Mark Bell's Power Project - Best Tools For Hormone Optimization

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Jump in for the truth about hormone health! Mark Bell and Nsima Inyang team up with special guest Shaun Noorian to reveal the best tools and real strategies you can use to boost your energy, mood, and strength. They dig into proven routines, test recommendations, and simple habits that actually work for men who want to feel better and perform stronger every day.Special perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK Done! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com/PowerProject to receive 10% off our Panel, Check Up Panel or any custom panel, and use code POWERPROJECT for 10% off any lab!Best 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=enFollow Andrew Zaragoza➢ Podcast Courses and Free Guides: https://pursuepodcasting.com/iamandrewz➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz/➢ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@iamandrewzCHAPTERS:00:00 - Why Testosterone00:58 - How Empower Got Started07:48 - Making Rx's Cheaper with Empower10:36 - Getting Rx's from Empower13:57 - PEDs Explained19:08 - Big Pharma Overview27:30 - Marek Health vs. Traditional Healthcare32:40 - Getting Bloodwork Done Early In Life36:18 - Getting Sued by Eli Lilly42:35 - Starting the Company Journey49:05 - Chemistry Knowledge and Insights50:45 - Innovative New Drugs51:13 - Understanding Sleep55:46 - Methylene Blue Benefits59:05 - Feel-Good Substances1:03:00 - Importance of Blood Work1:05:55 - Testosterone Benefits vs. Risks1:09:38 - Impact of "Bigger, Stronger, Faster" Documentary

I was always skinny my entire life. I could never gain weight. I was always tired. I was depressed my entire life. And I just thought that was normal for me. Tested my blood and determined that I had the testosterone level of an 80-year-old man. Determined I had a pituitary disorder. I don't create luteinizing hormone or focal stimulating hormone.

The two hormones that tell our bodies to produce testosterone. And when I got these medications, all those symptoms, they went away. I became normal for the first time in my life. And so now I was like, wow, I have all this motivation. I had this energy. I have this libido. I have stamina, all these things I lacked my entire life, and I had testosterone to thank for it. Some people, 1,000 nanograms per deciliter, is not enough.

Some people, 850 is not enough. Some people, 300, they feel great. Times are changing. And a lot more data is coming up because of these amazing doctors and academic institutions like Baylor and Harvard, coming up with these studies and showing that testosterone is actually a good thing. Not having testosterone is a lot worse. What started you out with getting on testosterone in the first place? So I was always skinny my entire life.

And I could never gain weight. I could never. I was always tired. I was always depressed my entire life. And I just thought that was normal for me. You know, I didn't know any better. And, you know, so then, of course, I went out to get a job. My first job at a college was working for Schlumbergerie doing hydraulic fracturing.

field engineer. And that is very hard work. Like there's nothing hard. There are very few jobs where you're literally putting your life on the line every single day and you're surrounded by every risk imaginable. You've got gravitational risk. You can fall from climbing these rigs. You've got chemical risk. You're exposed to category four health hazards all day long. You've got burn risk. You've got explosive risk because the pipes were running at 10,000 PSI and one thing cracks or you just got shrapnel all over the place. And so, you know, my number was up about nine months in. And I was lifting a heavy piece of metal the wrong way. I put an oil field pipe. And I lifted it incorrectly. And I hammered just to my low vertebrae. And so I was forced into physical therapy to treat my back

injury. And that's when the doctor figured out there was something wrong with me. He looked me up and down. He noticed I was very skinny for my age. And keep in mind, I'm 5'10. And currently I weigh about 155 pounds. Back then I weighed 125 pounds. Oh, shit. So just always been skinny. Like, didn't even know why.

I'm just an endomorph. Well, that doctor took my blood, and he figured out why I was skinny my entire life and why I felt the way I did. Do you have trouble digesting food by any chance? Like, you have stomach issues? Yeah, yeah. I've gerd as well. Yeah, I just have noticed this with something I've observed and there's a lot of runners that are in this category.

people that are smaller framed maybe a little on the frail side depression seems to be part of it and the linkage of not being able to digest things very well. Our friend Andrew Zaragoza who used to run this podcast

with us he suffers from a lot of that and years ago he got on TRT and it was life altering. Now he does Jiu-Jitsu and it changed his whole life and he still has to battle like a little bit of that But it's way less than what he was dealing with before. Well, absolutely.

One of the primary symptoms of hypogonism is depression. You know, you've also got a lack of muscle, the inability to gain muscle. You've got lethargy. It's difficult to get good sleep. You'll typically get tired after you eat dinner to have to take a nap in the middle of the day. And that was me before I was introduced to testosterone. Once I was introduced to testosterone, almost all the symptoms went away. And so when I was introduced, you know, this carpenter, he tested my blood and determined that I had the testosterone level of an 80-year-old man.

And I'd had a testosterone level of an 80-year-old man my entire life. And why was, why did it go undiagnosed for so long? Well, because, you know, last time I went to see a doctor was when I was 11 years old. And that's really right when puberty was hitting. So no one had tested me for testosterone before or after. Yeah, why would they if you're so young, right? And there's not a typical test you put kids through, or even adults for that matter. The testosterone is not something that's part of a regular panel.

And that needs to change. And so that doctor, he said, well, like the car parker said, I'm not qualified to treat you. You know, let me send you to a specialist. And I was very lucky to live in Houston, which just happens to have the largest medical center in the world, which means we have some of the greatest doctors in the world. And I just happen to be lucky enough to get paired with a doctor that understood how to treat people like me. And so he figured out, put me in an MRI, determined I had a pituitary disorder. I don't create leutinizing hormone or follicle stimulating hormone, the two hormones that tell

our bodies to produce testosterone and sperm. And so I was hapagonatal and infertile. And he put me on medications. And he sent those medications, he sent those procuritions to a compounding pharmacy because he realized two things. One was that I would need to be on these medications for the rest of my life. and if he sent me to a traditional pharmacy, the cost of those medications would go on up about 10% on average every single year.

Well, for a patient that needs to be on medications for the next 50 years of my life, at least, you know, those costs become staggering. And he also realized if he sent me to a compounding pharmacy, that the compounder would be able to customize, personalize these prescriptions for me so that I could have potentially better treatment outcomes than if he had sent me to a traditional pharmacy that sells one-size-fits-all pill for the entire population.

And so that was my introduction to compounding. And when I got these medications, I mean, you said yourself, like all those symptoms, they went away. I became normal for the first time in my life. And I was like, normal is a pretty good feeling. Like, if you've been abnormal, that's all you've never known.

Were you, like, motivated? Did you notice that you were way more motivated? My ambition, I finally got ambition for the first time in my life. life. Like, I could stick with something. A lot of young men at that age have because they naturally have the testosterone fall through their system. Right, exactly. And so now I was like, wow, I have all this motivation, I had this energy,

I have this libido, I have stamina, all these things I lacked my entire life. And I had testosterone to thank for it. And so I became obsessive. You know, I wanted to learn about all these different, like how these chemicals work, how the body works, with the pharmacology. And so I was very lucky I read a lot of great books in the beginning, Dr. Eugene Chippins, testosterone syndrome, Nelson Virgil's, testosterone a man's guide and built to survive. And, you know, I started learning like, wow, this there's, like, this is the answer to a lot of people's problems.

And I just wanted to, you know, prevent people from having to go through what I had gone through my entire life, from having to suffer and be miserable. And so I decided to start my own compounding pharmacy. I got licensed as a pharmacist technician and hired a pharmacist. and gave patients what I would want from a compounding pharmacy. We want good service, we want good cost, and we want good quality. And we just kept focusing on those three things until eventually we built a system that was built for patients by patients and partnering with providers and asking them, you know, what do you think is in your patient's best interests? and then customizing formulations to give that patient exactly what the doctor ordered.

Do you think, or you also make GLP-1s and a lot of other things other than testosterone, right? You make like a really wide variety of things. And you also make these things, again, for cheaper prices. Like what's in comparison, like what's a standard thing of Ozempic or something like that versus what you make, which is the same chemical, just doesn't have the same name, I guess, right? Absolutely. So for, so there's two gLP ones primarily. There's symegalatide and tersepatide. Semeglotide is the generic name of Novo-Nordist product, Wagovianazembic. And then terseptitide is the generic name of Ila-Lilis product, Zepbound and Monjorno. And for, let's say, someglotide, depending on the dose, it could be anywhere from, for us, $10 a month to $60 a month.

Whereas for Novo Nordisk, their product is about $500 a month. Wow. So, you know, literally, you know, between 50 and about 10 times less expensive, depending on the dose. So, I mean, when, and our products, they're customized. You know, they're personalized. Presbyter determines adding B vitamin, changing a dosage form, changing a dosage strength is more beneficial to their patient. they have the ability to work with compounding pharmacies like ours and create these formulations that can then potentially help a patient benefit with better outcomes while

potentially while mitigating certain side effects like nausea because nausea is the primary side effect of taking gLP ones and it's all dose dependent and so in a commercial medication so novenordas products it's only in a single dose pen like that's the dose you can't increase so you can't do like then the next increase is a hundred percent increase you got to go from like 0.25 to 0.5 milligrams. And people get a lot of side effects. Exactly. And that's why these drugs have to be dose escalated. Because if you give the patient the highest dose, they'll go to the ER, they'll be throwing up.

Like, they'll have gastroporesis. It's not a good feeling right now. I've got a friend that, you know, his spouse actually took 10 times the dose she was supposed to. And now she's in the hospital. And so, you know, let's say the first initial dose is too high for any patient. What are you going to do? that patient's going to be non-compliant with their therapy they're going to try it they're going to get sick they're going to go away well with us we can put in a vial and that patient can draw just the right amount they can draw one tenth one half and whatever they want and the doctor can't slowly work with that patient to escalate them to a schedule that they their bodies can handle and to get stuff from a compounding pharmacy it has to come from a doctor is that correct i can't i can't go directly to empower i can't like go to your website and order some testosterone unfortunately you can't just add testosterone to cart and check out we're not there yet

you're not there yet you've got to see a licensed prescriber a specialist that understands how to it's going to first off take some blood see what's going on inside of our bodies and see what's appropriate and see what you even need because like your testosterone could come back and you know i have some friends that have gotten their testosterone back and they're like disappointed you know because it's like 850 or something like damn i want it to be low so i can get on some stuff. But yeah, you start to pick things that are more appropriate for you. And there are Merrick Health and there's other companies out there that can potentially help you optimize, you know, and they're not necessarily against like, hey, let's bump it up a little bit because

there's a range, right? There's a range. They don't want you like in the 2000s, but they might bump you up closer to a thousand or something like that, right? Absolutely. You know, And there are some doctors. So the normal range for testosterone is 300 to 1,000 nanograms per deciliter. And how that normal range was created is they took 95% of the U.S. population between the ages of 19 and 39. And that's like, that's that range. That's 95% of the population. Are you saying 95% of us are normal?

Like, and let's say, I mean, why do we, let's say we're born in, you know, three, four, or 500 category. I mean, we're like the bottom quartile. Right. Right. Why would we want to be that way? Why shouldn't we be in the top quartile like everybody else is that can perform at maximum levels? So, you know, a lot of new rage doctors are ignoring the ranges altogether. They're asking the patient, what are your symptoms? How do you feel? Do you exhibit some of the potential symptoms of low testosterone? Because for some people, you know, a thousand nanograms per deciliter is not enough. Some people, 850 is not enough.

Some people, 300, they feel great. I mean, it's all dependent on how the patient feels. And of course, what other downstream effects that adding supplemental exogenous testosterone could cause? So a doctor, if they are treating a patient the right way, I think there are a lot of doctors and a lot of studies that are coming out showing that keeping testosterone, that keeping testosterone, as high as possible, while as long as it doesn't cause negative downstream effects in estradiol, PSA, lipid panels, complete CBCs, complete blood counts, as long as the patient, their bodies are responding well to the medication, let the patient have whatever amount of

testosterone that is best for them and their unique situation in bodies. And yeah, that's where we're seeing a lot more doctors heading towards. It's being working outside of what, you know, a urologist decided from the American Urological Association 30 years ago what is most appropriate for a patient because times are changing and a lot more data is coming up because of these amazing doctors in academic institutions like Baylor and Harvard coming up with these studies and showing that testosterone is actually a good thing not having testosterone is a lot worse I think we tend to think about testosterone like mainly doing like physical stuff but we did talk about motivation and it seems to be highly connected to dopamine.

And somebody made a comment on my YouTube channel one time I was like running and lifting and just doing a lot of my normal shit that I do. We're just filming it. And they're like, oh, that's easy for you to do. You're on PEDs. And I was like, actually, you're right. It is easier for me to do.

You should get on them too. Absolutely. They're a huge advantage. They're performance enhancing. Right. And what's wrong with enhancing your performance? Feels great. What's the cup of coffee for in the morning?

Right. Why are you coming at me, bro? Like, why are you taking insulin? I mean, you're enhancing your body's performance to be able to metabolize a glucose. Metformin, right? Right. Right, I mean, there's nothing wrong with a performance. Why am I the bad guy, right, Bore?

And I think, I mean, if the medication will benefit you, take as many medications as you should, as long as they are beneficial for your body. Now, we have this stigma in this country where taking drugs are bad, you know, taking performance and enhancing drugs, is cheating. You know, it's actually, the opposite is true. People that are born naturally with their biomarkers at peak levels, they're the cheaters. Like, they're just, they're the lucky ones that just happen to have that genetic predisposition to being healthy and performing better than the rest of it. The natty people are the cheaters. I like the way this direction of this podcast is going. That's great. That's the name of the podcast. And if, you know, if we want And it's, and younger people, if that's the case, then younger people are cheaters.

Because the older guys like us, like, aging is not fair to our bodies. Like, we decline. This is why you don't see athletes in their 40s, 50s, 60, 70s. I mean, they just can't compete with those young cheaters. Yeah, we're also at a cool part of our life. A lot of people that are like in their 40s, they just have learned a lot, right? Instead of having this really cool body but really dumb brain when we're young, right? that does like fool of shit.

And as you get older and you mature and you can finally like enjoy stuff and you can, you know, for a lot of people, they may have already had children, their children are a little older, someone like myself. They already maybe have like taken care of a lot of things, maybe even financially they might be doing, they might be pretty stable. But now, you know, you want to hop on your bike or you want to, you know, go do a trail run or something like that and you're out of shape because you haven't had, because you've been working your face off to get your family.

a good spot and then you go and you go and try to do these things and you end up with shin splints and your back sore and this is hurting and that's hurting and you just want to kind of like figure out a way to get back in the game this is a great way to get back in the game absolutely exactly you know a lot of guys we go through this thing called a midlife crisis in our 40s and 50s where we don't feel the mojo anymore and you know the the only way to get back in the groove we think is to go out and buy a corvette you know and that's typically doesn't work you know And what's really happening behind the scenes? Like testosterone, that's when it starts plummeting, you know.

So it starts really going lower. It starts lowering significantly. And then, you know, we see when we give patients testosterone exogenously, they feel young again. Like, we feel great. We have the energy. Men and women. Absolutely, yeah. And, you know, women are, you know, about 4 to 6% of the U.S. population,

U.S. men's population above the age of 40 uses testosterone replacement. That's it, 46% when practically, I think the majority of the U.S. population could qualify for testosterone replacement therapy. Women are even worse. It's only like about 2% of women that are using testosterone past their 40s. And so you have this, you know, you have a situation where, unfortunately, because of the Women's Health Initiative, a study that was done about 20 years ago that said that doing hormone replacement therapy for women is dangerous for them, you know, it's scary. a lot of doctors into prescribing estrogen, progesterone, testosterone after women hit menopause. And now it's been proven that practically nothing is more beneficial to a postmenopausal patient than getting them on hormone replacement therapy. So there's a lot of education.

A lot of times that does include testosterone, right? Oh, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, just like men, women have about one-tenth the amount of testosterone than we do. But testosterone does the same thing in women as a dozen men. it's responsible for libido. It's responsible for endurance. It's responsible for muscle mass. And how important is muscle mass for an aging population? You know, sarcopenia is a killer. And, you know, if you're working your butt off your entire life to save so you can, you know, benefit your life in later years, but now you can't even move. You're stuck to a chair. You can't do the things that you would really want to enjoy.

I mean, that's not a good, that's not a good society. That's not a good culture. And that's something that we need to change in our culture. We need to remove the stigma that doing hormones, doing steroids are bad or dangerous or cheating. You know, if it's done under the supervision of a qualified licensed medical provider, then it can be actually life-changing, just as it was for me when I got them. We've seen a lot of, you know, movies and documentaries and stuff about, you know, big pharma, right? And we've seen, like, the bad, but, you know, capitalism is a real, motherfucker, I guess you could say, but

they also have created a lot of great things. Like, we have a lot of great drugs. We have a lot of great advantages. And here in this country, we probably make more drugs. I guess we consume more drugs. That's for sure than any other country in the world. But we have a tendency

because of some of those movies that painted them in a bad light, we then think that pharmaceutical interventions like they're bad. You know, you kind of put those over here, they're bad. And we even heard, you know, that some of the cholesterol medications and stuff like that got some heat and people have gone back and forth. And then there's people like Peter Itia who are like, well, you know, sometimes these drugs can be appropriate

for a particular people. So I think sometimes the message is a little confusing. I think it's easy to hate the companies that are big. It's easy to hate the companies that are making a lot of money. But they do provide us with a lot of conveniences and maybe a lot of these drugs wouldn't even really ever happened if those companies weren't able to have the wealth that they have to be able to put the amount of commercials on TV that they do. And I realize that they're doing nefarious things as well. And we can get into that in a minute. But it's just really interesting because it's like, it's almost like the sugar diet thing I'm doing. It's like, holy shit, maybe the way out is like the shit that we thought was bad. And in this case, there's a lot

of, a lot of drugs out there that can be appropriate to really help us live longer lives and live, not even just live longer, but, you know, just have more oomph in our later years. Absolutely. You know, there are, there is a place for traditional drug manufacturers, you know, and they do, they have and they continue to do a lot of good. Oh, there are situations, though, where drunk companies go out and do things that are not in a patient's best interests, like pricing something so high that only 12% of the U.S. population can get access to it

because that's the perfect, that's the demographic that has enough people that will be able to give them enough profit at a certain price point. That's the equation. And I think that's one thing that the pharmaceutical industry doesn't get right.

You know, instead of pricing for patient access for volume, they price for profit. And that's where companies, you know, like Empower, come in where a patient that can't get access to a medication or a therapy because it's either been discontinued back-ordered or it's unobtable through their insurance because their insurance can't afford to pay for. It's not in the formulary. Now, there are other avenues. And if a doctor, a prescriber determines that that patient can be better served by a personalized version of a medication, then they can send those prescriptions to a compounding pharmacy to get filled. And another thing that I think is not doing well in the pharmaceutical industry is the lack

of competition. And the way that the rules are put in place to allow pharma, big pharma, to be able to stifle competition, extend their patents, you know, create new drugs. They're just a little bit different than the previous drug. The same active ingredient. They just change the strength a little bit. And now the patents extended so they can continue to make it a brand name drug and sell it, make billions of all, even though the drug's not really that much more beneficial than the previous

drug that they were selling. These are things that aren't serving patients. They're serving the shareholders of those pharmaceutical companies, but at the expense of us. So that's, you know, that's really what I think they would, I wish they would do better. But they, you know, they have a devious system in place where they lobby more than any other industry in the world. What does that mean? So lobbying is where you go out and you send lobbyists to talk to members of Congress, senators, regulators, legislators, and convince them that they should vote this way for this bill or this policy because it's better for society. where an act, in fact, it's beneficial for them at the expense of society.

And, you know, you say, well, I mean, legislators, regulars, they're not stupid. Like, they can see through as well, when you have three full-time lobbyists for every single member of Congress, that's all they hear. You know, and us as an industry, the compounding industry, we have one lobbyist, like for everybody. We don't, we have, you know, one four hundredth the budget that Big Pharma has. And so it's very, so they don't, they hear one four hundredth about actual patient's needs, what's actually going on. And so they've, you know, they vote overwhelmingly in favor of Big Pharma's rules. And Big Pharma also, over the years, has created quite a network.

I mean, $380 million of lobbying buys you something. and it buys a lot of influence. And so what we see now going on is Big Pharma is using that influence and partnering with law firms like Fagri Drinker and utilizing a specific lawyer, Libby Bainey, and Novo and Eli are partnering with Libby Bainey to go off and misinform boards of pharmacy

because what they try to do, they try to do it federally. They tried to go to the FDA and convince the FDA that compounding pharmacies are dangerous, we shouldn't be allowed to make medicine, we're putting patients at risk. In fact, the opposite is true. You know, there are more adverse events done from commercial medications

for these gLP ones than compounded ones. And they failed because this administration is not stupid. They don't believe Big Pharma, that Big Pharma is doing what's in the best interest of patients. And so because they tried and tried, They tried lobbying the FDA, didn't work. And now that they realize that's not going to work with this administration, now they're going to the states. And they're convincing individual state boards of pharmacy that compounding pharmacies are dangerous and shouldn't be allowed to operate and shouldn't be allowed to make gLP ones.

And, you know, this is, this is dangerous because at the end of the day, every single state that they convince, we've got overnight millions of patients losing. access within those states to these life-changing medications. And so that's the thing I don't like about Big Pharma. These webs of influence that they create. And at the end of the day, this is regulatory capture in action where you're able to partner with, convince, and eventually offer a job to many of these regulators and legislators that they'll come work for them after as long as they vote for them. And there's a lot of ways to convince people, and especially

especially if you're communicating with doctors and stuff like that too because, you know, how would you convince a doctor? Well, let's run a study. They had so much money to run studies and to, you know, and the way the doctors are educated, you know, you saw the movie with Michael Keaton. I can't quite remember the name of it. Chris, do you remember the name of that movie where,

I can't remember the name that he was like hooked on drugs and it was, anyway, it was a thing about Big, pharma but a lot of the uh a lot of the uh a lot of the doctors are just uh learning from somebody that's selling these uh pharmaceuticals a pharmaceutical rep who just learned about it at some conference and they're going out and they're you know infiltrating and communicating with the doctors that this drug is better than the last one and all those different kind of things i think maybe ryan brought it up what's it called oh your microphone doesn't work dope sick there you go i don't know if you ever saw that movie, but...

Another one called Painkiller that was on Netflix. Painkiller and dope sick, yeah. I mean, they do a good job of like depicting what's going on. And so these companies, they'll do anything to get these drugs moving. And I'm not saying that the drugs are bad. I'm just saying that it kind of sucks that the doctor that you might go to. You might go to a doctor today. And they might have just got informed about something, you know, just a couple weeks ago.

And now they're prescribing it to you. and they are taking the word of the pharmaceutical company, and hopefully they reviewed some sort of evidence or they communicated at least with some other doctors, but they don't really know how effective or how efficient some of this stuff's going to be. Right. I mean, Big Pharma is infamous for paying off doctors, paying them $5,000 to do a talk,

sending them off to Hawaii to play golf. And, you know, they were trying to, they were about to put in rules that were preventing a pharmac for doing this, Farma lobbied so well and so hard that they convinced Congress to let them self-regulate. And this is how, and this is, they're like, we promise we'll never do this again. They keep breaking the rules, but that's the thing. That's what lobbying buys you.

It buys you influence. And to this very day, pharma, you know, while they're not supposed to talk about off-label uses or pay doctors directly, there's still other ways that they use to be able to get funds into those doctors, like doing studies or doing other types of talks. And so, yeah, that's not a good system. And what we see in the compound industry is prescribers that are teaching each other. They're working with academics. They're seeing all the studies that are coming out.

And they're figuring out together what's in the best interest of the patient, not what a pharmaceutical rep believes is in the best interest of their patients. And that's how functional medicine is growing right now. You've got society, you've got the Institute of Functional Medicine training providers, you've got conferences where providers can go to. post-med school where they can learn not just how to treat patients once they become sick, but how to prevent patients from getting sick in the first place. And I think that's what Dr. Peter Tia talk calls Medicine 3.0. It's looking at a patient's genetics and individualizing that treatment protocol for that individual patient and doing it before they get sick and tracking them over time.

We were talking about how we should be getting children, you know, teenagers to get their blood tested, not to, one, to see if there's a problem the first, but at the very least, to see where their baseline is. So later on in life, you know, if they develop a Z state or they start feeling different, they can then get their lab done and see, oh, this biomarker changed. Let's address that one first and see what fixed. Instead of just throwing a synthetic drug and trying to mask the root cause. No, let's tackle the root cause first and then go from there. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you want pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are

trying to get jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have. And they can kind of see where you're at and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects too where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shade to doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication.

A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coronators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that, boom, you could be at the right levels, including working with your testosterone. And there's so many people that I know that are looking for, they're like, hey, should I do that? They're very curious. And they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the Hulk. But that's not really what happens.

It can be something that can be really great for your health because you can just basically live your life a little stronger, just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s. And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels for everything you're working with. if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro, even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out

what things you can do in terms of your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT. So these are things to pay attention to to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things, somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation, sometimes it's TRT, and sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best

levels, heads to Merrickhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. yeah i think uh getting people involved in their health as young as possible is is great um i had my son's blood work done i've had my daughter's blood work done we just kind of all did it as a family and you know my kids like they didn't really know why they were getting their blood work done but it was like well it just gives you a starting point you know when you're older and you can look back and say oh my testosterone was this or you know my lipid profile was like this you know now you can either see like that was fairly normal for you or you had that in the past or it's completely different than what you had when you were 18 or 20 years old.

Right, right. Yeah, and, you know, there's a great program being run by Shaalan Shah, the founder and CEO of Marius Pharmaceuticals that makes oral testosterone, chisotrex. And what he's trying to tackle is, one, educating providers and getting them to do testosterone tests across the board as part of a normal panel and also decriminalizing testosterone, descheduling it.

You know, we don't think that testosterone should be a controlled substance. It doesn't meet the qualification. Yeah, why is it still scheduled three? Well, because we're president, ex-president Biden, Senator Biden at the time, decided against the American Medical Association,

the DEA and FDA's recommendation to go ahead and put all anabolic into Schedule three. And so they modified the control substance act. It just seems like a joke. Like it seems like it's like super funny to me. Right. I'm like, what? You don't want people walking around jacked? Like,

why not? It's not going to cause any, does it cause no harm to anybody? Yeah, you know, 30, 35 years ago, you know, I mean, there's been a lot of time since that bill was passed in the 90s. And, and of course, you know, President Biden could have changed that. He could have fixed it. He had the time

to do it, and he didn't do it. You know, so to this very day, testosterone is still a controlled substance, and it's very difficult to get your hands on it. It's treated differently than any other hormone. Estrogen, you know, perfect fine. Here's all the estrogens you want. Here's all the progesterone you want. Here's all the cortisone steroids that you want. But testosterone, whoa, that stuff is dangerous. You could hurt yourself with that stuff. So let's control. Let's only let a patient get a very small amount of supply and, you know, and, and, and criminal, and treat pharmacies,

scare pharmacists from being able to dispense it to patients. So a lot of, it's unfair right now, and it's causing access issues. And so hopefully we can get the DEA to reconsider scheduling anabolic into a different schedule or deschedule them all together as they don't meet the requirements of a control sentence. They're not addictive. They're not really abused. They're not diverted.

There's almost no risk of overdose. And so, you know, they don't meet the quality. for controlled substance, but to this very day, they are still qualified as such. But that will hopefully change. And another very important thing that we need to do that we're not doing today is get prescribers, OB-JYNs, people that do women's health that treat women to understand that testosterone is integral for a woman's health. And not just, you know, once that woman is post-menopausal, but before she's metapausal as well, as just like men, like myself have a deficiency in testosterone at a very young age.

Many women do as well. So I think there's a lot of progress that needs to be made in hormones, hormone placement therapy, if patients are going to see the maximum benefit. What is Eli Lilly suing you over and how did you like find out? It was just like a letter in the mail or something like that? Yeah, yeah, they send a letter with a tracking number to make sure we get it. And they're accusing us of making,

medicine that is advertising medicine as personalized when it is actually one size fits all. And that's, you know, that's kind of silly. But that's not what you do. You guys actually do personalize it for people. Well, a medication. So why wouldn't you be able to... A medication

that is not commercially available is a personalized medication. Yeah. And so what they want to do, they just don't want competition. You know, they, and this is not new for Big Pharma. They use scare tactics. They use legal actions, they use the media, because 20% of all traditional media advertising is done by Big Pharma, the largest advertiser of traditional media.

And so now we see they're running their playbook where they're using legal action, regulatory action, and media relations to try and suppress their competition. They're doing that's exactly they're running the playbook on us as we speak. And yeah, why do they do that? because they love monopolies. Because when you have monopoly, you can charge whatever you want. Does that in some weird way feel good to you?

Absolutely. Like to be on their radar? Like, hey, you're messing with a big giant. It means we're doing what's right for patients. Right. Not what's right for our shareholders. That's incongruent with the way they operate. You know, their model is based on scalable one-size-fits-all medicine

for the entire population. our model is based on individualized medicine for niche populations that can't benefit from a commercially medication drugs. So we are in direct competition with Big Pharma. And Big Pharma does not like competition, whether it's within Big Pharma itself or outside. And they see our industry as a threat. And they don't want patients to get affordable access to medications that's not just affordable, but customized so that the patient can potentially have a better treatment outcome because it's been personalized and individualized for them. So yeah, that's just part of being in this game. You know, if you're going to go up into an entrenched industry where the incumbent

doesn't want, you know, owns 97% of market share, and they came that, they became that way for reason. At one point, we were 97% of market share in this country. About 125 years ago, compounding pharmacies made up 197% estimated of the market share. And over the past 125 years, now we're 3% and they're the 97%. And that happened over time because they created scalable infrastructure and they were able to convince regulators and legislators that they were the only safe option. And then they were training doctors in med school on how to use their products because

they're one of the largest donors of med school. So doctors going through med school, they don't learn anything about compounding. They're learning the traditional pharmaceutical system. And because of this, this is why today we are stuck in a society where we have to pay more than anybody else in the world. About four times on average,

more than anybody else in the world for the same drug. So for example, that GOP1 in Europe is about less than $100 a month. we're paying $500 a month, you know, in some areas, it's $50 a month in Europe for the same human. So pharma is taking advantage of the U.S. citizen. We are subsidizing the entire world's pharmaceutical supply chain, and we only make up 4% of the world's population, right? Like, the United States, we're only 4%.

But we spend 50% of the world's money on drugs. Like, that is just an example. of how much big pharma takes advantage of us. But they would like you to believe that it's in your best interest to pay ten times more than other people in the world. Because, well, if we don't do that,

we won't get new drugs. I don't think that's true. I think it's just an excuse to be able to let them charge, take advantage and bully us into making them one of the wealthiest industries in the world. How come the big pharmaceutical companies don't just compound stuff

or they're not allowed to? You're like, why don't they just make, why don't they customize stuff as well? It's not like they don't have money to do that. Well, to be able for a pharmaceutical company to bring a product to market, they have to go through the new drug application process. And that process takes hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in 10 plus years. You know, compounding pharmacies like ours, we can only use drugs that have already gone through the FDA approval process. We're not using new molecules, but we don't have to go through clinical trials. I see.

go through the new drug application process. So we can bring a product to market for thousands of dollars instead of billions of dollars. And so, you know, so there's a lot, so it's a lot more efficient. And we can bring a product to market within months instead of 10 plus years. Is that true with like aspirin and stuff like that too? Like the off-label brands, they kind of do something similar? Or any, any drug that's ever been FDA approved, you know, anything that has a USP or NF monograph, a United States Forum, Community, National Form of Monograph, the standard sending organizations that show drugs are safe when compounding, and are contained within this list called the 503 Bulse List, the licks of drugs that don't have a USPNF monograph, have been

FDA approved, but are considered safe and effective by the FDA. So those are the list of drugs that compounding pharmacies can make. We can't make drugs that have never been FD approved. We can't make drugs that, you know, we can't just make whatever we want. There are strict rules and regulations in place to ensure that the drugs that complying pharmacies make, uh, uh, So you guys can't just take on these like peptides that you see all over these other websites and stuff. That's not something you guys mess with. Not legally. Like there are some compounding pharmies that do do it that are working outside the law.

But, you know, we've always found that in order to build a sustainable long-term pharmaceutical supply chain, we have to work within the rules and regulations. How did you, like, how do you start a pharmacy? Like, how do you start a compounding pharmacy? It's got to be very complicated. You told me a little bit about how you guys buy new machines very regularly because they just keep changing and stuff. Yeah, tell us the origin. Like, you know, how did you get that rolling? What was in your head about like making this company in the first place?

You know, when I started back in 2009, I just wanted to help patients like myself get access to these medications just for my local community. You know, because I was getting introduced to testosterone replacement therapy. And so I was just thinking, hey, I want to get these drugs for patients within Houston. And we, so how do you start a pharmacy? First, you have to get a license. You have to get a pharmacy license. I fell out some forms, submit them to the specific state board of pharmacy. And then you have to hire a pharmacist because you can't run a pharmacy without a pharmacist.

Like, that's it. Like, those are the basic rules. And you have to have drugs. And you have to sort those drugs from qualified vendors. So I got to work, got licensed as a pharmacy technician so I could legally work inside that pharmacy. And I worked with my pharmacist. He was doing the dispensing, the counseling, the verification of the prescription, and I was doing everything else. You know, I did the marketing, the sales, the compounding, the data entry, the customer service, shipping, I mean like finance.

I mean, everything that an entrepreneur has to do in the beginning. And then I would apply my background in engineering to the compounding industry. So what I learned, manufacturing cars, I applied that to manufacturing drugs, quality systems, quality control, automation, better efficiency, keeping the cost of the drugs as low as possible, so more patients could afford it. And then, over time, patients and providers loved the service that we were offering. and we moved from that 150 square foot space that was just really an exam room

in the back of a doctor's office that I converted into a pharmacy and then we moved to a 1,500 square foot space and we started doing sterile compounding not just non-sterile compounding, but sterile drugs that have to be made in a clean room because they're destined to be injected into people. And then providers from outside the state

would reach out to us saying, I heard my colleague is using you guys and I think my patients could benefit from your therapies as well. can I start sending prescriptions to you? And we're like, okay, sure, let me get licensed in your state. And so then we started getting licensed in all 50 states. And then we had, in 2012, we had a tragedy occur in the compounding industry where

one bad compounding pharmacy called New England Compounding Centers that was located in Massachusetts, they made several bad batches of an intrithecal injection that was tainted with a fungus. And about 70 people died and several hundred more were injured. And they died from fungal meningitis, which is a horrible way to go. And from there, the FDA came in and recommended to Congress that they passed the Drug Quality Security Act. And that was passed in 2013 by President Obama. And that allowed the introduction of outsourcing facilities, 503B outlets.

outsourcing facilities. And what's the five with the outsourcing facility? It's a type of FD registered manufacturer that can manufacture drugs in bulk, customize them, and then sell them to B2B end users, like hospitals, clinics, pharmacies, any institution. And then the compounding pharmacies, we could only send compound and dispense medications to B2C end users, patients. And so at that point, we realized that we needed to become a five-o-thety-be outsourcing facility if we were to be that one-stop shop for both patients and providers. And so we started constructing our five-way-three-be outsourcing facility took about three and a half years to construct. And these facilities, they have to meet good manufacturing practices. That's what differentiates them from compounding pharmacies. They have to be

the same standards that pharma has to meet. And that facility, we opened in 2016, and it was an automated we introduced a lot of more automation and quality control procedures and eventually outgrew that facility and we ended up constructing 170,000 square foot facility

and we moved our 503A operations out of that 15,000 square foot space into the 170,000 square foot space and then we just kept growing exponentially and we of course we realize that we need and if we are to grow exponentially we need to have an exponential amount of additional capacity

into a facility that the next facility we move into. And these facilities take about three and a half, four years to construct. And when you're growing exponentially, you know, you're doing 16 times as much unit, dosage units in four years. So as soon, so these facilities, you need to make them so that they have, you know, between 16 and 20 times the capacity is your previous facility, and then as soon as you enter that facility, you start building the next one to continue to be able to serve

an exponentially growing patient population. So that's what we've always done, and just buy the best equipment in the entire industry and putting more automation. So over time, the cost of the drug goes down, and not up because now we're making larger batches and we're doing it utilizing economies of scale which drive down costs. So now we're creating a pharmaceutical system that instead of the price going by 10% a year on average, it goes down 10% a year on average. Like that's the way

everybody can be able to afford medications once they're put on it and then more and more patients can be able to qualify as time goes by. So we're just trying to create a much more virtuous supply chain that served the interest of patients first and foremost. Those machines must be expensive. I'm looking at some of them right there that Ryan pulled up. Yeah. So have learned like, I mean, you must have learned like, even though you're not the one like making the drugs, you must have learned a lot about chemistry and math. And there's a lot that goes into all that stuff. And as the CEO, like you, you know, it's good for you to have at least some of that knowledge base, right? Well, I've had, I've had R&D since I started the company. It's one

thing I love doing, like being able to work with some of the greatest providers in the entire country and create specific new drugs that they believe would better serve their patients. And so until this very day, I'm actively involved in R&D, and we come out with about 40 new drugs a year. And of course, I'm very lucky to be able to try a lot of these new drugs out on myself and see how they benefit. Of course, working with a prescriber, if I qualify for the medication, let's see, do I benefit from it? Oh, I do? great. Just like in the beginning, let me get these medications the hands of many other patients so they can benefit from it as well. So yeah, it's a very exciting time that we have as patients in

this country where now patients and providers are becoming more aware of the role that compounding pharmacies and outsourcing facilities play and how they could benefit specifically, especially if they're interested in their health, preventative health, functional health, integrative health, and seeing a prescriber that doesn't work within the traditional medical system and can spend an hour plus with you really get down to the root cause of what's causing your problems and then work with a compounding pharmacy, a supplement company, a dietitian, nutritionist to be able to individualize a treatment program just for you and get you to your optimal state. What are some new drugs that you've run into that are pretty cool?

So the gLP ones are definitely the coolest drugs out there as they just saw. solve so many problems, and there's a huge demand for them. Of course, I mean, we see, there aren't having me like new drugs. There are over 4,000 drugs that have already been FDA approved. There's not like this one new drug that changes everything. Like, GOP ones are a rare exception. You did mention to me and my brother some stuff about sleep. Is there any good sleep drugs coming down the pipeline? Because I know that sleep drugs have kind of been like, I guess, a little controversial because some of them maybe knock you out a little too much and then you're not really getting this you know the natural sleep or and things like that yeah you know there's there's a there are a couple new drugs that have come out in the past two to three years i'm blinking on the names uh they're newer class of sleep medications that are uh much safer and in many cases more effective than traditional sleep medications like ambi and zolpidem but there are other medications out there that are uh that are have been around for generations are very inexpensive and quite effective.

You know, personally, I take tracadone and pregabalin. They're both, one's a short-acting antidepressant. That primary side effect is drowsiness. And the other is a short-acting

nerve pain medication whose side effect is drowsiness. And then combining those with what, and I don't take credit. I give this credit to Peter Rhea. This is his own sleep. How does this make you feel like if you are still awake

just make you feel like just kind of like just really, really insanely calm? Well, so my brain, and this is true of many people's brains, like we can't shut it off. Like it just keeps going and, you know, ruminating and solving problems. And, you know, the only time I can go to sleep is when I'm just completely exhausted. And that's like 2 a.m. And so. Yeah, it sounds like me. I don't want to go to bed.

Yeah. Like I just don't want to. Right, right, exactly. But then I'm like, shit, I got to wake up at like six. Yeah, exactly. You've got to wake up, you get four hours sleep. And then when I fall asleep, I wake up every two hours. So I've never gotten good sleep.

Thanks to Peter Attia, you know, combining these two medications with magnesium L3 and 8, aschwaganda for cortisol control, also phosphosidil serine for cortisol control, and then thionine for relaxation. You know, that combination gets, knocks me out after one hour of taking that stack, and then I get a good solid eight hours of sleep. don't wake up in the middle of the night and I can track through my sleep tracker I'm getting more deep sleep

and more REM sleep and then I wake up at it in a different reality like at a different level of consciousness I'm not groggy I'm not I'm not grouchy like I feel energized literally how you see the world changes the world stuff like that

and I don't think people know that about testosterone but testosterone changes even a lot of your senses and stuff even like your sense of smell it literally changes your perception perspective on life and things like being able to fix your sleep or maybe not even fix, maybe not even the best word, but just try to optimize it or make it a little bit better because there's some people that maybe just maybe their sleep's always going to be like

not amazing, but they could go from being really shitty to like a little bit better. Right. Exactly. There are plenty of estrogen receptors in the brain. And a lot of people think that their brain controls their body. You know, they think that they can just tough it out and they control what they do and the opposite is true. It's actually your hormones make control your brain on what to do.

You know, for women, you know, they don't have much control during a certain time of the month. It's called PMS, pre-mential syndrome. Like what happens during menstruation? Your progesterone plummets and your estrogen increases.

It's like, all you got to do is increase, keep progesterone level and you can bypass PMS. You know, for men, you know, and women as well, testosterone controls libido as well. Libito is sex drive, wanting to have sex. That's something that happens in the brain.

And so you want to help improve your libido. Testosterone is usually for the first place to check. And of course, it also controls ambition, aggression, you know, wanting to get something done, wanting to accomplish goals, wanting to complete them, and having the endurance necessary to be able to focus and get that task complete. I mean, without testosterone, it's very difficult to do these things. And this is why, you know, I think more people need to be focused on getting their body right before they focus on getting their mind right.

If you get the body right, the mind usually follows because the mind is contained within the body and all the chemicals the body gets, the mind gets. How long have people been saying mind body spirit? I mean, that's, you know, as old as time, that's been around forever. and those things are all massively connected. I first started hearing about transcriptions from Thomas to Lauer. And, you know, Thomas is somebody that's an animal with working out. You got a chance to work out with him.

I worked out with him. And he's kind of always on the front lines of like, you know, finding out about these new companies that have cool things. But I didn't really realize that proscriptions was the first company to put out methylene blue. Now look at methylene blue. It's so popular. It's everywhere. It's one of those things.

If you guys listen to this podcast, you know, I'm very iffy with the supplements that I take because there's a lot of shady stuff out there. You've got to be careful. The great thing about transcriptions is that when people want to get methylene blue, usually they'll go on Amazon, they're going on with these other sites. It's not third-party testing. It's not dosed. A lot of people end up with toxicity from the blue that they get because there's no testing of it. Truscriptions, they have third-party testing for their products.

It's dose so you know easily what exact dose of methylene blue you're getting in each troki. So you're not making some type of mistake. there's not going to be anything in it. It's safe. You can have it dissolve and you can turn your whole world blue if you want or you can just swallow it. They have two different types of methylene blue. They have one that is, I believe, dosed at 16 milligrams and they have another one that's dosed at 50 milligrams. So make sure you check the milligrams. I don't recommend anybody start at 50 milligrams, but the 16, I feel, is very safe. You can also score the trokeys and you can break them up into

smaller bits. Yeah, so I do. And in addition to that, on top of the methylene blue, they have a lot of other great products of stuff as well. They got stuff for sleep. They got stuff for calming down, all kinds of things. I got to say, I use it about two or three times a week. I use it before Jiu-Jitsu. And the cool thing that I've noticed, and I've paid attention to this over the past few months, is that after sessions, I don't feel as tired.

So it's almost like I've become more efficient with just the way I use my body in these hard sessions of grappling. And it's like, cool, that means that, I mean, I could go for longer if I wanted to, and my recovery is better affected. It's pretty great. I know Dr. Scott, sure, we had him on the podcast, and he talked quite a bit about how he recommends methylene blue to a lot of the athletes that he works with. And they're seeing some profound impacts. And one of the things I've heard about it is that it can enhance red light.

So those are you doing red light therapy or those of you that have some opportunities to get out into some good sunlight. It might be a good idea to try some methylene blue. before you go out on your walk or run outside or whatever activity is that you're gonna do outside. And this stuff is great, but please, like first off, they have stuff for staying calm, they have stuff for sleep.

But remember, this stuff isn't a substitution for sleep. This isn't a substitution for taking care of nutrition. This is supposed to be an add-on to all the things that we already should be doing, and it's gonna make things so much better if you're doing everything else too. And I think this is just a little different too than just adding some magnesium to your diet.

I think this is a little different than, you know, treat these things appropriately. Make sure you do some of your own research, but... Oh, if you're taking medications. It's SSRIs. You better talk to your doctor first. Don't, don't be popping these things. And if you're taking any medications at all, it would be good to double triple, quadruple check and make sure that you're safe. Transcriptions has a lot of great things that you need. So go and check out their website when you have the opportunity. Strength is never weakness, weakness, weakness, never strength. Catch you guys later. Have you found anything that's similar to testosterone? Like, is there anything in the mix? I know that, uh,

People can get other types of drugs from you guys that are in the anabolic category. I think nandrolone, anavar, there's some things like that. But aside even from that stuff for a second, is there anything else you found that you're like, wow, this is really makes me feel good, brings my energy up, anything like that. Oh, absolutely. You know, so I take N80 plus every other day. I do a subcutaneous injection, 50 milligrams, and that helps with mitochondrial function, gives me even more energy, especially if I'm traveling and, you know, I'm not getting. in good sleep because I'm not in my bed and I don't have my eight sleep mattress, you know, cooling you need temperature. I know. We turn in such babies, don't we? It's terrible. I don't have my little

blanket. Whatever, whatever it takes to get you to where you need to be, I'm all for it. And, you know, also doing IV nutrition has helped me a lot as well. You know, we actually offer free IV nutrition to all our employees. Every single week, we have a nurse come in three days a week and give vitamin C, B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, magnesium, tarring, amino acids, glutathione, like really, you know, get their body to fill them up. Right. Where, and of course, these are water-soluble vitamins and minerals, amino acids. And so what of the body doesn't use?

Typically gets excreted through urine. And so that's, you know, that's another thing that's been gauged. I get an IV every single week. And I also, other medications that I take, so I take acne medication because I want testosterone, I get more acne. You know, I'm also, I have a bit of endrogenic alopecia. So I take compounded alopecia medications, monoxidyl, finasteride, dutasteride, ketoconazole, trotenoin, all made into a single base that we manufacture and compound and then apply topically to the scalp where it treats the area that you. want it to, whereas traditionally, you know, oral finasteride or deuteride, you're going to have to kill, you know, a DHT throughout your entire body before it starts attacking GLT at the site.

So there's a lot of, it's just an example of ways where we can work with prescribers to create unique dosage forms and combinations of drugs that may be beneficial to what's commercially available. I also, I also take any growth hormones or anything like that or anything to help with blood glucose or you know I'm very lucky in those regards my insulin levels are actually below the normal range you know because I eat very healthy I eat a lot of fiber and growth hormone you know I've tried taking it my my growth hormone levels and they're not optimal but when I do take it I get edema I get joint pain yeah same thing happens to me my hands just feel like they're gigantic they

feel like they turn in like giant catcher's myths or something they feel all puffy right right So, you know, the potential benefit of growth and replacement therapy, which is there, you know, it just doesn't, for me, the costs are worse or higher than the benefits are. And so it's constantly, but, you know, I would never know that unless I have experimented, unless a doctor said, hey, let's try this out. Let's see how you feel. And so I've taken drugs that I no longer take today, and I'm learning. I'm always adding new drugs that I think could benefit. So, you know, biohacking, you know, figuring out how your body work. and introducing exogenous chemicals

that your body may not normally produce in the optimal range and seeing how you feel, see how you perform, and then adjusting under the supervision of a licensed prescriber, making sure that you're doing this experiment that has huge potential benefits, but in a safe and effective manner.

I think symptoms are really critical. You know, like you might be 30 years old listening to this you might even be 25 years old listening to this um and you just might energy wise just might not feel great and so you know get your blood work done and you know maybe use merrick health it would be a great idea um and just you know see see where you're at right and then you might like testosterone could change your life it really can you know and having a practitioner go over your blood work and have them kind of examine that you know i i started steroids when i was 25 and it was much different the way that i started than the way that people are starting now luckily i ran as

really uh really smart people uh not too long after i started and i got started getting blood work done you know a long a long ass time ago um but you know just get some blood work done because you even if you even if you feel pretty good but you just feel like you don't have that extra that extra little push or you feel like you can't really do a lot of the things you did when you were younger or the days just getting away from you and just always feel behind just go get the blood work done and consider it like you get the blood work done and it's a right of passage into trying something and it's an experiment there's no harm that's going to come from you trying testosterone zero harm if you tried it and you're like oh i don't you know it made me

swell up it made me puffy it made me whatever whatever the side effects may be for an individual It gave you some acne or something. Like, that's not for me. I didn't like the way I was acting or whatever it might be. The side effects would be very, very minimal. And there's absolutely no harm if you were to try something for like two months. I guarantee you that you're going to try it for two months. You're probably going to really love it rather than being like, I need to ditch this.

But everyone's going to have individual variants. Some people take it and they don't notice that big of a change. And therefore, they're like, oh, maybe it's not that not for me because maybe the dosage. wasn't the right or whatever the case is, but there's no harm in just trying it. Right. You know, under the supervision of a licensed practitioner that's checking your blood, you know, to see, hey, is your estrogen going up? Is estradiol or esterodial is going?

Are you getting nipple tenderness, you know, or breast tissue growth? Are you getting acne? Are you getting hair loss? Like, you know, there are other medications that can help treat all these side effects. But if that's, you know, if you're very vain, you care more about your hair than how you feel, or you care more about your, let's say you have prostate issues. You know, doctors can work with you. They can customize these programs, give you the right to because it's all about,

it's a risk-benefit analysis. There are always potential risks to any single drug, anything we take. The question is, are the benefits to they outweigh those potential risks? And that's a decision for the patient and the prescriber to determine. But in general, I mean, the potential benefit. of testosterone across the board far outweigh the potential risks, especially if those risks can be controlled through other medications like aromatase inhibitors or five alpha reductase inhibitors, you know, other medications that can control some of the side effects, acne,

hair loss, prostate enlargement, and increases in estrogen, as well as increases in platelet, red blood cells. So, you know, erythocytosis is something to consider. But a dark will check your blood and ensure that while you're on therapy, you know, it will be done as safely as possible and at the same time to ensure that you can have other options available to you. And it's all, and it's a constantly going experiment because our bodies are constantly changing. So it's a, so you'll see, I've been on testosterone replacement therapy for 16 years now. And, you know, I'll tell you, you know, I've had to add some adjunct therapies here and there. You know, so at one point, my estradiol really skyrocketed when I was on HCG,

because that causes an increase in esterdial. And I had to take a microdose of an astrosol an aromatase inhibitor to be able to control my ester levels because I was getting nipple tenderness. And so, but once that went away, you know, I stopped taking the HCG I no longer needed. That's why the meatheads had it down, you know, because they, they started cycles. That's how cycles became a thing. If you could just blast testosterone and get all the results from that, that's what we would do. But, There's a lot of yin and yang that goes on with increased testosterone. Estrogen is going to come along with it, and there are some drugs that you guys aren't allowed to carry because they're not FDA approved, but there's things like Masteron and Primoboan that can actually bring some of those astroidal levels down a little bit.

And you can take a little bit of both, and you end up with kind of like, I guess, you end up with a synergy, you know, between the two, rather than just blasting, you know, like 400 milligrams of testosterone, which. you're obviously going to see some negative sides with that. But even with what you guys have, because you have NANDR loans and you mentioned anavar, and you can with somebody that you're communicating with, a doctor or a health care provider of some sort, communicate with them on what your goals are and what you're trying to do.

And they're going to say, hey, man, you know, like I think you're taking a little bit too much of that anavar. Your liver enzymes are a little high. Like, let's kind of bring that back down or come off of that and try something different. and they'll help you tweak it and get it just right, or maybe they'll recommend an aromatase inhibitor of some sort to bring that a straddle down a little bit, the estrogen.

Absolutely. Yep, that's right. Find a qualified provider. Go on chat GPT. Look for it if you want, you know, whatever you think your problem may be, throw your lab tests in there, you know, and say, hey, who's the best doctor for me?

Or go in the Institute of Functional Medicine's website, do a provider search, find a provider that's been certified on how to do functional medicine in your area, you know, and go see several, figure out which one's the best for you, you know, or go on Google and type in whatever you want. I mean, there's so many companies out there that are offering these services, not just locally, but via telemedicine as well.

So you could actually work with a provider that's in a different state without even having to leave your house. And that's, you know, that's, now that we have all these options available with us due to the consumerization of health care post-pandemic, you know, that we see the costs going down. We have more options, more competition. And so more and more patients are. or be able to access and afford these medications

because these are medications that we typically have to be on for the rest of our lives. So we don't want to put a patient on a program that at some point they will become non-compliant due to costs. And a lot of what inspired all this is a movie called Bigger, Strong, or Faster,

which, by the way, I'm not the director, but I will always take credit for it whenever somebody sees me on the street and they're like, hey, I love your movie, Bigger, Strong, Fast. I'm like, thank you very much. But Chris Bell was the director of that movie. I don't know why people think I would know

how to direct a movie. I'm a meathead. I totally have no idea how to write or direct or any of that stuff. That's my brother's specialty. But that movie had a big impact on you? Oh, it had such a huge impact on me. You said you watch it every year. Chris is actually sitting right there. Yeah. And I why I do watch it every year because it reminds me about how other patients out there have no idea. Like I've been very lucky. I've been able to be in this industry for the past 16 years, benefit from the work with the greatest prescribers on on planet earth and i and i'm like and i and i know so much but i can you watch the movie to remind myself that other people are beginners like i am out there and it's up to us to be able to educate them the way that chris did for me because when when chris's movie came out

you know i was first getting introduced testosterone and i was just starting my pharmacy and you know i had always had that stigma that testosterone is cheating it's bad and you know i like It must have been coming out of your seat. You had a pharmacy going and this movie comes out. Yeah, I'm making testosterone. You must have been like, this is amazing. Right. And I'm benefiting from testosterone.

And Chris lays it out why testosterone was stigmatized. Why we have all these entrenched interests that don't want to see patients get access because of their own skeletons in their closets. And so Chris artfully puts the good actors and the bad actors. and the bad actors, ask them fair questions, and then lets the viewer decide what they think is actually in their best interest. And when I watched that movie,

I was like, yeah, now I get it. This has been, we've all been scammed in this country. And, you know, something has to change. And I think we can be a small part of that change. And so this is why, you know, I'm just trying to be a great advocate, like Chris and many other great patient advocates that I've been lucky to be able to work with,

and be able to educate providers, educate patients, and let them decide what they think is in their best interests, not what some large pharmaceutical company or health care system thinks is in their base interest, because healthcare, you know, is very broken in our country, and we need something to fix that. And I think, you know, testosterone, I have nutrition, men's health, women's health, mental health, sexual health, longevity medicine, putting them all together and treating that patient holistically, I mean, I think that is a great solution to the health care crisis that we have in this country.

This country needs a shot in the arm. I think everybody would agree with that. Strength is never a weakness, weakness, weakness is never strength. Thank you guys so much. Catch you guys later.