Is the Healthcare System Designed to Keep You Sick? | Dr. Casey Means

Hey everyone, welcome to the Dr. Josh Axe Show. I am your host, Dr. Josh Axe, and each and every week I cover the science and principles and how to grow in body, mind, spirit, and take your health and your life to the next level. On today's episode, I have Dr. Casey Means. She's a Stanford-trained physician, the chief medical officer and co-founder of the metabolic health company Levels, which I have used their continuous blood glucose monitor and absolutely love it and recommended it to many patients and clients over the years. And, um, we're gonna dive into a lot of things today. We're gonna cover why healthcare spending is increasing and, well, I, I'm gonna ask you the question, why are we getting sicker today? When you look at the numbers of people getting metabolic conditions, it continues to increase even though we're spending more and more money. Also, we'll get into different emotions like fear and how that affects metabolic health. And we're gonna get into all the blood work, blood testing, and talk about something called good energy, which is mitochondrial health. There's something called mitochondria, which is like the engine for your cells. If you keep that healthy, you're gonna have good energy. If not, you won't. So we'll get into all that and more. Dr. Casey, welcome to the show.

So happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Well, I know, um, you know, I've read this about you, and I know that I, I hear this often, is that oftentimes people like yourself, you get a traditional medical, traditional medical training, and you don't end up doing conventional medicine and all of the tr— thing, uh, the things that you were trained in school. And so for yourself, you've taken a very different career path rather than prescribing medications. You've really focused on using natural ways to help people heal. What, what caused you to sort of switch gears and go from one career path in more conventional to one that's much more natural?

Yeah, so for me, Josh, it was, it was really that I was 9 years into my training, you know, 4 years of medical school, close to being done with 5 years of surgical training. And I was trained, I trained as a head and neck surgeon, and I kind of was looking around me and looking at the realities of what's going on in the Western healthcare system. And the reality is, is the patients in America, they're getting sicker every year. Like, we're not, we're not getting better as a country in terms of health, even though we're spending monumental resources on health. And then kind of going deeper than that, realizing, you know, every single institution in America that touches our health, from hospitals to clinics to pharmaceutical companies, medical schools, even insurance companies, they all make more money when we are sick. And that's a huge problem. And I was a doctor working in a system in which the business model for the business, you know, people sometimes think healthcare is like a philanthropic organization or a nonprofit. It's not. It's a business. And that business, that business is designed to grow. And as a doctor, you're a worker in that system. And the, the incentives are totally misaligned right now. And so even though I and my colleagues all go into this profession with the noblest of intentions to help people, this is a massive $4 trillion system that makes more money when we're sick. And that's a huge problem. And I left the system to go figure out ways to really keep people healthy through, through different means. And I And I think what every patient unfortunately needs to understand is that no matter, no matter how wonderful your doctor is, the way we're trained, the way the research is done on every level, this invisible hand of gigantic financial incentives is corrupting the way we think about the body. It's corrupting the way we think about disease. It's making us not look at root causes and connections between diseases and put on these very siloed goggles about the body and about disease that is not serving patients truly getting healthier. So that is why I made that sharp right turn to really focusing on the—

it's a major issue. You know, many people have heard this, but the United States and New Zealand are the only two countries that can market medicine the way that we do today via all of these commercials and also the financial interests and government officials. There's lots and lots of issues here. In fact, you know, when I look at all of those different sort of big, uh, you know, industries today I really think the pharmaceutical industry today is the most corrupt of all of them. And it's, it's, it's the re— and even more so than government, even more so than the food and agricultural industry. I think it's the most corrupt. And I think it should be. And, and the reason why is it's so far from what it really should be. I mean, really medicine should all be about just helping sick people heal, get to the root cause of their issue and getting well. And it doesn't do that at all. In fact, the crazy part is you take one medication, typically causes another disease, so then you have to take another. So it really actually perpetuates the cycle, making people worse. And everybody breaks the Hippocratic Oath, uh, most MDs especially— first, do no harm— because anytime you prescribe a medication, another, another one, you're actually doing more harm than if you would have typically recommended a diet or supplement or lifestyle change. And so it's obviously a massive, massive issue. And, and what— why, why do you think today— because one of the things that I've heard people say before is, well, you know what, it's a lot of good people, like doctors are good people. They're just in bad healthcare. And now I personally don't even think that's an excuse, though. I think that there is a lack of virtue and integrity because there are people like yourself or Dr. Mark Hyman or, you know, people that were more medically trained as MDs who were able to see through it and say, well, you know what, I'm going to do the right thing. And help people because I can see this isn't doing it for people. Well, what do you— what are your thoughts about that?

I think what's so interesting is that when we get caught up in this matrix, you know, you invest so much into becoming a doctor, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars, years of the healthiest years of your life, and, and with such good intentions. And I think it's very difficult sometimes to see this wild matrix of multiple industries that you are actually embedded in. And so you don't even actually see, I think, where some of the toxicity and some of the compromised interests come in. You've got this devil's bargain, you know, between a $6 trillion food industry and the $4 trillion healthcare system and, you know, a multi-trillion-dollar industrial agriculture system, which altogether basically shape the way, like, what our cultural norms are. You've also got the school system. You've got all these things that are kind of working together to create norms in our culture that make it very difficult to see your place in it, I think. And when you've invested that much time, there are such strong cultural norms. You don't even have the government or healthcare organizations coming out and talking about, you know, root cause approaches to health. I think it's very easy to just get lost in all of it and to believe so strongly in this, you know, in this golden tower that you've really like hitched your wagon to for your life. So, so actually stepping out, it's not just about saying like, I don't really believe I think there could be a better way. It's actually like turning your back on, you know, 10 years of your life, hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, and also kind of giving a bit of big middle finger to some of the, some of the biggest industries in our country that we feel like we should trust. Because if we don't, then your world kind of starts to crumble. And so it's, it's kind of bigger than just saying, I'm going to take a different career path. It's actually saying like, I am going to walk on my own on a path that is different from what 99% of people are saying. And I think that what you speak of though is very important. I think there is unfortunately such fear in people kind of going out and, and forging their own path. Um, and I feel very lucky cuz I had a family that supported that and I had friends that supported that. Um, you know, I have a lot of privilege in terms of, you know, even having a family that would support me if I, you know, kind of fell on my, my face. And so I think there's a lot of things that push people to stay in the lane, But at this point, there's, there's a couple things I would say to that. One is that there actually is a lot of community on the other side of what's going on in conventional, the norms, like the functional medicine community, as you know, and sort of like growing, it's strong and it's incredible. And I think the second thing is from a spiritual perspective, I think like really following that call of, of digging deeper and following what, you know, you kind of, what your inkling knows is right. You look at the system and it's failing.

The system's abjectly failing.

$4 trillion and patients are getting sicker every year. There's something wrong there. And I think if you don't scratch that itch and start to go deeper, it can be very spiritually depleting because on some level, you know that the system you're working in is not working. And we see huge rates of depression, huge rates of suicide, huge rates of burnout in healthcare. And I do not think it's because we're working long hours. A lot of fields work long hours. I think it's because we know there is a mismatch between what we're doing and what would be actually best for people, and we just don't know how to fix it. But we all have a voice, and I think it's really important for people to step up and realize we gotta use it. Doctors are respected in society, and it is really our job as individuals to create a movement. And the unlocking of, I think, that spiritual purposeful fulfillment is something that you cannot underestimate. Like, we have such a short life, and I think that, that one of the reasons we're seeing doctors suffering so much, um, as a community is because, you know, they feel trapped in a system that they know is broken and they don't know what to do about it.

Yeah, well, to your point, one of the good, good things is we see functional and integrative medicine growing. You know, I remember when I first got into the field, you had people like Andrew Weil and Joe Mercola and Mark Hyman and Daniel Amen, and they were some of the only people who were really diving into some of this stuff. And now there are so many more. I mean, there's at least 10 times more people in functional medicine, or more than that likely, than there were 10, 15 years ago. And so we're definitely seeing this wave. And, and I think, I think social media, where I think it's negative in most cases, I think in this case it's positive because people are able to get more self-educated. They can see through the lies more. Those are being revealed. And so I think that that's, that's a big part of of why we're seeing that big growth in functional medicine. And I do think, you know, that, um, you know, a lot of people in that industry, if you're turning your eye to people, you, you— if you were— God designed you to be a healer and somebody who's there to help people heal, and you're not doing that, or you're taking advantage of sick people, that, that is going to sicken your soul. And so, you know, I can see some of the, the repercussions of that as you're sharing. You know, one of the things I think that you know, as you mentioned, $4 trillion in spending. It's actually— that's just within that one industry. There are so many industries that are contributing to the sickness of people. You know, it's like, okay, you have a company that creates a food, like a sugary cereal with food coloring and sugar, and then you have a— so a food company, and then you have a marketing company that's marketing that to kids, and then you have the pharmaceutical industry and, and healthcare that's sort of taking advantage of these sick people made sick by the food and agriculture industry and all the bad media out there. So anyways, there's really a lot of industries that have a level of, uh, you know, there's an evil element to them that are contributing to— one of the things that you talk about, which I think is so brilliant in your book, is bad energy versus good energy. And you're not just talking about our own energy, which I think is important, you're talking about something that can happen at a spiritual level, but also something that can happen at a cellular level at the health of our mitochondria. But break down for me what you mean by bad energy in your book versus good energy. Mm.

Yeah. So this builds perfectly on what we've been talking about, which is that really the financial incentives of healthcare drive it to be this very like siloed reactive system. Because if you think about the way that our system profits right now is that the more you do to someone for a longer period of time, the more money you make. So like that is— that basically lends straight to, okay, we want to have a lot of chronically ill patients in the system because chronic illnesses are the type of diseases that you're going to have for years and that need to be managed for years. Doctor visits every year. And the way we look at chronic disease in our country is it's like, okay, they're each different. High cholesterol is different than high blood pressure is different than heart disease is different than stroke is different than dementia is different than arthritis is different than cancer. They're all different. So that's a bunch of specialists we can go see. For life, and that is super profitable. Now, the, the, the other side of the way you could look at the body is, okay, well, all those symptoms are different, but what's actually happening inside the body, invisibly under the hood, that's leading to these diseases? What's the physiology? What is the actual stuff going on inside the cells that are leading to these diseases? And if you looked through that lens, what you would find is that there's a really core set of not very complicated things going on inside of the bodies of most Americans that are actually leading to all of those different diseases. And that's what I call bad energy. That is essentially a set of, you know, core cellular physiology that make our cells not work properly. And when, when cells aren't functioning properly, when they're not powered properly, when they have bad energy, they're going to express dysfunction. And dysfunction in a brain cell could look like dementia, and dysfunction in a liver cell could look like fatty liver disease, and dysfunction in a blood vessel cell could look like heart disease. And so bad energy is essentially a different way to look at health through the lens of root causes. And when we truly go to the research, what is the research showing us about the actual core mechanisms that are leading to disease? And the great news is it's not that complicated. It is metabolic dysfunction, which I call, uh, bad energy. And so I think the core thing for people to understand is that, you know, just a visual in our system, we look at every single one of these different chronic diseases in an individual silo and we treat them in different specialist's office. But the reality is the more we have specialized in healthcare, we now have over 100 medical specialties, the sicker we're getting. A different way of looking at it is a tree. The trunk of the tree is this physiology of bad energy, metabolic dysfunction, and underpowering of how our cells, you know, essentially an underpowering of our cells. And the branches of that same tree are all these different diseases that we think of as separate, but they're actually connected. So what we really need to do, and I think what the future of healthcare is, is actually treating just the trunk of that tree, treating the bad energy, turning it to good energy, which is metabolic health. And then what we'll find is that a lot of those different branches that we have conventionally seen as separate will get better. I think a key overarching framework for people to understand is that we have trillions of cells in our body, 40 trillion cells or more. And our life, our body is just the constellation of all these cells. And every single one needs a, a consistent source of power to work properly. Each of these cells are like little factories, little machines, little cities, and they need constant energy to do their jobs. And when our cells do their jobs properly and are well-powered, we have health. And when they don't, we have disease. And so a, a huge focus of what we need to think about individually and collectively is how do we understand how our cells are powered? How do we understand if we have good or bad energy? What is impacting whether we have good or bad energy in our diet and our lifestyles and the world we're living in? And then how do I improve it? And so that's really of all this digging over the years, leaving the surgical field and trying to really figure out like what is the root cause of what's ailing Americans? Why are our kids, ourselves, our parents all getting sicker every year? And the reality is that it's a— it's this issue, this core fundamental issue in how our environment is hurting our cells' ability to make energy to power themselves. And we're basically— we're broken machines and they were underpowered and it's showing up as all these chronic diseases that we're— that we're seeing today.

Well, you know what, this is a really powerful concept. And by the way, I, I've, you know, read a lot of health books in my career and discussed a lot of philosophical, uh, you know, ideas around health and a lot of principles. And, and this is one of the best. And the reason why I love what you're sharing is it has really this basis in Western medicine, but also Eastern medicine. If you look at Chinese medicine, you're describing something they would call chi, um, to a T, essentially, uh, in that. And, and so, and, or, or cellular energy slash ATP, you know, some of these things we talk about related, relation to the mitochondria and Western medicine. But this is the driving force for everyone's health. And, and for everyone listening, I want you to think about it like this, uh, you know, it's, it's funny, we keep listing more and more types of metabolic illness or types of diabetes. So we've all heard of type 1 diabetes, we've all heard of type 2 diabetes. So there's two types. Well, people a few years, many years ago started talking about Alzheimer's and all dementia as type 3 diabetes. I read an article recently that called PCOS, polycystic ovary syndrome, and infertility Type 4 diabetes, and then you look at obesity. All of those issues I just mentioned, plus so many more, really are metabolic issues. Many of them start with a hormone like insulin, and when that gets off, when your blood glucose gets off, it's sort of like a domino effect. That's off, then all of a sudden your inflammation markers are off, your sleep markers are off, your estrogen, progesterone, your testosterone, everything else. It gets tipped over. And so that's what Dr. Casey here is really getting into, is, is that what she's getting into is how to stop that first domino from falling. If you can do that or get that one back upright, everything else starts to heal in your body. If you can get rid of and eliminate the bad energy, start getting the good energy, start repairing your cellular health, that's ultimately going to lead to you having better health. One of the questions I have for you, what are the biggest thing— give me a list of— it could be one thing, two, three, four, 5, somewhere between 1 and 5 of the top things that feed bad energy, and then some of the things, the top things that can feed good energy.

The most important question we could be asking today in the healthcare system is that. So the, the, the overarching concept that people need to kind of really internalize is that for this cellular power to happen, we need the powerhouse of the cell, the mitochondria, flashback to high school biology, to be optimally working to make energy. And the things that are affecting the creation of bad energy are the things in our environment that are basically targeting the mitochondria and making this precious little machine not work properly. We have sometimes thousands of these in every one of our cells, and they are right now just being hurt. So the main things that are hurting our mitochondria are the way we're living over the past 50 to 75 years in our rapidly changing modern industrial world. Across the pillars of ultra-processed food. Our diet has changed radically in the past 50 to 75 years. Our movement patterns— we are sitting over 80% of the time of the waking day. We're not moving enough. Our stress levels and our emotional health— the devices in our hands that are streaming petrifying, fear-inducing media to our brains and creating a sense of threat in our body all the time. Our sleep patterns have drastically changed over the past 100 years. We're sleeping 25% less on average. That's key. Sleep is key metabolic optimizing time that we're basically just slashing. And then I would say if we're, if we're only going to choose 5, the next one I would probably mention is environmental toxins. There's over 80,000 synthetic toxins in our food, water, air, personal care products, homes, cars, everywhere. That are unregulated for safety largely, and which some of which are directly impairing our mitochondrial function. So food, sleep, movement patterns, emotional health, toxins. I'd also probably throw in our, our distorted relationship to light, basically since the invention of the light bulb and the fact that we've really thrown a huge wrench into our diurnal circadian cycles. But really with the advent of modern technology, you know, industrial living, very recent, just a blip in human history. We've changed everything about what our cells are exposed to and the type of information they're getting every day. And our chronic disease epidemic is essentially our cells saying, we don't know what the heck to do with this changing industrial Western environment and we can't function properly. Our mitochondria are literally damaged from every angle. And that, that is why we're having an explosion in a chronic disease epidemic. So how we improve it is essentially going through each of those pillars and thinking from the standpoint of a cell and a mitochondria, what does it need to function properly and how do I give it to the cell and the mitochondria without going backwards in time? We're not gonna go back to an agrarian culture with no light bulbs. But how in the modern world do I build an environment of real, nutritious, high-quality, whole food, adequate quality, quantity, and consistency of sleep, nontoxic food, water, air, personal care products, really regular movement throughout my days, not sitting all day and then just doing a 20-minute exercise, but really figuring out how to build movement back into my life. And then in terms of emotional health, This is the key question. How do I create a sense of safety inside my body for my cells, even though the world and technology and the TV and the computer all wanna make me think this is the most petrifying, scary world to live in? How do I create a sense of safety in my cells? So it's, it's looking at our culture honestly, taking stock of our lives honestly, and then giving ourselves back what they need to function. In the confines of our modern digital knowledge working world.

Yeah, well, it's, it's great advice. And I think one thing for everybody to know is, is that, uh, if your cells are sick, you're sick. And so if you can start to heal your cell, you'll get well. I mean, really, it's the key, the key to all health. Your body is made up of trillions of cells, and if you can start to heal your cells, you'll get better. And again, there's a lot of ways to complicate this, but the basic truth is this, is that if you have good cellular energy You're going to heal. You know, a lot of times people think— and I see this a lot, Dr. Casey, with people with certain conditions, like if they get overrun with viral infections, could be Lyme disease, could be mold toxicity, uh, it could be a number of things. Somebody with chronic fatigue syndrome, oftentimes they're always looking for a pill or a supplement or even a diet to help, help them heal and fix them. And I think the thing they need to realize, it's sort of, uh, you know, that, that their battery's too low. You know, I use this analogy all the time with patients is that, you know, imagine you've got your phone and what's the battery at? You know, if your battery's at 80, 90%, you know, it's going to function very well. If it's down at 20, 30%, your body isn't going to function very well. So the number one thing you can do, hands down, period, in order to heal yourself— because the reason why most people have Lyme— like, I, I've had patients with Lyme disease that have zero symptoms. In fact, we— I remember years ago I did a blood test myself myself, my mom, my dad, my brother, my sister. I had all of them do a Lyme profile. All of them, or 3 people in my family had Lyme, but they had zero symptoms at all. And it's like, well, how did they have Lyme and have zero symptoms? And someone else has Lyme and, and they're just an absolute wreck. Well, it's because one group has good cellular energy, so their body's able to naturally eliminate Lyme or keep it at bay so it never, they never even have a symptom.. And another person, they don't have good cellular energy, so the Lyme, the infection, overtakes their body and they have all of these symptoms constantly. So, so that's really the reality. Almost every person right now that's suffering with a chronic health condition, it's not due to a bad gene or a bad virus or bad luck. It's due to poor cellular energy. And if you can take your cellular energy up and start to regenerate your cells and heal your cells, you'll get Wow. Talk to me about diet. You know, there are so many different diets out there. There's carnivore, there's vegan, there's paleo, there's keto. What are some of the dietary principles you recommend? And I know just for everybody watching here, one of the things Dr. Casey has done is invest— founded, co-founded a company that's incredible. It does continuous blood glucose monitoring. So you put a patch on your arm and it tells you where your blood sugar is constantly. It is incredibly helpful. I think it's probably maybe the best single test you could do, knowing where your blood sugar's at and seeing what foods affect you. Um, and so really, Dr. Casey's an expert in this, but Dr. Casey, again, what is some of your advice to people when it comes to diet? If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slippering, and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells? You know, you're investing in the best supplements, working out regularly, and sticking to a clean diet. But if your cells are stuck in what's called cell danger response, all the hard work might not be paying off as it should. Think of your cells like a house under renovation. You can bring in the highest quality materials like the best supplements and clean foods. But if the workers inside the house or are on lockdown because of a storm, nothing gets done. The materials just pile up unused. That's what happens when your cells are in CDR. They can't fully use the good stuff you're giving them. Getting out of CDR, the cell danger response, is the key to unlocking your body's full potential. When your cells are no longer in protective mode, they can finally use the nutrients, hormones, and energy you're working so hard to provide. That's when everything starts to click. Your energy improves, your workouts become more efficient, and you start to feel like yourself again. Go to beyondbloodwork.com to learn how to break free from cell danger response and make the effort Payoff.

So I'm always looking at diet through very first principles. No diet wars, no diet dogma. We have this incredible machine of the body, like we've talked about many times, 40 trillion cells, and health is if those cells are working properly. So we need to think about food through the lens of how do we give the cells the molecules they need to function properly and be built properly. And how do we take out the things from the diet that are overwhelming or hurting or causing damage to ourselves? And when we look at that very unemotional view of food, we can just really start to identify components that we wanna have in each meal that would work for a vegan, they'd work for a keto person, paleo, Mediterranean. So when I was really looking at the data and trying to figure out what are those key factors, the things that came up were we wanna have a diet that's rich in micronutrients and antioxidants. We wanna have very adequate healthy protein levels. We wanna have a very good sources of omega-3 fatty acids. We wanna make sure we're getting in probiotic sources, and then we wanna make sure we're getting in fiber. And if we can really focus on understanding which sources of each of those food, antioxidants, omega-3 fats, probiotics, protein, and fiber, our favorite types of foods from each of those categories and then turn creating meals into almost like a mix and match of different components from each of those categories, we are going to load the body with a lot of the key building blocks and functional messengers and molecules that we need to have good energy and to build cellular health and resilience. Then the things that we really wanna eliminate from the diet, which do nothing literally nothing positive to support cellular function or structure, and that actually are like throwing little bombs on the system and do not help, are the refined industrially processed seed oils, the refined industrial processed grains, and refined industrial processed added sugars. So these things are just wasting opportunities with bites and that are gonna hurt our cellular health. And something just absolutely astonishing to me is that we eat 70 metric tons of food in our lifetime. Like, I don't even, I can't even imagine how much food that is. It's probably like a football field or more, but we eat 70 metric tons of food. And that 70 metric tons is like the, it's not only the bricks that will build our body each day, cuz you know, this, this conception, I think in the Western world, you've brought up sort of like more Eastern traditions, but like we have this such a, such an incorrect view of the body in the Western world of this thing. It's like a static thing. I am Casey and you are Josh and we are separate and I am a thing and I'm going to live and then I'm going to die. But that's really not the way the body's true nature is at all. We are actually— billions of cells are dying every day and being reborn. We're constantly discarding cells and atoms from our body and replenishing them. We're, you know, making a whole new gut lining and a whole new skin, you know, every, every few weeks. And what people need to realize is that food, that 70 metric tons, is literally the ink that we 3D print the next version of our body with. And we are constantly exchanging matter with the world through food. And so every day— this is the reason we have to be consistent about putting those 5 factors into our body is because every day we're recreating the next version of ourselves, which is both a responsibility, but it's also such an exciting opportunity because we're, we can just, you know, always have the opportunity to improve our health by rebuilding a better functional system. And that's, that's where food is just so special, so foundational and unavoidable. So the goal really is how do we make the most of that 70 metric tons of opportunity we get by eating the most nutrient-dense, whole, unprocessed food? And this is why We do need to really eliminate ultra-processed food from our diet, the packaged foods that are made in factories of, you know, Frankenstein-like ingredients that we don't recognize, and realize that these are a radically new phenomenon in human history. These are just decades old. They are now 70% of our calories that we're eating. They are not good instructions or building blocks for our bodies, and they are the root of our cells being just in total cellular disarray. So really step one is just eliminating ultra-processed food and moving towards more unprocessed, minimally processed, even thoughtfully processed foods. You can buy foods in packages, but just making sure you really understand and recognize the ingredients. And then ideally buying as much food from as close to the source as possible, the farmers markets. And people might think, oh, that's kind of frivolous or a nice to have, but the reason it's not just a nice to have, it's actually so important to eat the unprocessed food, ideally from as close to your home as possible, is because we want maximal nutrients per bite. We wanna maximize the 70 metric tons. And we know that once food is harvested, it starts drastically losing its nutrient composition each day it's separated from the earth. And so the fresher food that we can get, higher quality, you know, farms, soil, knowing the source, and reducing processed food, aiming for those 5, you know, categories of food I talked about, that, that is really going to set you up for great, great cellular health, no matter whether you're vegan or keto or somewhere in between.

It's great advice. You know, one of the things I think you've had a really unique situation with is in being a co-founder of Levels is looking at a lot of data that's constantly coming in. From people, their blood glucose levels. And also you've spent some time writing a new book, Good Energy. What are— maybe what is one or two things that have really surprised you as you look at the data that's coming from Levels and as you've worked on writing your book? What are some things that, again, have been, you know, some of those surprise learnings?

Oh, there have been a bunch of surprises. I think from our Levels data, one of the things that's been so interesting is that people who start the program with a BMI above 30, so basically in the obese range, which is now about 45% of Americans. So very, very common. If they log more food logs in the app, so basically they're recording what they're eating, they're mindfully writing down what they ate, they actually lose the most weight with the Levels program. So Levels is a continuous glucose monitor paired with an app, and some people will log food and some people may just, look at the data but not log meals. But logging meals was associated with the most weight loss. And people are losing— I mean, we've had people lose over 80 pounds. That's not, you know, not everyone, but, um, that was really interesting. And it actually mirrors a really large study done by Kaiser Permanente where they had, um, close to 2,000 patients going through a 20-week weight loss program. And they found something very similar, but not through an app. They found that the, the the more meals that people recorded in a food journal, that was one of the statistically significant things that actually was associated with weight loss. So Levels data and that data also show that taking the time in the weight loss journey to record your food can be a very valuable way to accelerate progress. And I think it comes down to mindfulness, right? Like actually, you know, not kidding yourself about what's going into your mouth and really being clear about it. So that was a surprising thing. Um, when I was much younger, I was actually very overweight, and keeping a religious food journal was something that really, really helped me stay accountable. I don't do it anymore, um, but it, it's, I think it's a great tool. And I certainly had my patients when I was practicing keep food journals because if you think about it, we're eating 2 to 3 pounds of food per day. That's a lot of molecular information. Imagine a patient was taking 2 to 3 pounds of pills every day. Which is, you know, just molecular information, and they weren't telling you about it, you'd have no idea how to counsel them. So we really do need to know what molecules are going in the body. That's what food is. So, um, I think a second super surprising, um, thing I learned for the book was actually about how speed of eating has a huge impact on metabolic health and blood sugar and our propensity to basically have good or bad energy. And There have been several studies actually showing that people who eat the fastest have the worst metabolic health, and the people who eat the slowest have like a 2 to 4 times lower risk of developing metabolic diseases, you know, which are essentially rooted in bad energy. And so this is such a great message for people who maybe they're not ready to give up particular foods or change their diet, but they can change the how of how they're eating, not the what necessarily, but the how, ideally both. But if you are going to eat processed food, you know, that's where you're at right now, that's fine. Try eating it much slower. And I think what you'll find is that it changes the whole experience. It gives you more time to trigger satiety mechanisms. You might not eat as much, and you might actually tune in with how it's actually tasting and whether you're really getting as much, you know, satisfaction out of it as you think. So, so that's been really impactful for me because I, from my surgical training, I wolf down food. You know, I'm just like always was eating on the go and now really focusing on deep breaths and mindful eating and focusing on gratitude while eating. Those things all have an association with, with better metabolic health. So those are two with food. I would say the one other— and this is just, it's, it's fairly basic, but probably the most astounding data I saw for the entire book is the power of walking. It sounds underwhelming, but it's, it's one that the, you know, we should reiterate because the average American is actually only walking 3,500 steps per day. But if you look at data from big journals, so I'm talking like JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association, they're looking at 2,000 adults over 10 years looking at their steps. And the people who just walked 7,000 steps or more per day had a 50 to 70% lower chance of dying in the follow-up period than the people who walked less than 7,000 steps a day. And this has been recreated in several other studies, um, some with different step amounts, but there was another study with thousands of participants followed for 10 years. And if they walked between 8,000 and 12,000 steps a day, they had a 50 to 65% lower chance of dying in the follow-up period. And you see this for every chronic disease, lower dementia risk, lower cancer risk, lower diabetes risk, lower obesity risk with the rates in the 40 to 60% lower just by taking these steps. And I think a key point here is, you know, it's, it's not just about steps. Steps is us, you know, that's great. But what I believe this is a proxy metric for is how much you're moving throughout the day. Because if you are moving 7,000, 8,000, 12,000 steps a day, it means you're getting up regularly throughout the day and moving. Most likely it's probably not that you're taking just a 5-mile run at the end of the day. You're probably moving more throughout the day. And we know that this moving regularly in small, low-intensity spurts throughout the day, like walking around the block, you know, every hour throughout the day, is actually extremely important for metabolic health, even more so than if you sat all day and exercised just for 30 minutes or an hour at the end of the day. And the reason is this, and I, this is something that I really think is helpful for people to visualize. Every time you take even a little 2 to 3 minute walk throughout the day, you are actually signaling through muscle contraction for your cells to push glucose channels from inside the cell to the cell membrane. Muscle contraction can do that. And so if you're doing little spurts of activity throughout the day, you are signaling for your cells to keep glucose channels at the cell membrane all day to take up glucose, process it by the mitochondria, turn it into energy, as opposed to just letting it sit in the bloodstream and get converted to fat. And so you're creating this totally different physiology at your cell membrane and inside the cell. You can think of the alternative, which is someone who may consider themselves active, but they actually sit, you know, at work for 8 hours a day. Those glucose channels are stuck inside the cell, not doing the work they need to do. And then maybe they take a jog for 40 minutes at the end of the day. That's great. But it doesn't change what happened at the cellular level for the rest of the day. So I think the real framework shift here is away from this— we have this religiosity about quote unquote exercise, which is very, very valuable and important. But I think what we really need to do is rebuild the concept of motion throughout the day. Our bodies, our cells in motion have different metabolic physiology than a, than a body that is sitting. So, So how in our modern world do we find ways to take some of the activities that we're doing seated and do them either standing or walking? And that's sort of like a reflection that each of us should do. You know, how can I convert my seated activities to movement so that I can push those glucose channels to the cell membrane as much as possible?

Yeah, it's fantastic advice. I think, yeah, I mean, when I first saw that research on walking, I was just blown away. I mean, I, I thought for years, well, weight training is gonna be the number one form of movement for longevity. And it is important and it's the second most, but walking is number one. I mean, it really, really is mind-blowing and it makes sense what you're saying. And this is why for myself, I try and walk 3 times a day, even if it's for 5 minutes. I try and right around breakfast, right after lunch, and then right, uh, sometimes do an evening walk right before, or a lot of times right after dinner, just get a little bit of movement in and it makes a huge difference. And so, especially if you're at work. If you can eat a slow lunch, take your time, go for a 15-minute walk right afterwards. It does so, so much for your health. You know, one of the things I noticed is I was wearing a Levels blood glucose monitor and measuring my blood glucose. And by the way, everybody, it's so important that your blood sugar levels stay balanced, that they're not spiking up and down throughout the day or staying very high, because that's an indicator of, well, numerous things. One is this metabolic syndrome, as Dr. Casey's talking about. But with that inflammation, when the sugar is not inside your cell, when it stays inside— outside of your bloodstream or stays spiked, it's going to cause inflammation in your body and it's going to cause you to age more quickly. So you really want to make sure that's balanced. And one thing I noticed, Dr. Casey, was there were numerous times where there were— I would do things and I thought I would see my blood sugar go up and I thought, And it had nothing to do with food most of the time. For me, it was, for instance, driving, driving a car. You know, I thought, hey, is this— it was a fairly high-stress thing for me and other people too. This wasn't just a Josh Axe, you know, gets stressed driving thing. I was really surprised where if I was doing that, that caused my blood sugar to raise, as example. So anyways, there are some surprising things I've had over the years as I've started to really pay attention to metabolic health. Which again, everybody, this is so important for your overall health. You know, last couple questions for you. Um, what is the— you know, you've talked about bad energy, we've talked about good energy. What is the single most important message you want your listeners to walk away and understand, uh, based on your book Good Energy?

The number one message Um, that I think is really valuable for people to understand is that we have been sold a story about disconnection being normal, that fundamentally disconnection is the root of our chronic disease epidemic. And so this is on several levels, both practical and also I think spiritual. I think that on one level, we've built a system of healthcare that is focused on fragmenting the body into dozens of different parts. 100+ specialties, 20,000+ pharmaceutical medications. Everything's about separation, and that is just not the way the body works. Even though I know that's the way we're taught and the— what we learn about our bodies and what we internalize, it's just not true. We're a connected system with core physiology happening in all the different cells around our body, and we need to optimize that through a connected root cause lens to be healthy. You know, period, end of story. The second piece of connection that I think we need to really internalize is this idea of connection between our bodies and everything else in not only the world, but like the cosmos, really. I think that our Western modern view of the body, like we talked about earlier, is very much about separation. It's me, it's you, you know, food is just calories. They just go in and calorie's a calorie and, you know, And I think really realizing like we're connected in an interdependent global and cosmic ecosystem that, you know, we— it's, it's— that is the reality. So we have to live in a way that respects that. So the food we're eating literally is incorporated into our cells and is the information that changes our gene expression. The air we breathe, you know, and whether it's got pollutants in it or not, that's gonna actually go into our body and incorporate into us. The way we interact with other people, connect with other humans and animals, even totally changes our physical biology. Like us interacting as other humans with trusting humans changes the hormone levels in our bodies instantly. Oxytocin, serotonin. We are our own little manufacturing plants of health-promoting or disease-promoting hormones. And the way we connect with other people directly impacts that. Our connection with sunlight, you know, I mean, we're, we've been told to fear the sun, but the reality is that the sun literally the photons speak to ourselves and our retina and our skin to change gene expression and change hormone function. So we need to start seeing ourselves embedded— not embedded in, but actually one with everything around us. Because everything about our modern culture in the West is about, you know, very much seeing things as isolated. So we don't respect the environment, we don't— we, we accept things like social isolation, which insane. You know, we accept this, this, this reality of separation, which is false. And then we end up locking ourselves, you know, on our computers inside the four walls of our homes and we end up getting sick. So connection of root cause physiology, connection between us and everything else and respect of those connections and nurturing those connections. And then I think, um, oh, and also, yeah, just like soil health, like, you know, our food is literally, we're connected to the soil, we're connected to all the microbes in the soil, all of that. Um, and then I think on the biggest picture level, a real deeper sense of that spiritual connection, I think, to— and this gets into this concept of fearlessness that you mentioned in the beginning of the episode, but also it's like the last chapter of the book, and I think it's one we cannot underrecognize. We have a very secular, very desanctified, very despiritualized healthcare system. I mean, 100% despiritualized healthcare system, and even our culture too. And I think what that does to us is it makes us in a way we can't even probably even understand fully because we're so a part of it. It makes us so existentially afraid as humans. We're afraid of mortality. We're afraid of— we're afraid of anything. We're afraid of so much. And we just— so we just are glued to our screens, you know, looking at all the fear, sensationalist media, because we want to understand this world we're living in. And I think what people really would, would so benefit from understanding is that, that that very like fearful world where we're afraid of mortality, we're afraid of everyone else, you know, things happening 5,000 miles away, it is crushing our metabolic health. That constant existential fear, it literally through our hormones and neurotransmitters and nerve impulses changes our mitochondrial function. That, that, that belief system and that fear on our psychology. And what it does is through a process that is fascinating called the cell danger response, which is mediated by the mitochondria. These psychological fears change the resources in our cells from going towards thriving and rebuilding and health promotion to actually like, uh, threat and defense signals in our body. So it actually pushes us more towards using all our precious energy and resources, not towards cellular health, but towards defense and alarm and inflammation. Mm-hmm. So just to wrap this all up, going down that harder journey of unpacking what are the deepest fears in your life, what are those rooted in, how are you having poor boundaries with the information that's coming into your head, totally changes our cellular biology, totally changes our mitochondrial health. And so I think a big part of the process of truly getting well as a culture is actually deeply meditating on this concept of connection in ourselves, ourselves and everything else in the cosmos, and, you know, this more existential connection that you might call spiritual, that is what creates the foundation for us to truly heal as a country, because we could spend $50 trillion on our fragmented approach right now. It will not make us healthy. We could spend much less on a much more— a system that focuses on respect for connections, and we would all heal mind, body, and spirit. So that, I think that's the biggest message from the book, even though it's, uh, pops up a little bit from like the technicalities of glucose monitoring and all that. I think it's really the most important part.

Well, I absolutely agree. And I think that's one of the principles of the show that I, I constantly teach on is, is that health is absolutely physical, but it's also mental and spiritual. And I even think today, you know, when you look at the mental health issues, which have far outgrown over the past 7 years, almost every other condition, uh, of cat, of cat by, by category, It's due to really the, you know, if I go way back, back to the '50s and '60s, it's when we pulled God out of schools and religion and spirituality out of schools and learning morality and ethics of that type. Now we're paying for it with that, with this generation in terms of the mental identity and the instability and people really being lost in a lot of these ways. They don't know the a lot of the moral stories anymore and how to navigate the world based on what truth is. And so anyways, to your point, I think, you know, a sick soul equals a sick body. And there's a lot of people today with sick souls, sick spirits, which are then affecting their physiology. And so we see that in a number of ways, uh, today. And of course, there's so many other things, you know. I've talked about how, you know, television today and movies and songs, they're darker and darker and darker, uh, over the past 50 years. And so I think that affects us, uh, and along with so many of the other things you shared today. So I think these are amazing pieces of advice. And I want to also just let everybody know, um, Dr. Casey's book— I, I, I recommend it. I want to encourage you to go out and buy it. It's called Good Energy, and it's really a beautiful blend of getting into this cellular mitochondrial health. How do you overcome this first domino that makes us all sick, how do you start to heal at that cellular level? Along with not just a lot of these physical, you know, you know, advice from the physical realm, but also mental and spiritual ideas in terms of here's how we get a sick cell wow, which is so, so important from— for, for our overall health. So, Dr. Casey, I want to say thanks so much for coming on and sharing your wisdom with us today. Tell us a little bit more about where we can find you and, uh, and anything else you'd like us to to check out.

Thanks so much, Dr. Axe. So I'm at CaseyMeans.com. That's the website that sort of has the hub of all of my stuff, all my social media links. I'm at Dr. Casey's Kitchen on Instagram, Dr. Casey's Kitchen. I have a newsletter called Good Energy Living. I'm on all the social platforms. And yeah, I, you know, can't wait for people to get their hands on Good Energy and, you know, can't wait to hear what people's experience with this with this good energy journey is. So thank you so much for, for the opportunity to share here.

Well, of course, again, you know, I, I always like having people on that have, uh, great messages. Your message is an incredible one. And again, you know, getting into these things that I love, of course, cellular health, which is so important, along with health of body, mind, spirit. So really appreciate your work and what you're up to. I also want to— hey, thanks everybody for tuning in to another episode of the Dr. Josh Axe Show. You know, like, like this episode, each and every week we really try and dive deep into, number one, how to heal your body, but also how do we take your mindset and your spiritual health to the next level as well. And hey, if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe, like, and share. You know, every time that you subscribe or share this with somebody, you're helping the podcast grow and flourish. We can bring on more incredible guests like Dr. Casey, and I'm able to put out more episodes as well. The more you share, the more you like it. I have people every week week, uh, you know, mention, hey, somebody told me about your podcast and I listened to an episode and it transformed my life. So now every time you share this, you're helping transform someone's life, bringing health to them in body, mind, spirit. Again, thanks everybody for listening. Thanks, Dr. Casey, for your wisdom. I'll see everyone next week.