SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Reclaiming Health: Real Talk on Metabolic Wellness with Dr. Brian

Episode Date: August 11, 2025

Send us a text and chime in!In this eye-opening episode of Cast 11, host Megan McClanahan sits down with Dr. Brian from Arizona Metabolic Health to explore the powerful connection between lifestyle and metabolic well-being. From the critical role of muscle mass in longevity to how stress and sleep deprivation impact blood sugar, Dr. Brian breaks down the science behind everyday health decisions in a way that’s relatable and actionable.Whether you're battling chronic conditions like diabetes, navigating menopause, or simply looking to feel better, this conversation offers a wealth of practical advice—and a refreshing approach to modern medicine that puts patients first. With a focus on education, patient autonomy, and long-term lifestyle changes, Dr. Brian shows that better health starts with understanding your body and partnering with the right care.Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

This is a friendly reminder that we are here for entertainment purposes only. Check with your healthcare professionals before making any lifestyle or medicine changes. What we're talking about is our clinical experience in what we've seen. You can consult me as a doctor, or you can consult my guest and get all of your questions answered, but we can help to educate you a bit and allow you to think a little differently. Again, always consult your medical professionals before making any lifestyle changes. Thank you. Welcome back to Cast 11 by SignalsAZ.com.

I'm Megan McClanahan. And with me this morning, I've got Brian from AZ metabolic health. Brian, welcome back. Oh, thank you so much for having me. Absolutely. So one of my first questions is tell us where you're located. I'm located in the crossings. Okay.

All the other medical doctors are in that area. Right. Yeah, in Prescott. Right. Yeah. My next question is, who here is your target audience? Who is your prime patient? My prime patient is someone who struggled with health.

Maybe they struggle with weight. They struggle with high blood pressure, you know, diabetes, even family members with dementia and Parkinson's. Patients who are invested that want to have better health, if you just want the magic shot or the magic pill, I'm not the person. Because a lot of people these days just want the shot or they want something that will say,

okay, I don't want to change anything I'm doing, but I want to have the benefits. And so it really is an investment. And I love patients who, we're self-starters or that do their own, they come in and they have articles that they've read, they go, Doc, can you read these? Now I have time to read those articles. And I can say, yeah, that's a good study or it's not. And here's why. I love that. I love patients who are focused on their health and wanting to stay healthy and looking down the road of saying, okay, look, you know,

I have diabetes. I know what comes down the road. And if people are invested, they say, I can change my lifestyle. Maybe it's stress. Maybe it's sleep. Maybe it's too much alcohol. Maybe it's smoking and, you know, not exercising at all. And there's definitely benefits to all these things that are very clear for longevity. One of the biggest indicators for longevity would surprise me is muscle mass. So the more muscle mass people have, the longer they live, right? Because muscle is very metabolically healthy tissue. So people with more muscle have lower insulin because when you eat some cookies and you're working out, that sugar is going to go to your muscles. If you don't have muscles, the only place it gets stored is in the liver, in the fat cells.

And so muscle mass makes a huge difference. But the other problem is some people have a lot of muscle mass, and they figure they could eat terrible food all the time, and they can end up getting in trouble still. But it is very protective, believer in mind. Wow. That's crazy. You learn so much every day.

So one of my questions for you is, can you tell us how much you let you have the patient, a say in their care? You know, how important is that to you? You know, I'm very big on patient autonomy, meaning the patient makes a decision. You know, I'm an advisor. And if I recommend a course of action and you don't want to do it or you don't feel comfortable with that, then we work together.

Say, okay, given what's acceptable in your life, what can we do to get you better health? So having people, I think it's a good thing. You know, some people choose a more meat eating diet. Some people want more of a vegan type diet and say, okay, what are the downfalls of each of those? and what can we do to maintain health, you know, depending on what you're doing. And some people is just saying, hey, if you're smoking two packs a day, can we get down to one pack and start there? Right. Right.

Can we make a change and not drink soda every day? That's one of the biggest killers we have. And so can we just drink on the weekends? Or can you limit it to two drinks instead of having six drinks when you see your friends? All those kind of things of what's acceptable in life because ultimately we have to live our life and be happy and content. And so if those things are really important, we figure out ways around that. So adding an exercise, for instance, can overcome. some of the bad parts of alcohol, you know, those are those kind of things.

So it's kind of looking and saying, okay, how much results do we want to have? And really, how sick are you coming in? Because if someone has full-blown diabetes and their sugars are 400, that's when you say, we got to be more strict and get you healthier. You know, if someone's healthy, all we have to do is maintain that. That's easy, you know, but once you blow up your engine, it's harder to fix that. It's that, yeah, that repair is where the big cost is. Yes.

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So if I wanted to become one of your patients, how would I go about doing that? that. Arizona metabolic health, that's probably the best way. My office manager, we answer our own phone calls. We don't have machines and we don't have, you know, you won't go through a whole computer tree. So, and that's what I love about the medicine I do now is because my patients have direct access to me. They can text me? Hey, can you fill my medicine today? Send me an email text. We have a great communication platform. So you'll get an answer that day. You're not going to wait.

You're not going to have to call. It's sad. When I first moved here, I called the doctor's office. And he said, your calls will be answered as soon as we can. If you keep calling, it's going to delay the time it takes us to get back to you. It's like, well, what does that tell you? That means they're not getting back to people. Because my people now, if they want to get in the same day or the next day, they can do that. So they don't have to call me at night and say, can you squeeze me in tomorrow somewhere. So they can wait until office hours and say, hey, I'll take care of you.

I can see you at lunchtime. I always leave openings for emergencies, things like that. So that's what I love is that we have time and I'm not in a rush all the time trying to get people out door, you know, in the standard care that I was in for 18 years, I would have someone like, oh, I can help them, but I would put them before lunch and then I would work through lunch, right, because I'm trying to help that person. And then what would have is I get home at 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock every night. So now I don't have to do that because I have time with that patient.

It's a scheduled time. And usually it's half an hour or an hour appointments. And we have time to talk about anything, whatever's on your mind, stress, sleep, you know, mom's sick, whatever it is that we can kind of help you with. and having the best people in town that I can work with also for counseling if that's necessary or nutrition or whatever it might be. It's amazing. It's amazing what we can accomplish if we look at the whole person. Absolutely. What brought you to Prescott? Well, in California, again, I was working a lot of hours and I was in a really, really busy practice. And I wanted to slow down a bit.

And I've come through here. Actually, one of my old partners was practicing here. She was in the system, too, and she was getting burned out. And I saw I'm thinking about moving. moving your way. And so now we share an office, which is nice. We have our own practices, but we're in the same office. And so it's really, really great. And I just love, I came here and I love the outdoors and mountain biking and going for hikes with my wife and my dogs in the morning. And I just love it. And I realize the effect that I've been talking about it for years. And I was almost a hypocrite and being stressed and working 18 hour days and telling everyone you need to relax. And a good friend of mine one day, you know, we hadn't had dinner together

in two years. And he was the best man in my wedding and I was the best man in his. And I was explaining how busy and how crazy it is. And he said, Brian, if you were your own patient, what would you tell yourself? Oh. I said, yeah. And I really hit home because I said, you're right. Because I said, you know, driving. He was in Orange County, which is a couple hours from me.

But he's a pastor. So he works on the weekend. I work all week. And I said, I'm just really always, always busy. And so he's, that's not good. You got to slow down at some point. And that's one thing I realize we go for the mountain bike rides and we can relax a little so I can do that before patients and get my exercise in and get in the outdoors and

then work all day. that I love working too. So it all works out perfect. So I just love Prescott. I love the people here. My neighbors are friendly. You know everyone. And that's the kind of community I want to be a part of.

I always thought it would be nice to be that doctor, that town, you know, small town doctor type thing. And we have that here. So it's pretty amazing. We do. We're very fortunate to have the small town community that we have here versus where you are at. And it's so nice to be able to see you to be able to slow down and take that personal touch to your patients and the care that you have. I've gotten to know you quite a bit,

and I think it's wonderful. Right now, what is the most dire need that you see for your new patients that are coming in? I think the most dire need is education, to sit down with your doctor and to be able to ask those questions, like whatever's bothering you, you know, no matter what, because, you know, a lot of times it was the joke in the system where you would talk to someone about their heartburn headache and all that stuff. And as you're putting your hand on the door knob, they'll say, oh, by the way, I'm going through a divorce or my mom died or something like that. And the doctor would be upset. They go, I don't have time to deal with that. Well, I have time to deal with that right now because if we can fix that, the stress that you're under

or maybe making some lifestyle changes to say, hey, let's see if we can get you seven hours of sleep at night, those kind of things. And we have tons of modalities that are non-pharmaceutical that can help people. And so if we address those things, so if someone's sleeping, guess what, their stress level gets better, right? And if you're not sleeping, you're hungry all the time, and you eat more and you made bad. And we have, this is all scientific, you know, it's documented. So, and I knew that in residency when I was up all night on call in the intensive care unit. The next day, all of us were eating everything.

So it's this combination of, and now studies, and I told my wife at the time, there's going to be studies that prove that because I'm telling you, I watch everyone and it's insane. No one has any willpower the day after being up all night. No. And I can understand that because my daughter is a phlebotomist at the hospital. And so her body has changed. You know, she's up all night on her night shift. and then she just wants to eat before she sleeps, then she gets up and eats and eats.

And so I understand that. That makes total sense. Yeah, and police and firemen, a lot of people have these night shifts. Even if they're sleeping eight hours, if you ship that, there's consequences to that. So it's kind of figuring out how do we balance that out as much as possible. In your life, if you're stuck in that situation, what else can we fix, right? Not drinking before you go to bed. You'll have better sleep, believe you or not.

There's so many little things that we can tweak that people start getting better. And when they do, it's great. So now I love looking at labs because I'll see someone that was diabetic, full-blown, just yesterday, full-blown diabetic, now in the normal range. And they're asking me, like, what do I tell my life insurance? Am I diabetic or not? And so now we have debate over that because if you change your lifestyle and you resolve diabetes, are you just in remission?

Are you cured? Right. Well, if you go back to your old ways, you're going to get it again because that's what got it for you. And so it's amazing to see that where people have hope, you know, that you were asking with my perfect patient, someone who really wants to invest in the. their health. And they're, you're partners in that and say, how can I help you? And then we, we work together and, you know, I use continuous glucose monitors. So we can see what your sugars do. And the education, it's amazing what we can do for education. And when you see it and you actually

say, oh, when I have sushi, what happens to my sugars? Or if I have salmon, what happens? And people will change their nutrition based on that. And so as a matter of fact, it's funny enough, a good friend of mine who is, he's Italian, totally, he was all just die early. I'm okay with being diabetic. And so I said, let's just wear one of these continuous glucose monitors for a while. And I just got his labs back. And I called him and I was teasing. I said, what happened? Your sugars are normal finally. Finally, he said, that stupid thing you gave me, it's like, I can't take it. I see it. And I'm like, okay, it's not worth it. Because when you see your sugars go, I'd be thinking, this isn't good for me and I know it. So then he started losing taste for those bad things that were, you know,

and then he just naturally gravitate without any input from me, right? Which is amazing. So it's those kind of things I love seeing that. We just know that he's getting healthier and feeling better. He's like, oh, my joints don't hurt. My mood's better. All these things are interrelated, which is amazing. It is. It is so cool.

It is amazing just how simple lifestyle changes can affect your health. Can you tell me a little bit more about metabolic health? So metabolic health, it really comes down to the cellular level. Our mitochondria, are the little energy centers of our cells. And so when they get overburdened by eating too much processed food, sugar, you get a lot of inflammation that comes from that. And ultimately what happens is insulin, we start losing our ability for insulin to do its job. And what insulin's job is, the main job it has, has a lot of metabolic activities. But the main thing that it does is lower sugar.

So as an example, if you had oatmeal and bananas and orange juice and toast and a pancake this morning, your sugars go straight up. and your body says, oh, oh, sugar's too high, and insulin goes up to get rid of the sugar. And the sugar dips down low and people say, oh, I get hypoglycemic before lunch, right? So I have to eat carbs all day. So they're eating snacks all day long. But if that same person just had eggs for breakfast or something with protein, their sugar stay flat all day. And so you don't get this big excursion up and down because those things affect mood, panic attacks.

I've seen it all from a hypoglycemia, but it's reactive. So what happens is the analogy would be if you came to me and you, you're diabetic or alcoholic. And you go, okay, Brian, look, I'm drinking 12 drinks a night and I can't get drunk. I want to go have fun with my husband. What should I do? The standard approach right now is saying, well, if you can't get drunk with 12, have 13, 14, 16, keep going up until you get the effective one.

But a reasonable person is going to say, you know, if you're drinking 12 drinks a night, it's going to cause ulcers and deliver problems and great gain and all these things, why don't we make you more sensitive to alcohol? Let's do this. Let's taper down your alcohol for three weeks, right? And in three weeks, you go out and you have one drink and you feel good. you don't have to spend that huge bar bill. Plus, you're healthy.

So when people get more insulin sensitive, and that's one thing, a guy named Jason Funk, who's a doctor in Canada, he was doing all these talks on fasting and cutting out carbohydrates. And I didn't really get the point. But I reached out to him and I talked to him. I say, hey, Doc, what are you talking about with this stuff? And he's a kidney doctor and he was seeing all these diabetics with kidney failure. And he was frustrated.

And he was looking for ways to fix the problem. And so he says, look, if you have your new diabetic that comes in, and their sugars are high, check their insulin level. I guarantee you it's going to be high if they're type 2. So they have really high insulin, but it's not working anymore. So if we can make us more sensitive to insulin, how do we do that? Exercise, sleep, stress, all these things we keep coming back to. And that's the basis of metabolic health.

Because as we get older, when we're young, we can get away with stuff. Especially, and it's very interesting. I've been really looking at the data with menopausal females. Pre-menopause, even if someone's 350 pounds, women aren't an increased risk because they're storing it all subcutaneously because estrogen and progesterone tell you to store subcutaneous fat. But as we go through menopause, you can't store it there anymore. And it goes towards the belly. So a lot of women, as they get older, we'll get a bigger belly and skin your arms and legs. But that's the visceral fat, which is pro-inflammatory that causes all these things,

increase atherosclerosis, heart attack stroke. And you think, oh, we should fix that, right? Sometimes hormones out. But a lot of times, if we decrease that visceral fat, the inflammatory markers go down. and joint pains get better and mood gets better and stress gets better. And you think, wow, it's pretty amazing how it all works. And so the more insulin, and this goes back to the muscle point we talked about, the more muscle you have, the more insulin sensitive you are, because if you're exercising, your muscles will take up sugar independently. So you're not reliant on insulin to be forcing.

But the fat tissue needs insulin to shove it in there. So the lower insulin or the more even we can keep our insulin, the better we are metabolically. But again, I have continuous glucose mutters on patients, so I'll see people and all of a sudden I'll see their sugars go crazy. I go, what did you do on Tuesday? I got an argument with my husband or I had a stressful day at work or I didn't sleep well the night before and sugars go up from that. And that'll spike it?

It'll spike it for sure. Absolutely. So if I have diabetics whose sugars go out of control, they probably either have a urinary infection or some kind of an infection or they're under major stress. 100% of the time, if that's what it's, or they're eating bad foods. But if they're not eating bad foods, it's either going to be stress or it's going to be some kind of underlying infection that causes that. But, oh, it's incredible what we see with stress, the effects of stress on cortisol

and insulin and all these kind of things. So that's one of the things is some of us could be so stressed about not messing up anything in our health that we're stressed. And that's just relaxing. It's causing the issue. Yeah. And we have data on that, just calming the nervous system down. And there's some remarkable data with regard to early childhood trauma, right?

If people went through abuse as a kid or they weren't breastfed or they weren't they were not vaginally born, they were a C-section. Right. They have way higher incidence of diabetes, hypertension, or being in an unstable family environment, growing up where your parents were in jail or drunk or fighting or there was violence in the home. 20 years shorter lifespan just from that. Really?

Yeah, because it sets you up for being highly stressed and cortisol, insulin, all your hormones are out of whack your entire life. And there's other effects like the gut microbiome and things like that, but you realize, you know, when we talk about autoimmune, disease, 90% of people with autoimmune disease had a major life stress within three weeks to a month before that. And you realize how much of an impact stress has. Or it could be a stress of going through a major surgery, right?

So it's just how much data we have that's solid science that's out there that we're not paying attention to. Again, it's because most doctors are limited to a 12-minute appointment and you can't talk about all these things. You don't have enough time. No matter how smart you are, even if you understand it. you know, because it's, it's time, time pressure. And this is what you focus on, really.

This is what I focus on a lot because a lot of those things, we can take away medicines, right? That's what's amazing when someone doesn't need blood pressure medicines because we calm their central nervous system down, you know, get them to. Even having a good attitude. You think about it. If I called you and said, hey, I need you to go work in the field all day today. We're going to be out of the heat, you know, and I wake you at 5 in the morning, you're not going to be happy. You're going to be dragging not be able to get out of bed. But by I say, hey, someone's paying for us to go on a vacation,

Jamaica, all expenses paid. Like, okay, let's go. I'm a wide awake. So many of us, Monday, the most common time for a heart attack is Monday morning, Monday morning because people are stressed going to work. They ate too much over the weekend. It's a perfect storm. And also during the holidays, right before Christmas is the key for heart attacks because

you're not exercising. You're out of your element. You have all this stress. You're shopping. Everyone's out of whack. You're not sleeping as much. And so all these things play a role for sure. That's crazy.

So many things I didn't even think to take. into account. So I had one last question for you, and that is, how can people find your other podcast that you're doing right now? Yeah, it's on all major platforms. So life's best medicine and low carb MD. I'm on that one with Trow Collasian, and Jason Funn was actually a co-founder with us. And so that one's the one talking mostly about nutrition, but we have scientists from all over the world. And so any major platform will be on there, and they both have their own website, you know, life's best medicine.com or low carbemd.com is the best way to find them. But any platform will have them.

Perfect. And then tell us your location one more time. I'm in the crossings in Prescott. Okay. Perfect. Well, I'm Megan McClennahan and this is Brian. Thank you for being here today. And we look forward to our next episode.

And we will be kind of narrowing down some topics that we really feel are important. It sounds good. I love to anything you want to talk about. I'm here for you love it. Perfect. Well, thank you for being here. Thank you.