool things, but the regulators have to allow us to get there. So I’m guessing probably in a decade, that’s my guess. Because with the AI getting smarter and smarter, I feel that will probably be safe. That’ll be a safe answer.

Nick Urban [00:20:08]:
Yeah. Okay. Are there types of, like that monitoring that you see as being the most universally helpful? Like, for example, you can take like, really basic wearable data, and it’s not going to diagnose any particular conditions, most likely, but it’s going to be able to help you, like, visualize trends across a bunch of different domains. And that can be helpful to understand where your health is headed. But that’s not going to most likely tell you. Oh, you probably have this rare disorder.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:20:38]:
Yeah, I mean, just basics, right. Like, I like the Stello cgm, which pairs with the OURA ring. I don’t know if you’ve ever played around with that one, but it gets everything in one place. Then you can. I haven’t. I’ve not. We have other things that give us information, but I think still it’s. It’s a little premature.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:21:00]:
I’m sure there are hormonal biomarker wearables that are arriving soon, but I don’t know when that Will be. But that will be a cool day in time.

Nick Urban [00:21:09]:
Yeah. See, one of my issues, like, I’ve been using CGM since like 2017, 2018, quite a while. And I use them for a while and I find them really helpful to understand. Like, okay, this is my individual response to a particular food, or even not even food. Actually. The most insightful things were like, here’s what a five minute walk after a meal does to my blood sugar. Oh, wow, that’s incredible. It’s.

Nick Urban [00:21:30]:
It rivals like pharmaceutical drugs that manage blood sugar. Okay, that’s really helpful. No, perhaps when I eat or when I’m really stressed out, my blood sugar stays elevant, stays elevated for long periods of time. That’s very helpful for me to know. But I’m also concerned. It’s like, if you are fully indexing on blood glucose or interstitial glucose as like the primary metric and like that becomes the one thing you’re seeing, you’re not focused on like the broader context of like, why is it rising? Perhaps I just took it, I was in a sauna. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps I was working out.

Nick Urban [00:22:02]:
It’s not a bad thing to see a glucose rise then either. But you’re also missing out on insulin and other hormones. You’re missing out on ketones. So like, in order to get like a real accurate snapshot of like what’s going on metabolically, you would need to have more biomarkers there. And then it also can instill some fear about having like any glucose spike at all and it’s okay. Well then what do I do? Just follow like a strict ketogenic diet to make sure I keep my glucose as optimal as possible.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:22:28]:
You’re very right. You have to think of. You also have to not go crazy with monitoring too. Right. You. So I think you should be responsible. You should have this. But just like your speedometer.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:22:40]:
Right. You don’t really probably look at it all the time. You look at it periodically. At least I do. Right. So I think you should kind of respect the data and look back on it. Not necessarily stress over it.

Nick Urban [00:22:52]:
Yeah, that’s a good reframe. It’s like you’re driving, you’re looking at the road in front of you and every once in a while you glance down at the speedometer. You’re not staring at the speedometer. And then every once in a while glancing up to see if the road is as it was last time you looked up.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:23:04]:
Exactly. All nuance.

Nick Urban [00:23:06]:
Yeah. So the big killers. I mean, some of the big killers, at least here in the US and I guess around the world, cardiovascular always up there. Cancer is another one. Are you seeing any like innovative therapeutics or approaches there that are working well, well for cancer?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:23:24]:
I mean the immunotherapies have come out, those have been good. It’s again a regulatory thing. So we’ve gotten genomics to look for the targets. But if you’re trying to tackle cancer with one gene drugs, it’s still not going to be perfect. So I’m hopeful AI can kind of help us with that because ideally it should probably be a combination treatment plan. But to get a combination treatment plan for some of these cancers it will take time based on the current regulatory environment. So I think with that changing and AI helping us, we can hopefully move faster. Because doing huge clinical trials with hundreds of people comparing one or two agents versus the other standard of care, I think we’re losing a lot of people.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:24:10]:
And that’s really sad. So that’s where AI getting smarter, telling us which medicines combine better, which people are best for them, being predictive about that will be really exciting. And I think already with heart disease we’re seeing actually less people dying. The sad part is the society is getting a little bigger, fatter right now with GLPs and these other exciting things that hopefully will come to market with muscles and continuing us to have good muscle balance. I think that’ll also change. So I think more and more people are getting on the GLPs, the food companies are changing and hopefully the food quality one day will be way better.

Nick Urban [00:24:51]:
Yeah, it’s really interesting to see how you have an industry over here and it’s affecting an industry over there. So like as a result of the GLP one like world exploding and like everyone, their neighbors hopping on them for either a major loss, like a medical super supervised fat loss or like just to get their summer body in check. Now it’s like the food and the food and drink industries are changing and it’s like I wonder if it’s going to cause a spiral and I guess a good way where it’s like all of a sudden different industries, the fitness industry will change and then somehow like the car industry will change. It’ll like all like the designs and everything will change to accommod a a new world.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:25:35]:
Or it could go the other way where the food companies get more aggressive and try to build foods that are actually more, they can break through the GLPs, which is just God awful thinking. But I’ve heard that right?

Nick Urban [00:25:46]:
Yeah, it could really go either way. And I guess hopefully there’ll be some kind of regulation around it. It seems to me to be a bit strange that you’re allowed to hire scientists that can do like, neuroimaging studies and they can figure out, like, what additives they can add to their foods to make them more palatable, to create more neurochemical changes. And it’s like, not for the consumer’s best interest. And most people on the streets have no idea that, oh, this isn’t just like, it’s not a coincidence that you can’t have one of this or that snack. It’s literally designed and engineered by a team with I don’t even know what kind of budget to be that very particular way.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:26:24]:
Exactly. And that goes in other departments. Right. Not just food. It’s all about getting that brain to do that behavior, that body.

Nick Urban [00:26:33]:
Yeah, yeah. And it’s like because of that effect, there’s like now a, I guess a slingshot the other way too. It’s like people like just leaving their phones at home, leaving like their food at home and just going out into the wilderness for a while, trying to escape it all to like, I guess, reset. Because like, intuitively, when we spend so much time on our phones eating ultra processed refined foods, then it’s like, okay, I guess I can only take so much of this before I need some kind of like, break from it.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:27:01]:
Exactly. We’re going analog now. I think you’ve heard maybe the younger generation, they’re kind of over this. So that’s kind of exciting. Gives me a bit of hope because I had an analog childhood, digital adulthood. So I’m grasping everything that’s being thrown at me. But I’m trying to help my children navigate this. Right.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:27:20]:
Just when they asked me, daddy, did you have iPads when you were a kid? Obviously not. I had even. I had black and white TVs at some houses. Right. So they were shocked. I mean, does that mean the world was black and white? Right.

Nick Urban [00:27:33]:
I was thinking the other day, like, kids these days are going through school with chat GPT available to them. Like, I don’t even know how you would learn. Like, you wouldn’t know how to do research.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:27:43]:
Exactly.

Nick Urban [00:27:43]:
Without.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:27:44]:
Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:27:44]:
Like, if you didn’t have, if you grew up on ChatGPT and then it wasn’t there. But then again, it’s like I had teachers in school who are like, you have to do everything longhand because you’re not going to be always walking around with a calculator in your pocket at all. Times and lo and behold have one of these in my pocket at all times, which is far, far more powerful than a calculator. But I get the sentiment nonetheless.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:28:07]:
Yeah, I mean some schools are actually preventing phones into the school. So that’s what they’re doing. Right. So there might be all this AI fun stuff, but schools are fighting back. So I think people realize that. And just like with drinking, people are drinking less, which is interesting, right? Who would have thought?

Nick Urban [00:28:28]:
But then again you have like the other side where it’s like, okay, people are drinking less alcohol now. The alcohol alternatives market is growing really rapidly. And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, it’s a good thing, but it’s just interesting to see like just because one industry has a declining growth, it doesn’t mean that the whole a concept or the thing that it represents is declining.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:28:48]:
Right. People will always want to escape. And we’re doing another experiment with a trade off. Right. So beer and wine have been there for centuries and we kind of know what’s going to happen with them with certain populations. But high end thc, right. I don’t know where that’s going to go for not fully developed brains. Right.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:29:06]:
That could, that could end badly.

Nick Urban [00:29:07]:
I want to know more about your practice. What is it that you’re like, you’re doing, you’re seeing that’s like really moving the needle for folks there. Like are you seeing that like a lot of them tend to be deficient or like overloaded in particular nutrients or like are there particular peptides that everyone’s asking about but instead you steer them a different direction? Tell me about that.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:29:28]:
Yeah, I mean everybody’s unique. So depending on your age, on your belief system, I mean people could be seven years old and walking around pre diabetic thinking that that’s okay, having extra 20 pounds around them, visceral fat and other doctors just saying, oh, you’re fine, have a, have a nice day. Right. So then I kind of educate them that guys, this is not acceptable. You’re not going to be that a student. You’re retired now. If you’re that 70 year old, you want to live your best life. Well, I don’t think you’ll be able to do that with what is going on.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:30:02]:
So I want to optimize you with your permission. And it’s a back and forth game. Some people don’t want to do certain things and I totally respect that. The little additions. If you’re open, like creatine, right. Low hanging fruit, right. Get some creatine on board, and older people just blossom. Get that A1C corrected.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:30:20]:
Get people more movement, the right movement. And then you can go down other fun avenues if they’re interested. You could check your micronutrient levels. The basic things, like in our unfortunate food system, our food is not very good. So we’ll be missing some of these important things, like who checks for boron, really. But boron is commonly deficient. It’s important for testosterone for bones. So you could be missing out on a lot of these things.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:30:46]:
And of course, number one is just don’t die. Right. If you have a issue in your artery that might knock you off, I want to help you prevent that. Okay. So that’s number one. If you have a cancer that’s lurking in your body, you should not have that be a stage four cancer. Now, in my opinion, right, you should do the test. You should do the liquid biopsy blood test.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:31:08]:
You should consider imaging. That will give us more data. And if you find something, we can follow it. It doesn’t have to be all fatalistic, but at least you can have a good inventory of your body. And that’s been something that’s been totally missing, especially in our training. And some people say, well, it’s too expensive and this and that. Well, that’s up to the consumer to decide. I think it’s still a free country.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:31:30]:
So if people want to do that and they find value in it, they’re going to get more life, I feel.

Nick Urban [00:31:36]:
Yeah, the whole. The whole adage of like, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And it’s like, it might be more expensive in the short term, but if you have astronomically high medical bills from actually having to treat something that’s late stage, that’s going to be extremely expensive. Even with insurance helping out.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:31:54]:
Exactly. I’ve had so many well to do people, even amazing doctors. One of the best cardiologists who was focused on his heart, but unfortunately had a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. Right. It was already metastatic. If he had one of those tests earlier, I think it could have been a different story. But nobody even knew about it. Nobody is educating people.

Nick Urban [00:32:15]:
Yeah. And the issue here is that also there aren’t always signs and symptoms of these things until it’s already, well, progressed.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:32:22]:
Exactly. So that’s my passion, making sure that, first and foremost, people don’t get knocked off by these things that I think are really preventable in today’s world and then optimizing further. And that’s up to you. If you want to be Mr. Olympia, that’s fine. Well maybe you just want to have a good body composition and limit that visceral fat. Because visceral fat is also kind of one of those rate determining steps of health. If you have too much visceral fat, that’s not good for you either.

Nick Urban [00:32:50]:
Yeah. And so for body composition, are you using something like a DEXA scan to understand.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:32:55]:
Yeah, exactly. We have a DEXA scan in clinic, so that is a nice way to get those answers. We have a VO2 max assessment. We do. Or Mr. To look at your caloric burn and we put it all together.

Nick Urban [00:33:07]:
It seems like there’s more places now starting to offer this, but until last handful of years, maybe a decade or so, it’s been very piecemeal. It’s like you go to this clinic for this, this clinic for this, this clinic for this and it leaves consumers like if you want to get the comprehensive like one stop there isn’t. There wasn’t really a one stop shop. And now it’s like you have the ability to go into a place like yours and to really understand like a snapshot of where you currently are.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:33:31]:
Exactly. I think this is the 21st century primary care office the way it should be. Not so rear view oriented, I guess.

Nick Urban [00:33:40]:
Interventions that you find most useful in like different timescales, of course, like certain things are going to be like a snapshot of where you are. Right. The second certain things or will encompass the last like month or week and then certain things will be like the last six months, certain things maybe the last couple of years.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:33:56]:
Well, I mean I like to get the basics right. So in your first of all, if you go by decade. Right. If you’re in your 20s, most people don’t really care about longevity. Right. You’re immortal.

Nick Urban [00:34:07]:
Yeah.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:34:08]:
I think that’s something that people awaken to once they hit their mid-30s they realize the sands of time going. You see people around you getting ill and you, and you connect the dots. Right. So I think for people that are under 40, I think it’s getting a good baseline and seeing what could be coming up. Most mid 30 year olds are I think in decent shape, but there could be surprises. There could be, like I mentioned, you have artery that’s getting blocked and the saddest thing that I ever hear is somebody’s under 40 and they collapse and they had a heart attack. And I don’t think that should happen. Right.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:34:40]:
I think you can hopefully reverse that or get ahead of it. So then in your 40s, right. Especially women, you’re going through perimenopause, men’s hormones are further declining. So then you can, you want to continue making sure that the muscles are good, that you’re staying ahead of metabolic issues. These are things that I focus on then in the 60s and 70s, you want to maintain that, you want to make sure that all is functioning well and then, you know, the whole body MRI question arises, when do you want to do that? I think. And also I like the genomic testing. Right. That is also something that can tell you in a snapshot how you look based on your life.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:35:20]:
Commonly if you do that true diagnostic test, I see that people have shorter telomeres, have also one of those just startup lifestyle stories. Right. So they’re in the thick of things. But people that are more relaxed, they’ve kind of got that cruising altitude going that’s also kind of like a barometer. So it’s interesting kind of to get a snapshot of everything interesting.

Nick Urban [00:35:43]:
Okay. And then for the interventions you mentioned earlier that you like to help people make sure they have a good movement program. And for the elderly or people who are aging in general, are there types of movements that you find the most useful? You’ve also mentioned that you have a VO2 Max testing setup in your office. So I’d assume that there’s some kind of movement that involves like high intensity or moderate intensity endurance.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:36:10]:
Exactly. So that is a good test for elderly people even. But we also do something like a kinotech analysis to see your movement and then based on that, we can see where your deficiencies might be.

Nick Urban [00:36:22]:
What is that?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:36:22]:
So kinotech is where you are doing certain movements and you can see where for example, you might have limitations or weaknesses. And that will help, for example, that training program that you should be doing. Right. Beyond just playing pickleball. Right. That, that’s something that can fine tune things. And I’m looking. Go ahead.

Nick Urban [00:36:43]:
Would that be like gait analysis of like you walking, jogging, running or it’ll be doing like movements like squatting and.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:36:50]:
Push ups movements, things like that. So that, that can dial in stuff. And then I’m blessed because in Houston we have a great place called Sarco Health Vitality and they get people that are older the right program. So I just can refer them out and they, they get tuned up and they get muscle and they, they love it because it’s an organized, smart physical therapy group for, for people that are having a little bit of sarcopenia, which is pretty much everybody at that age.

Nick Urban [00:37:19]:
Are you finding that in general, like as I guess with your aging patients that like certain types of movements or interventions around particular categories are most important. Like for example, maintaining like anything that’ll help them maintain muscle mass, whether it’s a peptide, whether it’s a strength training program, whether it’s something along those lines or it’s like bone density improvements, like really focusing there. What would you say in terms of like the mechanistic goals do you see as being important?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:37:54]:
Exactly. I mean, for example, I have patients that they did not know they had osteopenia, but they were doing really heavy weights. They had a trainer and everything like that. But because they can do a DEXA scan, they were deficient there. But muscle wise they were great. Now then you have to tackle the osteopenia. Right. So it’s really nuanced on what’s going on with the person.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:38:19]:
And you also want to have people do what they enjoy. So some people love to horseback ride. I want them to continue that. So that kind of also fixes. It stresses a lot of things in the body. Right. So it’s a mix of what people will continue to do and getting everything just unified.

Nick Urban [00:38:41]:
Yeah, that’s one thing I learned early on is like the best exercise program is that the one the person you’re prescribing it to will actually do. If you have the most elaborate routine built out and they never actually use it because it doesn’t fit with their lifestyle, it doesn’t matter.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:38:55]:
Exactly.

Nick Urban [00:38:56]:
All right. You also mentioned creatine earlier. Is a pretty much, maybe not exactly universal, but close to it, like broadly helpful. Are there any other, like non individualized things that you like to help support people with?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:39:11]:
I think most people probably benefit from fish oil. I think that’s a safe statement. The only question is how much some people, if you overdo it, they might get a little bit of an arrhythmia. They might not enjoy taking the fish oil. But I think that’s pretty safe to say. I like to take NMN and I recommend that as well to folks to get that NAD level elevated. Also gut health, super important. Didn’t really talk about that.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:39:38]:
So I like to do a gut analysis. But if you wish to defer that, I think doing a very high quality pre probiotic could be good and also postbiotic and you can kind of cycle off and on that. And I think a lot of it is related to just how you’re feeling. Right. So if you’re feeling good and you have good movements, more than likely you’re okay. But if you don’t check for some of those pathogens that could be causing problems, then it might be worthwhile to do a stool analysis, especially if one travels. Right. I love to travel, so I’m constantly putting myself at risk for probably some of these.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:40:14]:
Pick some things. I mean, I’m going to Argentina later this year, and it’s the thing that I love doing. So even in Houston, though, you could also pick up a symptom of a bug, and that’s something that I think makes sense to check out.

Nick Urban [00:40:29]:
And I think there’s a misconception that just because you’re not aware that you have it, you don’t necessarily present with a bunch of symptoms. If you do have it, it still isn’t doing your body favors, and it’s consuming resources, nutrients, and things that would be used other places throughout the body. If it’s there and it’s growing out of proportion, out of more than it should be.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:40:53]:
Exactly. I mean, a lot of diseases begin in the gut, and if you figure out your gut balance, then you should be pretty healthy. It’s like your garden. You want to have the right balance of happy flowers, good soil, and everything working right.

Nick Urban [00:41:07]:
Is there a particular test or like, a series of tests that you like to use there?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:41:12]:
I’ve been using the GI MAP pretty frequently. I know Vibrant has a good test, and I did VIOME also, which got me feeling good about myself. So I like that test. But I do the GI map. That’s been kind of my go to. I want to kind of expand more into other tests, though.

Nick Urban [00:41:29]:
The results of a lot of these tests are like, how actionable are they? Like, if you get the results, it’s like, okay, you have this condition and like, that’s that. Or is it like, okay, you have this imbalance, this dysbiosis, and as a result, then you can do a protocol of whatever. And when you retest, you should see that that dysbiotic population has gone way down.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:41:54]:
Yeah. I mean, symptoms. Right. So treat the patient, see how they’re doing. Get some feedback, because this is a test only. Right. But I doubt that having high levels of H. Pylori with multiple resistant features is a good thing for you.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:42:06]:
Right. So you could be asymptomatic still, but have a bunch of H. Pylori Lori, which I think is doing yourself a huge disservice, so probably should eliminate that. Now, Akkermansia, for example, that’s often low. If that’s low, I think there’s ways to fix that. That’s a specific strain. And then if you have something like blood in your stool, well, goodness, that should be a red flag or something. Right.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:42:30]:
So it’s a lot of nuance. Right. So it all depends on what is appearing and how you’re feeling and how far you want to investigate. So you can do treatments that are more botanical, more so soft, I like to say. And then you can, of course, take out other things if the symptoms make sense.

Nick Urban [00:42:47]:
Okay. And what was the postbiotic that you like?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:42:51]:
I like. It’s a Japanese company having a bit of a senior moment here. It might bounce back into my head. Goodness.

Nick Urban [00:42:59]:
But does it have, like, do you know the active ingredient or the. The active postbiotic is.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:43:06]:
I did.

Nick Urban [00:43:08]:
Okay, gotcha. Yeah. Postbiotics are really fascinating. That’s like one of the frontiers of, like, the gut health industry. That’s. That are being more explored a lot more now thanks to companies that are producing like, urolithin A and butyrate and tributerin and short chain fatty acids. Lots of cool stuff there that I expect that we’ll see a lot more of in the next, like, five or ten years.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:43:30]:
Right. I’ll have to remind myself. Yeah.

Nick Urban [00:43:35]:
Awesome. Any other, like, longevity interventions, since you’re obviously very involved in this field and you’re looking at what’s coming down the horizon that have you interested these days?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:43:45]:
Well, first and foremost, it’s really difficult to do everything at once. Right. Because you can do that cold plunge, you can have that beautiful breakfast, you can then do a sauna. But at some point, I need to take care of my kids and go to work. I can get my PMF treatment. I can get this going. And then. So I think, you know, you fit what you can.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:44:07]:
Number one now for the future. I think I’m really excited about the new medicine that’ll be coming out that’ll essentially make obesity even more optional and also give us the muscle. So that’s something that’s really cool. And I think orthopedic advances. Right, because as we hit our mid-40s, as we hit our age, where you still feel great but your joints don’t, that is something that I want to be better. Right. So the stem cell technologies, the regenerative medicines, I would like things to be more prime time, because right now I feel it’s a bit. It’s very hit or miss.

Nick Urban [00:44:44]:
Yeah. That the regenerative medicine space is really confusing too, to, like, navigate all the different terminologies and, like, the legalities. Like, you can do this here, but not that. And you can go abroad and do that. But then you risk. It all becomes very confusing and consuming for someone who like is interested in this stuff and researching it. So I can imagine that as a consumer it’s like a non starter. Where do you even begin when you’re, when you’re fascinated by this stuff.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:45:08]:
Right. It typically involves having a good passport and also decent funding. Right. So yeah. And then hopefully the outcome will be great. But not often.

Nick Urban [00:45:18]:
Yeah, but even then it’s like a lot of like the premier scientists across different specializations in regenerative medicine disagree on like what is the best form of, you name it and like they all like paint very compelling rationales behind why this over here, their specialization is what is the most effective and it has the fewest potential consequences. And then the other people look at that and they rebut everything that they say and it’s like, okay, well it’s hard to say like if the, the scientists, like there’s not, there’s not really scientific consensus on like what is the most effective and has like the least trade offs then I don’t know, I love the idea of it and I’m still like waiting for more. I don’t even know what to call it. More consensus around some of them.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:46:07]:
Exactly. It’s like little fiefdoms everywhere and everybody’s thinking their product is the best and obviously there are incentives.

Nick Urban [00:46:16]:
That’s also like a really important part to talk about. How do you go about simplifying the world of health to patients and to the people who ask you about it? Because as you mentioned, I always joke that I have the perfect five hour morning routine. But then if you have a five hour morning routine and a five hour evening routine, then all of a sudden your entire day is gone to routine. So like what do you do? How do you go about simplifying the whole world of what’s out there into like something that’s going to work for people?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:46:45]:
Exactly. So I think it’s a personal question and what your, your goals are. But and also what, how you feel. So I think universally just if you can dial in your sleep, you’re gonna feel amazing. Right. And there’s ways to do that. You can add certain peptides, for example, you can get that newest sleep aid system, you can do the cool plunge, you can take your magnesium, you can avoid alcohol. I mean educating people is number one.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:47:13]:
Right. You have people that have arrived to the longevity world and those that are still getting there. So just low hanging fruit. You have to explain to people that shouldn’t eat this much in the evening and it’s okay to not have that glass of wine. And then lo and behold, you’re going to feel amazing the next day if you don’t do that. And it’ll be documented, unawareable, and then success breeds success. So I think that is the educational component, right. Because some people already speak the language and are fluent, but other people are not there yet.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:47:45]:
So I think you have to kind of tease out that. So then I have a routine which works best for me. Right. I like red light therapy. It just does amazing things. I feel and I feel the difference. PMF therapy sometimes, right. And cool plunges.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:48:01]:
I like them sauna. Right. But that’s part of the. I have to do other things. Right. I would love to do that, but then I have to be a father. Right. So I think it’s one of those things where you make your own personal longevity tradition and you adapt.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:48:18]:
You take what you like. It could be a seasonal thing, for example, and you don’t have to be perfect. That’s the other thing. People just over fixate on perfection. You don’t need to be perfect. It’s okay. Right. Network connections are amazing.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:48:31]:
You should hang out with people. You should enjoy that wedding. I think having a glass or two of good quality wine with that people is negligibly negative on your health in the end. Right. So take it. All. Right. And live life, of course.

Nick Urban [00:48:47]:
Yeah. Such a balanced, like, approachable way to go through it. Because like people will see the certain influencer who spends $2 million on his annual routine and it’s like, okay, here’s his 24 hour schedule where he has like every two minutes mapped out. I don’t want that. I just want to be like a little healthier. I don’t care if I live to 250. I just want to like live high quality years, as long as those are, and be healthy and look, feel and perform at my best. Like, how can I go about that? And I don’t want to do 250 different things throughout the day or take a whole cabinet full of products just to get there.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:49:25]:
Exactly. And somebody might want to be with you. And if they don’t support that, that might be challenging. Right. So if you have a partner who’s not fully on board, then you’re gonna have a bumpy ride, I think. Right. But if you have a partner that’s more or less there, that’s great.

Nick Urban [00:49:39]:
How do you navigate the. The patients who come to you and they hear that and they’re like, okay, well you know what, I’m glad you mentioned that. I really don’t like sleeping, I really don’t like exercise. I don’t really have time for those things. And so it’s like, you know what I do like, I like chips, I like all these different things. I like cookies. And it’s like, how do you know when you’re avoiding a therapy or something that’s going to be good for you because you don’t want to do it? And it’s what you need. It’s the medicine, if you will, that you need versus like perhaps you like certain things even though they’re not helping bring your body into more of like a homeostatic state.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:50:15]:
Well, I mean you can’t usually say flat out put, yeah, throw that out because people get offended and people have the ego. So you kind of have to take them on a journey and explain to them and intuitively they have to add, connect the dots and realize that this might not be the best for them. And then if you introduce a certain intervention, they realize they feel much better and they don’t need these things. That’s where the light clicks. Right? So for example, just an example, you could do low dose tirzepatide and people that are drinking too much just constantly have that food noise elevated. They have that obesity metabolic issue that oftentimes is a fix in the short term which becomes long term and that’s kind of cool. So people get off of that medicine, they have their new setting in their body and life is beautiful. But that’s of course doing everything.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:51:12]:
We don’t want to just use a medicine and be that quick fix as Americans like to do. We need to use it in combination with everything.

Nick Urban [00:51:19]:
I think that’s like a thing. It’s like people either are all about the quick fixes or they’re the opposite. They hate the quick fixes. But I think the quick fixes can serve a really valuable role when they’re combined with something that helps make sure that quick fix persists into the medium and long term as well. If you have no energy using a quick fix, be it caffeine or something else, a different nootropic that can help you have the energy required to change the behavior and to build the whatever it is, the skill set and the things that are required so that you maintain that and then in the future you can choose to discontinue it or you can continue it either way and you’re going to have a very hopefully better result.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:52:00]:
Yeah, success breeds success. I think that’s the most important.

Nick Urban [00:52:03]:
Well, Dr. Greg, this has been a blast chatting with you today. If people want to check out your clinic and connect with you, how do they go about that?

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:52:12]:
Check us [email protected] then you can go to some of our social media sites from there and give us a call. Maybe it makes sense to do a discovery call. We can help you live your best life.

Nick Urban [00:52:25]:
Beautiful. And do you guys do telemedicine as well, or are you.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:52:30]:
I’m in Texas. I have. I’m expanding my medical licenses, so I’m getting more and more almost each day.

Nick Urban [00:52:36]:
Well, very cool. I’ll put a link to those websites in the show. Notes and socials and everything. Dr. Greg, thank you so much for joining the podcast today.

Gregory Burzynski MD [00:52:43]:
Thanks, Nick. It’s been great.

Nick Urban [00:52:45]:
Thanks for tuning in to Hyper Performance Longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their health span. You can find all the episodes, show notes and resources [email protected] until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.