Unlocking Longevity with Dr. Julian Gershon Jr.

[00:00:03] Hi, I'm Dr. Russell Thackeray and welcome to Resilience Unravelled, a podcast with new ideas, new thoughts and new thinking about resilience. Guests with remarkable stories, products and services that can really power up your own mindset and resilience. You can also go to our site for more information, to ask questions or to access some of our resources at resilienceunravelled.com. Let's get started.

[00:00:32] Hey and welcome back to Resilience Unravelled. It's my pleasure to be there now and then to have a different sort of guest on. And in front of me is Dr. Julian Gershon Jr., no less. Yeah, in the senior, the original Dr. Gershon just turned 100. Wow, where in the world are you? I'm in Aspen, Colorado. We seem to have had a lot of guests from us and from Colorado recently. Is there something in the entrepreneurial zeitgeist out there? What's going on?

[00:00:59] It's just a beautiful place with a great climate that a lot of people love to visit. And then when they've been here, they want to stay. Yeah, must be the case. Look, tell us a bit about yourself. I've been in practice 45 years. I'm board certified in three specialties, family medicine, sports medicine and anti-aging and regenerative medicine. I've done a stem cell fellowship about 12 years ago.

[00:01:25] And so I've done more than a thousand different types of stem cell and exosome injections, joint injections, a number of things to help improve general health as well. And we really focus now on longevity, anti-aging medicine.

[00:01:42] We do a lot of biologic age testing through DNA methylation and telomere length, so forth, to have a foundation and a groundwork for where things are. And then we apply science to help to create better health and longevity.

[00:02:32] And that help, number one, just give you back that vitality that you had in your 20s and 30s. We're a time period in our life where we took everything for granted. We just felt great all day, every day. And so it's sometimes hard to compare. How do I feel today to when I was there? My back didn't hurt. I didn't have this problem with my knee or my hip. And I wasn't tired at four or five in the afternoon. You just did everything all up, all day.

[00:03:01] And there's reasons for that. So we just really apply the knowledge and the things that we've learned over really the past 20 plus years. I've started studying anti-aging and regenerative medicine about 22 years ago when I turned 50. I had good colleagues and good friends from, I was on the board of our National Academy of Sports Medicine. And I was at a board meeting.

[00:03:30] I talk about it at the beginning of my book. And I'm like, where's Bob? Dr. Goldman, Bob Goldman. And then he's doing some anti-aging thing. And literally in 1989, I thought he was nuts. I thought he'd lost his mind. And then about a decade later, 2000, I show up at a conference. And I was very intrigued by the subject matter. And then, why wouldn't I want to do that? Why wouldn't I want to feel my best every day?

[00:03:58] And so that's when I really started studying and learning the effectiveness of hormone balancing. Okay. You've given me a lot to get into there. So you mentioned lots of different things. I want to get into some of them anyway. I've always been interested in the telomene stuff, which is about the caps on the end of DNA chains, isn't it? So could you speak to that a little bit? Because I think that's still quite outside of the medical community. I'm not sure that's well understood or well known. Would you agree? I do.

[00:04:27] And it's very much overlooked, as is most of the therapies that I deal with. We're focused in general medicine on disease management. And nobody looks up and looks around to what's the cause of all these things. And what can we do differently to help our future? And of course, prevent disease.

[00:04:49] And the telomeres are the tips of your DNA, not something we think about much, but they predict and are the reason that we age. And as we look around at our friends or family people, some show the signs of wear and tear, so to speak, aging much earlier than others. And some, wow, is that person really 70 or 80 or whatever, plus or a centigenarian in their hundreds? And if so, how and why?

[00:05:19] And we don't have all the answers yet. But we do know that a lot of things affect it negatively. That's why we use vitamins that we use, antioxidant substances, staying away from toxic compounds in both our environment and our diet. As we now are learning more all the time. And in America, we're even worse for it of all the chemicals and additives in many foods.

[00:05:46] And thank goodness there's a big movement underway to change that. They definitely damage our DNA. And so there are some, we know that just optimizing hormones and reducing inflammation helps to preserve the continuity, if you will, of our DNA. Of our telomeres. There's a compound that I recommend to patients called TA65.

[00:06:12] It's a botanical blend that has been shown to prevent telomere shortening. And so that's something people can find online. And I'm not sure how available that is in the UK, but things ship worldwide. So certainly TA65 is a substance that I recommend to clients and I take on a daily basis. Yeah. A lot of what you're saying here is, so the interesting thing about telomeres is linked to cancer as well, isn't it?

[00:06:41] So a lot of the things you're talking about there are the things which people generally talk about. Reducing inflammation, improving your diet, looking at toxicity within your environment, but also in food and such. We know all this stuff. So why don't we do it? I had a friend who wrote a book called The Slight Edge, Jeff Olson. We don't do it because it's easy to do. It's also easy not to do.

[00:07:05] And it just takes some discipline, the little simple disciplines daily, repeated over time that lead to success and health. And the simple errors in judgment that lead to our downfall and our early demise and premature aging. And some is really related to lack of knowledge. It's not common knowledge that these substances are out there. It's with what I do and the patients I see monthly.

[00:07:35] I'm constantly dealing with my doctor said this and that something bad or this may happen or that may happen. And unfortunately, that's all based on hearsay and wives tales. That's not the science. The science is solid. The science shows that hormone balance helps to reduce risk of all-cause mortality, helps reduce inflammation. They're inversely related.

[00:08:02] And so as we improve a man's testosterone level, we expect them to have more vitality, strength, energy. But do we know that it's because we're also improving glucose metabolism, lipid metabolism, muscle metabolism, reducing inflammation. There's a lot that is over the past 20 years, very slowly coming to the forefront. There's a lot of podcasts out there.

[00:08:30] And I commend you for what you do weekly. And it's that are sharing the knowledge. And I think that's a big deal right now on how a lot of people are getting good information. Well, there's a lot of people who are giving quite dangerous information, who are dressing certain facets up with just enough science to sound credible.

[00:08:50] And then creating regimes or often products which they're flogging, selling off their own websites, such as making themselves rich from the worried well, really. And I think it's very hard to get a strong sense of who you can trust in this world. And especially with, I guess, what's going on in the States at the moment, that's even more tricky. So for me, where do you start? For me, you start with food and you start with ultra high processed foods.

[00:09:16] And that's where you start, because that's almost the simplest thing you can start now before we do any treatments, visits to the doctors or anything else. Would you agree? Absolutely. I talked on one of my podcasts recently, one of my episodes, Beyond the Fountain of Youth, was I talked about Dan Buettner and his work with National Geographic and the Blue Zones and Sardinia and a number of places.

[00:09:42] And I saw something yesterday that someone sent me, my brother or someone to watch. And it was a different group of guys, but they were in Sardinia kind of interacting with the locals. And they were amazed that there are so many centigenarians in this little village. I think there's over 23 people or 24 that are over 100. They eat clean. They raise their own produce. They eat meat and veggies and vegetables.

[00:10:11] They have a little red wine every day. And they're active in their community and with their family. And it's just fascinating that. And at the same time, very unfortunate that we've gotten so far away from that with our industrialized lifestyles. And yeah, I think that's very interesting. And you have certain foods. Is it hexamine that comes out of highly processed oils? So the thing about the Blue Zones is that this is great use of olive oil.

[00:10:40] And they don't use sunflower oils or any of those more highly processed oils, which have a sort of carcinogenic effect when they heat it up. And there are, again, simple things you can do to actually begin to change your diet tomorrow. And I think that's really important. There's a ton of things which are difficult, like microplastics in the environment. And I guess where you live affects that. So I'm guessing, I was interested to see that you're talking to people who are unwell coming from your part of the world. Because you would imagine living in the mountains would be really good for you. It is.

[00:11:10] And we do have a very clean environment and very low pollution. But we're still exposed to the choices we make at the grocery store every day. As you walk down the cereal aisle, I think I just have this vision of glyphosate and toxins coming into my skin just because I'm in that environment. And I've eliminated all that from our diet. It's a carnivore diet, meat, vegetables, staying away from processed foods.

[00:11:39] You can't even shop in the aisle with the salad dressings because everything has canola oil or seed oil. And switch to a good vinaigrette with olive oil, avocado oil. And it's so much simpler that once you change your taste and realize that you're not putting those poisons in your body, you should expect to have more vitality and more energy.

[00:12:08] And the sad fact is that ultra-high processed food is addictive. And this is one of the actual challenges, isn't it? Sugars, sugar alcohols, they're all addictive. And I'm not going to say this is a plot from the food industry, but I'm going to say it's a plot from the food industry because it looks too suspicious. And they use all the same arguments as the smoking brigade about that. It's really challenging, isn't it? But there's tons of information out there. But you've referred two or three times to hormone balances.

[00:12:38] And I'm quite interested to know more about that because I didn't know you could do much about your hormones when you reached a certain age. But I suspect you're going to educate me on that. Absolutely. And there's a lot that can be done. Now, I'm not sure of the availability in the UK of all of the things that we do. But I know that there's national academies here in the United States. My friends founded the American Academy of Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine,

[00:13:05] Woblink Medical with Dr. Rousier out of Palm Desert. There, every time I go to these seminars, and I'll be going to one in two weeks in Las Vegas, that's a compendium, an annual review of everything going on in stem cell therapy around the world, that I meet physicians from all over the world. And so it is a movement that's growing. And that if you seek out the right information, that you will be able to find people.

[00:13:34] And I treat people on aspirin from all over the world. I see them once every year or two, and then we do telemedicine. I can send them to a lab anywhere that they have access to get blood work done. But so as far as really the truth and the meaning of hormone balancing, we start losing our hormones at 1% to 5% a year starting at age 30. I used to say 1% to 3% a year. But now because of plastics and water bottles,

[00:14:04] all the compounds we're exposed to at a very young age, I believe it's almost of epidemic proportions. I see, I have four dozen male clients that are in their 30s. 20 years ago when I started doing this, my average patient was 55 and up. The next decade in the 40s, now in the 30s. And so there are many things that cause hormone decline. Certainly in men and in women after childbirth.

[00:14:33] I have a lot of women in their 30s and 40s that are 10 or 20 years away from menopause, which is when estradiol tanks and crashes. And that they may need testosterone, progesterone, sleep issues, libido, muscle mass, can't lose weight, brain fog. These are all symptoms of hormone and they need to be tested.

[00:14:58] And there's specific ranges in the upper limits of normal that where you were in your 20s and maybe to 30 that need to be maintained. We find when we restore that, our chemistries change. And we go back to that state where the cholesterol is better, the blood sugar is better, the muscle metabolism is better, lipid metabolism, brain function.

[00:15:25] And that all cause mortality is decreased. It's sad that the conventional medical wisdom out there doesn't embrace. And there's a lot of new studies that show that in men and women, hormone balancing reduces the risk of cancer significantly. But they still say, oh, if you take estrogen, you'll have breast cancer. Estrogen is synthetic.

[00:15:56] Yeah. And we don't use estrogen. We have natural estradiol. And there are many studies that show not only does it help lower lipid profile, LDL cholesterol, but that it has anti-cancer benefits. So the exact opposite of what many physicians advise. And they're just not aware of the information. That's really interesting because I remember that study came from a very flawed, that idea came from a very flawed study in the 70s.

[00:16:24] And it's been proven time after time again to be untrue. But some of these studies hold on. Well, you know what? Yeah, it's the World Health Initiative study back in, this one was in around, I believe, 2001. And everyone across the world stopped prescribing hormones because it was like, oh my gosh, I don't want to be sued. I don't want to give someone something that may cause cancer or a blood clot, a stroke, heart attack. Those studies were all done on synthetic hormones. Yes.

[00:16:53] Not estradiol, not natural progesterone. They were progestins. They're made from a horse's urine. They weren't intended for people. Yeah. It is interesting. There's been a lot of research over here showing up the incidence of things like depression, as you say, brain fog, anxiety, all sorts of different conditions affecting natal women who have all disappeared once they've had HRT. And they're saying that the saving for our National Health Service on antidepressants and

[00:17:22] all those different things has been immense. But of course, now we've run out of hormones, HRT. So that's a different problem. But it's been quite significant how there has been a massive shift in this country for things like hormone classes, menopause classes, organizations. Now we're talking about how we manage women that work differently as they go through different chemistry changes because that is exactly what's happening. It's good to see the sort of culture of health beginning to change, isn't it? Yeah, absolutely. But it's slow.

[00:17:52] And I still deal with the opponents on a weekly basis. And I just tell patients, you're going to have to make some decisions yourself as you maybe read my book, read other resources that are out there. And information is not a scarcity these days. There's lots of information. And unfortunately, good pro and con and things that aren't true studies. I tell people a study can be designed to show anything if you're smart enough.

[00:18:22] And so it just depends. Is this big farm behind this? Do they want you to go a different route? Why they're toxic poison? Because it treats one specific thing and has many side effects. So that's a whole other story, obviously. But that's my point earlier about where people are getting incorrect information from podcasts and why it's important to actually talk to people who are actually qualified in this field.

[00:18:47] Because even if their advice is maybe older fashion, for example, whatever, at least it's legitimate and backed up by some sort of medical reputation. Whereas you have a lot of influencers who are just selling hormones and treatments and supplements and such. And you genuinely can't see any other effect than placebo. Really, that's coming from this sort of stuff. One of the fanciest and fancy Dan treatments that we're all into at the moment is GLP-1 agonists.

[00:19:12] So I wonder what your view is on that, because that seems to be capable of getting blood flowing through a wooden leg, as my old dad used to say. It seems to be the cure-all for everything at the moment. What's your view on that? Really, there are a number of benefits. And right now, it's, of course, the fad, because people want a shortcut to lose weight instead of eating right, cutting the carbs, sugar. And my favorite saying is, sugar's the devil. Sugar is the reason we have most disease.

[00:19:42] It's in everything. And we don't know how industry has promoted all the sugary cereals. And I still see Fruit Loop commercials at night. You're tired when you get home. Have a bowl of Fruit Loops. I'm like, oh my God. It's full of red dye, yellow tartrazine and poison. But that's what we're giving our kids. But addictive. Addictive. That's the king, isn't it? Yeah, completely. And yeah, I lost my train of thought there. No, we're talking about GLP-1s.

[00:20:12] And I think you're right about GLP-1s. So I use them a lot. I have a lot of patients on it that come in for weight loss. As one of the things that I've done for years, metformin, which is a diabetic drug, we've given it. It was in what was called the TRIM study. The word TRIM with two I's. That was metformin, DHEA, and growth hormone. And that was probably more than 15 years ago. And the mice lived longer. And that launched the metformin craze for longevity. Why does it?

[00:20:41] Because it mimics caloric restriction. Anytime we eat less or restrict calories, we live longer. And so the GLP-1s have that same action. And I'm on a GLP-1 because thanks to my mom, I'm adult onset diabetic, not obese or overweight at all, but I'm on it for my blood sugar. And so we know from studies with diabetics that there was over a 30% decrease in risk

[00:21:10] of heart attack, stroke, significant death, health issues, and that those benefits extrapolate to everyone that uses them. And so they do have longevity benefits. There are some oral versions that some of the longevity societies, if you will, are touting or recommending as something for longevity. And I don't think that it's one of those things you shouldn't self-treat and just buy it off

[00:21:39] the internet and take it. I think with some good advice that it can be safe there, like anything, there are some significant side effects. Fortunately, I haven't seen that with any of my patients, but it doesn't mean it can't and won't happen. So we have to use it with supervision and wisdom and caution. But they do have very significant longevity benefits. Yeah. Interesting.

[00:22:06] And I'm guessing stem cell research is really the holy grail of a lot of this because that's the, that's almost the source code, isn't it? Going back and being able to have any. So I can't think of this phrase, but almost like a magical properties of being able to replicate any cell in your body. That's quite cutting science, isn't it? We had a practitioner on from New Zealand or something talking about stem cells. And I was staggered at how far that science had come in the last 20 years. It's quite remarkable. Yeah. I did a fellowship.

[00:22:36] Oh, it's been going on 13 years now. And I, back at that time, had my own adipose derived mesenchymal stem cells harvested and banked. And I can order them. They culture expand them. I can use them for the rest of my life. And they're as old as they were as the day that I took them. And so there's many benefits. They modulate the immune system.

[00:23:01] They, I've had real strong success with post COVID long haulers with vaccine injuries, as it modulates the immune system attacks areas of inflammation. They stimulate the microcirculation when we use them in joint injections. Clearly, they help to repair and grow new cartilage. And they have tremendous benefits if done correctly. And it's safe to do.

[00:23:31] Interesting. So you mentioned a couple of times this book. So I think it's called, is it called Beyond the Fountain of Youth, by any chance? It is. Oh, great. I just happened to have one with me today. Oh, do you just happen to have one day? Goodness. I just happened to have one. Look at that smiley face. Now that's wasted if we're not on video. But we will be. So that's not a problem. Now, who did you write this book for? Well, I guess friends, family, the general public.

[00:24:00] I've studied this for a long time and taking my sports medicine background and expanding on that as I became an aging athlete and wanting to feel my best that I realized, who doesn't? And it just made sense.

[00:24:17] And it just made sense when I started this study. I don't operate my business at 40%. Why would I want my testosterone to be 40% of optimal? And I really wrote it for, and I did it in a conversational manner so that it's pretty easy to read.

[00:24:45] It's not too heavy on science. I cover everything from stem cell therapy to testosterone to red light therapy, nutrition. I hope covered at least all the bases and then we'll stick around for a while before it's outdated. But really in a way that anyone can understand and say, and they can make a personal decision. That makes sense. I think I would like to investigate it.

[00:25:12] Why wouldn't I want to feel my best for as long as possible? And I believe you've also got a Beyond the Fountain of Youth podcast. So I'm seeing a theme here about fountains of youth. Yeah. I thought it was an interesting topic. I came up with the title about five years ago and then it only took me four years to finally finish my book. But yes, the podcast is on YouTube, Apple TV.

[00:25:40] The audio book just came out on Spotify. And I know that I've now made bestseller status on Amazon so it can be ordered worldwide on Amazon. And I hope that your listeners and viewership will get a copy and enjoy it and stimulate their thinking. As I tell people, you owe it to yourself to make a study of longevity and apply everything that makes sense to you.

[00:26:10] I think that's the thing, isn't it? I wonder whether we live in a culture where we forget that our health is in our own hands, isn't it? It's our own gift to look after. We perhaps have a suspicion that somebody else should be doing it for us. Exactly. And even more so in our society, I think in America, people want to take a pill, go to the doctor. He'll tell me what to do.

[00:26:34] No, you need to start your homework before that because you may know better than he does on what's best for you. You certainly know what you're willing to do. And just taking a pill is not the answer. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Good advice. There you are. I told you it would be interesting, didn't I? I told you that there'd be a useful book at the end of this. And we've been talking to Dr. Julian Gershon, Jr., the second. Julian, it's been a delight to talk to you today.

[00:27:04] Thank you so very much for spending time with us. Great. Thank you. You take care. Hi. I hope you found that episode useful and entertaining. If you want to support our work, please go to resilienceunravel.com. And you can become a member there as well. You can also send us a question there and even apply to do a podcast. You can also leave a review on Apple Podcasts or any of the other podcast hosts of your choice,

[00:27:33] as well as getting hold of some useful resources about resilience and a whole lot more. Join us next time on the next edition of Resilience Unraveled.