Gladden longevity — Episode #35

Steve Reiter: Welcome to The Gladden Longevity Podcast with Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, MD, FACC, founder and CEO of Gladden Longevity. On this show, we want to help you optimize your longevity, health and human performance, with impactful and actionable information by answering three questions. How good can we be? How do we make 100 the new 30? And how do we live well beyond 120?

Dr. Gladden, how do we live well beyond 120? I'm Steve Reiter, the voice you've heard for the last at least six months at the beginning of the podcast. And Dr. Gladden, I'm back on because we have questions from our audience and people who have visited the clinic, the Gladden Longevity Clinic there in the Dallas area. People have been asking, and we just want to get your thoughts and share your knowledge with the audience. So, thanks for this opportunity, my man.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, it's a pleasure to work with you here. Maybe this will become a permanent thing, I don't know. We're kind of testing it out. We'll see what the audience thinks, you can vote thumbs up or thumbs down, should Steve be on every week, so that'd be good. That's the first question to answer.

Steve Reiter: Dr. Gladden, at the beginning, those three questions that we want to answer. That's the second one, how do we make 100 the new 30? And on the podcast, when I first started listening years ago, it was making 100 the new 60, and I wanted to ask you why the change? And is this really doable in the next 10 years, 20 years?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah.

Steve Reiter: Put on your Nostradamus hat and let's look into the crystal ball, and tell me what's developing that made you change this?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: It's a great question, quite honestly. I think it's predicated by several different things. The first is that I probably don't want to be 60 for the rest of my life, I'd much rather be 30. So, that's that. And I wake up 27 every day, which gives me a little bit of room as I go forward to reach 30 by the time I get 100, chronologically.

Steve Reiter: When you say 27, where are you getting that from? What tests? And...

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: I'm getting it straight out of my brain because mindset is so incredibly powerful in all of this. And so, waking up 27 has been one of the best things I've ever done. It's changed the way I think, it's changed, sure, you want to do this? Yeah, of course, I'm 27, let's go do it. You want to learn that? Yeah, of course. I'm 27, let's do it. And I think that's such a critical part of staying young, is thinking young and leveraging, if you will, that sense of youth, to be able to explore and find new solutions, explore new activities, relationships, whatever it is. So, I think that's been a critical piece, is waking up 27 every day. That's for starters. But it's aspirational. Making 100 the new 30 is, of course, aspirational. It's a little bit like going to Mars. Nobody's ever done it before, but Elon Musk is trying to do it.

And we're going to go to 30 because I think it's a more interesting place than Mars, quite honestly. That being said, in my life, and I may have said this previously on a podcast, if I look back 15 years and look forward to where I am today, or if I go back in time and go 15 years prior to a particular point, and I was looking forward, let's say, it's 1988 and I'm looking forward 15 years, I would've thought that it was completely impossible to do the things that I was doing at that point in time. I mean, just literally impossible. I have no idea how to build my own heart group, start a heart hospital, be involved with medical device companies, all that. It's like I have no idea how to do that. And if I go forward from where we are now, if I go back and to look, and be like, "I have no idea how to do the things that we're currently doing right now," and yet here we are, we're doing them.

And so, I really adopted this philosophy, and I think this is also a very youthful mindset, which is that if we're not trying to do the impossible, then we're really not asking big enough questions. And so, I've never lacked for ambition, and so I want to ask big questions. And I think that's how big progress is made. So, how to make 100 the new 30 is aspirational, and it is an exercise, and again, once again, doing the impossible, if you will. So, I think that's where it comes from. Now, I will say my GlycanAge came back at 26, and my cardiovascular fitness has been very good for somebody in their twenties, and my telomeres are probably in the 85th percentile for somebody that's 35, which would probably put me in about the 70th percentile for somebody that's in their twenties.

I have metrics that measure up to the aspiration already, and yet I'm super excited to see how we bring everything else into alignment. I think my oldest age is probably somewhere in my fifties based on the physiologic measurements we do. So, I would much rather be 30 for the rest of my life than 60. And I think most people look at 60 and say: "Well, that's an old person," particularly when you're 30, or in your twenties, it's like: "60, oh my gosh, that's an old person." And I don't ever really want to be old. So, that's where that came from.

Steve Reiter: So, putting on your Nostradamus hat, we've heard a lot about the idea of longevity escape velocity, whether it's from Aubrey de Grey or Dr. David Sinclair's book, Lifespan: Why We Age―and Why We Don't Have To. Where things are right now, where would you see these big breakthroughs happening in the longevity space that really not only would give us better health span, but where do you see that point at which we crack 120?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: I think it's this decade, I think it's in the twenties. I think we're at '22 right now, I think it's before 2030 that we crack it. Yeah, I think it's within this decade. And I say that because I've already seen so much progress in what we are doing, and we're literally getting smarter every day. We're learning new things every day and incorporating them into what we're doing every day. And I think that while there are many mysteries yet to be solved, the pace of knowledge acquisition and implementation is happening at such a rate that I think we will crack it this decade. I think we could even crack it before the end of the decade, but if you want me to give a conservative estimate, I would say before 2030.

Steve Reiter: Conservative is within the next eight years?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so. What's interesting is there was just an article that came out in aging on a conference that was held in Copenhagen in March. And they've updated the nine Hallmarks of Aging to 14, which is interesting, just to show the thought progression in the field. And one of the big things that they talked about there was the fact that in order to really make progress in this field of research, it's going to be very important to focus on the integration of these different hallmarks. In other words, a lot of research has been done in isolated veins, like, let's say, stem cell exhaustion or cellular senescence for mitochondrial dysfunction or loss of proteostasis or epigenetic alterations, telomere attrition, deregulated nutrient sensing, things like that. And yet really there's so much interplay between all of these.

And the ones that were recently added were compromised autophagy, which previously was part of loss of proteostasis, autophagy is of course where cells clean out the trash, if you will. It's stimulated by things like spermidine, and also by fasting, exercise, things like that. And then another one is disturbance of the microbiome. So, we've always had the microbiome slotted in under health, but now it's actually coming to the floor is being key in the longevity space.

Steve Reiter: Really?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, because we've always had a sense of that. And the primary driver that drives the aging process is when the gut biome is disturbed, leaky gut occurs, certain neurotransmitters aren't made as frequently. BDNF, brain-derived neurotrophic factor for the brain isn't manufactured as efficiently, et cetera, and so it has an impact on inflammation and brain health and neuroinflammation, if you will. So, it's become to the front. And then altered mechanical properties is now a new one actually, which has to do with structural defects that occur both in the nucleus, in the cell and then in the area outside the cell, in the extracellular matrix. And you can think of this as structures there breaking down to the point where part of the nuclear chromatin, part of the DNA, combined with its proteins, et cetera, can break out of the nucleus, go into the cytoplasm of the cell, and then trigger senescence and secretory senescence, if you will, the SASP phenotype.

And then you have structural things inside the cell that decrease cell motility, which is super important for how cells move around. We think of them as being static, like they're in a position, but cells are moving around all the time, particularly immune cells and things like that. So, the innate immune system, when it loses its ability to be mobile, that's a real problem. And then outside the cell, you also have things that are getting stiff and that should be pliable, but they're no longer pliable. And this has to do with crosslinking of proteins, if you will. And part of this is glycation, where sugar molecules are attached to proteins and crosslink them and make them stiff. And it's part of the reasons that your joints hurt, your Achilles tendon hurts, it's part of the reason that your blood pressure goes up. And again, it decreases the ability of the body to actually function, if you will.

And then there's another new one called messenger RNA splicing deregulation or dysregulation. And this is an interesting one because it's kind of a further delineation, if you will, of the DNA being compromised, and it's losing its integrity and then losing the fidelity with which it's transcribed. Now, the messenger RNAs themselves can be actually corrupted, if you will. So, there's another layer of both control and corruption that can occur beyond the DNA, now in the messenger RNA, that's actually taking the signal from the DNA to the ribosome to make the protein, et cetera. So, it's interesting to see that that occurs, and that's also been shown to be part of malignant cell transformation. So, when I see that there are these 14 hallmarks now, I've been spending this past weekend, Labor Day weekend, working on integrating these into what we're doing, and some other things that we're working on. And now I have 21, really, Hallmarks of Aging that we're working with.

Not saying that to just say: "Well, we have 21." I'm just saying that the way that we're seeing this is that it's integrating across different biological processes in a way that it's starting to get super exciting. It's kind of like the more expanded it gets, the more simple it gets, in a way, because these interrelationships are going to be something analogous to dominoes falling down. And if you know what the lead dominoes are, if you can address those, you can stop some of the cascade of other dominoes falling in the future. And it's dependent on what decade you're in. So, say, you're in your twenties or thirties, it's a lot easier to stop the dominoes. We may only need to intervene on two or three or four things. Whereas if you're in your sixties, maybe we're intervening on 12 things, and if you're in your eighties, maybe we're trying to intervene on 50 things. And so, it's an exponential element to this, but it's super exciting because what we're seeing over and over again is that these hallmarks are cross-reacting with each other.

And when you start to push on one thing, you can actually get benefit in more than one place. So, I think this is really just super cool stuff.

Steve Reiter: Well, let's go back to the microbiome, and talk about that, since that was just added as one of those 14, as in its own separate category. I, for at least two years, have subscribed to Viome. I'll get the occasional test and get their Precision Supplements and their Precision Prebiotic and Probiotic. What are your thoughts about Viome, and is there anything consumer level that would be a better starting place for listeners who either are already Gladden Longevity clients, thinking about becoming Gladden Longevity clients, or they're not in a financial position where they're able to, but from a consumer-grade level, this is a good starting point?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Right. That's a really, really good question, and I think I'll just cut to the chase on Viome. I quite honestly think they're overstating their case. And what I mean by that is that they are a one-trick pony. In other words, they're looking at the gut biome. Yes, the gut biome's critical, it's important, it's now one of the Hallmarks of Aging, but it's only a piece of the puzzle. And so, when you look at the gut biome and all of a sudden you're making recommendations about supplements or diet or all kinds of things across the board, anything beyond pre and probiotics, you're really overstating your case. And I think that the evidence would back that up. I've talked to some people that have some back doors into that company, and actually people feel like perhaps they're overstating their case. So, that's why I'll just leave it at that. We're not criticizing Viome. I think they've done more good than harm for sure.

But I do think that it's really tricky to take any metric and extrapolate it across all things. So, when it comes to testing for gut biome, any commercial test is somewhat inadequate. And the reason for that is that there is no normal gut biome, and yet every test that you get is comparing you against a theoretical, hypothetical normal gut biome, and then saying that you need more of this or less of that. In actual fact, the gut biome is incredibly diverse across the planet. Different cultures, different races, different ethnicities, different everything, different geographies, different foods, et cetera. The gut biome is massively disparate. And so, there really is no one ideal gut biome, that's for starters.

So, they're all flawed in that sense. That being said, we kind of like Vibrant America's Gut Zoomer because it does a good job of looking at the things that we're most interested in, which is leaky gut, are nutrients being absorbed properly? And what's the status of your gallbladder, your digestive enzymes? Is there evidence of bacterial overgrowth, yeast overgrowth? Do you have parasites? Things like that. And they're not just looking through a microscope to try to see if they can find a parasite, they're actually measuring DNA to see if parasites are present. And so we tend to like Vibrant's Gut Zoomer for that reason. I don't know if it's available to the public. I think you can get it through most functional medicine physicians. They're probably aware of it, but that's where we go to get information, so...

Steve Reiter: The next question that we have from the audience is: "I can't afford the equipment you talk about," and I'd assume this is on the podcast, "what is something someone on a budget can use?" And I would assume they're talking about, whether it's home exercise equipment or wearables, where do you recommend people start? What are the most impactful wearables or exercise equipment that someone can get?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, I think this is a good question. Well, it all depends on what-

Steve Reiter: Bang for the buck.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah.

Steve Reiter: Best bang for the buck.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Best bang for the buck. Well, the best bang for the buck always has to come from the life energy circle, which has to do with things that don't cost anything. And so, there's no downside to always optimizing that. And what we found is that so many people basically will sabotage their own behavior based on not having that circle dialed in. And we talk about it like it's an interesting circle, but in actual fact, stress is such a primary driver of aging. And when the life energy circle is really addressed and optimized, stress levels go down massively. You can't beat that. If you don't really have your life energy circle dialed in, all the equipment, all the biochemistry, all the procedures, all the stuff you can do and take, still won't have nearly the impact that it could. So, on a budget, for sure, this would be a place to focus. And even if you're not on a budget, it's a place to focus.

So, it's optimizing a growth mindset, being married to the questions and not your current answers. It's optimizing mental health. Do you have things like ADD, ADHD, PTSD, things like that? Are you doing some things dietarily to optimize the amount of glutamate into your brain? Are you getting too much sugar? Are you activating things with alcohol? Are you self-medicating? Are there addictive things going on? I mean, all those things will really derail health and longevity. And I think a lot of that comes from actually not feeling safe. People simply don't feel safe. And it's nothing external to us can never make us feel safe, so then the question becomes: "Well, how do I give myself safety? How do I learn to do that?" And I think that that comes into the whole thing of optimizing spiritual health and feeling this energetic residence with the universe, where you realize that things are really going to be okay, things are really unfolding, and that you're an eternal being, and that whatever happens is pushing you in the right direction that you need to go.

I used to think I'd had bad things that happened to me in my life, but I don't anymore. Everything that ever happened was pushing me towards where it is I'm supposed to be. And I think when you come to make peace with that, it just frees up so much psychic energy. So, that ability to feel safe, and then making wise decisions is a part of it. How do you do things that are not only good for you, but how do you care about other people? How do you really make good decisions for them too, and your community in the planet, et cetera? And then this idea of using joy as a North Star, where really, if it's not bringing you joy, then maybe you shouldn't be doing it. And then optimizing good relationships, and I think this is critical too. And we've talked about this, how language is really a poor form of communication.

And the reason I say that is mental telepathy, where we could really communicate and download to each other, that would be true communication. But short of that, we're dribbling out words and hoping the other person understands it. And we always say communication is the problem, and Bernard Shaw has this famous quote that the primary problem with communication is the illusion that it's occurred. And I love that quote, I love that quote because in relationships, we always talk about how communication is the issue. "Well, you need to communicate with me," blah, blah, blah. Well, if you understand that language is such a poor tool to actually communicate, then all of a sudden you have some empathy for your partner or your other person that you're talking to.

And all of a sudden you start to say: "Oh, okay, well, let me understand that better. Tell me more about that. Am I understanding that correctly?" Because unless you're really doing the work of trying to get the picture right in your brain that they have in their brain, miscommunication is really going to happen. And that leads to a lot of stress and tension. So, I think that's critical. And then I think one of the other key things in relationships is forgiveness. How do you actually reestablish the uninhibited flow of love between you and that other person? When a problem hasn't occurred, and you're in a loving relationship, there's this unrestricted flow of love, but when something happens that makes the relationship somewhat strained or skewed or whatever, all of a sudden the psychic barrier comes up and you stop letting love flow to that other person. It's like: "No, I'm not going to do it. I'm holding resentment, I'm doing this. I'm whatever I'm doing. No, they did this to me. I don't feel good about that."

Whatever it is, you're holding that psychic barrier up. And in order to forgive, which for me was always a hollow term, quite honestly. I'd come to realize that when you take that psychic barrier down and you reestablish the flow of love back to that person, it could even be somebody that you're permanently estranged from, but you can just reestablish that flow of love to that person. And if there's anything coming back, receive it, then that's forgiveness. And again, it lowers your stress levels so dramatically, and it puts you at ease and at peace, and you feel safe. And all of a sudden, your health and everything else improves dramatically. So, I think these things are really important. And then the last thing in relationships is this idea of knowing and being known, and loving and being loved. And I think, ultimately, we all want to be known and we all want to be loved for who we are. And if we're in a good relationship, that's a reciprocal process.

So, I think this idea of being known, so many people are going around holding things back, they're hiding things. Even their most intimate relationships, they don't know what they really feel or what they really think or whatever this is. And that creates a lot of psychic stress and strain. Again, people don't feel safe. And so, having the courage really to bring those things up and start to talk about them, and to do it in an empathetic way, bidirectionally, it just leads to so much intimacy. And again, when there's love flowing through your life, stress levels go down, health goes up, parasympathetic nervous system goes up, sympathetic nervous system goes down, your HRV goes up, heart rate variability, which you can measure on your Whoop or your Oura Ring. And so if you're on a low budget, this would be the place to start. And even if you're on a high budget, this would be the place to start.

So, this is just absolutely critical. And to your question about wearables, we've liked Whoop and Oura Ring. Different people like different things depending on their activities. Some of the people I work with really love the Garmin watch, some people love Biostrap. I don't really care what you're using, I think it's more the fact that you're using something and you enjoy using it is probably the biggest benefit. Having a scale that can give you body composition is important. I think if that's an issue for you, having a continuous glucose monitor that you wear intermittently, if that's an issue for you, is super helpful and important. So, I think all those things can be done for not all that much money, so...

Steve Reiter: Do you see a benefit for those continuous glucose monitors? Because I've heard about it from Ben Greenfield and I've heard about it from others, and looked into it at times, but do you see a real benefit in knowing those exact details about insulin spikes and such?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Well, that's a great question. So, the first thing to clarify is that insulin spikes are incredibly important. Unfortunately, the glucose monitors don't measure insulin, they measure glucose. Now, we can try to infer what the insulin might be doing behind that, but it's still an inference because we do two-hour glucose tolerance testing with insulin curves on every client, and so we can actually map, much more precisely, what's actually happening with insulin and glucose. And why is insulin so important? Well, because high insulin levels is driving senescent cell formation, and so it's really accelerating the aging process. So, for a diabetic or a pre-diabetic that's running high insulin, they're aging quickly there, and then with the high sugars, they're glycating and crosslinking, which is now one of the Hallmarks of Aging, and they're actually aging themselves that way too.

So, yes, I do think that wearing the glucose monitor's important. And for me, it was important on two fronts. Number one, genetically, I can tend to spike my sugar on a glucose tolerance test, although that's improved. I remember the first time I did it, my sugar at one hour went up to 165, even though my hemoglobin A1C was 5.1, and my fasting blood sugar was 92. So, genetically, you can do that even though technically you're normal in all your other routine blood work. The other thing is that I found that when I wore it, I was spiking my sugar intermittently. And so, that was helpful to educate me. But the other thing I was doing was my sugar was dropping very low at night when I was trying to sleep. It would drop into the fifties, and even a little bit low, into the high forties.

And so, I started to realize I needed to eat more complex carbohydrates at bedtime. And that will also affect the quality of your sleep, which is obviously critical for being restorative. And that will also stress your body to where your heart rate variability is low, your sympathetic nervous system is activated because you're undergoing the stress of hypoglycemia, or low blood sugar, in the middle of the night. So, I think you could learn a lot from wearing one. I would recommend it to anybody, no matter what their blood sugars are on their tests.

Steve Reiter: You were eating complex carbs at bedtime or with your dinner?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Not at bedtime. Yeah, in the evening, Yeah, more in the evening, yeah.

Steve Reiter: And what kind of complex carbs were you adding? Was it sweet potato or...

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, it would be things like vegetables or some quinoa or some things like that. Some full husky type rice or something. Something that had some complexity to it, nothing that was refined per se, so yeah.

Steve Reiter: And what did you see with your sleep once you got that fixed?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Oh, it improves. My sleep bounces around a fair amount in terms of its quality, based on travel, based on where I am, based on time zone changes, things like that. So, I've come to realize that even when I have great recoveries they're not going to last forever, and even when I have a poorer recovery, it's not going to last forever either. I tend to use it as a way to continue to educate myself about things I can do to improve it. But I also tend to use it to help me understand how hard I should be working out that day because my philosophy is to do something every single day. So, if I'm poorly recovered, it'll be like: "Okay, I'm going to work out today, but I'm not going to try for a personal record, but I am going to get it done." And so, I use it that way too.

Steve Reiter: Next question that we get, and apparently they hear this at the clinic a bunch: Is Dr. Gladden perfect? Does he ever have a bad day or eat bad? What are your cheat foods? What are your cheat foods?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yes, yes, and yes. Now, nobody's perfect, right? So, I mean, I will have some occasional ice cream, I will have some occasional pie, I will do things like that. But I really feel better, and I like it when I'm eating clean, quite honestly. So, vegetables and stuff like that, I try to prioritize vegetables. I have this technique now where I take a big wad of vegetables and stick them in a pot of water and just keep tamping them down while the heat is on until I can fit them into a container and put them in the refrigerator. That way I can eat a lot of vegetables within a few bites, so to speak, that I would have to chew for a while to try to get through. And I feel so good when I do that, I love that approach to getting lots of veggies in. So, yeah, I'm not perfect. I'm not perfect. Yeah. I'm a sinner like everybody else, so...

Steve Reiter: Speaking of lots of vegetables, what are your thoughts on plant-based diets?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yes.

Steve Reiter: Full vegetarianism, veganism, I would assume you're more of an advocate of a plant-heavy diet, not exclusively a plant-based diet like being a vegan?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: That's correct. Yeah, that's correct. I think vegan diets have issues that's very carb-based. A vegan diet, just because everybody thinks a vegan diet is healthy, it's not necessarily healthy, low vitamin B12, some other things that you have to supplement, but it's very carb-based, and I think that's not necessarily great for a lot of people. I think a vegetarian diet can be good, I think there are people that are pescatarians, where they add in fish, and I think that's fine. But I think getting some animal protein at points during the week, I'm really a plant-based person, and I know my gut and I know my food sensitivities and I go with the ones that work for me, and I know that's a changing equation as we go through, so that's just part of the landscape, but I like to be plant-based, and then I will have meat maybe three or four days a week. Whether that'll mean some animal protein, it could be a sardine, it could be a piece of chicken, it could be a piece of fish.

Red meat shows up pretty rarely, maybe once a month, maybe twice a month, but pretty rarely, quite honestly. I lean a little bit more towards some seafood, I would say, so yeah.

Steve Reiter: What are your thoughts on the carnivore diet? I've been hearing a lot about that from the big name, I forget his name, who's associated with that being on [inaudible 00:30:40]?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Dave Asprey.

Steve Reiter: Dave Asprey. Jordan Peterson and Mikhaila Peterson are big proponents of the carnivore diet in their lives.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah. And I think, genetically, we're built differently. Some people manage saturated fats and things like that in a better way, some people manage being keto better. But I think unless you know your genetics, I think it's really important not to be enamored by a person that's espousing something and say: "Oh, I want to be like that person," and to simply adopt their patterns. I don't know what that is, I think it's a little misguided. I think that what's really important is to actually get some baseline testing on yourself. So, you understand your own genetics, you understand how you respond to sugar, how you respond to fat, what's your risk for cardiovascular disease and things like this. And then you basically work out a diet that actually works for you. And if I was on a full meat diet all the time, I would feel terrible. And I think you miss so many nutrients.

I'm a huge fan of nutrient density. Nutrient density, there’s a scale for it called the ANDI Index, it's the Aggregate Nutrient Density Index, and it basically was developed by guy, Dr. Fuhrman. It was originally posted in Whole Foods. There was a blackboard, you could walk into the produce section and see the nutrient density of various foods. And the scale goes from 0 to 1,000. And 1,000 is things like kale and Swiss chard and mustard greens, collared greens, things like that. Those are all 1,000. The highest meat is a bison filet at 39, a Big Mac is 5. So, you're missing all this nutrient diversity and density when you commit yourself to either just being vegan or the polar opposite: "I'm just going to eat meat all day." I just don't think either is good.

What we found that your immune system likes is variety. And so, every time I go to the grocery store, I try not to buy the same thing that I did previously, whether it's a different piece of fruit or a different vegetable or a different meat, or whatever it might be, because it's that variety that keeps you in homeostasis. So, I think having variety and not polarizing yourself into one camp or the other, and I think the whole keto thing has been debunked on many fronts from the standpoint of it really doesn't improve athletic performance, it actually degrades it over time.

Although people get an energy boost, initially, their brains may function a bit better on keto, and that's more of a question of finding out, "Well, what are the things in your diet that are actually sabotaging brain function," and there are a lot of things that can do that. But I think biology likes to be in balance, and it likes diversity and it likes to variety. It doesn't want to be pushed to a corner and held there against its will. It always bites back and it always finds a way to come around it, so...

Steve Reiter: What can people expect when they start with Gladden Longevity?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: They can expect a very supportive environment. I think we're very, very empathetic to the journey that people are starting with us, and we really want to give them a platform for success. And so, we're very conscientious of understanding who the person is, who their aspirations are, what their schedules are like, what they can reasonably do or not do, what their priorities are, et cetera, what the support system is that they have around them. And then we basically take all the testing results and try to build a program that not only satisfies what the test results showed, but also satisfies the reality of their lives, and how they can actually start to implement. Because, really, our greatest joy, 100%, and this is probably true for many businesses, but it's certainly true for us, is that our greatest joy is seeing our clients do well. And when they do well, we feel great. I mean, we love it when people send us selfies and they say: "I feel so good, and I couldn't believe I could have done this."

And I was just on a call with a 69-year-old gentleman and his son, who, six months into the program, he was in so much pain with his shoulders, he couldn't sleep at night, he couldn't do his work. He works, I think, in the restaurant industry, things like that. He was so frustrated and depressed. And six months later, I'm on a call with him to bring him up to speed on some new things that we're doing. He was like: "I feel so much better. My shoulder doesn't hurt, I can sleep all night, I've got so much energy, I'm working in the restaurant again." His son said: "Yeah, he's jumping out of the back of the pickup truck again." I was like: "This is fantastic." I mean, this is our greatest joy, how do we not love that? So it's a very supportive environment that people are stepping into, and we want to make it work for them, tee them up for success, so...

Steve Reiter: Do people work directly with you? You have a team around you, and I assume that they work with you and the team?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, I do have a team around me. And as things have progressed, I went from literally doing everything with one other employee at the time to really moving much more into as a supervisory role. And so, yes, I still do engage with clients, but it's on a more limited basis for sure. And yet, we have provider meetings, we just had one this morning, where I'm coaching the team on the new insights that I have, the new ways I want to go about things and structure things, and they're actually giving me feedback on what they're finding too. So, we collaborate together to continue to innovate and bring things forward. But they're doing most of the implementation at this point in time.

Steve Reiter: Why Gladden Longevity compared to other clinics?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Oh, good question. Well, I think one of the biggest differentiators that I see between us and most everybody, is that a lot of people will discover a technology or an approach. It's like: "Well, we've discovered how to do DNA testing and now we make recommendations around that." Or, "We've discovered how to use stem cells," or, "We've discovered how to use stem cells and PRP and exosomes," or, "We've figured out that if you do this, we can help fix your gut." And I think what I love about us is that we're not married to a single answer that we have, even though we have thousands. So, we're constantly innovating on what we're doing. We also will go down the rabbit hole with an individual. Let's say, they come in with a particular issue, we're happy to go down the rabbit hole with them and figure it out and crack the code.

Our clinic doesn't revolve around a few technologies or a few insights that we have, it's really very broad scoped, and it's really driven by the three questions that you introduced the podcast with; how good can you be? Which is really that global question, not only physically and mentally, but spiritually and psychologically and relationally and financially, and how good could your life be? And then how do you make 100 the new 30? And how do you live well? Not just survive to, but how do you live well beyond 120? So, those questions drive everything, and I think that's a big differentiator. We're not just married to a particular set of answers, so...

Steve Reiter: What are your aspirations for Gladden Longevity? Where do you want to be in 10 years? Open any more clinics, like in Colorado, where you frequent?

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yes. Yeah, [inaudible 00:38:14]. Well, and that's a great question too. Probably the biggest aspiration is to really crack the code, really making 100 the new 30. That's been my primary focus because nobody's done it before, nobody's gone to Mars. And if we can go to Mars, it's not inexpensive to go to Mars, but if we can go to Mars, then we can really start to democratize it. And so, I'm super excited about that. I really want to change the face of aging across the world. And so, we're going upscale in the sense of doing things that are more intense and more comprehensive and a larger investment of time and financial resources, but we're also going to places where we're able to democratize things too, where people have a particular problem that they want us to address. We can take a very comprehensive approach to that.

If somebody's really interested to work with us, the question would be: "Well, what question are you asking?" And it used to be that we were really only working with people that were asking one question, which was: "How do I go all in and optimize everything?" And that's still what we do, and yet other people are coming to us, "How do I fix my brain?" "How do I deal with my long-haul COVID?" "How do I address my cardiac issues?" “This just happened to me, how do I heal my hip or my knee or my shoulder?" And we have ways to go about that for people where we do these 90-day sprints now and can really turn somebody's life around. And I wouldn't say it's cheap, but it's also not as big of an investment, of course, if somebody's working with us for a year and doing all kinds of things. So, we're doing that, and then I'm working on some other things towards even further democratization that won't involve traveling to Dallas and things like that.

So, we'll see how that develops, but we're in the midst of doing that right now too. Because I'd really like to be able to impact everybody. I mean, the podcast itself is really part of my plan to democratize this information, and help people access it, whether they can work with us or not. And so, this has been a mission of really trying to get the message out, but then I'd like to bring other things forward for people listening to the podcast where they can do this or try that or do it from home. And you can stay tuned for that.

But in the meantime, if you've got a problem, don't feel like: "Well, they only work with people that want to be 30." That's not the case. We've expanded our resources, capabilities, personnel, to the point where if somebody has an issue they want us to deal with, we're happy to take a look at it. We can't fix everything, and there are people that we'll just tell them: "This is beyond the scope of what we can do," or, "We think we're not really going to be able to add value," but many times we can, so...

Steve Reiter: Dr. Jeffrey Gladden, thanks for joining me, or I guess even asking me to be a part of this episode. And for those of you in the audience, if you have any questions that you would like Dr. Gladden to answer, contact us at podcast@gladdenlongevity.com, that's podcast@gladdenlongevity.com. And there we will be sure to add this to the queue, and we will hopefully, eventually, get around to answering it on more of these episodes.

Dr. Jeffrey Gladden: Yeah, and we've talked about this too, and I really do appreciate the questions that you've asked around all of this, and I think they've been very, very focused, Steve, and I think very helpful. I'd almost like to have a segment every week where we answer a question or two or something, whatever we can, because I think having more real-time feedback for people is a good thing. And yes, there's a little bit of delay. We have a number of podcasts already recorded to be released, so this podcast probably won't be released for, I don't know, three, four weeks maybe. So, just realize there's always going to be a little bit of delay when you ask a question. But I'm delighted to interface and answer questions and things like that, so that would be great.

Steve Reiter: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of The Gladden Longevity Podcast. If you would like more information on what we've discussed, or other topics, please reference the show notes or go to gladdenlongevitypodcast.com. You can also find us on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter by searching Gladden Longevity. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please subscribe to get future episodes delivered to you, and share our podcast or this episode with someone in your life that may find benefit. Thank you for listening. We'll be back next week with another exciting episode.