Realfoodology - Former Pharma Rep Breaks Down How Your Insurance Is Overcharging You + Keeping You Sick | Brigham Buhler

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

EP. 219 Welcome back to the Realfoodology podcast! In today’s episode, live from Austin, I’m thrilled to have Brigham Buhler, a guest I’ve been eager to feature since hearing him on Joe Rogan’s podcast. This conversation explores the shocking world of big insurance and the insidious corruption behind healthcare in America. Brigham unveils how deductibles and copays work, revealing the ways in which consumers are often left in the dark and underserved. It’s an eye-opening discussion that may be dark at times, but it equips you with the knowledge to navigate the system and avoid its traps. Tune in to discover how to protect yourself and your health in a broken system! Timestamps: 00:00:00 - Introduction   00:06:26 - Brigham on Joe Rogan   00:08:30 - Why You Can’t Get Bloodwork   00:11:44 - Pharmacy Benefit Managers   00:15:11 - Co-pays and Ozempic   00:17:17 - Pharmacies and the Gag Clause   00:24:22 - Medicare and Big Insurance   00:27:44 - The Rising Cost of Insulin   00:29:34 - Compounding Pharmacies   00:32:05 - Monsanto and Bayer Pharmaceuticals   00:33:27 - Being a Pharmaceutical Rep   00:37:31 - Drug Recalls and Surgery   00:38:51 - Medical Equipment Regulation   00:45:27 - High Medical Bills   00:47:37 - Out-of-Network Billing   00:51:17 - Fluctuating Medication Prices   00:53:24 - Big Pharma Buying All Pharmacies   00:57:33 - Understanding Deductibles   01:00:59 - Brigham’s Compounding Pharmacy   01:03:31 - Rise in Chronic Diseases   01:06:01 - Ways2Well   01:07:52 - Understanding True Longevity   01:14:40 - You Don’t Want to End Up in a Broken System   01:18:27 - Cash Pay and Super Bills   01:22:05 - Investing in Your Health   01:24:04 - Staying Out of the Sick Care System   01:26:08 - Connecting with Ways2Well   01:28:49 - Finding the Positives!   01:31:58 - This Is a Bipartisan Issue   01:33:04 - Brigham’s Health Nonnegotiable  Sponsored By:  Wellnesse Go to wellnesse.com/realfoodology Maui Nui  Go to www.MauiNuiVenison.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code: REALFOODOLOGY for 20% off Timeline Go to timelinenutrition.com/REALFOODOLOGY and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 10% off Olive Oil Get a free $39 bottle at Getfresh324.com$1 shipping Organifi Go to www.organifi.com/realfoodology and use code REALFOODOLOGY for 20% Off and from 10/31/24 - 11/03/24 Halloween weekend, Spend $80 get free kids easy greens, Spend $100 get free crisp apple & free shipping, Spend $120 get free pumpkin spice Manukora Go to manukora.com/realfoodology for $25 off your starter kit!  Show Links:  Ways2Well - Click Here For 10% Off A Comprehensive Bloodwork Panel Bottle Of Lies (Book)  Watch Dopesick Check Out Brigham:  Instagram  Ways2Well Instagram Website - Click Here For 10% Off A Comprehensive Bloodwork Panel Check Out Courtney LEAVE US A VOICE MESSAGE Check Out My new FREE Grocery Guide! @realfoodology @realfoodologypodcast www.realfoodology.com My Immune Supplement by 2x4 Air Dr Air Purifier AquaTru Water Filter EWG Tap Water Database

on today's episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. If you eat the average American diet and you go to the average American primary care, you can be prepared to die of the average American disease. Hello, friends. Welcome back to another episode of The Real Foodology Podcast. Today, I'm in Austin, and you can actually watch this video.

If you're listening on Spotify, you can watch the full video. I'm in a studio in Austin. I came out here for a trip and decided to bring a couple guests on that I have been wanting to get on the podcast. Today's episode is probably hands down in the top five of my favorite episodes that I've ever recorded. Brigham Bueller. I heard him on Joe Rogan's podcast. I believe it was about three years ago now. And immediately when I listened to that episode, I texted my team. I tried DMing him on Instagram.

I was like, I have to get this guy on. I talk so much about big pharma and big food and all the corruption that's going on. I never knew the insidious world of the corruption of big insurance. And I just felt like Brigham was dropping all these bombs left and right of things that I had never heard before. And answering all these questions that I feel like all of us are in the dark about, like with our deductibles, insurance makes it so confusing, right? Like when you try to meet a deductible and you feel like you're spending all this money and they're not reimbursing you for everything, but they're not going to reimburse you until you meet this

deductible. And then even when you meet the deductible, they only give you a certain percentage. And what about co-pays with prescriptions? There's so much colluding going on in the background where the American people are getting just totally fucked, for lack of a better word. And he breaks it down in such a perfect way. I will tell you that a lot of this is really dark and it's really crazy. And I'm sure a lot of it you've never heard before. But I choose to allow this information to empower me because now that I know, now I know to avoid this and now I know how to not get into this sick system. Brigham actually said this to me after the podcast. He said, I see it like a magic trick where now I know, I know all the ins and outs. I know the tricks that they're trying to, that they're trying to pull the wool over our faces. And he's like, now that I see the magic trick,

I know exactly what's going on and I know how to avoid their tricks and the manipulation. So this was an incredible episode. Like I said, one of my favorite ones that I've ever recorded. I'm so excited for y'all to hear this and I hope that you love it. If you could take a moment to rate and review the podcast, it not only means so much to me, but it really, really helps this show. We're going to have some amazing videos

that are going to be cut from this episode. If you could share those on your Instagram, tag me at realfoodology, at realfoodologypodcast, or just share a screenshot of the show. Any sharing really helps get the word out and get this episode out. And people need to know this information. This is truly what I consider to be life-saving information. So I hope you guys love the episode. Thank you so much for listening. I love you so much. As the holiday season approaches, it's time to focus on more than just gift giving and festive cheer. Let's talk about a gift that you can give yourself, healthier teeth and a brighter smile. If you're looking for a natural and effective way to upgrade your dental care routine, I've got the perfect holiday treat for you. Introducing Wellness Toothpaste,

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you did with him. So I want to say that was like two years ago, maybe? Yeah, maybe even three years ago. It was a long time ago. I listened to that episode. I immediately, I DM'd you, I DM'd your company, and I know you were getting blown up, so I think it just got like lost. Yeah. I literally texted my team and I was like, I have to get this guy on. You were talking about things that I have never heard before. I'm super invested in all the corruption that's happening with big food and big pharma and all the colluding and everything that's going on, But you dropped knowledge that I've never heard before

about the insurance companies. So that's what I really want to dive into today, because I want my audience to hear just how deep that corruption goes, because it is insane. Some of the stuff that you talk about, I've never heard before. Yeah, no, thank you. And what's crazy is, so that first podcast, we were not prepared, because I had only done a podcast with a friend before that. So Joe, I would just tell him when we were talking and he came in as a patient to Ways to Well about like what's going on with big pharma and some stories about my experiences. And one day he's just like, come on the podcast. And I'm like, Joe, I've never done a podcast. He's like, shut the fuck up. It's just two guys talking. I'm like, two guys talking with 12 million people listening.

Yeah, casual. So I was not, I went in just so nervous and stressed. And our team was not ready because it really, that podcast really landed with people back then. Like it really did. It stayed in the top like five for weeks, which was crazy. But Joe gave me that opportunity and I was just there to try and tell the truth and tell people what I saw.

So I'm glad that it resonated with you too. I mean, it's incredible. Well, I mean, you just look around and, you know, everybody is so sick right now and it's coming from so many different angles, right? It's our food, but it's also people are being overmedicated and then people can't. I mean, just something as simple as I was thinking about this when I was preparing for the episode. And I was thinking about how many messages I get from people because I talk often about getting blood work done. And I'll tell people, like, you want to know where your hormones are at.

You want to know specific things. And people write me DMs all the time. And they're like, Courtney, I went to my doctor and I asked for a hormone panel. My doctor literally refused to pull it for me. And you were talking about this. And I was like, wait, I don't understand. Because I'm also someone where I'm very blessed that I learned early on that I needed to start going to functional doctors, integrative doctors. You're an anomaly. I tell

you most people don't know. Yeah, like I needed to get out of the system. So I was not well-versed with this because I'm used to going to doctors and then being like, oh, we're going to run a full panel. We're going to do all this blood work. So I'm telling, you know, my audience, go ask for this blood work. And their doctors are telling them, no, what what's going on with that? So I tell people all the time, if you eat the if you eat the average American diet and you go to the average American primary care, you can be prepared to die of the average American disease. I hate to say that, but that's the world we live in. And so to take a step back to explain what happened, by the time I was a drug rep, which was early 2000s,

the corporate capture of our healthcare system had already happened. And so the days of a doctor traveling to a family with their little leather bag and knowing the mom and the dad and the whole family and the family history is dead and buried. It's over. A clinician in America is at the will of the insurance carriers and the insurance companies dictate to the clinician what tests they're allowed to pull, how much time they can spend with a patient. And unfortunately today in our healthcare system,

a primary care has on average six minutes with a patient in America to get them in and out of that clinic, to troubleshoot all of their chronic diseases and ailments, not to mention how many medications most patients are on in America, because that's the only tool in their tool belt. And it's not the primary care's fault.

They're put in a system that has set them up for failure. And so for a primary care to stay in business in this country, in the insurance model, they have to see 40 plus patients a day. A day? It's crazy. And so how are you possibly going to provide a high level of care? You're not. What you're trying to do is plug holes in the dam, but you're running out of like ways to plug these holes. And it's put a pill here, put a pill there, put a pill here, and then I'll see you again next year, you know, and then to try to do a deep dive. I mean, that's one of the things that I talked about in front of the Senate. We cannot fix what we refuse to see. And much like our healthcare system is rigged

and the food system is rigged because so many people say it's broken, but the truth is when you peel back the layers to the onion, it's rigged. And we're the ones fitting the bill for what's happening out there. And so what do I mean by rigged? It's captured and it's monetized

and chronic disease has become a revenue stream for not just the pharmaceutical companies, but the insurance companies that were supposed to be there to be our allies. And so those insurance companies don't have a vested interest in getting you cured of a disease. Their vested interest is minimizing cost, maximizing profits. And so it's an obstruction mindset. If I can put a hurdle between a patient getting comprehensive blood work that doesn't pay me anything, right? I lose money by doing blood work because the insurance company doesn't own the blood lab, but the insurance company does

own the pharmacy benefit managers and the pharmacy benefit managers make profit off of chronic disease. Every pill you take that is covered by your insurance company runs through the pharmacy benefit manager, which was supposed to be an independent third-party ally to the American people that was established in the 70s, and they were going to go out and they were going to fight for us, and they were going to drive down the cost of prescription care. And so a simple way to explain it is they were supposed to take a $1,000 drug and negotiate it down to $500 so the average

American could afford that medication. What they did instead is, and they say the highway to hell is paved with the best of intentions. Yep. You hear that a lot lately, too. What ended up happening is within a decade, the big insurance companies, the big five is what they call them, United, Cigna, Aetna, CVS Health, Blue Cross Blue Shield, went out and gobbled up the pharmacy benefit managers and corporately captured them,

which allowed them to shift the game. Now the game becomes negotiating rebates. So instead of negotiating the price of the drug down from $1,000 to $500, they say, hey, go ahead and charge us $1,000, but give us a $500 rebate to our pharmacy benefit manager. And so where people get confused by this is they go, well, that makes no sense

because then the insurance is paying $1,000. No, the insurance is saying they're paying $1,000, but the $500 rebate gives them 50% off. Why is that puzzle piece important? Because 80 plus percent of Americans are insured by their employer. And so for me, I employ over 330 people now. Every one of those people have health insurance. Every one

of those people take medications, get treatments. The insurance companies are monetizing those medications. And at the end of the year, let's say you're on a GLP-1, that's a hot button right now, the weight loss drugs. $1,500 average wholesale price in America for a GLP-1 if you're using the insurance model. And is that what the insurance is paying? That's what they say they're paying. Okay. They're getting a huge rebate north of $500 a month per patient kickback.

You'd call it a kickback if it was any other industry held at the pharmacy benefit manager company. Then at the end of the year, they come to me, the employer, and they say, Brigham, Joe Bob's been on a GLP-1 for a year. Susan had a baby this year. You cost us this much across your organization. Sorry, Brigham, we're going to have to raise your copay, your deductibles, and your premiums, and you and your employees are going to have to pay us more, right? An insurance company can't make profit without price gouging the American people. It's a for-profit organization. So it's, they make money off of the chronic

disease, not by curing the disease, not by preventing the disease. So there is no preventative care in most insurance plans. All the plan is designed to do is maintain and treat chronic disease. The system has been set up for failure. Yeah. And what I want to understand, and you explained this on Joe Rogan, but I have to be honest, I still don't fully understand the concept. So let's say I'm going to the pharmacy, I'm going to CVS and I'm getting my medication filled and it costs me like $10 copay. But then it actually only cost the insurance company like, like if I'd bought it without my insurance, it would have cost me like $5 or something.

Correct. So there's different drugs depending on the tier. A brand new blockbuster drug like a GLP-1 in the insurance model is $1,500. Okay. I can provide that same medication cash mailed to your doorstep for under 300 bucks. Oh my God. That's a huge difference.

But the big pharmaceutical companies don't want to allow that. So they're suing compounding pharmacies left and right. Even though there's a nationwide shortage on these GLP-1s, even though the FDA has given guidance and guidelines requesting pharmacies to make these drugs. Because if you look at those drugs, they're not a weight loss drug.

They're a diabetes drug. And what happened is now they've been sold off as a weight loss drug, and they're phenomenal for weight loss. But the problem is now it's hard for diabetics to get a hold of this crucial life-saving medicine. They need it. And the general public's taking it to lose 10 pounds for spring break. And I'm not here to tell you that's good or bad. If you've got the budget and

you've got, you know, you've done your research, go for it. But we still got to take care of the people that are in dire need of this medicine. And we can't price gouge those people. And so if I go back to when I owned a pharmacy, so I owned a retail pharmacy. Today I'm in compounding. Before that, I owned a retail pharmacy that bill, I'm in compounding. Before that, I owned a retail pharmacy that billed insurance companies. Okay. This is a dirty secret a lot of people don't know. There is a gag clause

in every insurance-based pharmacy in the country. And for you to survive as a pharmacy in that model, you cannot piss off Blue Cross Blue Shield, Cigna, Aetna, the big five, because you're gone. You're done. If you can't accept Blue Cross Blue Shield, that's 30% of the patient population in the state of Texas.

Overnight, you're shutting your doors. So in the contract, Blue Cross Blue Shield puts, you cannot disclose to a patient who's a Blue Cross patient that it's cheaper to buy this product with cash. And if I do, I violate my gag clause, but also a law. And it goes so deep that there is a safe harbor for these companies that allow them to put this clause in that was put forth by the government because of the lobbying of the big insurance companies.

And so here's a real world example. True, honest to God. Metformin, an amazing diabetes drug, been on the market over 20 years. It's one of the leading compounds that Peter Attia and people talk about for longevity. A lot of upside, minimal downside, not some brand new expensive drug. It's been out forever. It's literally like $1.50 purchase price for me. I would sell it for $3. I would make $1.50. I would double my money. But in the insurance model, you come in and you say, hey, Brigham, I've got Blue Cross Blue Shield. I have to shut up, swipe your BCPS card, and it tells me $10 copay. I then have to charge you $10 on a drug I could have sold you for a couple bucks, basically. And I don't get to keep that money. That money gets clawed back and goes to the PBM. So the pharmacy benefit manager is making

roughly anywhere from $5 to $7 every time a patient in America fills a metformin prescription, right? Now multiply that times thousands of drugs. Now multiply that times a big drug like a GLP-1. That's $1,500 a month. And they're making $500 a month off your chronic disease. What incentive does the insurance company have to prevent chronic disease?

And then people go, well, that makes no sense because they're going to be stuck covering the surgeries and all the stuff that comes from these chronic illnesses. No, because most of those procedures happen after the age of 65. Most of our healthcare cost happens when you're a Medicaid patient and you are now the public's problem.

By the time cancer and all these – I said this on Aaron Alexander's podcast earlier today. The disease that manifests in your 40s started in your 30s. The disease that manifests in your 50s started in your 40s. It takes a decade or two decades sometimes of putting our bodies through these processes to build chronic diseases that truly manifest and really cost us money. And for an insurance company, if I'm an executive at, let's just say United to pick on somebody else, I look at it and go, Brigham's pre-diabetic, like in theory, like let's say I'm pre-diabetic. They would look at me and go, Brigham's pre-diabetic. It's going to cost a seven fold for the rest of his life to keep him alive and cover his health plan if we let him

progress to diabetes. But to start treating him today cost us money on drugs we're not getting reimbursed on potentially. So do we get preventative and proactive? The answer is no. Why would an insurance company wait it out? Two reasons. One, they're monetizing a lot of the medications. But two, they know every two to three years people switch employers. So if you need a surgery or something big down the road, that seven-fold increase in the cost of care is punted off to one of the other insurance companies or the federal government. And so now it's not their problem. And so everything has become, you know, sometimes people and human nature

is to be short-sighted. It's even worse in business because from the hospital, like the doctor is stressed that month about hitting their volumes. The hospital system is stressed that month about hitting its financial metrics. The insurance company is stressed that month

about hitting its financial metrics so it can hit its quarterly earnings. All of this is in an effort to build, to continue to grow the machine, which is Wall Street, and get paid and add value. And you have to hit your quarterly earnings objectives. And so we have transitioned away from patient care to profitability per patient. And that's what the system's built to do. It's been captured that way. As the crisp fall air rolls in and the leaves start to change, I've been focusing on keeping my energy high and supporting healthy aging

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taste the difference for yourself. Head to today for just $1 and taste the difference for yourself. Head to their website and elevate your cooking with the best olive oil out there. Go to getfresh324.com, that's G-E-T-F-R-E-S-H-324.com for a free bottle and pay just $1 shipping. Oh my gosh, there's so much to unpack here because, okay, so I understand that the insurance wants to keep kicking it down the road, but it just doesn't seem profitable to me to them not want to intervene and prevent it. Like, I understand, but there is still part of me that's like, wait, but there's so much that goes into what they have to spend on you once you are diagnosed with that diabetes. And also my other is, like, why aren't we, now that we're seeing the detrimental effects

of this having on our society, why don't we have somebody at the top intervening, being like, wait, wait, wait, wait, we can switch this whole system. We could make it to where we make money off of people being well and preventing these things. Like, why are we not, is it just because it's so hard to move the ship? I mean, that's a really tough question to unpack. So from the insurance standpoint, the UnitedHealthcare, I think, had cleared $380 billion last year. $380 billion. Yeah, that's insane. They're doing fine.

And they're doing fine because the cost inevitably gets passed on to the employer and to the government and to the American citizen, because the government has no money without the American citizens. So it's our tax dollars that are going to treat these chronic diseases and help these patients when they're elderly and in dire need of this care. But it's a fact that our elderly population is more chronically ill than ever. We broke down all the chronic disease states and how they're at all time highs at the Senate hearing, but the average elderly person's on four or more prescription drugs. You know, it's, and even that's a whole nightmare because what people don't realize when we go back to the price point and the average

wholesale price point, even that, so the federal government, the reason Medicare is going to eventually go bankrupt is the government said the same thing they did with the PBMs. This is a lot to sort through. Man, these private companies seem to be doing better. They're making a profit. Let's outsource Medicare to the big five insurance companies. So 80 something percent of Medicare is covered, is essentially run by the pharmacy benefit managers and the big insurance companies. Okay, so here's where that plot thickens. The government's analysis tool is to say, what is the average wholesale price of a GLP-1? Oh, it's $1,500 in America.

And then big pharma says, we'll sell it to you for $1,200 because you're the federal government. And the insurance companies go, look at federal government. We helped Medicare save $300 on this prescription drug alone in one month. Multiply that times all the drugs. And the way I can show you this is real and tangible is in the state of Ohio. It was Ohio or Idaho. I can't remember. They found like 200 something million dollars in what they called fraud by the PBM on their governmental payer program in one state in one year. Now multiply that times the country, times all the states.

It's because they're playing this shell game where they're making so much money off these medicines that it's artificially inflating the cost of healthcare, not reducing the cost of healthcare. And then those inflated costs are getting held by the insurance companies as profits. And then the following year, in order to keep that profit game alive for Wall Street,

they just pass the cost on to the employer the next year via co-pays, deductibles, and premiums. So, and maybe I don't understand this fully, but part of me feels like this is also just fake money kind of, because the $1,500, it's not actually costing them that much money to do the GLP-1s, right? So, like, how much is it actually costing? Like, how much are they actually having to put out for the GLP-1. So there was actually, crazy enough, there was a Senate finance investigation on insulin and trying to uncover why the hell has insulin gone up every year to the point where we are paying almost five times the amount for an insulin vial. And what you'll find is Eli Lilly and a lot of these insulin manufacturers

were making the insulin for a minimal, a nominal amount of money. And they were, they were literally making less now than they were a decade ago off the insulin, but the price had gone up. Why? Because the rebate of the PBM had gone up and the PBM had to make more profits. So it was raising the rebate raising the rebate lily raise your price pfizer rate all these all these pharmaceutical companies so the game becomes raise your price don't lower your price because we're going to get the kickback and the kickback is a bigger dollar amount and then how the insurance avoids ever having to pay it is they show us the thousand so it's almost like they double dip. They didn't pay the thousand. They paid $500. Let's say it's $1,000. They get a $500. Tell us they paid a thousand. They meet

with your employer at the end of the year and they charge them for the following year, the $1,000 per month that they never paid because they only paid 500. And then where does the deductibles come into this? Because I'm sure that's all that's built in. And then they tier the deductibles come into this? Because I'm sure that's also... All that's built in, and then they tier the drugs based off the reimbursement rate. And so sometimes people have a bigger copay on a drug. Why? Because that drug doesn't have a rebate. If that drug's been on the market for 30 years or is compounded places, and the insurance companies hate compounding pharmacies.

I'm sure they do. And the pharmaceutical companies hate compounding pharmacies. Why? Because you have no skin in the game. You don't make any money off of it. But for patients, they love compounding pharmacies because it's cheaper in a lot of ways. And it's being portrayed by companies like, I mean, you saw the media, you know, capture that we experienced post our Senate hearing. It's the same thing in big pharma.

I had to explain this to Jillian on Jillian's podcast. She said, okay, so explain to me, Brigham, compounded pharmacies are bad, right? Like they're not safe. That's what I've been told. Oh, see, I love them. Yeah. Okay. So a lot of Americans are being duped every month, Eli Lilly and all these big pharmaceutical companies. And I keep bringing up Lilly because I know for a fact Eli Lilly has put out hatchet job articles on pharmacies because they did it on my pharmacy. And they're attempting to discredit pharmacies and point out any shortcoming or flaw. Meanwhile, the media outlets are not covering the fact

that Eli Lilly and Big Pharma have over 2,500 facilities in America that have not been inspected in five or more years. Eli Lilly recently had a factory shut down that the FDA hadn't been in, but it was because a whistleblower who was an employee of the company complained and blew the whistle on them for all the shortcomings at their facility. And it was improper aseptic technique, improper dosing regimen, misrepresentation of the data sets, all sorts of crazy stuff. And there's a book called Bottle of Lies written by an investigative journalist that breaks down how a lot of these big pharmaceutical conglomerates have outsourced their manufacturing overseas.

So a big chunk is overseas. Why is that important? Because now an FDA investigator can go, do I drive down the street and look at Brigham's Pharmacy for the fifth time this week? Or do I fly to India and stay in a hotel that has no air conditioning because they put them out in rural areas by design? And she breaks all this down. And then furthermore, you've got to give three months heads up.

You've got to get visas. You've got to have all this proof to come in because this is not a U.S. facility. Well, and these countries have other regulations. So they can get away with probably a lot more. Totally different rules and regs. Like imagine if your drugs are being made in China yeah and they she gets into regulations they when they came to investigate one of these pharmaceutical companies they literally had barrels burning all of their records the inspector from the fda got there and the records were all getting torched

in a barrel they had forged the data, misrepresented data. All of this has happened. All of it. Like I broke this down on Joe too. Like another example of corporate capture when we talk about Monsanto and how evil they are in the chemical world. A lot of people don't know this. Monsanto owns Bayer Pharmaceutical.

Bayer owns Monsanto now. Yeah, Bayer owns Monsanto. Yeah. Bayer is the one who pushed contaminated AIDS, hemophilia drugs into third world countries and knowingly infected individuals with AIDS. This is when AIDS was a death sentence. Bayer also during World War II

tested product on Jewish women who were part of Nazi concentration camps. And there's letters between Bayer and these Nazi camps requesting an additional train full of 150 women. I saw this. It's insane. It's sick. And by the way-

This is the history of the people we're talking about here. Yes, and all 150 women, the Jewish women, they all died, right? Yep. And then they asked for more. And then they said, we kindly request another train full of women. Like they're just like ordering something off Amazon.

It's insane. And it's not, and I'll tell you, it's not better here. When I was a rep at Eli Lilly. And I explained this to Aaron, too. He's like, how do people do this and how do they sleep at night? But it's the truth is, we're very tribal. And when you come right out of college and you're a drug rep, which I was a 21 year old kid right out of college. And they bring in professors from Stedman Hawkins and, you know, doctors from Harvard and legitimate teaching institutes that tell you how these products are going to save lives and they're so much better. But when you're 20, you don't realize and also it's a different time, right? Yeah. You don't realize that these people are being paid to tell you this.

And the studies are being funded to skew the data in that way. And so almost everything has to be taken with a grain of salt. Like Mark Twain said it, there's, what is it? There's lies, there's damn lies, and then there's statistics. Like statistics can be very misleading. Who paid for those statistics? How did they skew those statistics? How deep was the study?

The Women's Health Initiative is a prime example. Peter Attia talks about that a lot. I was part of that. I was a drug rep when they dropped the Women's Health Initiative in, I think, late 90s, early 2000. And I had just become a drug rep, I think, in 2003. And we would go around and meet with OBs

and show them the Women's Health Initiative and say, you're going to kill women by writing estrogens. But the problem with not writing an estrogen is now the woman's going to lose bone mineral density. Well, guess what we sold? Bone mineral density drugs. Of course you did. So you can buy this. And at the time, you thought you were doing a good thing. You thought you were helping them. But the study was mainly funded by these pharmaceutical companies that wanted to sell other stuff. You know what this reminds me of? If people listening have not watched this, you have to watch Dope Sick because that really gave me an insider look into what it really is like to be

one of these pharma reps. Yeah. Because they throw them these big parties. They take them out to dinner. They give them all these bribes. And from what I understand, these bribes are technically illegal now, but they have all these loopholes to get around it anyways. thousand dollar a month expense account in Waco, Texas. And if I didn't spend it, I would get in trouble. You're not doing enough dinners. You're not doing enough lunches. You got to get out there. And I was in it when we could give away pins and shirts and swag. And, you know, Viagra had a pin that you hit a button and it was like an erection where it sprung up. Like it was a pin folded in half and we hit a button. It went rigid and we could write with it. Like, and it was all funny, gimmicky stuff. And again, like you can't say that these things don't influence people and their habits and their behaviors. And it gets deeper than that. I was given a list of doctors and told you need to befriend these 15 doctors. These are the biggest prescribers in your area. And every morning I would get a

report of everything that doctor prescribed the day before. And this was in 2000. So doctors probably didn't know, but I knew what they prescribed. And so I would tailor my day to who prescribed what, who's writing the most of these meds. Like Cialis was one of my drugs, the Viagra competitor. So I would prioritize my day to go call on the biggest Viagra writers. And if I'm going to spend my budget, I'm going to spend it on the Viagra writers. I'm going to take them to dinners and wine and dine them and befriend them and try and get close with them. And it's not, it's just you doing your job at the time. And when I was carrying Cialis, that's fun, right? That's different.

When I got moved to Houston, Texas, and I started carrying antidepressants and SSRIs and antipsychotics, and I've got, you know, a company telling me that to go promote an antipsychotic in areas that are totally off label, which absolutely happened. I was like,

I'm not doing this. I want out of this space. And I got out as fast as I could and left into MedDevice where I saw a whole nother racket. Like a whole nother racket. Like the surgical space is the wild west. It's even more wild than big pharma. In what ways? Everyone assumes that because a product's FDA approved that it's safe. So let's look at drugs. We know that roughly 30% of drugs end up getting recalled. Vioxx, perfect example. It's crazy. And we know that most of the time they don't know the side effect. It's the third leading cause of death in America is our modern healthcare system. The drugs, the medications, and the equipment that we're using is the third leading cause of death in America is our modern healthcare system. The drugs, the medications, and the equipment that we're using is the third leading cause of death. It's insane. They did a study out of John Hopkins and the study was so damning that they moved it, I think to Harvard

or vice versa. And then they ended up publishing, I think the Harvard study, the lesser of the two, and it still showed 30% of the 30% 30% of the products end up being recalled, which is crazy. So where it's even more wild in the med device space is most over 90% of the products that are in the operating room and implanted in your body have never had a human safety study. How is that possible? Like, how are we okay with that? Like, how are the people at the top? Because, okay, let me just, if I'm in charge of that, and that's me, and I'm thinking, okay,

if I'm in a surgery and they have to use a medical device that's never been tested on humans, I want that for myself that it's going to be tested. Yeah. So what happened is, again, the system's built to fail. I would say it's going to be tested. Yeah. So what happened is, again, the system's built to fail. I would say it's rigged.

Yeah. The food and drug, FDA, food and drug. Exactly, that alone. But they're food and drugs, right? Yeah. And all of a sudden, you go into the 60s, 70s, and 80s, and there's equipment that now gets dumped in their lap.

And we're like, hey, we now need you to help manage operating rooms, surgical equipment, new technologies, biologics. But the FDA is going, well, wait a second. Our budget, 50% of it's funded by the drug companies, right? And so our focus in this machine is built to help push drugs into the marketplace and regulate drugs, however you want to view that. But we don't have the budget or the resources to monitor and manage all of this booming technology and innovation that's now getting dumped in our lap. So they said, we'll create a loophole called the 510k approval process. And all this means means is if you can show me there's a like product in the

operating room today we will allow you to bring this product into the operating room without a human safety study and so imagine it this way you take a phone from your house in the 90s a rotary phone that you're in and you answer it that could be phone, and it gets approved for an operating room. Now you go to a cell phone. Now you go to an iPhone. Now you go to these smartphones that are crazy level of technology. It's a totally different piece of technology. You could daisy chain all the way to an iPhone without ever doing a human safety study,

and that's what's happened. So now we're 30 years later on joints that have been in the operating room forever. And that's why there's these recalls. You know, one company had a joint that started squeaking. Another company had a joint that started sharding off metal into people's bodies. And that caused metal toxicity poisoning, which caused Alzheimer and dementia in patients like symptoms because they were getting metal toxicity. There's an array of OBGYN women's health products that are crazy. There was that mesh.

And a reason I remember this is because I was seeing those commercials that were like, if you have this mesh, like call this lawyer because there were all these like lawsuits. So the mesh was, yes, they were using mesh in an array of procedures for hernias and different things.

But in women, their uterus would start eating the mesh and get up into their uterus. The tissue would absorb it. And so now they would have to have a total hysterectomy and remove their uterus because of this mesh. There was another one. I don't want to misquote it. I don't remember the device, but there was a device used to prevent women from getting pregnant. And it was literally, they couldn't take it out. Because when they did the study, they only studied the implant and the efficacy of the product, but they didn't study the removal.

Was it an IUD? Yeah. So a lot of women were having issues with them removing this particular IUD and creating an array of health issues because you couldn't just take it out. You even see it with testosterone pellets. You know, people implant testosterone pellets. If you have an adverse event

or have an abnormal reaction in your fast metabolizer, they have to leave that pellet in you and you just have to wait it out. So I had a female friend that had a stroke because she had such high levels and they just had to wait it out. They don't cut the pellet out.

So now you're waiting out the chance of having another stroke, because your hormones are so out of whack. And there's so many data sets like that in an operating room. And there's no, when I say also the Wild West, that's the approval process. Now this equipment's in the OR. Now it's all being utilized. But there's also trunk stock. So whether I was a

drug rep or a device rep, a lot of these drugs, let's say they were made and manufactured perfect. Let's say there is no risk factor and they're great. Okay. That's in the optimal environments, never exposed to heat or cold or put in a suboptimal environment where you could reduce the efficacy or potentially contaminate the compound. Reps are driving around with all this shit in their trunks of their cars in Texas, where it's literally 120 degrees in the summer. And everyone just has all these meds sitting in their trunk. Right. That's what it was. And oh, that's so bad. It's the same with medical devices. So when you read like a shaver blade that we put in your shoulder, it says store at room temperature.

But every rep has to pay for their own storage units to store this equipment. They store it in non-climate controlled storage facilities in hundred something degree weather. They drive it around their cars and trucks in hundred something degree weather. It is never stored at room temperature. And then you have hospitals that at times have outbreaks of bacteria and infections. And they go, where's this coming from? Well, it could be the fact that all these reps

are running around with none of their stuff set up the way it's supposed to be. Yeah. And it's just, it's the wild west. It's not, it's not this super safe space that people are told. Fall is here and that means it's time wild west it's not it's not this super safe space that people are told fall is here and that means it's time to cozy up with something special i'm excited to share that organifi has made their pumpkin spice even better than before with an enhanced flavor and

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I like to end on a positive note. So don't worry, it's coming. I just want to lay it all out right now for everybody because I'm sure I can just see my audience. Everybody's going, oh my God, like this is such a racket. I wanted to ask you too, more personally, because I'm curious about this and I'm sure a lot of people are. So with I wanted to ask you too, more personally, because I'm curious about this, and I'm sure a lot of people are. So with the insurance, when you go, I'm trying to think of like, there was an example that I had where I went to the doctor one time and I had, it was something,

I had like a clogged ear or something. It was a very quick, like, I mean, it was like a 30-second procedure. He put a little gun in my ear or whatever. It was fine. And I paid like $30 copay or whatever it was. Maybe a month later, I get a bill in the mail, and it is $1,600 for this. Yeah. I'm telling you, I was in this guy's office for four minutes. Yeah. He had a little machine. Like, it wasn't even a full machine.

It was this tiny little, like, air—it was like an air gun. Yeah. What's happening there in where, like, we don't know the upfront costs. I mean, people deal with this all the time. And you go to the hospital, people avoid going to the hospital because they're terrified that they're going to get this massive bill later. People don't want to go to the doctor because of what I just explained right now. What is happening in that world? And why can't we figure this out? I'm actually really glad you asked this. Okay. I'm so pumped about this. I haven't, I don't think I've talked about this yet.

One of the things that happens is the insurance carrier sets the reimbursement rate. So let me give you an example back to something that's near and dear to me, blood work. Okay. Right, I owned a blood lab and I went out and I still, that's what we do at WasteWell. We do comprehensive blood work, comprehensive analysis, proactive, predictive medicine.

Don't wait to get sick. Let's get ahead. Let's get to get sick. Let's get ahead. Let's get proactive and predictive. Let's begin to measure your risk of chronic disease and intervene early and often. Like I said earlier, the disease that manifests in your 40s started in your 20s.

We could have prevented it if we would have started working on it in your 20s. Cancer, when caught at stage zero, which we can do at WasteWell, has a 99% survival rate. 99%. Incredible. But we don't catch it at zero in America because we don't screen for it.

And when we do screen for it, we only screen for five types of cancer. Whereas at WasteWell, we screen for 200 types of cancer. Wow. And we screen not based off imaging, but based off your blood biometrics, which allow us to see at the cellular level if a cancer is developing. Okay, so based off that. That's incredible.

The example is blood lab. I would go to United Cigna Aetna. I say, I built this brand new blood lab. I would like to be an in-network partner with you. United Cigna Aetna says, no, we don't want you. We have our own blood labs that we have deals with, and we don't want another blood lab in our network. My options are lay everyone off, shut down my business,

and lose my life savings, or bill you as an out-of-network lab. What does that mean? It means the insurance company didn't agree to give me the contract, even though it's a monopoly. So the gist of it is you're talking about thugs. These guys are the mob. And so they won't give you a contract like they gave Quest or LabCorp.

So you're forced to bill what's called out of network. Okay, I would have billed your lab $350 if I was in network and they would have paid me $350. Because I'm out of network, if I bill Blue Cross Blue Shield $350, they will only pay me 30% of bill charges. So now I have to artificially inflate what I bill the insurance to get paid one third to get what I should have got if I was in network. And so a lot of times

your clinician is tripling the price in order to get paid a lower dollar amount. But here's where that's a problem. Those same gag clauses I was telling you about on the pharmacy side also exist on the practice side. And what they say is if I bill Blue Cross that dollar amount and Blue Cross short pays it, I'm required by law to go after you, the patient, for the difference. Right? And the insurance companies who set that up, not the lab, because as a lab, I didn't want to go after the patient for the difference. I'm required by law to show a reasonable attempt to collect.

So I would send multiple letters and hope that the patient didn't get their feelings hurt or even pay it because I wasn't trying to price gouge the patient. I was trying to get paid by their insurance company that was trying to screw everyone. And so your doctor's doing the same thing. And so a lot of times they're having to bill an inflated rate. And then even if they don't bill an inflated rate on anything they do, their contract says by the insurance company, they have to come after you for it. They have to make a reasonable effort to collect. That is not your doctor trying to price gouge you.

That is the insurance company trying to make you not want to get tested or treated, right? And it's working because patients go, oh God, doc, I don't know. I don't want you to do this to my ear what if my insurance doesn't cover it i'm gonna get a bill and that is why number one reason for bankruptcy in america health care yeah number one budgetary constraint to the federal government health care number one reason for the states individual states like initiatives and like

budgetary restraint, healthcare. So everybody's getting clobbered by the games that these big insurance companies are playing. And we've allowed them to do it. And now they're so powerful and so big. I mean, you saw senators are scared of them. Congressmen are scared of them. The government is scared of them because that's who funds their lobby. That's who funds their campaigns is big insurance, big

pharma and big medical. Does that make sense? Did I answer that? Yeah, no, it's just crazy. Like I'm just I said this to you in the very beginning, like, well, one, there's so much to unpack there. And two, it's a lot of this I have never heard before, but there's always been a lot of questions, right? Like what I just said, where I'm like, why did I get a bill for $1,600 for this like, you know, minor little thing? And also, I don't understand how people are affording this. Like it's putting us into debt as a country. It's so illegal.

It's so wrong. And your episode, when I heard it the first time, it made me realize like I've already made an enemy out of like big food and big pharma. But I was like, oh, there's, like, an even bigger enemy, big insurance, if you want to call it, that's, like, lurking in the dark that nobody even really knows how any of it works. Like, it's all kind of this, like, we're all in the dark about it, which really bothers me. None of us really know what's going on, you know, with, like, even with, like, the co-pays. Like, I never know if I'm going to have to spend $5 on a prescription

or I'm going to get charged, like, $100 when I go to CVS, you know, like that. Or if God forbid I go to the hospital. And it changes every month. Just so you know, when I owned a pharmacy, and this is the hardest part, you'd have these elderly women come in that are on four or five drugs and they'd come in a month later and they've been filling that drug for six months and they come in one month and all of a sudden I get a big on the machine that says, nope, we're not covering that drug anymore. You have to move this elderly woman to drug. Why? Because the reimbursement's better is the real reason, not because it's a more efficacious drug. They move it down the tier plan based off who's willing to pay to play. Okay. Pfizer launched a new drug. They're willing to pay to play, move her to this

Pfizer blood pressure drug, you know, and you're forced to move it. And then these elderly couples or people would go, that's bullshit. I've had this drug for seven months or, and what do you mean? It's not covered. And you're like, sir, I'm just the pharmacy. We're not, this isn't us. This is your insurance company doing this to you. And people are confused and they're lost and they just don't get it. And they're like, I don't get it. And they're mad at everyone, but they don't know who to blame. And I'm telling them, like, all of this lies with the insurance company and the big pharmaceutical companies. And that's who's monetizing all these chronic diseases and making the most, who have the most to gain off of this system.

I mean, it's so corrupt, it's crazy. Are the pharmacies also involved in this? Are they getting like kickbacks or is it more, they're just similarly maybe to the doctors where they're just having to report back to the insurance and the pharma companies. So what's happening is when we, and I brought this up again at the Senate

when I talked about Eisenhower's speech about the military industrialindustrial complex. But people forget there's a second half to that speech where he talks about the capture of our scientific community and how if we allow private interest and private industry to capture our scientific community, we will have a corruption of the scientific industrial complex. And we do. That's what we're experiencing. They own academia. They own our three-letter organizations that regulate them. They own the media outlets that report on adverse events and document any sort of issue. They are our only safety nets, the politicians. And they control the reimbursements, control what drugs get covered, all of it. It runs so deep. It's so terrifying. And they control the reimbursements, control what drugs get covered, all of it. It's run so deep.

It's so terrifying. And they make it really, really hard to fight. But one of the other things they're doing is going out and buying pharmacies, right? So I own, here's another example. When I owned my little retail pharmacy that built the insurance companies, I had shipped out almost $3 million to Texas residents in Blue Cross Blue Shield drugs. One month, Blue Cross Blue Shield just doesn't pay me. Wait a second.

I shipped all your patients these drugs. I took $3 million of my money and set it on fire for you guys, and you're supposed to reimburse me. We have a contract. Blue Cross says, we don't think you're supposed to reimburse me. We have a contract. Blue Cross says, we don't think you collected co-pays. I say, okay, well, we can audit that in the computer in 30 seconds. We collected 92% of co-pays. So at minimal, you owe me 92% of $3 million. Okay, we'll have to come do an audit. Okay, well, how soon can you do it? Three months.

That's $9 million now. Now you want me to ship three more months at $3 million a month into Texas residents on your, and why would Blue Cross do that? Because they don't want you to exist. They want you out of business because who is buying up the pharmacies? CVS Health owns CVS, right? CVS Health that owns CVS Caremark, the insurance PBM, also owns CVS Pharmacy. And there's a lot of money made by selling soft drinks, candy, magazines, all the stuff that are in a CVS.

When somebody comes in and has to wait 30 minutes for their medicine because cvs sucks and their pharmacies are terrible and you also have to walk all the way to the back corner of the store past all the stuff i always think about that yeah yeah and so it's this again corporate capture and so what they'll do is you'll get not paid by an insurance company and then a month later it it's, hey, I heard it's tough out there for small little pharmacy. Would you consider selling to CVS? We're looking to buy a pharmacy in this area. And so they're attempting to put out independent pharmacies out of business in an effort to gobble it up and continue the corporate capture and to continue the control.

And that was when I said, I'm done. I'm not going to operate in your system. I'm not going to do this insurance shit. I'm taking myself out of this. I'm taking the Waze 12 client base out of this. We're going cash pay because cash pay allows the patient to have sovereignty over their health. And on most medications, we can save them money. We can do it cheaper. And we're also going to try not to put you on medicines because the goal is to use food, diet, lifestyle, and like strategy to drive your health span, not write a bunch of prescription drugs, push you out the door and tell you to come back in six months. Oh, it's so amazing. I love so much what you're doing with Ways to Well, and we're going to talk about that in one second. I want to ask you one more question about all of

this that I'm trying to understand too. And I brought it up a little bit, but I don't fully understand what is happening with the deductibles. So let's say like I have, I think mine's like a $3,000 a year deductible. And if I, you know, go to the doctor and I don't even understand how it works because now there's two different deductibles that are happening, right? And it's like, I have to meet one and then they'll start covering after I've met that. Like, what's happening with that whole situation? So that's where this, you're great, I'm telling you, because you're setting the whole thing we talked about earlier with the PBMs capturing money. And you're going, well, wait a second, why would the insurance want it to look like? Think about this. A lot,

and there's thousands of plans. So thousands of different insurance plans. So I don't know your particular plan, but a lot of plans have what's called a donut. Okay. And what they'll say is once you've exhausted $10,000 in coverage, you the patient have to cover the next 10,000, okay, before they kick back in. Okay. So it's a race to wipe out your $10,000. If I lie to you and tell you that your drug cost me $1,500 and it cost me $500, I'm going to get to the $10,000 faster. So within three or four months, I've burned up your coverage. Now, I force you back to having to buy all the shit out of your own pocket. But here's where it gets more sickening. You are stuck paying the retail price because the pharmacy cannot tell you that the cash price is cheaper. Now put yourself in Meemaw's shoes, grandma's shoes, right?

Your poor grandma goes in there and she's on four or more prescription drugs and she's in a Medicare plan that has a donut. And that plan, the price points of the drugs are still set by who the big five fucking insurance companies yeah so they burn up her copay and deductible and coverage force me ma poor me ma to come out of pocket so she can't take all her prescription drugs or just come off them until the following year where it's covered again and that's what's happening over and over and over. And so there are literally a dozen levers that these insurance companies can pull to fuck you, to literally find a way to make money off you.

And then eventually, if you're that anomaly of a patient that they can't make money off of, it's just like the girl who wrecked her car too many times. They're going to cancel your plan. They're going to say, we're not going to cover you next year we refuse to cover this individual it's too expensive right and that's why people resort back to employer plans where they're part of a group where they're part of the herd and they're somewhat protected but by being part of the herd like again my companies my pharmacy and WasteWall, over 330 employees, they can hide the cost

and hide the profitability and move levers. And that audit I told you in the state of Ohio, it took 32 forensic auditors to uncover 200 something million in fraud. What is a company like me gonna do? Go hire 32 forensic auditors to go dig through all the misrepresentation of of like literally thousands of prescriptions that the insurance company says all of my

employees filled i don't have the bandwidth to do that nobody does where the money so we're all getting screwed yeah so you started your company as a result it's kind of like a fuck you to the system right yeah so do you still have a compounding pharmacy or is it just like blood work and so my So you started your company as a result as kind of like a fuck you to the system, right? So do you still have a compounding pharmacy or is it just like blood work and? So my compounding pharmacy, it's treated over a million patients nationwide. We're in 43 states. Our premise is we started out in the gaps.

So I took that book that I would get, the phone book size of everything that insurance companies said, hey, we're not covering this anymore. Patients are screwed. And I said, let's make all this. And that's how we started. And we're like, we're gonna make everything

that insurance won't make, won't cover, right? And then we call it the coverage of the gaps, right? We would find the gaps. What are they not covering? Let's make that. And then eventually we've refined it to be profitable because margins are lower when you run things fairly. So we have to actually focus on the drugs that can make us enough money.

And so we focus mainly on longevity and preventative care type medications because none of that's covered from the insurance companies. lot of what we manufacture at our facility are hormone optimization drugs, like testosterone, estrogens, peptides, a lot of what the telemedicine longevity clinics, like a lot of what Peter Atiyah talks about. A lot of those are compounded, unique proprietary blends. And that's the type of stuff we make. But then also, if there's a drug that they're price gouging the American people on, and there's a loophole that allows us to make it, and there's coverage from the FDA to make it, we will make those drugs. But even if you do make those drugs, within the confines of what the FDA asks you to make, you still risk getting sued by these big pharmaceutical companies

because they don't have to win the lawsuit. They just have to drown you. Yeah. And they have deep pockets. And then put you out of business. Yeah. And so it's the same racket that I dealt with in the insurance system, except the racket now is when am I getting sued by the next pharmaceutical company? Because they'll just serve you papers at your house at six in the morning when you're out trying to drink your coffee, try and wreck your life, stress you out and bully you out of the marketplace. But now I'm to a point where

I'm at a point where I'm punching back. Like I'm not gonna let them bully me out of a marketplace. I'm gonna fight back. And- Well, especially because what you're doing is actually really helping people. Like what we're talking about is what you said earlier, where an insurance company and a doctor

will wait until you actually have diabetes before they diagnose you. And I've talked so much. I've had so many like integrative doctors on this podcast. And I've always asked them, I'm like, I don't understand why are these conventional allopathic doctors waiting until you have diabetes? Because they're getting your blood work and they're seeing those numbers go up and they're not telling you any of that. In fact, I think it was Callie Means that had a story where his sister looked at his blood work, and he had gone to the doctor, and his doctor, I believe it was Callie, he went to the doctor, and his doctor was like, oh, you're totally fine. Everything's normal. Numbers are great, blah, blah, blah. And then he had Callie, or he had Casey, his sister, who's a doctor, look at it, and she was like,

oh, no, my guy, like, your numbers are going up in this direction. Like, we got to recalibrate things. And then now he's great and he's fine and he didn't go in the wrong direction. But if you don't know that this is happening, one, with your doctors, and two, you don't know to go to like a naturopathic doctor, an integrative doctor, and you don't know how to read your blood work, you could be going to your doctor every year and they're like, oh, you're totally fine, you're healthy. And meanwhile, you're on the fast track to diabetes, cardiovascular disease. It's all of it. And they won't tell you. There's two reasons to, yes, you're spot on. And there's two reasons that happens. One, our measuring stick in America is based off the average American.

And the average American is really sick. Which is chronically ill. Again, four or more medications, chronic disease through the roof, 50% obese or overweight, sorry, and a huge percentage obese. Like, this is crazy. And so you're basing it off a sick sample size. At Ways to Well and at most of these longevity practices or practices focused on functional medicine, however you want to term it, the preventative practices narrow that demographic down. So we base it on 18 to 25, a healthy 18 to 25 year old. Where were all of your biomarkers on these 70 plus biomarkers? Let's get you back to there because the goal is not to be normal. Nobody wants, I didn't ever wake up

saying I wanna be average. No. I wanna be optimal. I wanna excel. I wanna thrive. I wanna be the best I can be. Yeah. Help me get to the best I can be. And if we began to look at health, the way we look at a business

or the way we look at any other aspect of our life. In a business, I set quarterly goals, quarterly initiatives, and I track my progress. Measurables and executables, key performance indicators. That's what you do as an entrepreneur. You should use that same blueprint for your health. And that's what we do at Waste World. That's what Peter Atiyah preaches. That's what so many of these thought leaders preach. And they're spot on because you're getting proactive. You're getting predictive. You're narrowing the tolerances.

You're not waiting for somebody to develop the chronic disease. You're stopping chronic disease in its tracks. And how you do that is to get proactive and predictive and begin to shut it down before it ever manifests. And you can do that if you're measuring and looking and analyzing and assessing and then refining. So Q1, my blood work was at this on these 70 biomarkers. We made this game plan. We said the goal by Q4 is for your blood work to be this.

We tested again in Q4 and we reassess. Are we headed the right way or the wrong way? And I can go even further with what we're doing with Alan and AI. We can begin to project out the risk of all-cause mortality, the risk of various chronic diseases, your overall health score, your overall longevity score. So for instance, let's say you're a 40-year-old woman and you say, I want to live, you want to live to be 100, right? And a lot of people go, well, I don't care if I live. If you could live to be a healthy, happy centenarian that could play with your grandkids and run around and be healthy and go on vacation with your

friends and your loved ones, you would want to live to be 100. People just don't want to be sick to 100 because that's not living. but if we can drive health span and the number one indicator to to becoming a centenarian is the onset of chronic disease and so if we can delay the onset of chronic disease through getting proactive and predictive we can drive the chances of you living a longer life indirectly and no matter, we're going to help you live a better life because you're not chronically ill. Exactly. That's what I was just going to say, because I get a lot of pushback from people online and they're like, oh, just like live a little bit. Like, don't you want to let loose and have fun? And I'm like,

I have a lot of fun. And also I feel like the food I eat tastes amazing. But also like, that's also not the point. I also want to go through life having energy. I have a lot that I want to accomplish when I'm here on this planet. I feel like I'm here on a fricking mission and I can't do that if I'm sick. I want to have kids. I can't deal with kids if I'm sick and I'm chronically lethargic and I can barely get out of bed. And you know, I'm on a fast track to diabetes and I'm gaining weight. Like you can't live your best life if you go through life feeling like shit with like four comorbidities. When I was a little kid, I remember when I was like eight, nine, all the way through my teens, my dad was overweight. And he was drinking beer and dipping tobacco and eating burgers and all these things.

And I swear to God, I remember as a kid, my grandma and people talking to him about his health. And my dad would always say, I'm going to die fat and happy. I'm going to die fat and happy. And that's a lie that people tell themselves. Because my dad is now only in his 60s and he is chronically ill, in and out of the hospital, diabetes, atherosclerosis, heart disease, all sorts of cognitive decline. He is in terrible health in his 60s. And then you look at friends that I have that are fit and healthy in their 50s and 60s, and they're living the best years of their life. And Jordan Peterson has a quote that he talks about. You don't get to choose not to take the medicine. You just get to choose which medicine to take. You get to choose your heart.

There is inaction is a choice. Action is a choice. You can choose to pay your dues and work today towards health or you are going to be forced to suffer the consequences tomorrow. There is no easy way out. It's coming for all of us. But we can delay it and we can prevent it and we can hopefully buy time because there are fascinating things happening that I've talked about, I think only on Joe before, but a lot of people probably, but Dr. Ian White is one of my mentors, Harvard Ansari Stem Cell Institute, 22 years at

the bench researching stem cells. And we are doing amazing things with stem cell treatments and the direction of the future and what Dr. White talks about. And this is out there stuff, but this is real tangible scientific stuff that may exist in the future. We share a common ancestor with the eternal jellyfish that lives 5,000 years. We share a common ancestor with the Galapagos tortoise that lives hundreds of years. We share a common ancestor with the Greenland shark that lives over 600 years.

We share DNA with all of these ancestors. Within our genome are these data sets. And you have brilliant scientists out there using AI algorithms and AI-driven systems to try and find these genes and figure out, can we turn them on? And so my message to people who think they need a total joint,

can you buy yourself two years, three years, four, whatever it is. Because if you get a joint today, you're going back under the knife within eight years. If you get a spine procedure today, there's a 65% chance you're going to have another spine procedure within two years. You are now in the system. But if we can keep you out of the system, if we can start early, if we can prevent

and buy you fucking time, there are brilliant minds out there. Somebody is going to find that lightning in a bottle. Is it Dr. White? Is it one of these other Peter Attias? Who is it? Somebody's going to find that lightning in a bottle. And when they do, you've made it long enough to avoid being in that system. And that's all I'm trying to preach is take autonomy and sovereignty over your health. Do not let these people drive yours and your family's healthcare journey. Don't do it. Do not do it. Like view it as car insurance. It is there if you wreck the car. If you have a disaster and you need surgery, yes, use your insurance. Amazing.

But if you think your insurance is going to provide you proactive, predictive, preventative medicine, you're fucking dead wrong. And you're headed towards chronic disease. You are going to have to take accountability. And this is not, and so many people message after I go on Rogan and go, must to have to take accountability. And this is not, and it's so many people message after I go on Rogan and go, must be nice to be Joe. I can't afford that. It is literally a comprehensive blood test is $500, but that's with 45 minutes with a doctor doing a deep dive into you at the biological level. If you break that down over a 12 month timeframe, you're talking about basically

50 bucks a month. What do you spend on your car payment? What do you spend on a mattress? What do you spend on your house note? Those are tangible material things that come and go. You get one body your entire life. This is your one shot, 400 trillion to one, and you're going to ruin it. You're going to let it go because you're worried about spending $50. And I'm not telling you to go to waste well. There are hundreds, if not thousands of great longevity, like preventative care practices out there. Yeah. Find somebody not in the insurance model, interview them. Like you would a maid, a mechanic, a contractor on a house. Don't just go blindly,

let somebody start taking care of your health and wellness. This is your life. This is your life and your body. Take it serious. Take a little pride in it. And if you do, I think you're gonna be amazed at how many more answers you get when you have a clinician that can actually run a test,

that can actually have a test, that can actually have a conversation with you directly and say, hey, here are our options. I can do this. Here's the pros and cons. We could go this route. Here's the pros. It's a dialogue. Your primary care and insurance model won't do that because they don't have the option to. And they also don't have the time. They sit with you for six minutes. I mean, you know, I talk about this a lot on the podcast, so my audience is well-versed with this, but I'm such a proponent for this preventative medicine, as I know you are too,

because the biggest thing for me is when I go into one of those doctors, I sit down with them and we have a conversation for an hour. An hour. And we go over my past, like every health thing I've been through in my whole life, like down to was I breastfed? Like we get into the details of it, right? And then they look at my blood work and then I see them every couple months and we can go, oh, this number went up a

little bit. Oh, but this one has gotten better. And like, we can fine tune things. And I mean, to your point, what you said about your dad, like I see this with my parents and the opposite. My parents are 70 years old and they still ski. I love it. They go hiking with me. They are in the best shape of their freaking lives. They're retired and they are living there. But my parents just went to Switzerland with their friends and went on like a 10 day hiking trip in Switzerland.

Oh, I love it. And they're 70. That's amazing. Like that's what I want for my life. That's living. That's life. Like you don't want to be chronically ill, riddled in a bed, just waiting to die. 70. That's amazing. Like, that's what I want for my life. That's living. That's life. Like, you don't want to be chronically ill, riddled in a bed, just waiting to die. That's not living.

No. And most people, their reality now, like what you were saying earlier, if you're not forced, if you don't face your wellness and make time for it, you will be forced to face illness. And it's going to come pretty fast. I mean, look around right now. We talked about this with the Senate hearing and all the statistics are dark and they're getting worse. And it's to the point now where if you are not taking ownership over your health and doing something about it for you, you will end up in this broken system that we've just been talking about for an hour. And it's going to kill you. It's literally going to kill you. Yeah. It's crazy. And when you said optimism, I will say like the positive is there are so many amazing clinics out there and new tools are coming out every day in our tool belt. The cancer screening I talked about,

that's brand new. You know, it's only been on the market a short period of time and it's not going to be readily available at a primary care practice because you're in an insurance model. And insurance is not covering those type of screenings, right? Because it costs them money. And candidly, 80% of an oncologist's income comes from the chemotherapy medications that they're marking up. Those drugs. And so there's a lot of conflicting issues with the system. But the positives are there are so many new, cool, innovative tools in the tool belt. And the

price point of those tools is being driven down every day between biologics, artificial intelligence technology, additional screening tools like a DEXA and a VO2 max. I don't know if you have ever done those or had anyone talk to you. Is that the oxygen thing? VO2 is oxygen. Yeah. So VO2 is an amazing tool to assess your overall cardiovascular health and conditioning. And if you're in the top 25% of VO2 max health scores, your all cause mortality risk is reduced by 400%. Right. And these are, that's one tool that we use at ways to well to assess your health.

The biomarkers are another tool. A DEXA scan historically was used to assess a woman's bone mineral density and tell a woman if she was headed towards osteoporosis. But the amazing part about this tool is it also tells us how much lean muscle mass you have, how much fat you have, how much visceral fat you have, how much muscles on your right bicep versus your left, your right quad versus your left, your right calf versus your left.

And we are deep diving and building out an entire model and algorithm of you. And we know at 25, you were at this. At 35, you were at this. And now we're quantifying your decline on these various metrics or your improvement on these various metrics. And if we can help women maintain lean muscle mass into their 40s and 50s, we increase their chance at longevity. If we can help men and women reduce their risk of losing bone mineral density, we can reduce their risk of fracture

and we can help drive their longevity. There's so many cool cutting edge new tools and AI is gonna fundamentally change all of it. I mean, it already is, but it's insane what the future is gonna be. Yeah, I'm excited. We just gotta hold on long enough. Yeah, true. Yeah. Well, I wanna excited. We just got to hold on long enough. Yeah, true.

Yeah. Well, I want to ask you one more thing about ways to well, because I'm curious. So I've found some workarounds with, because I know it's really expensive, and I know that's people's like biggest concern when they're switching over from going to a doctor in their network versus having to cash pay. But I've found with some of my doctors, I'm actually able to get what's called a super bill where they essentially like show everything that they've done that I've paid for cash. And I send it in my insurance.

And sometimes, not always, sometimes they'll actually pay for part of it at least. Do you guys do that at all with WasteWell? Or is there any way around that? Yeah, we'll get people bills and let them try and get their insurance to reimburse. But a lot of times they don't. Yeah.

But what does happen is you do have those employee health plans where you're allowed to stockpile money away tax-free, and those HSAs do cover these treatments. And then one of the things that Callie and Casey are talking about too is trying to expand that to larger dollar amounts and better coverage right if we really want to get healthy as a nation we're not going to be able to do it within the confines of this insurance model no but imagine a world where patients were allowed to deduct tax tax free set aside that money and then write off their care on anything they're doing preventative and reduce

that cost. You know, if they could get 35% off, you're literally talking about a couple hundred dollars a year to stay proactive and predictive. You're not talking about thousands and thousands of dollars. Like it's literally a couple hundred dollars to stay healthy and stay out of it and stay away from it. And that's, again, where I think large language models will drive the price down because a lot of the expense is human capital, human resources, the trained nurse practitioners, the clinicians, the doctors, the staff required to provide this modality and these treatments to the patient. As AI progresses, AI will be able to read the MRI. AI will be able to read the AI progresses, AI will be able to read the MRI. AI will be able to read the blood work. AI will be able to do the consults. And that's what we're

already doing with Alan, our AI chatbot. I made him like this funny little alien as the first pilot. But we're going to give part of personalized is giving patients their own character. So maybe somebody doesn't want an alien. Maybe they want, you know, a more rigid traditional doctor in a white lab coat. Okay, well, that can be your clinician. And that clinician will talk to you in a way you prefer. You can turn on cussing or off cussing. You can turn on humor or off humor. And your avatar will review your blood work.

And then at the end, you'll get a human clinician that will hop on the phone with you. But instead of my clinician having to spend an hour with you, if I can carve that down to 20 minutes, I can drive down the price and start to make this affordable for everyone. And that's the goal with these large language models. It's not to provide lesser care and cut out the human element. It's to use the tool for good and to use the tool to make this affordable for the average

American. Because right now people are suffering and they're scared that they can't afford to be healthy. And the sad thing is you can't afford to be sick. That's what's bankrupting people. It's not being healthy that's bankrupting people. We've got to get our priorities straight and we've got to figure out a way to make this affordable for everybody i agree and look like when i first started digging into all of this i mean i was working like three jobs and i was buying organic food i was going to see naturopathic doctors but because i was being so crazy about my budget like i was not eating out i was not doing postmates and you know i i say all this being sensitive

that I know everybody's on different budgets and I'm on a different budget now, but I'm also of the mind that when you really fight for your health and you're healthy and you're clear-minded, you're going to be able to show up for your job better. You're going to be able, you're going to think clearer. And I'm of the mind that like when you're in that space, you're going to make more money and you're going to be thriving and like everything is gonna be fine. And that's my whole mentality. And that's where I got to where I was, where I felt like I fought like tooth and nail

to stay healthy and get my mind right and to really get to this place. And I feel like if people can get to that place where they prioritize their health, because I think we have a lot of priorities very skewed right now. You know, everybody's wanting the new iPhone every year, the new iPhone and like postmating every meal. If we can just help people understand that investing

in your health will dramatically change your life in so many different ways. I would say I have friends still from high school that, you know, are Texas people that live in the suburbs and they're like, oh, $500 is great. But you have a brand new Louis Vuitton purse. You go and have margaritas every Friday night and drop $250 on Mexican food and margaritas. You just don't give a shit. I'm sorry. Like at some point,

somebody's got to say the emperor wears no clothes. It's not, we can't make this work for everybody and not have a profit. Like everybody has to be profitable for this to be sustainable. Exactly. We don't have to have the type of profits that big pharma and big insurance have, right?

Because that's where it's just price gouging and robbing people of their health and monetizing their illness. And that's my problem with that. I have no problem with an entrepreneur or a clinician or somebody making a profit. Like nobody works for free. Your yard guy doesn't work for free. Your landscaper, your painter, your nanny, people, you don't work for free. So don't expect your clinician to work for free, but they shouldn't be price gouging you. No. And the way I see this too

is like, this is like a big like F you to that big system. Like F you, you can't control me. You can't make me sick. I'm going to get out of this system and I'm going to fight tooth and nail to get out of that system and make sure that I stay out of it. And like you said, I pay for my health insurance because God forbid if I was ever to get in a horrible accident, but honestly, I never touch it otherwise. It's very rare if I ever have to use it, you know? And that's just, it's also just one of those things where it's the unfortunate reality of the society that we live in. And when we know all of this, like, we just, we know that it exists and we have to do the best we can to get out of that system. And I know everyone's under different constraints.

And it's just, it's never about being perfect. It's about being better and trying to be a little bit better every day and trying to make better choices every day. But part of making better choices is understanding how and understanding why. And again, like an example of the DEXA, if I can quantify for you and say, Joe Bob, you're at 250 pounds, 100 pounds of body fat. You are headed towards all of these chronic diseases. Here's your blood work. I can now, with this tool, tell you exactly how many calories to eat per day, how many grams of protein you need to eat per day.

And I have nutritionists. You can get on the phone with a WasteWell nutritionist as part of your plan, no additional fees. Or you can just ask the phone with a waste well nutritionist as part of your plan no additional fees or you can just ask alan the ai bot like alan literally you say alan based off my dexa how many grams of protein do i need per meal well how many meals are you eating a day i want to eat three okay you need this much protein can you give me an example of a meal plan alan no problem an example of a meal plan would be grilled chicken, quinoa, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Can you get me that recipe, Alan? No problem. Here's a recipe for that exact dish, right? It's AI in your pocket 24-7. And everyone's going to have this. Like everyone,

every company is going to have this within three years. Yeah. It's there. It's going to be fast. Yeah. And we will be able to help people find cost-effective ways to drive their health span. That's the hope. That's the vision. This is so cool. I love so much that you're doing this. So how does it work? So you're based in Austin, but you said that you're all over.

So let's say somebody, I'm in Denver. Like if I wanted to be involved in Denver, how does that work? So it varies. Most of what we do is we can do via telemedicine. So like we have mobile phlebotomy across the United States. I think in 30-something states, Ways to Well's in now. I don't know that it's changing every day. The goal is to be in all 50 states by the end of this year.

California may be one of the limiting states we don't go into because they have a lot of weird state regs and laws. They have a lot of weird ones. Yeah. Medical states. And I have over 300 employees. And apparently if I step in foot in the state of California, I have to change all of my HR to meet California's crazy HR rules. And I can't do that. I'm in Texas and we have 300 something

people in California. Yeah, that's crazy. Insane HR rules. Yeah, California's not. I think we'll be in 49 states by the end of this year. Cool. Most of what we do is virtual. So blood work, I can send a mobile phlebotomist to somebody's house or they can go to a quest or a lab court by their house. They'll pull the blood for us. We'll get it back. We'll put it in our AI algorithm. It'll get loaded into a system.

The patient has the opportunity to interact with Alan where he'll review any questions they have. But then they also get a 45-minute phone call with a clinician that will hop on the phone and deep dive into all of those biomarkers. And then the DEXA and VO2 is an in-person test and any stem cell treatments or any of the in-person treatments do require a visit to the clinic. And then unfortunately today, my clinics are only in Houston, Texas and Austin, but we do have plans on expanding into strategic areas. Denver's one of the places. Oh, nice, cool.

Arizona is another spot. Miami or somewhere in Florida. There's key markets where we have a big presence and it would make sense to open a brick and mortar so we can have people do the DEXA and the VO2. But the beauty of those is that's a once a year test. You don't have to go to Waze to well. If you go get a DEXA, we could load that into the algorithm.

If you get a VO2 max, we can load that into our algorithm. We're not making money off those tests. We're just trying to do them to gather the data necessary to drive your health. That's so cool. Well, I love so much what you're doing. I'm so grateful for people like you that are providing these, you know, these resources for people because

this is how we get out of a sick nation, you know, and you're part of that. And it's really cool. So thank you. Thank you for having me on here. Yeah. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on. This is like, this is one of my favorite episodes. I'm so excited to release this. I feel like people are going to be like, their minds are going to be blown. They're going to be a little bit freaked out. So maybe we leave them with a positive, happy note of, I don't know what you want to say, but I feel like you've kind of already said this, but I really want to reiterate it that even though it feels like all hope is lost and everything's doom and gloom and this is fucked up and we're getting fucked left, right, and center and all this stuff, the cool thing is we have a lot of solutions,

and we have a lot of people working towards these solutions. So we have a lot of options. We just need to know that this is happening. And I said it earlier, and I said it in front of the Senate. 400 trillion to one, that's the number. Like, we talked about a lot of statistics of chronic disease and all these very sad things. But the positive is 400 trillion to one are the chances you're alive today. And we're alive. We're breathing. Like we can all celebrate that. Let's keep our health. Let's take ourselves

out of the system. Let's not let these people monetize us. Let's not be cattle that are part of the cattle call. Like we can get proactive and predictive and it is not that expensive. And it's going to get cheaper every day, every week, every month, every year. We are going to drive down the cost of health care and make this affordable for everybody. I love that. I also feel like right now specifically, and maybe it's with the Maha movement, and we just spoke at the Senate, and there's a lot. For the first time ever, I've always been really hopeful because I'm just super optimistic.

But for the first time ever, I have never been so optimistic about us changing this because it's finally being talked about on a large stage. Like it's becoming political, which however way you want to paint that, I see it as a good way simply because we're finally talking about it on a national level. I agree. Because even if you look at the negative naysayers of that Senate hearing were, oh, it's going right wing or whatever. And I'm not right. And I don't think you're right. But what's of us, our thing was whoever wins this election, we're begging you to address this issue and to take this serious and to help stop this corporate capture and help Americans get healthy because it's a huge risk to this nation. Well, and this is a bipartisan issue. I was just on Alex Clark's podcast and I said this. I was like, look, the health of your body doesn't know if you're left or right. Like this is not like,

you know what I mean? It's not like you're not going to get sick if you're right. You know, like cancer doesn't care if you're a Republican or a Democrat. Exactly. So like this is affecting all of us. The only thing I will say, and then we don't have to get into it and we can close this, but I'm of the mind that I believe that RFK, I think RFK and Trump have to get in order for us to really address this. And this is coming from somebody who's been, I've been a lifelong Democrat. I voted Democrat my whole life. But I think right now with what's happening, and I was actually at a movie premiere last night where somebody was talking about this on a panel with Callie Means, and Callie also said this on Joe Rogan, because of what RFK is potentially going to be able to do with that administration, I'm of

the mind that this is the only way that we're going to be able to fix this. Now, God forbid, if it goes the other direction, I'm praying to God that it will get addressed. I just feel like there's a lot of big pharma collusion happening, and I'm not saying it's not happening on both sides. But I just see one side talking about it right now. And again, like, I just, that's the only thing that concerns me a little bit about this. I've had the privilege of getting to know Bobby over the last year. And I mean, I just think he's a great human. And I think Tulsi Gabbard's an amazing human. And I know them on a human level, forget politics. And I know they want to do right. And so any team that they're on will have

my support because I believe that they truly care. And to me, as long as we can work together and communicate and push for the betterment of society and humanity, I'm team humanity. Me too. And I do hope that regardless of who wins, people are willing to step up and help drive this initiative rather than use it as another way to just plug big pharma and big food. on my Instagram. So I'm like, yes. Okay. So I have one personal question for you is how I end the episodes. Okay. And I'm curious to hear what yours are. So what are your health non-negotiables? These are things that like, no matter how crazy your day or week is, you prioritize for yourself and for your own health. You know, what's crazy is I used to overcomplicate it. And I listened to the Matthew McConaughey book, Green Lights. Have you ever heard that? I haven't, but I love him. It's so good. Okay, I need to check that out. He just talks about it's non-negotiable to get a sweat. Try to get a sweat

every day. And so I try to never go two days without getting a workout. No matter what, no matter how hard it is, if I have to get up early and do cardio on the stairs, anything is better than nothing because it's so easy to slip into, oh, it's been two weeks and I haven't worked out and I've done it. I was a device rep and I went months where I would wake up and go, I'm tired. I'm anxious. I'm stressed. Oh, my God, I haven't worked out in two months.

I'm just so busy. And I got to a point where even if I have to get up at 3 a.m., I'm going to make sure I try to sweat every other day. And my goal is to work out every day, like a 45 minute workout, you know, five days a week and stay in motion. But thankfully now with the way my lifestyle is, it's become entrenched. So I'm pretty disciplined and regimented. And so I train Muay Thai, I do ice baths, I do sauna. To me, sauna is so therapeutic, mentally, emotionally, physically going through that. I feel so good. I agree.

I love it. I just feel great. Love it. And once you get those endorphins, it is a drug, a healthy drug. Like you're like, oh my God, I need to do this on. And so those are the things that I try to use, the tools in my tool belt. And then food, you know, I'm the worst. Like I'm not great on food. I try to just make

smarter decisions and not overeat and just be intelligent, make sure I get enough proteins and minimize sugars. And that's really my approach and just be healthier, make better decisions. Like I said earlier, it's not about being perfect. It's about being better. Exactly. Exactly. It's about the little choices that you make every day that add up. And if you're making a choice here and there that's not that great, it's fine if it's not every day. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Well, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you for having me on. I appreciate it. Yeah. Please let everybody know. And I'm very glad we met at the Senate hearing. Me too. It's really been a fun ride.

I know. This has been an amazing ride. And I'm so grateful to be on this ride with you together because it feels like, yeah, we might actually be able to really make some change, which is really cool. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Okay, so please let everybody know where they can find you, where they can find Ways to Well, all of it. WaysToWell.com, Ways, the number two, Well. And then Ways, the number two, Well is the Instagram, the X, all of that jazz. And then mine is just Ferris Bueller 81 because my last name is Bueller. Yeah, I love that. Awesome. Thank you so much. All right. Thank you.

Thank you so much for listening to The Real Foodology Podcast. This is a Wellness Loud production produced by Drake Peterson and mixed by Mike Fry. Theme song is by Georgie. You can watch the full video version of this podcast inside the Spotify app or on YouTube. As always, you can leave us a voicemail by clicking the link in our bio. And if you liked this episode, please rate and review on your podcast app. For more shows by my team, go to wellnessloud.com. See you next time.

The content of this show is for educational and informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for individual medical and mental health advice and doesn't constitute a provider-patient relationship. I am a nutritionist, but I am not your nutritionist. As always, talk to your doctor or your health team first.