This month started off with two amazing opportunities to learn from top doctors, scientists and practitioners in the longevity and metabolic health space. Scott and Alli attended Paleo f(x) in Austin, TX April 29th-May 1st and then The Metabolic Health Summit virtually last weekend. As always, we enjoyed being immersed in learning from the best people and being around others who share our passion for health and longevity. Here are some of the takeaways we thought you would find interesting (it was hard to narrow down just a few!!):
  • One of the panels at Paleo f(x) was on stem cells. The doctors discussed the importance of how important the pre and post treatment is. They all agreed that stem cell treatments are extremely effective, but the body has to be ready. Stem cells are thought to be a “magic pill”, however for optimal results it’s important to clear other factors that could be contributing to pain and inflammation. They also discussed FDA regulation as well as treatments being studied for Covid-19, hearing loss and even regeneration of discs and limbs. One of the exciting advances they mentioned was Galleri, a blood test for cancer detection which is now available and has high specificity.
  • Also at Paleo f(x), we heard from Dr. Jacob Egbert who has seen first hand how mindset affects patient outcomes. Staying active, having social support and a great attitude are some of the top things that allow us to age powerfully. He gave examples of patients in their 40’s without these things who gave up, as well as those into their 90’s who thrived because they had the drive and motivation to do so.
The Metabolic Health Summit was even better than the last one we attended in February of 2020. We love hearing from progressive scientists who are doing studies as well as clinicians seeing patients to get information from both sides – bridging the gap between science and practice. This medical conference was very encouraging with people who are committed to promoting health and working together. The body is a group of systems that all need to work in concert – as such so should our medical team.
There was a common theme among many of the presenters that disease prevention and treatment can be affected with diet, exercise and an overall emphasis on a healthy lifestyle. The opening keynote was with Jong Rho, MD in which he said your DNA is not your destiny; how most genes are expressed are based on many factors that we can control, mainly diet.
Rhonda Patrick, PhD spoke about intestinal permeability and the deleterious affects on aging, metabolic health and brain function when bacteria enters the bloodstream. These bacteria can lead to atherosclerosis. It can cause the blood brain barrier to break down which can lead to depression, dementia and Alzheimer’s Disease. Bacteria in the bloodstream increases systemic inflammation which leads to metabolic dysfunction. What can we do to repair our gut?
  • Maintain a healthy weight
  • Decrease alcohol consumption
  • Increase butyrate, a major energy source for the gut, through increasing Omega 3’s, doing aerobic exercise, time-restricted eating, as well as eating fermentable fiber such as berries, root vegetables, mushrooms, onion, garlic and artichokes.
Barbara Gower, PhD discussed the link between cancer and obesity. Here are some key takeaways from her talk – definitely food for thought (pun intended)!
  • Obesity is quickly overtaking tobacco as the leading preventable cause of cancer.
  • As many as 84,000 cancer diagnoses each year can be attributed to obesity.
  • Nearly 40% of all cancers can be attributed to overweight and obesity.
Dale Bredesen, MD, had a fantastic talk about Alzheimer’s Disease being optional. Alzheimer’s is a complex disease with unknown etiology. There are so many factors that appear to contribute to AD that one drug will never be able to do everything needed to cure this disease. Precision medicine is the best answer as people have different risk factors that lead to AD.
It is also important to not brush off the “early” signs. When a patient has mild cognitive impairment, this is already stage 4 of the progression. However, it can usually be reversed if addressed at this stage. Here is a 12 minute clip of an interview with Dr. Bredesen from 2019 in which he talks about testing for Alzheimer’s, starting at the age of 45, with a cognoscopy, and the lifestyle factors that can help reverse or slow the decline:
Dr. Bredesen's 'Cognoscopy' and recommended biomarkers for Alzheimer's prevention | Dale Bredesen
There were many other amazing speakers over the course of the three days. Our goal was to give you a little glimpse into the exciting information that is out there and the hopeful approaches we are seeing in brain and body health. We need to be in charge of our future and our health – and there is so much we can control through lifestyle factors. What is one small change you will make today??