Body Mind Soul and Live Healthy Longer
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Body Mind Soul and Live Healthy Longer
Latest Advances in Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine
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Discover the latest innovations to combat aging, including Stem Cell therapy, Hormone replacement, Fatigue and Low Energy treatments. Dr. Jim interviews triple-board-certified physician, Dr. Julian Gershon - founder of the renowned Aspen Institute.
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Introduction to Living Healthy Longer
Speaker 1Welcome to Live Healthy Longer with Dr Jim . In this episode , we'll be exploring the field of regenerative medicine , so let's get started with our host healthcare specialist author and very popular podcaster , dr Jim Polakoff .
Speaker 2This is Dr Jim Polakoff , and my episode is going to focus on the very nature of this podcast Living Healthy Longer . A recent study found that most Americans desire a longer lifespan , with 69% of respondents wishing to live to at least 80 , but preferably 90 to 100 years . In fact , 9% of those in the study were actually hoping to live more than 100 years . However , many participants prioritized quality of life , with almost two-thirds preferring a shorter , healthier life over a longer one with health issues . Now I'm going to discuss these factors a bit more following my interview , but first let's meet an expert who specializes in how to live longer in good health .
Meet Dr. Julian Gerson, Anti-Aging Expert
Speaker 2My guest for this episode is Dr Julian Gerson , triple board certified in family medicine and sports medicine , as well as his specialty being anti-aging and regenerative medicine , he also holds a fellowship in stem cell therapy . Dr Garzon is the founder of the Aspen Institute for Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine , headquartered in the beautiful Aspen , colorado area . Welcome to my podcast , dr Kershaw . I must say it's a real treat to have a guest who embodies our theme Living longer and good health .
Speaker 3Well , thank you . Very nice to be here . I'm excited to be part of this today .
Speaker 2Well , I mean , you tie so beautifully into our subject matter so it does work out quite well . So , of course , most of our listeners are not going to be able to see it , but you have a beautiful background there of Aspen , colorado and you know most people come to Aspen to tackle the slopes and defy aging , but you specialize in preventing the ravages of age . So , aside from the beauty of your area , why did you choose to practice in Aspen Colorado ?
Speaker 3Well , that goes back a long way , to about age 12 , I think , when I grew up in a snowbank in northern Michigan skiing and ski racing through all of high school and college , and it's just been on my list , you know , since I was a kid and you know I had a long career in sports medicine and lost a spouse to cancer in 2009 .
Speaker 3And I'm sorry to hear that my boys , my younger two I have five children , but my youngest two at that time and packed up and moved out to Aspen and started over from scratch and just decided I was going to limit , you know , my practice to anti-aging and regenerative medicine and , you know , start my story and go from there . And so , fortunately , 15 years later , a lot of uphill pushing , but you know , we've gotten to a point where we have a . You know , we help a lot of people and what I do is fun , and as long as I'm having fun doing it , I'll continue for quite a while .
Speaker 2Well , I think that's certainly the great attitude and of course , you know you picked a beautiful area in any case to reside in as well as practice in . Now we're going to get into your specialty anti-aging , as well as your best-selling book , beyond the Fountain of Youth . But why don't we begin by examining some conditions that arrive as we get older , namely joint pain and arthritis ? I know some of our listeners suffer from both , so instead of drugs and cortisone shots , apparently you turn to regenerative medicine
Treating Joint Pain Through Regenerative Medicine
Speaker 2. Can you explain your approach to each of these painful conditions and similar ones ?
Speaker 3Well , sure , I think they all have the same commonality is , you know , the more we've enjoyed our life when we're young , the sports we played , the things we've done Over time , there's a price to pay . You know , the cartilage has a lifespan . Cartilage degeneration , tears of tendons and ligaments , overuse injuries , certainly acute injuries , but you know , it just happens as we get older . You know , the number one cause of night shoulder pain , night pain , is a degenerative rotator cuff .
Speaker 2Did I do ?
Speaker 3anything last week to it ? No , probably not . It's that water skiing accident . You had when you were 20 or whatever . You know a number of previous microtrauma , and so as our cartilage wears out , you know , then we start looking for options .
Speaker 3Chronic pain is no fun . I just spent this last weekend training with a new device called a focused shockwave device from StemWave . That is fantastic . I'm so impressed with this therapy because there are so many people with chronic pain , inflammation at a cellular level , and so this device is an addition to things that we may do , like platelet-rich plasma injections using your own stem cells , exosomes , and so I'm really excited to introduce that and bring that into the practice here in the next just few weeks .
Speaker 3And so , um , I won't , can't . I won't go into all the specifics of that now , but it's a tremendous device that has been around for a while , but , like anything , they just keep refining the technology and it gets more powerful and more powerful , and so when we can pinpoint focus of these shock waves , which literally travel at 3,300 miles per hour into the tissue , then they can help break down the scar tissue , the inflammation response , stimulate recruitment of stem cells to that area . They really do some exciting things , but you know what I've been doing now . I did a stem cell fellowship back in 2012 through our anti-aging academy and have been harvesting and utilizing your own stem cells Since then . I've used mine every year since 2012 .
Speaker 2Well , I definitely want to get into the stem cell therapy in just a bit , but we get quite a few questions from our listeners talking about can you discuss this or that subject , and one of the things that I know that you do treat is fatigue . So when you come across patients that complain of fatigue , they just don't have the energy level there Do you then turn to hormone replacement replacement , I should say , in women and men as well .
Hormone Replacement for Energy and Vitality
Speaker 3Well , absolutely . In fact , just before this call , I had a telemedicine visit with a 41-year-old gentleman in Serbia whose business partner lives here in Aspen . He was a professional basketball player and he's only 41 . But at that point where he's tired , he having muscle soreness , he's gaining a little weight , he doesn't , isn't motivated to continue to do the things in business he would like . Just , quality of life is changing and so , as I told him , you know , no one is immune to the effects of aging right . It starts as young as age 30 , we lose one to 5% of our hormones a year , and so fatigue , energy loss . It's at the top of my list , it's number one on . I have a checklist of , let's say , 20 items that I like to have people fill out before I see them , and the left side of the page is never , and the right side is severe .
Speaker 3And most are on the right side or somewhere in between , and , as I tell them , I'm like look , I want you to live on the left side of this page . And so how do we do that ? Well , we find that most and it doesn't matter men and women , male or female we start losing all of our hormones . And testosterone is extremely important for cognitive function , for energy production , muscle mass , body composition , you know , across the board , and so not just we think of it as sexual function , but it does so much more than that , you know , and decreasing inflammation overall , and we call inflammation the silent killer . Well , how do we lower those levels ? If you're not optimizing your hormones , you may not be able to , and it's really that simple and it is not difficult to do . It's just rather unfortunate that mainstream medicine is still very slow to the dance as far as learning the protocols .
Speaker 2So you actually replace the hormones ?
Speaker 3Oh , absolutely , absolutely , and sometimes at a young age . And so I see , you know , the majority of people I see need some balancing . In the case of women , you know they lose testosterone and progesterone , sometimes one or two decades before menopause , and so it can just take small amounts , but it's a game changer .
Speaker 3I have a number of different testimonials on our website of women in their 30s and 40s that feel great . You know they've lost 20 or 30 pounds . Everything's changed and they have been to multiple providers and it's just well . I don't know . Your levels look okay to me and it's just part of getting older . Well , I hate to hear that , because that's not just part of getting older , not the case .
Speaker 2So you take a different approach than Wigobi or Zepbound or Ozempic . I assume that hormone replacement . How do you approach that ?
Speaker 3Well , I do use the GLP-1 inhibitors a fair amount . You know we're finding that in very low doses they have significant longevity benefits . With diabetic patients they were shown to have over a 33% reduction in rate of heart attack and stroke , and so that's now been extrapolated to the general population . And who wouldn't want to reduce their risk of serious health issues by 30 percent and trim
Stem Cell Therapy: How It Works
Speaker 3a little body fat at the same time ? But you know , the key is balancing all the hormones first . That's the most important factor , because that's what's really driving the changes in muscle metabolism and fat metabolism . You know we don't see many sick 20-year-olds or that they have high sugar , unless they're a type 1 diabetic or high cholesterol . Why does that happen as we age ? Because as we lose testosterone , metabolically we don't function the same .
Speaker 2Well , in men , men who suffer from sexual dysfunction , obviously do you go beyond hormone replacement . Are there other therapies that you use to treat men with that condition ?
Speaker 3Well , there are . I think that the foundation is we have to restore testosterone levels .
Speaker 3We have to look at thyroid , because we see something called subclinical hypothyroidism , which is low free T3 . To me , the free T3 , the amount of thyroid hormone not bound to protein , that's all that does anything in our bodies , and unfortunately , many physicians don't look at it hardly at all , and so that is important . We also use different peptides to help stimulate sexual function , something called they all have funny names PT-141 . I use peptides to stimulate growth hormone production , and then vitamins , nutrients , simple things like B vitamins and folic acid .
Speaker 2Right , I want to get into supplements in a moment , but you're throwing out letters and I have not heard of this one . On your website you have an EB02 . What is an EB02 ?
Speaker 3Well , eb02 is high-dose ozone blood purification and I have the only system in Colorado . I was trained by Dr Joe Parita in Miami . He's probably done more stem cell procedures than anyone in the United States , for sure , and it is actually . We treat five to seven liters of blood . Literally it's coming out of one arm dark blue and going back in the other arm bright red . The blood first goes through a dialysis filter , removes heavy metals , toxins , mycotoxins , viral particles , microplastics , and then it's supercharged with ozone and before it comes back in the other side , it goes through four wavelengths of UV light to be totally sterilized . And when I first heard of it I'm like you have to be kidding . Whose blood is sterile ?
Speaker 2It is imaginary to a sense .
Speaker 3Yeah , if it wasn't sterile I'd be dead , but that's not the case . You know , we're full of a credit card worth of microplastics monthly , and so we have to do things to help cleanse ourselves of that , and so that's what the high-dose EVO2 does . It takes about 60 to 90 minutes to do that procedure , but patients notice a significant increase in energy levels . We can document that we're removing mycotoxins , heavy metals and such , and so it's just an exciting treatment that we do .
Speaker 2Now you mentioned supplements . As a nutritionist , I am aware that many people go to the drugstore or supermarkets and they buy over-the-counter supplements , and my finding , at least , is there's definitely a mediocrity in quality , I should say , but also bioavailability . Does your brand of supplements differ from what you get over-the-counter ?
Speaker 3Well it does , and I'm fairly proud of that . We use pharmaceutical grade vitamin manufacturers with natural products that are not wax matrix pills that come out whole many times and you know when you think about it . If you're at one of the I'll just say the big box stores I won't call names , but you know those products they're putting a lot of dollars into marketing . They want the cheapest stuff they can sell you to get you to make a purchase Exactly . You need to find and seek out .
Speaker 3And there are some good companies out there that both in direct sales and in retail , that have good products , but there should never be Centrum or Stress Tab tabs or one a day , a wax matrix pill , because they don't dissolve well , and so it is important to try to be sure as much as you can . I have a lot of people that do shop on our website and we ship vitamins all over the country . But , yeah , it's important that you have vitamins with good availability , and sometimes that's pretty tough to determine other than just the reputability of the company that you're buying those from .
Speaker 2Now you touched upon cognitive function . To my audience in particular , since most of my audience is 55 plus , how do you approach this aging challenge ?
Speaker 3Well , again , that is something that is affected very much by testosterone , by your hormone , and we find after someone , and that doesn't matter in the age . My oldest patient's 84 . So whether we're in our 60s or 70s , I'm 72 . And I've been doing testosterone for 22 years and started at about age 50 , because I believed in being proactive . And some sports medicine colleagues and buddies of mine founded our anti-aging academy and at first I thought they were nuts which I talk about and joke about in my book . And then one day I show up at a conference with thousands of physicians from all over the world , back in around 2000 , 2001 , and I was . I was blown away . I'm like they're on to something . This makes complete sense .
Speaker 3As I became an athlete , I wanted to feel my best and interact with my family . I've got , you know , 10 grandkids and one on the way . I like to have fun with them and you know if you're wiped out at five o'clock it's not much fun , it's hard to even , you know , keep them out from under your feet . So you know it's about replacing hormones early on . Nutrients and vitamins certainly do affect our cognitive function as well . We think of the sexual effects of hormone therapy . Oh yeah , sex , energy strength . But cognitive function is a little slower to improve , but it's always
Beyond the Fountain of Youth Book
Speaker 3impacted by changes in our hormone levels .
Speaker 2Interesting , very interesting , because many people don't identify it in that fashion . So I think you've hit on something interesting here . Let's get to your specialty stem cell therapy . I know you have a fellowship in that area and you've had success in reducing knee pain and improving flexibility by regrowing cartilage naturally . Can you describe how this works and what stem cell therapy is all about ? Because that's kind of a woo-woo with some people at this point . There's not a real understanding of it and how it works .
Speaker 3It's unfortunate because many people that you have to go to Costa Rica , you have to go somewhere else , and that's not true . We don't use embryonic stem cells . Those are illegal , and there's obviously many ethical reasons that we don't use cells from dead babies . I mean , that's just doesn't even make sense . But we can harvest your own autologous stem cells , your cells , in a pretty simple office procedure . It takes less than an hour , and then about an hour to process them and have them ready for injection , and also we send them to specific facilities for stem cell banking so they can be used for the rest of your life , which is really exciting , because I banked mine in 2012 and I've used them every year since . I've used them for my hip for my knees infusions for general regenerative purposes .
Speaker 3They're my cells , so why wouldn't I use them ? We know it's safe . I'm not going to have any kind of a reaction using my own stem cells . But interestingly , you know , as my background in sports medicine , I've referred a lot of people to surgeons and and I have some great friends that are surgeons and I still send people to them , not as early on , because there was a point when I just have to say you know , I don't know , there's nothing else I can do . Maybe it's time for a joint replacement . Now half of the clients that I see have already been told you need a joint replacement if we're talking about knees , sometimes shoulders , hips , and after one injection we see on average 80 to 90% reduction in pain by anywhere from six weeks to 90 days . From six weeks to 90 days by six months . It's almost , you know , always that level or better .
Speaker 3Over 90% of the time it's one and done , one injection . You know if , for me , I wasn't gonna be happy . I came out here and hurt my knee , blew it out ski racing , and I won the old guy nationals back in 2015 racing . I fell in the finish line , blew out my ACL , my MCL , my price of victory , yeah . So I got to have a reconstruction , but during that time I dislocated my patella , my kneecap and just shredded all the cartilage . So they fixed it and they know what I do and I said , well , I'm going to do a stem cell injection in a month . And their attitude was , yeah , okay , whatever . So , but I , my kneecap , where I shredded that cartilage , was so bad I couldn't even do the rehab .
Speaker 3And without the rehab , you know , it's very difficult improve at a rapid rate . And so I did it one month at six , that injection . At six months I did a second one . My pain was down from an eight and a nine to a one or two , but I wasn't going to be happy until it was zero . So it was kind of like scaffolding the injection just built on what the previous one repaired and I was skiing in a knee brace at six months at a year . Well , I had no pain long before that , but I had zero pain at a year and it's never bothered me since , and it's now been 10 years . So , um , you know , I'm pretty happy with with the results that I received , but it's a lot easier and simpler than you might think .
Speaker 2You know
Taking Control of Your Longevity
Speaker 2so I think the number is over 50 million of those who suffer from low back pain . Can that have a beneficial effect on low back pain as well ?
Speaker 3Well , it can . It is much more complicated because it's multifaceted . With low back pain it can be the facet joints , maybe the disc , it may be mechanical issues . So you know , as a DO , as an osteopathic physician , I do manipulation , I have chiropractor friends , you know , and so that are effective , and so it's many facets . It is if it's facet joints yes , we can inject the facet joints .
Speaker 3The success rate with actual disc injections is lower , but you know I've done infusions for people with their own cells . They travel through the circulation , target the areas of inflammation and can help quite a bit , and so that's a complex issue . The thing I am excited about , as I mentioned earlier with this focused shockwave therapy , being able to utilize that tool with low back pain , with spinal injuries and as well , will be a great addition to all the other things that we can offer , you would have certainly many thankful patients , I'm sure .
Speaker 2But a question , a layperson's question , and that is that , in terms of the stem cells , when you're thinking of harvesting your own stem cells , if they're not as effective , why harvest them ? And then how do they become effective all of a sudden if they were ineffective to begin with ?
Speaker 3Well , it's not that they're not effective . The challenge is that the blood flow to the intra-articular space , the inside of your knee , let's say , is very poor . Your stem cells can't get there . When you sprain your ankle or strain your shoulder or an elbow , your stem cells travel through the circulation to that area and that's what triggers the healing , that's the repair process . They can't get to the cartilage , and so when we harvest the cells and directly put them into that environment , then they can start their healing process , and it works extremely well .
Speaker 2Very interesting . Now let's sort of change the subject to a moment and take anti-aging to the next level . So we'll discuss your bestselling book , which is Beyond the Fountain of Youth . So can you tell us a little bit about it and where we would find it ?
Speaker 3So it's kind of the summary of the passion that I've had for the last 20 years of doing this . I came up with the title about five years ago and it took me that long to get completely motivated to put it down on paper .
Speaker 2You went beyond Ponce de Leon , obviously .
Speaker 3Yes , well , and I almost had a picture of the Fountain of Youth on the book , but I thought for 72 , I didn't look too bad , so I used my picture . But you know , it really just goes through and I did it in a conversational way . So I think anyone can understand the things we're talking about , from my chapter on ageless living to exciting topics about red light therapy , about peptides , stem cells . There's so many things that the foundation , as I like to say , baking the cake is hormone therapy , and then we can ice it with all kinds of things peptides , growth hormone , micronutrients , many things but the foundation is reestablishing using natural , safe , bioidentical hormones . It's on , the book is on Amazon and the e-book is there as well . We have an audio book that will be out within the next one to two weeks .
Speaker 2Oh good , Did you narrate the audio book yourself ?
Speaker 3I did and that is also will be on Spotify . I think it's launching in the next couple of days . I have a team .
Speaker 2Well , it's the biggest platform .
Speaker 3at this point , I have them helping me with all that . That's very familiar Many of our listeners come from Spotify . Yeah , because the technical features are a little beyond me at times , but I have someone helping with that , fortunately .
Speaker 2So it's called Beyond the Fountain of Youth . Of course everyone knows amazoncom and you can get it there and soon the audio version on Spotify . So that's good to know because obviously you know we've sort of touched the surface of this interview and I'm sure you go into a lot more depth for those who want to learn more about what you've been talking about . Now we're just about out of time at this point . I was just checking our timeframe here and you've been obviously very enlightening . I do have a question though Aspen , colorado , which is where you practice , do you find that many patients actually fly into Aspen to be treated by you ?
Speaker 3Well , I do , and I also have an office in Denver and for some people I have folks that come from a number of states . They might choose to see me down there . I'm not there as much , but you know Aspen , we see people from all over the world and it's pretty easy to get here . Once I've seen someone , we can do our follow-ups , as I say , till the cows come home , via telemedicine , because legally I have to see someone in person to initiate therapy with testosterone , which is right now still a controlled substance . It shouldn't be any different than the rest of your hormones , but that's another story . But so we send people to LabCorp all over the country .
Speaker 3I talk about on my podcast , you know , click on the link schedule something . We send labs to any LabCorp in America . You can walk in and get your labs done . We can do a consult first by telemedicine and then decide if someone's a candidate and most people are , and they kind of know who they are , they know how they're feeling and they know what they've been told by their friends and other providers and they're just not satisfied . And so I think it's imperative that you try to search out the answers , because you know it's to me it's not a new field I've been doing this 22 years but it's medicine .
Speaker 2Well , it's a new field to many and of course , you know my listeners are all over the country and it's a great excuse perhaps to visit Aspen , colorado . What a nice getaway . Meet a great doctor and you go from there , and then the rest can be done , you know , via telemedicine , as you say . So that's very interesting and obviously , just so I make sure that we have it right , we're going to mention this again in our program . We're also going to have your information about your book , as well as your website on our website , but it's aspen-regenerativemedicinecom , am I correct ?
Speaker 3Yes , sir .
Speaker 2All right , as I mentioned , we're going to mention that again . I want to thank you because Dr Gajan has been very enlightening and I think our listeners are quite appreciative of what you've been able to convey and they're probably going to want to know more .
Speaker 3So I thank you for joining us . Well , I thank you and I look forward to contributing any way I can .
Speaker 1Once again , you can learn more about Dr Julian Gershon and his Aspen Institute for Anti-Aging and Regenerative Medicine by going to aspen-regenerativemedicinecom , but you can also find this information , along with many other great podcasts , by coming directly to our website , jamespolakoffcom . That's James P-O-L-A-K-O-Fcom , again jamespolakoffcom . We also have two great books to suggest . My first recommendation takes a deep dive into the topic of today's episode . It's Live Healthy Longer with Dr Jim , written by our own Dr Jim Polakoff . But remember , you need to add with Dr Jim to the title Live Healthy Longer Again . That's Live Healthy Longer with Dr Jim . Plus , you'll also find a series of terrific reviews for Dr Jim's exciting , informative book on Amazon . Also , it's spring and for those who love golf , we have a terrific book about romance . It is called Love in the Pines and it's also available on Amazon . Now back to Dr Jim .
Speaker 2Thanks again to Dr Gershon for highlighting his approach to anti-aging . Now , you may recall that I began this episode discussing a study where most Americans desire a longer lifespan , preferably between 90 to 100 years of age . The why behind this desire is quite simple People want more time to pursue their passions , spend time with loved ones and continue contributing to society . Of course , I also related that , while a majority desired a longer life , a significant portion nearly two-thirds would choose a shorter , healthier life over one with health problems . So , with this in mind , while most Americans want to live longer , there are studies that also reveal that many are not taking the necessary steps to achieve such a goal . This includes neglecting preventive care , not prioritizing healthy habits and failing to engage in activities that promote well-being . Nearly three in four Americans say they have relied on their primary care physician to help track or manage their health , yet fewer than half have actually discussed this with their doctor . I'm talking about those key factors that influence longevity , including aerobic exercise and strength training , sleep , stress management and , on occasion , depression . In all fairness , though , let's face it , primary care doctors are limited in the amount of time they can spend with a patient . The national average is only 15.7 minutes After a typical examination . How much time does your doctor actually have left to discuss all the things you need to know to lead a long , healthy life ? This means that you need to take it upon yourself to be proactive .
Speaker 2As mentioned earlier , you could certainly begin by reading my book Live Healthy Longer with Dr Jim . It's available on Amazoncom for only $9.95 , and I think that would be helpful . But at least please go to my recent blog entitled Lifestyle Strategies for Living a Healthy , long Life . It's easy to find and it's free . You can find it on our website , jamespolikoffcom . All you need to do once you get there is click on blogs and give it a read . You'll probably discover more than what your doctor has actually had time to tell you . This is Dr Jim Polakoff , and thank you for joining me once again , but remember a new episode of Live Healthy Longer is available each and every Wednesday on our website , as well as 22 other platforms where podcasts are heard .
