Hope Could Add 8 Years to Your Life—Why Is No One Measuring It | Clint Phillips

Maybe the biggest learning came when my little girl had a stroke that left her paralyzed down the right side of her body. And we realized we're gonna have to dive in because my little girl, she needs a miracle. We know that data on hope and optimism can add 8 years to your life. I don't have any supplement and I don't have any marker that can really move the needle like that. But yet nobody's measuring it.

There is no supplement that can extend your life 8 years, maybe 6 months, maybe a year, maybe 2. I mean, 8 years, not even close.

People who have purpose have less Less stress. People who have purpose show a lower inflammation. I mean, it's very measurable.

When somebody retires, if they don't find a second purpose after work, their lifespan drops dramatically.

Yes. We'd have on these second opinions, we'd hear the person say, the doctor told me my disease has been cured. They're literally getting treatments for a disease that there is already a cure for. Their doctor didn't know it had been cured.

A lot of medical testing today, especially around blood work, it's becoming a markers game. And the reality is a lot of those markers are not that helpful.

We want people to flourish, because you can get all your numbers in a good place and not be flourishing. They're like, you've got to try peptides. I end up trying, and I go from doing 10 pull-ups to 18 pull-ups. I haven't done 18 pull-ups since I was 21. I had shoulder trouble for 4 years throwing the javelin. Zero pain. We were shocked to find out that often what is claimed to be in peptides is not in peptides. And we started testing and sending these things to the labs, and the companies that are claiming that their purity was amazing, we send them the results back and they're like, Ooh.

If you're interested in reversing chronic disease, promoting longevity, and topics around peptides and faith-driven healing, then you're not going to miss today's episode. Today, I've got an incredible guest. Clint Phillips. He's from South Africa, and he spent his career helping people heal using advanced medical testing, advanced medical therapies, and really being on the cutting edge of medicine. And what got him into all of this is helping his daughter heal and recover from a stroke. And so today we're gonna dive in and talk about how to heal using natural medicine. We're gonna talk about the most advanced testing in the world and so much more. Clint, welcome to the show.

Dr. Axe, this is an honor, an absolute honor. So excited to be here with you. Such a fan of what you do.

Thank you.

And looking forward to our conversation.

Well, I'm excited too. You know, we had a great breakfast this morning here. If you've ever been to Nashville, we were at Urban Market, which you say urban different in South Africa. Herbs.

Vitamins. We say vitamins and herbs.

That's right.

I'm trying to get to vitamins and herbs. It's hard.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we had a great healthy breakfast this morning, and I just really enjoyed our conversation. And I know we met in Austin before, and you're one of those people I really admire from being very faith-driven, also being very root cause-driven in helping people heal. And you got into this entire industry because of a health crisis in your own family. I'd love for you to start off, before we dive into peptides and all these other things, I'd love for you to share how you got involved in more of this natural medicine. You started some great companies, SecondMD, Medici Medical, but talk to us about what got you into this.

Yeah, I think the first thing was coming from a short-lived family. I was 20 years old. My dad died at 55. My grandparents died in their 60s. And I was like, is this my lot in life? So, I got interested in aging young. I remember being 20 years old reading a book by Kenneth Cooper called Regaining the Power of Youth. And the rugby players on the bus were laughing at me. They were like, dude, you're 20 and you're trying to regain your youth. Like, what's happening? But I was just, you know, desperate to find like, are there ways that you can change this? I don't want to be sick like my father. I don't want to die. I want to have a, you know, a healthier life. So that was a real catalyst from a young age to just be learning. If I met anybody healthy, I would later move to Aspen, Colorado, to play rugby. And I would meet these 80 and 90-year-old people who were taking ski lessons, who were learning the bumps, who were cycling 100 miles. And I was like, whoa, I didn't learn this in medical school. Like, there's something very different about these people. But maybe the biggest learning came when my little girl had a stroke. And that left her paralyzed down the right side of her body. And we realized we're gonna have to dive in. And we're gonna have to learn things that very few people know, because my little girl, you know, she needs a miracle.

Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. And I know you were sharing, she— it seems like she's doing very well now. Like, what are the things that you did for your daughter? Like, what You know, as you were doing research, and I know what this is like because when my mom had cancer, I spent thousands of hours researching how to heal. And not just one thing, I thought, I want to do everything I can to help her recover and reverse this. And so what was it like as you were doing research? What were some of the things you stumbled upon when it was researching to help your daughter?

You know, we felt very limited because it was all about The doctors didn't agree. She had a stroke after a vaccination. The doctors didn't agree it was the vaccination. So they said, well, it's because of her clotting factors. Turns out there was nothing. They said, well, it's because of her heart. Oh, her heart was fine. So we never really got a reason or agreement. We felt like we knew what it was. But how do you recover from that if nobody even acknowledges that that's the cause?

Yeah.

So we felt— it was very difficult for us. We felt incredibly limited. And the doctors that we wanted to see that we were told to see had 4 and 7 month waiting lists to see them. And then we waited all that time with our daughter who's paralyzed down the right side of her body. And yes, we're on Google. And we're reading all the things we can, but there's not a lot of good literature.

Yeah.

So we had a very hard time. Today in a world of, you know, AI has made it incredibly easier, but we really didn't know what to do. And We ultimately had to build a company to find a doctor and was a pediatric neurologist at Miami Children's who we did a virtual visit with. And in 20 minutes, he gave us more help and insights than we had. And basically, he said, all the medical risky things you're thinking of doing, don't do them. She's not an experiment. And he connected us with a group called the National Association of Childhood Development. And guess what they did? They gave us like exercises. They gave us philosophy. They gave us some practices of how you reconnect the brain to this limb. And that was something doctors just said, hey, you can try physical therapy, good luck. So that was a very important part in her progression of, hey, we actually have some movements. We have some things that will help connect her brain and help her develop some proprioception and feeling on that right side of her body.

Wow. And then you started a company from this. Part of this was birthed SecondMD, which is a company to help people find— get second opinions.

Yes.

Right? And this is something I constantly see. I mean, often people will go into whoever their just local doctor is.

Yes.

And when you think about your health or a family member's health you love, you don't want somebody that is— you don't want the, the C or D level doctor. You want the A+. You want to find somebody who is an expert in their field, and who's the best of the best, and that's who you want to see. And so you've been able to connect people searching for answers through this company you'd built, which is pretty incredible that you were able, able to do that.

Thank you, Doc. There was some really interesting learnings along the way. You're 100% right in that people, they're going to have surgery and they say, well, I'd like a second opinion. And they see the partner of the doctor that they just went to see, like in the same practice or something.

Yeah.

What do you think they're going to say? Right. And is the best person really there? What happened, we had a clinic in Aspen called Aspen Back and Body helping people's spine. And I was, you know, gifted at fixing backs. But these people came in who were celebrities, literally kings, Saudi royal family. And they would say, oh, the number one guy, and they would tell me who the number one guy is. And I'd write down the name. Well, They collected 150 number one guys for spine surgery. And they were all different.

Yeah.

In fact, I only heard the same name once. So basically, I got 149 different names, and everybody believed their doctor was the very best. And basically, they took that on charisma. They took that on— maybe they got a waiting list. And they're like, he's the best. And often that doctor says, I'm the best.

Yeah.

So finding who the right person is, was incredibly difficult.

You know, I had to have— this is one of the only surgeries I've had. I had to have a— I tore a tendon off my ankle. And I would just love to share one of the things that I did to find somebody who I thought was very good is I went and looked and said, because again, it was something similar, everybody would say this person's the best. I started looking to say, who are the NFL players who saw this person who recovered, who are playing very well now?

There you go.

Right? Who is the person that does the least amount of damage using arthroscopic surgery and all the most advanced techniques? And because I looked at doing the surgery. This was like 20-some years ago. And the only way they did the surgery is they would put a rod in your entire, pretty much, ankle. And so I went and found out this guy, he worked for— did all the surgeries for a lot of the Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And he would go in and basically use a collagen-like suture to suture it back down using little microscopes and going in. There you go. So there's almost no damage. But again, I'm looking at who are the people that are back doing very well, got amazing results. Who's doing the most advanced things medically, who is doing the least amount of long-term damage and doing the things most naturally. So there are all of these things that you can look at to find the best person for sure. But it is a lot of work and a lot of effort to find somebody. And so, but you were able to compile a database of people that were, it seemed like, you know, great, great for second opinions.

We looked at 13 criteria and I'll just mention a few of them because we said what really makes the best of the best? One is where do the doctors refer? So when something is difficult on the ankle and you need a very specific thing, where do the ankle doctors send complex ankles? Show me where that is. And there's some referral patterns you can look for that. Another is we looked at research. How many are involved in research? When they're involved in research, you have to be up to date. There's a statistic that we showed that the average doctor specialist is 18 years behind.

Wow.

So research that comes out today will take 18 years to get into their practice. So I want to know who's the doctor doing that research? because they're up to date. And I cannot tell you the difference between good and great is a chasm.

Yeah.

It is a world of difference. What would be beautiful we'd have on these second opinions is we'd hear the person say, the doctor told me my disease has been cured. Nobody told me this disease has been cured. And they're literally getting treatments for a disease that there is already a cure for. Their doctor didn't know it had been cured. And so there were these remarkable insights where an amazing example was the whole family came in, the mom, the grandma, we treated a kid, had had stomach issues their whole life, 4 years old. Grandma said, I've never seen my 4-year-old smile, my 4-year-old grandson smile. Met the doctor, put him with the doctor who named the disease. It's a dietary solve for the kid. And the kid solved. They'd seen 40 4 specialists.

Wow.

44 specialists along the way. And the difference between good and great, the great ones said, no, you're not asking the right questions. You know, here's exactly what you're going to do for your child. And here's how it works. And so there were these beautiful moments when dealing with somebody who was really right. The important part that we set up was the alignment. When you walk into a hospital today, a doctor might collect RVUs, residual value units, on the amount of work they do, the tests that they order, you know, the injection that they give, the surgery that they do. Our doctors were just paid for their time. We want you, doc, in your 30 minutes to give them the very best clinical advice. And guess what? They earn the same amount whether they did surgery, not did surgery. They're like, yep, you don't need that. Here's what you would do if you were my kid.

Wow.

So setting up the alignment with the physician was incredibly important. So it's finding out who it is, then having the right alignment. And probably the biggest innovation we made was being able to get your medical records. It's getting a little easier to get your medical records now. But we promised you that we'd get you the best doctor in the country for that condition in 3 days. The only thing harder than getting the doctor there in 3 days was getting your records there.

Oh, I believe that. Oh, yes.

We'd call, we'd call the clinic and say, okay, we need this person's records. They're like, okay, submit this form, we'll let you know in 60 days. We don't know if they're alive in 60 days. Like, we need these records today. So we came up with some wonderful innovations. Some of them technology, some of them just common sense and bribery to be able to get people their records.

Oh my goodness. It's, it's absolutely crazy. Yeah. Well, I'm glad— I mean, things have continued to progress. And this is one of the things I've seen you really be on top of is looking at where are things going, whether it's incorporating AI, using peptides, using a lot of advanced testing. And this is something I know you and I have talked about quite frequently is this medical testing. You know, one of the things I've noticed is that A lot of medical testing today, especially around blood work, is going to— it's becoming a markers game. I test for 100 markers, I test for 130, I test for 160. And the reality is a lot of those markers are just overlapping markers, and they're not that helpful.

Mm-hmm.

One of the things that we've really tried to do in my clinics is look at and say, we want the markers that matter, we want the things that really move the needle, and looking at the things that are the most upstream, right? Because if somebody's looking at, you know, historically, you know, doctors would look at total cholesterol. And then LDL cholesterol. Well, what about things that are more upstream, like ApoB, or Lp, or high-sensitive C-reactive protein, or your omega-3 ratio? You don't have any omega-3s, that's causing this whole downstream issue. And this is something you have been a leader in, in the field, is looking at what are the most important markers and forms of testing for reversing the disease and promoting longevity.

Yes.

What are some of your favorite tests that you run with, with your patients?

Yeah.

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I think one of the things that we did a really good job is we said, what are the markers that matter? We first went and saw all the clinics, Cleveland Clinic, Mayo, Cooper, to be able to understand what do they test and why. And yes, there was a lot of overlapping pieces. So we said, everybody is fixated and knows their total cholesterol, but they don't know their ApoB.

Yeah.

You know, and then very important for us is what is actionable around these. But we created an experience where you could come in on one day, it's actually 400 markers, but well beyond blood. So we look at your eyes, We look at your ears, we look at your skin, we have AI go around you in a circle and take photos of your whole body. And it can tell you one year to another, this mole moved, is gone, this has been added, this is what you worry about. So taking that opportunity for skin, we realized the person's form and function. So we do a postural assessment. And we can watch people's posture change from year to year. We love the idea of looking at strength. So, grip strength, leg strength, we just added some wonderful functional strength. So, yes, the blood markers were really important. And every 6 months, we revise them to be able to start to look at fatty acids, to dive deeper into hormones. And we want to know, what are the things that are going to lead to action? And what are the things that just sound like, oh, we're just testing all these pieces?

Yeah.

We got caught up in the game of, we're going to have more markers than anybody else. that we've really started to say, you know, what really matters. But also in our assessment, we have the opportunity to stress your heart, to be able to look at your VO2 max, we now look at you jumping, we look at your balance, what's your likelihood of a fall.

Yeah.

And it's amazing to see balance. And some of these things are so beautiful, because they're simple to test. Yet you can give people little things, well, your balance is bad, here's a little thing to do to, hey, while you're on the phone, Just start standing on one leg. Okay, you're doing that well, start standing on one leg and looking around. All of a sudden, a person develops confidence in their balance. They're looking at what other things they can do. But we've purpose-built a place that as you go from room to room to room to room, there's a very specific function that you're doing. People have never had their flexibility assessed. Sometimes they're shocked to realise, whoa, I had no idea that I can't do that anymore.

Yeah.

Nice little wake-up call. So the blood is important. We look at ultrasound over your carotids, over your organs, really have a good look. But having it be complete is a very important part. And having a doctor who cares, who goes, okay, I know you came in worried about this, but I've got something else here that I really think, you know, here's, you know, calcification scores, or here are things that we really need you to dive into or understand. It's been a wonderful journey.

Yeah, yeah, there are so many. And I was— I'd mentioned, you know, I was writing a book, Heal Yourselves, and we were looking at this book, we were looking at and covering covering these advanced testings. And there's certain markers that I know you're looking at that are really predictive, but it's very helpful— it's most helpful to not only have one of those predictive markers, but to have many others in different realms. And so, for your point, VO2 max, you know, is great. Grip strength is great. A lot of these, of course, blood markers we talked about, DEXA scans— I mean, all of these things combined really give people a good measure of longevity and where they currently sit in terms of their overall health. And so, I love this. I mean, one of the things I'm most excited about is continuing to see how this develops over the next 10 I'm curious from your perspective, like, you know, I'm wearing an Oura Ring right now. I love being able to track my sleep and HRV and some of those other metrics. I know you've got a band around your wrist there, and you're constantly tracking things. What do you think some of the future ways of testing we're going to be seeing in, let's say, 10 to 15 years, how might it differ? Or how much accurate, more accurate are we going to be able to get?

That's an amazing question. Information for some people leads to action. Information for some people leads to anxiety.

Yes.

So it's been really interesting seeing people who are tracking their sleep and getting neurotic around their sleep. Like, take it off. I joke with people sometimes. They're like, well, my band said I didn't sleep well last night. I'm like, you couldn't tell? Like, you know, I can often tell how I slept. So personalization, I think, is very important. When information starts to add to a person's sense of stress, anxiety, anxiety around those things, you go, hey, maybe less information is important for you. And here's what you need to focus on. So we've actually taken wearables off some people and said, hey, here's what we really want you to be thinking about. We want you to eat whole food. There's not a tracker yet to see, you know, we want you to eat whole food and move off. But I do think the opportunity with taking our metrics and leveraging AI to give us some overall insights. I went to my AI the other day and I just said, okay, just go through all my data again and tell me what are the 3 most important supplements for me. And it said, while your vitamin D is in range, I think you need to supplement there because we've noticed a little bit of a trend going on there. You're making fantastic progress on your blood sugar. You've gone from 5.4 to 5.3 to 5.2 over the last 6 years. So, stay on that. There's a little supplement I take called Actulin that has been just remarkable for blood sugar. And I'm trying to think, magnesium glycinate.

Yeah.

Saying, here's something that's important for you. So, in an abundance of these pieces, but I, with the trackers, hope that they can start to track blood pressure. So, as they can start to give us blood pressure through the day, I think that's going to be really interesting.

Yes, yeah.

The tracks have all had a hard time just being, consistent with that. That's something I think that would give an immense amount of value and something that could connect— we run everybody through a DEXA scan. So helping people understand bone mass loss or muscle mass gain. I don't know what those trackers will be like, but those will be pieces of information that's really important.

Yeah, you know, I'm hoping— I think we could eventually get to the point where you're wearing something like a continuous glucose monitor, but it's also telling you many other things beyond glucose. You know, I, it's, you know, pulling up on your phone, here's the, here's your omega-3 index, here's the vitamins and minerals you're deficient in.

Yes.

I think as we go on, that sensitivity is going to continue to climb and that'll be fun. But it is interesting because I, you know, myself, my wife, I mean, a lot of our family members use tracking devices, but my, I have one family member, for instance, when she uses it, she gets so anxious. And it's, and so, yeah, it's not, it's definitely not for everybody. If it's causing a negative health outcome, Well, then, you know, obviously skip that.

Yeah, I am. It was helpful for me last night. I looked and I really hadn't got a lot of steps in and I thought, you know, I'm going to take— I'm going to just go walk, finish an audiobook and walk after dinner last night downtown Nashville. Beautiful evening. But having that information going, hey, this isn't, you know, this is below your usual, very encouraging to be able to do that. But I've been feeling really convicted that I've maybe missed a lot of the important things we've I've gone from helping people say, how do I, how do I not die? To how do I not get sick? And I really think the third phase of my life here will be devoted towards ancient practices that have medical validation. And it comes around measuring things like gratitude, measuring optimism. Yeah, the studies to show what gratitude and optimism do. acts of service. We have had doctors prescribe acts of service, and people's lives have changed so much more than just their blood markers. There have been physical manifestations that show up in their labs as they're benefiting. But it's so much more than that. So I'm really excited to, in our testing, I call it the 12 Laws, to be able to start to test people around things. We know that data on Hope and optimism can add 8 years to your life. A person who is optimistic, hopeful about the future can live 8 years longer than somebody who is not. I don't have any supplement. And I don't have any marker, you know, that can really move the needle like that. But yet, nobody's measuring it. So how do we measure those pieces?

Yeah, it's such a good point. There is no supplement that can extend your life 8 years. Maybe 6 months, maybe a year, maybe 2. I mean, 8 years, not even close, you know. And if you combine that with, you know, the outcomes around things like also having a tight-knit community and building relationships, being positive, and then the other lifestyle things like just walking, you know, I mean, these things move the needle more than, you know, a lot of these other sort of advanced biohacks and a lot of the other things out there. And these are recommendations that you're going to find primarily in the Bible, Again, ancient texts, as you're talking about, like, you know, ancient Asian medicine. I mean, these are things that they've been practicing and prescribing for a very long time.

Yes. It seems so simple that, you know, as I look at these, look at these laws, most of them are free.

Yeah.

You know, these things are accessible to everybody. Whereas we've got a very robust concierge program, we think it's incredible the amount of care, love, tracking, monitoring we do for our our clients is, is amazing. But there are so many things that people can do for themselves as they understand some of these laws. The law of a strong body, that is an ancient time. You look at Moses, you look at Caleb, you look at these people in the Bible. I went to Israel a few times. You saw how far Jesus walked.

Yeah.

Jesus could walk 40 miles.

Yeah.

You're like, what? And then just like get there and do his work and, you know, walk 40 miles back. So, these are such important things. When we look at some of the world's longest living people, they weren't just obsessed about their metrics. You know, they had a purpose. That's one of the laws is purpose. People who have purpose have less stress. People who have purpose show a lower inflammation on their C-reactive protein.

Yeah.

I mean, it's very measurable. You ask somebody about their purpose, you measure their inflammation, and you can notice the difference between those two. Yet we don't take time to say to somebody, hey, do you have a sense of purpose? No, we just want you to lower inflammation, maybe with this thing where, hey, there's probably a deeper opportunity here to not just lower your inflammation, but to actually change your life, change somebody else's life.

You know, when I— you're wired very much the same way. One of the things that I like to do is continue to dig deeper to find out what is the biggest root cause of something? What is the thing that has the biggest impact? And that's part of what led me to not only spending time and studying, you know, general medicine, but also going into functional medicine, but really going deeper than that to the Bible and these ancient forms of medicine. You know, I became really fascinated with Chinese medicine because they really looked at a lot of these things. And when I started reading, first I had to get past the different language, right? So they would use terms like chi and yin and yang. And I thought, well, what does that mean?

Yeah.

And this chi is really, it's cellular energy. It's ATP. I mean, it's very much related to that if we were talking about Western medicine. But deeper than that, when I started reading some of these texts, they would say things like basically showing that your energy is most tied to your purpose. They would tie these to your adrenal glands and even different organ systems. But this is why, again, having a purpose is incredibly important. I came across a study on this. Now, this was probably more like 18, 19 years ago, but there was a study that showed that when somebody retires from work, if they don't find a second purpose after work, yes, their lifespan drops. I'm talking, I mean, dramatically.

Yes. And that just as an example, to your point, we've seen that retirement is a, is a modern construct. It is not an ancient, you know, this idea of 65 and then you retire is, is just something we've developed around, maybe because we didn't enjoy our work, so around social security benefits and things, but that is really not something. So purpose, having a purpose goes well beyond your job. And hopefully your purpose doesn't stop when you die. You know, there's a, there's a greater thought towards that. Gratitude, which you'll see all over ancient wisdom.

Yeah.

People with gratitude have lower blood pressure. So somebody can just focus on the things in their life that they're grateful for. and their blood pressure goes down. So simple.

Yeah.

Like, so obvious in many ways. But when is the last time somebody said, hey, here's what I really think you need to be doing to lower some of your markers? And so I think there's an incredible opportunity for— you already think like that— for, you know, mainstream medicine to wake up and say, hey, there's big things we've done. We can impact this person's joy. And sense of well-being immensely and lower their markers. This isn't either or.

Right. You know, if there are 2 or 3 practices— so getting just ultra practical here for people to apply— that are based more on what you're talking about, this sort of spiritual and mindset medicine, what are 3 of those specific prescriptions or practices that maybe you implement or you have your practitioners implement to patients that can help move the needle forward in their health?

Yeah, we've got 12, but I'll just discuss 3. The first is spiritual grounding. People who have a belief, a connection to God, can manage resilience very differently. So it shows up in difficult times. Their ability to recover from trauma, from sickness, is very different. People As part of that is communities of faith, people who attend a synagogue, a church, they just do better in difficult times. So knowing, you know, there's a God, knowing that God has a plan, as we start to— the second one we go towards is purpose. So it is incredibly important for a person to have a sense of purpose. Otherwise, you're optimizing the wrong thing. I say that people shouldn't be worried about dying young as much as they should be worried about not living with any meaning in their life, to not actually having meaning. So when people lack that, it's very hard to optimize the physical without really starting around the spiritual. 1 Thessalonians 5 talks about the spirit, then the mind, then the body. So as you work through grounding spiritually, you then start to get to the mind, and you go optimism. I think if we spoke again, just to dwell on that, if you have something that you are excited for in the future, and there's people with more optimism sometimes in countries that have got very little to look forward to. But they look forward to their kid growing up, they look forward to their little vegetable garden, they look forward to a brighter future for their grandchildren.

Yeah.

children. We just got back from Zambia. There's a community of 13,000 people that we've wrapped our arms around. And, you know, to see the optimism in that they now have running water.

Yeah.

And their excitement for the future. And you go, wait a minute, there's people watching the news here, lost all hope and excitement about the future. It's affecting their health negatively. And there's somebody else who is so excited about the future of running water and what that can mean for their kids not getting sick. is a very different type of mindset. I would add on to that one, gratitude. There is so much medical research to be able to show that gratitude is a game changer. And we've lost the ability to just really see what we have and look through that viewpoint. So, next time we'll talk, I'll show you all the markers that these relate to.

Yeah.

And we'll show you the study where we're going to connect these attributes towards the changes in the markers. And I think that's going to be a fascinating piece. My mom is the amazing example. She's outlived her siblings. She's beating all the odds. And she really does it with incredible spiritual grounding. She does it with hope. She does it with gratitude. And her energy at 75 is more than people at 45.

Wow.

you know, people she counsels and speaks to, they're like, Mo, how do you have the energy to do this? You're always getting on a plane, you're driving across here, you're doing something there. Where does this energy come from? And it's, you know, that cellular health that you talk about, her cellular health is deeply impacted by spiritual and soul decisions and optimization.

You know, I think about the hardest times in our life, you know, when, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer, when I had a you know, spinal infection. And, you know, the first thing we did immediately is we just sort of, you know, I think about literally picture an anchor, and we just anchored onto God, you know. And it's like, and that, that's what was there for us, grounded us. If somebody doesn't have that relationship with God, that you can just get blown about emotionally back and forth. And not to say it's not hard.

Yes.

As a Christian and a person of faith, but it's much harder if you don't have something to someone, to anchor your life to, to anchor your results to. And that's really just sort of what also led us to— it's sort of building on each other in terms of having that faith and that grounding of that relationship with God, then sort of allowed us to build hope on top of that and gratitude and sort of, you know, build our way up. But these points that you're making, I think, are just incredibly important. And it's interesting because, you know, in my study of Chinese medicine, different diseases they believed caused different— I'm sorry, different emotions that were negative caused different diseases, and different emotions that were positive led to healing certain diseases.

Yeah.

So for instance, if somebody had a lot of anger, or resentment, or unforgiveness, that affects the liver. If somebody had anxiety, that affects the heart. If somebody had fear, that affects the adrenal glands and the kidneys. And we know this in medicine, right? We know if you have a lot of fear, well, what happens? Your body starts putting out more cortisol. But in a very similar way, the immune system is tied to grief or being— not moving on from a past trauma. And so when you have grief, well, the opposite of that in Chinese medicine tends to be related to joy, right? Building up a wellspring of joy and spending time in praise and those sort of things.

Yes.

So my point is, is, you know, the Bible sort of alludes to all of these things, even these ancient forms of medicine, but all the things you're talking about, I think if you really would look at them, they are so proven through history as being powerful forms of medicine.

Yeah, that's where, you know, these laws that I've been working on came out of. I looked at all the data to say, and AI is amazing to help, is to say, show me the spiritual laws from the Bible, the physical laws from the Bible, and then show me where there is tremendous medical evidence to substantiate Which of these things are highly correlated? You touched on forgiveness, the law of forgiveness. People who can walk in forgiveness, their cortisol looks different, their sleep looks different. Yeah, there's very clear differences around these things. But when is the last time you went in to the doctor and he's like, hey, here's a book on forgiveness?

Yeah, yeah. Oh, of course.

This is going to impact your health. more than the statin, you know, that I wanna put you on here. So it's beautiful to see science catching up to things that we consider biblical or ancient truths that you can see across a lot of societies.

You know, it's interesting. I had Dallas Jenkins on my show. He was the, you know, creator of The Chosen. And I love that show. In fact, of all the shows I've watched, maybe ever, it's the one that most meaningfully moves me in a positive direction. I mean, it really touches my heart. I mean, I cried several episodes just seeing the way, 'cause I think they portrayed Jesus in such a real and powerful way.

Mm-hmm.

And one thing, you know, the biggest thing I picked up on, and this was something that I have noticed with my own health, is there is not a single time in the whole show where I see Jesus rushing. And when you read the Bible, it's a similar thing. He's walking, he's taking time with people, he's sitting and having conversations. There's this, and like, so, and I mentioned I track my sort of health.

Yeah.

And one of the big markers I look at is HRV, And I can really say that my HRV is at its best, and I'm at my healthiest. And the single biggest factor is probably if I'm rushing or not.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, it's like, and you're similar to how I am. I mean, we're, you know, we are driven, we want to change the world, we want to run to win the race. At the same time, there's this element of kind of frantically maybe trying to prove yourself or, you know, or strive ahead versus just connect and love and sort of walk with kind of humble patience and in that way, you know.

Yes. You know, when the spiritual is first, I liken medicine and the way we treat people to a boat, you know, without a rudder. Unless you have the spiritual direction first, lots of movement makes you tired when you're chasing so many things. And I've been super guilty of this. I have FOMO. I want to get as much done. But moving through, you know, all this moving is exhausting when it's not directed in the right place. And if we can nail down that spiritual direction where we move really makes a difference and it gives us the margin. I think you're so right. Jesus, you see the example where he's just out about business and then he's like, they're like, oh, would you come meet my daughter? And he's like, Okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

If somebody— we walking— if I'm on the way to the airport today, somebody says, yeah, can you come meet my daughter?

Oh, no.

You know, I got to— I got to fly home because I got to get to a movie, to get to dinner, to get to something so that knowing your purpose allows you to say no to things. You're like, hey, that's just not my thing. You say, come and talk on my podcast about health. Like, absolutely. This is— this is part of my purpose.

Yeah.

Yeah, I wake up every morning thinking, how do we elevate health for people? And now my definition of health is starting with the spirit.

Yeah. You know, one of the things I've been so impressed with you as well is that you were sharing this with me, is that you're in your 50s and you, when you're in your 40s, I mean, first off, this really is incredible, is you ran in— you ran track, you ran in some of these national meets and ran a 51.8. 51.8. And if— listen, and I ran track in high school, and so I know how fast that is. It's incredibly fast. In fact, you would be at the very top of, you know, 18-year-old— I mean, that's a college time, somebody running in college, uh, that sort of time. And you were doing this in your 40s. And so you're incredibly fit and healthy for in your 50s. And one thing that obviously, if people are watching on YouTube, they could— they obviously see you here. If somebody's listening on Apple or Spotify, they don't see you. But you've got really, you look very young for your age. Very young, I would say bright-eyed, just very healthy, vibrant. And so what would you attribute that to and some of the biggest things in terms of if somebody's in their 40s, their 50s, their 60s, saying, I want to be active and fit and healthy, I want to feel like I'm in my 20s, or at least my 30s when I'm, you know, when I'm in my 50s and 60s. What are the biggest needle movers for that? Or what has it been for you?

Yeah. I think a lot about that. And often we don't align our investment and our expectations. People want to feel like they did in their 20s, but their lifestyle looks completely differently. In your 20s, you may have been in college, you'd be involved in intramural sports, you're going to the gym, you're running a 5K on the weekend.

Yeah.

And people want to feel like that when they're 50, but they don't do any of those pieces. So, your investment into your health has to match. So, I set targets. I do way better if I set an event. So, before my 50th birthday, I said, I'm going to break a Guinness World Record. And I set my sights on pushing a car 1 mile faster than any human. And then during this training, the record keeps being broken by these freaks in their 20s and 30s in Europe. But I told everybody, I'm going to— please come support me. I'm going to push this car. I'm going to give it everything. I'm going to train. So I think setting targets for yourself, that's really putting things out there. So do your first HIIT rocks, do your first 5K. You are 50% more likely to get your fitness goal if you do it with somebody.

Oh, wow. Yeah.

So not, you know, at 5% would be worth to have a training partner. But I have a personal trainer. I'm qualified as a personal trainer. I'm overly qualified. I know every exercise. But having somebody there who's like, hey, you're 5 minutes late, you better catch this up, you better do that. So I think creating a community and an environment around you. I hang out with younger people. Most 50-year-olds can't do what I do. So I want to hang around with people who can do. My son called me up and said, Dad, will you come watch me run my first half marathon? I said, son, no, but I'll come and run it with you. I hadn't run more than a mile. in quite some time. But I ran my first half marathon with him. I just arrived on the morning. I didn't even have a bib. I just ran next to him. I was like, let's see how far this can go. But having an able body, the law of a strong body, I think is something that is incredibly important. People continue to put it off. Oh, I'll work on it at this stage. I'll work on that stage. No, you won't.

You know. Yeah.

This has to be something that you value. It has to be something that you enjoy. Don't pick activities that are not sustainable. Swimming is amazing.

Yeah.

But if you're not near a pool, and it's a real burden to do that, and you're worried about your hair and all those things, like, it's just not going to be a realistic thing. But I tell people sprinting is a game changer. Go to a field, everybody lives near a football field or a soccer field, sprint 10 times, walk back, do that. It's game changing, that 15 minutes will provide more value than the next hour of stuff that you do. So if you've got 15 minutes, you go and sprint. And then I'm 50 years old, I'm 60 years old. I had a friend the other day said, well, I don't even know if I can run. Like he said, yeah, he said, I'm worried that if there was an explosion at a stadium and they say run, he's like, I don't know that I can.

Exactly.

I'm like, you better get out on the field, bud.

Can I tell you what? So my mom, this was when she was in her late 50s. She's in her mid-70s now. But we had a— I had a 5K I was gonna do. And my mom's like, I'd like to do a 5K. And my mom hadn't ran in years. And my mom just went through her second bout with cancer. But her and my dad went and they said, hey, we're gonna run this. And they just went at home and basically they said, okay, we're gonna start doing this trail where we, you know, run 1 minute, walk 1 minute, run 1 minute, walk 1 minute. And then they went and ran it. And the cool thing was my mom got second in her age group. 'Cause my mom was fit when she was younger. Like my mom was my, actually my, a gym teacher in elementary school. She was a swim instructor. And so she was a really good swimmer and pretty athletic when she was younger. And then my dad finished great too. And so, but they just said, hey, we're gonna take 3 months here and we're gonna just do this 5 days a week and just do what we can handle. And they did a great— in their late 50s, my dad I think was 60. They did it. They did great.

Yeah, that's fantastic. I said to my son recently, he's like, Dad, come do weights with me. Now he's 6'5. He's a beast.

Yeah.

You know, I'm in my 50s going, oh, I don't know. But I went there with him and I couldn't believe the weights he was lifting. I was like, this is ridiculous. So guess what happened the next time I went? I increased it 5 pounds.

Yeah.

I'm on some peptides helping me. And the next time I went, I increased it a little more. But I had got so comfortable just at where I was. I'm like, hey, that's pretty strong for somebody my age. And I worked out with somebody younger, I was like, that's incredible. And I don't know that I'm going to get to his, his weights. But my gosh, I'm, I'm getting a lot closer to get there. So I think it really starts with, with a mindset. We're so accepting of decline. We're so accepting that every year I'm losing ground. No, well, why don't you take the next 5 years and gain ground every single year for 5 years? My bones are you know, at a 30-year-old's bones. My muscle mass is at a 32-year-old's muscle mass. And these are not because I'm genetically gifted. If you've seen my genetics and I've done all the DNA tests, they're like, oh, a lot of risks here.

Yeah.

A lot of red. Do those things. But there's, there's so much more that we have. And there's so much God has given. He's given us these miraculous bodies.

Yeah.

And it upsets me. I'm trained as a, as a chiropractor and physical therapist. People treat these wonderful temples that God has given us often like trash. And then they're so disappointed. Well, I can't believe I can't do this. And I kind of like, well, look at what you've done to your body over this time. Yeah. What were you really— what were you really expecting?

Well, you know, one other thing, and I hope this is helpful and practical for everybody, is one thing I'm conscious— listen, I've had enough injuries over the doing stupid things, or just doing things incorrectly that maybe I was even taught when I was younger, to know now too, if you're getting back into weight training, if you're getting back into, say, hey, you're gonna start running, there's so much value in getting a coach or a trainer.

Yes.

And listen, you don't— listen, if you can afford to do it once a week or multiple times a week, then I would encourage that for sure. But even if you could only just do it one time or twice, and you got a good trainer to say, hey, here's how to do this properly. I am now exercising for longevity. Now, when I was in my early 30s, I was doing CrossFit and triathlons. And talk about beating my body up. Now I'm like, man, I wouldn't dream of doing those things right now. I mean, maybe I'd do a shorter triathlon or something, but the long distance, not— it's aging you. So it's not something I want to do. But all that being said, I have a trainer. To your point, I was a personal trainer in college. I've spent time studying all this stuff. And I still have a trainer.

Yes.

Because I want somebody to watch me to make sure I'm doing things in proper form. And so I am doing all these things, but I'm doing them very differently and more correctly than I was in my 20s and early 30s, for sure.

That's great advice. If you can afford a trainer, it's a no-brainer. It's amazing to me what people will spend their money on and not spend on a trainer. Like, come on. If you can't afford it, I've got a way that it's free for you. What you do is you find somebody that is at church, that's at the gym, who looks like they really know what they're doing.

That's right.

And you go to them and say, hey, once a week, could I just work out with you?

That's right.

The amount of times you'll hear no, it's so surprisingly low. When you go to somebody and say, hey, you really know what you're doing, could I just do this with you? They're honored. They take you under their wing and all of a sudden you're learning. So I want to be exposed. And I started that when I was 20. I saw a guy at the gym that I was like, he just looks very different. Yeah. And what he does. And it started a lifelong friendship with the person. I've got a friend, we travel and we do a whole, you know, a lot of life together with now. He is jacked, he is ripped. I've increased my protein just by hanging out with the guy. I'm like, oh, that's how you do it.

Yeah.

Okay, breakfast looks different, dinner looks different. So associating with it, with the right people that are there for you is is a wonderfully easy way and it builds community. And that person, they get to experience a sense of purpose because they're passing on this knowledge that they have been, you know, accruing for decades.

It's powerful. I think about anything in my life that I've been blessed to have been successful at or won at, it was because— it wasn't because of me, it was because other people, other people took their time to mentor me. Other people took their time to show me how to do it. Everything from working out to you know, starting a clinic to doing a podcast. I mean, you know, I actually learned from doing a podcast from obsessively listening to Dave Ramsey. I mean, I listened to Dave over and over and over again, and I thought, oh, he's answering questions on finance, I can answer questions on health.

Yes.

And so, but all that being said, you know, I think that modeling and learning from other people, it's discipleship. I mean, this is what the Bible says. If you want to be great at something, in part there's this model of discipleship That sometimes we've lost today and people are trying to figure things out for themselves versus to your point, learning from us. And this is one thing I value about our relationship is that, you know, we were at breakfast this morning, you were sharing with me advice on how you were able to, you know, create these companies you've had that have literally transformed millions of lives. And so, you know, thanks for being one of those, those people for me.

Thank you, Doc. Yes, it's always about people. You know, we get promoted by people. We get invested in our business by people. Our businesses grow by serving people. And you've impacted millions of people. And I think your purpose is, is still growing. You're just really realizing what God has for you. And the amount of people I've seen at breakfast this morning and somebody comes over and says, Dr. Axe, I love your podcast. Thank you so much for what you do is is amazing. So being reminded of people, and that's where I was like, hey, I'm too obsessed about metrics that are making me self-absorbed. I'm too focused on what this number is versus that number. And I want to look up and I want to go, what are the metrics that not only change my life, but bring me to my purpose and change the lives of other people? We want people to flourish.

Yeah.

That's the word that just keeps coming to me, flourishing. Am I flourishing? Are my children flourishing? Are my clients at the clinic flourishing? That's really what we want. Because you can get all your numbers, you know, in a good place and not be flourishing.

Yeah, it's powerful having this sort of mind-body-spirit dashboard or focus on making sure that all these things, the things that matter most, are flourishing. You did mention— I want to talk about this for a minute— you did mention peptides. Yes, I mentioned this at the top as well. This is— you've actually been really focusing on formulating and creating peptides. You've used them yourself. Share with me a little bit about peptides and how that you're personally using those.

Yeah, well, I was, I was late to the game. We've got an incredible clinic of the most beautiful, healthy people at the clinic, and they were like, we should be doing peptides. They were doing peptides themselves and getting wonderful results. I've never taken medications, so I've maybe taken 5 tablets in my life, and 2 of them were Tylenol. So I've really tried to avoid those and live as healthy as I can. And, you know, trusting God and ancient wisdom from the Bible to really, you know, live my healthiest life. But they're like, you've got to try peptides. I'm like, no, no, no, no. Anyway, I end up trying. And what is amazing on this first peptide that I try, I just noticed my body fat just coming down little by little every day. I'm like, that's, that's amazing. I watch all my markers. Nothing goes haywire. Everything's in line. I'm like, That's really incredible. Try another one, and I go from doing 10 pull-ups to 18 pull-ups. I haven't done 18 pull-ups since I was 21. And just little by little over a 3-month period, I'm like, this is really, this is really interesting. I try another one for the brain. And I start just recalling information and facts that I'd almost like given up on, like, oh, I'd have to go look that up or forget what it just— things would come back to memory very quickly. So I'm like, this is, this is really interesting. So dive into all the research, bring in a top peptide doctor into the clinic. And we say we're going to offer this to our clients. And our clients really just start to just get this wonderful tailwind. Now, we'll be the first to tell you, if you think you're going to take an injection and not make some lifestyle changes, you're at the wrong place.

Yeah.

So we say use this as a tailwind, you're going to feel more energy, you're going to feel the strength go, but you're going to have to go and do these pieces. So when aligned with the right protocols, is very important. Then we started going purity. What's the purity of these things? And we were shocked to find out that often what is claimed to be in peptides is not in peptides. And we started testing and sending these things to the labs and the companies that are claiming that their purity was amazing, we send them the results back and they're like, oh, oh, thank you for that. Must have been a bad batch. Or, you know, coming up with some of the rationale around it.

Yeah.

I became very convinced, I had to go back to my team and say, hey, man, I'm sorry, I missed the boat, I slowed us down here. This is something that is incredibly powerful. And as you understand it, these are, these are signaling molecules in your body that have become depleted over time. And as you start to allow that signaling to come back, your body starts to be able to produce these enzymes and things a lot better. So, wonderful learning curve, it led us to say, hey, we need to start a— not everybody can afford to come to our clinic in Austin, and go through the longevity experience. But I do believe people deserve the opportunity to at least get this tailwind from peptides and have the peace of mind that they are pure. So we said they have to be tested, trusted, transformative. And so we built medicipeptides.com, and we are incredibly excited to create a compliant, easy experience where AI can ask you all the right questions. There's physician oversight to watch that every order that goes out has been double-checked by our physician. We've got it compliant for 45 states. And if you put Dr. Axe in there, you'll get 20% off for your listeners. So, we really believe it's the future. There's a lot of ways people are doing it wrong. There's a lot of people that are finding out they were on peptides and they lost bone mass. They lost muscle mass, they lost hair, because they didn't really look at biomarkers along the way to see what was really happening. They were just excited that they lost weight, but they didn't realize there were some underlying pieces and nobody had told them, hey, you might want to take coenzyme Q10 with this, you might want to double up your protein, you might want to double up weight training, etc., with those.

Well, of course, we see that with the GLP-1s. I mean, the side effects of— as a pep— you know, and so it's very important if you're taking peptides, you're taking the right dosage, the right amount of time, that you're cycling them correctly. I mean, these are all important. What are some of those peptides by name that you have noticed the best results with yourself or that you're seeing the best results with, with patients?

Yeah. MOTS-c was the one that helped me just lower body fat.

Yeah.

Understanding how that works at a cellular level has been really interesting and has been just a gift to some people to just— they, they can just report, hey, I feel better. BPC-157, the most common, really remarkable. I had shoulder trouble for 4 years throwing the javelin. I'd stopped, I couldn't throw the javelin anymore. And because I didn't want to go for surgery, and there's just this nag, zero pain. I mean, unbelievable. I just got used to every time I lift my arm up, there was just a 3 out of 10 pain, not bad enough to like go, but, and to just be able to like put that up. It'd been amazing for a lot of people, also settles a lot of people's gut issues.

Yeah.

When they banned it, I mean, amazing to the amount of people who were like, hey, you don't understand, I've had my gut calm for the last 3 years. It's been miraculous. And now they're telling me, government telling me, you know, it's illegal for me to take it anymore. One that our team is excited about is SS31. Also works in a—

Great mitochondrial peptide too.

Very good mitochondrial peptide. Interestingly, for me, I had such a a bad reaction. My blood pressure spiked, I went red hot, tested, see if it was the batch, just a—

was a—

it was a bad reaction for me. But we know that a lot of people have had some really good pieces. The brain combo of C-Max and C-Lanc have really had me just noticeably recall. I've taken supplements most of my life, and I could never really tell the difference. I'd say, I feel good, but I felt good before I started.

Yeah.

Whereas the peptides have been like noticeable.

Yeah.

difference where you're like, wow, that's very different. Tess Moreland helped my strength meaningfully. And my wife, she does all the right things. She is in the shape of her life. She's 52. We're gonna go dance for 3 days in Belgium next week. And she is ripped, healthy, energetic, sleeping better. You know, all the good lifestyle things that she's doing, well monitored, But peptides have definitely added a tailwind where she's like, wow, I just didn't think I could get into, you know, body fat's 10%.

Yeah, wow.

Which remarkable for a female.

Yeah, you know, I mean, it's gonna be interesting in the future. I've got a peptide expert coming on here. So actually 2 of them, Brigham Buhler's coming on, Jim Laval's coming on.

Yeah.

So we're gonna continue to dive deep and it's gonna be interesting to see, 'cause these guys are part of the legislation and legal stuff of getting them, you know, working on getting them approved and testifying. in, in some of the Senate hearings. And so it's— but I'm optimistic, I really think. And for myself, very similarly, man, I've noticed massive results with myself, especially with some of those combos of BPC-157, TB-500, GHK-Cu. I've used as well MOTS-c and some others. And again, the results have been— to your point, wow, this is noticeable. Like, you know, when you're pretty healthy, a lot of times you take supplements, you just don't— you don't necessarily feel much of a difference.

Yeah.

But almost every time I've taken a peptide, I have physically noticed, to your point, a difference. You know, one of the things I know that you're doing with peptides as well and that you're really focused on in a lot of your clinics is just continuing to leverage and use AI. How do you think AI is going to change medicine? How has it already changed medicine and how do you think it's going to continue to change it in the future?

Yeah, well, first I'll give you the part that's not a popular thought, is that AI is not going to be as helpful as many people say because of behavior change. We've known that these foods, certain foods are really bad for your health. Donuts, crap.

Yeah.

You know, we go pick them up, eat them, and you're like, you've known that that's bad. So now AI is going to tell you even more information. Are you in a place where you can actually make the changes and learn? That comes back to starting with the spirit and the soul, I think, you know, is important. But AI, people are like, oh, it's going to tell you what you should and shouldn't do. Well, a lot of people haven't actually been listening to what they should and shouldn't do for the last piece. So that's on the negative part of we've got to figure out how to have people make better decisions from the right place. The amazing optimism that I have is for it to bring all this information. On Medici Peptides, for example, you can upload your lab work and immediately AI can crunch It's amazing. Hundreds of markers, and maybe lab work over years to be able to optimize and say, here's peptides that would be the most helpful for you. Here's compounds that you could take with those peptides. And you can come up with a personalized plan in seconds for somebody is incredible. Hey, let's take all that wearable data. Let's put some insights around it. Our AI that we use for our clients at Medici, they can just text it now. And say, hey, remind me what my last ApoB was. And what are the most important things I can do to adjust that? And what should my goal be for my next assessment? And just via text be having this advanced conversation. So I think it is incredibly exciting for the amount of information that you can bring in and get something simple. As I said, I just said, hey, what are the 3 things that I can do given all this information? And just have it come back with 3 little bullets. Whereas, you know, you read through reams and reams, we'll give you a 60-page report of all the information on your body. It's nice to be able to say, okay, I'm not that interested to learn what every single one of these liver markers mean. Tell me what it means. Speak to me in 8th grade English. And you're like, oh, wow, I actually understand that for the first time.

Yeah. You know, it's so interesting. You know, I, I was at a— our daughter starts kindergarten here this next year. And I met somebody who was just finishing up their degree at a really fantastic school as a radiologist. And we started talking about AI a little bit. He goes, well, he said something to the degree of, well, you know, I don't know if there's gonna be a job for me next year.

Yeah.

Just because, I mean, the thing about AI, it can do a better job. I don't know, there was a study that came out that said that The percentage to which AI is better at reading a radiology report, even to the best doctor, it is radically better.

Yeah.

I mean, there's no way— I mean, a computer is going to be able to pick up, AI, things on an MRI or radiographic film, even blood work, better than a human is. It knows all of those little intricacies and can remember everything.

Yes.

So all that being said, I mean, its ability to diagnose is really powerful. Its ability to put together plans is pretty powerful. I will say this though, one thing I've noticed, and I've, and I've used AI extensively, is that if I'm putting together a plan for somebody, let's say somebody has cancer, and I, and I take care of a lot of people that have those sort of issues and just integratively giving them their nutrition plans, it's not good at that still. It's okay. It'll give a better diet. Yes. But like, I know personally there is a much better diet for somebody with colon cancer versus breast cancer versus brain cancer. And the supplements it's recommending are still being, It's okay.

Yeah.

But it's not— and of course, AI, part of it is based on how you train it. And I've worked to train my own sort of, I call it Axe Brain in terms of doing some of those things, but I have to continue to reinforce and sort of get it to where it needs to be. So, so, and I know when we're saying AI, that, that can mean a lot of things and it's sort of different depending on the engine you're using or how you've trained it and worked it. But overall, I think the diagnosing is going to get better. I think the tracking is going to get better. Even care. I think if you're working with a good physician or practitioner, care is going to get better as well. Yes.

We, we built an app called Dr. Gabi, named after my daughter, G-A-B-I. And you can now scan about a million foods in the supermarkets in America. It'll give you an overall score for that food. And then if you have uploaded lab work, if you've told it about your health or your health goals, it'll score that food food for you. So it'll say this is a 64 out of 100. Here's what we like, here's what we don't like. But for you, it's a 23 because we know you don't like seed oils, we know you're avoiding processed, we know you're gluten-free. If it had gluten, we'd give it a 0. But the ability to personalize a million foods in America to every single American and to score it for them, only AI could allow you to do that. We could just never have done— there's no— you couldn't have 100 dietitians and nutritionists, you know, they'd be working for weeks to just, you know, score 20 different foods.

Yeah.

So those are some of the opportunities to really make people's lives better. And I see people shopping with Dr. Gabrielle, where my son will scan 3 things in the supermarket, and he'll go, oh, yeah, it's got a 78, done. And he'll take it. And as a result, you'll see that one with the 78 has got 3 ingredients. The one that scored 12 has got 64 ingredients, you know, most of them of which you can't read. After it scanned M&Ms, I loved M&Ms, peanut M&Ms. It's been my cheat for a long time. I've never had another peanut M&M after I scanned it because it's like, oh my gosh, it gave it a zero.

It's so funny. I got it. There's this brand that my daughter— we don't give them a lot of this, but on occasion, and they're kind of like these natural M&Ms. They're not exactly— so anyways, I'm gonna— I think I know what to get you Next time I see you.

Yeah, please.

And very similarly to the way you guys are using it in your clinic, we're using it a lot in our practice. And it's very beneficial to be able to personalize and customize. I mean, the entire future of medicine should be personalized and customized because to your point, every person you have has a unique need, right? I mean, it's, you know, one person, their most healing food might be blueberries. For another person, I don't know, grapefruit might be better. It just really is dependent upon the person. So being able to work with a great practitioner and also leverage AI to creating sort of the ideal for the individual and personalized, just incredibly powerful.

Indeed.

Yeah, and so you're talking about Dr. Gabby. Let's bring it back to Gabby, 'cause I would like to ask you, you started off saying your daughter, she had a stroke and affected the entire right side of her body, was paralyzed. How is she doing today?

You know, she is 17. We were told she wouldn't walk and wouldn't talk because of the scar tissue in her brain. Those centers were gone. She talks, sings. She's doing cross-country.

Wow.

This year, the first time she surfed, my wife and I stood in the ocean and I just bawled. The first time she skied, I just bawled. So she has been a little miracle. Not using the right hand means she couldn't crawl. You can't ride a bicycle. Driving, you know, is a little difficult now. She goes for her license, but she is a beautiful soul. She is a beautiful person, and she still struggles to use her right hand. So she does occupational therapy to try and improve that. But, you know, she's a miracle. God has put something very special in her heart. She has a level of empathy for people, she'll hear me on the phone and say, Dad, you weren't nice on that call. I said, are you sure? She said, no, Dad, you weren't. And I'll call the person and say, hey, my daughter said I came across and they're like, oh yeah, I've been crying ever since I put the phone down. And I'm like, oh my gosh. So God's done some really special things, but she has really been a catalyst for 2ndMD, which went on to have 9 million members and changed you know, an uncountable amount of lives. She is a catalyst to our app, Dr. Gabby, to put a tool in people's hands that can really help them wherever they're at. So she's doing well. She's starting to talk about college and thinking through some of those things. And we've promised her wherever she goes to college, we're buying a house there, and we're going to be close by.

Oh my goodness. I love— well, you know, I have 2 daughters. So I know, I know what that you know what it feels like to just care about somebody so much in that way, and also just be so proud and excited to see how they've progressed when they have a health challenge. And so hearing that she went from where she was to now snow skiing and running cross country, I mean, that's— praise God.

Praise God indeed.

So, so good. Well, Clint, thanks so much for coming on the show. Again, I have loved what you've been able to do in the healthcare space and helping people find second opinions, helping people, you know, leverage and use AI for this really advanced medical testing and all the great things you've done. So thanks so much. Thank you so much for serving people so, so well. And just want to say, hey, thanks everybody for tuning in here to the Dr. Axe Show. Find out more about Clint Phillips. You can search his clinic, Medici Medical, Second MD, Dr. Gabby, all the great things he's up to. I just want to encourage you to take a lot of the advice and wisdom he shared today and embrace it and utilize it and move forward. You know, consider medical testing, consider doing, you know, getting a personal trainer, consider building that Yeah. And having a spiritual foundation and roots and practicing gratitude and positive mindset and those things that make an immense difference, not only in your spiritual health, but your physical health as well. And just want to say again, thanks so much for tuning in here to the Dr. Axe Show, where each and every week we're diving deep into the science and principles of how you can heal physically, mentally, spiritually, and take your health and your life to the next level. Hey, don't forget to subscribe. It's the number one thing you can do to support the show. Also, think about who's one person you could share this with where it could help improve and transform their life as well. So thanks for being on mission with me. I can't wait to see you on the next episode.