The I Love CVille Show With Jerry Miller! - Rebecca Griffith & Marc Hunt, And Martin Katz Joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On "Today y Mañana!"

Episode Date: May 15, 2025

Rebecca Griffith & Marc Hunt of Martha Jefferson House and Martin Katz of Advanced Wellness & Longevity joined Alex Urpí & Xavier Urpí On “Today y Mañana!” “Today y Mañana” airs every Thursday at 10:15 am on The I Love CVille Network! “Today y Mañana” is presented by Emergent Financial Services, LLC, Charlottesville Opera and Matthias John Realty, with Forward Adelante.

Good morning everyone and welcome to Today Imanana. I'm Alex, this is Xavier. We're very excited to have you joining us on what looks to be becoming a beautiful morning here in Charlottesville, Virginia. It was a little foggy to start the day off but I think it should clear up after a couple days of rain. Yeah, it's been really really rainy. I think we'll get some summer or summer-ish, summery weather in a little bit. So that'll be nice, that'll be nice. But in any case, we can help brighten up your day, even if the sun hasn't come out yet,

with a wonderful episode of Today in Miami. Today in Miami, exactly. We're excited to be here. And we have fantastic guests. We've got a fantastic lineup today. We're gonna be joined shortly by Rebecca Griffith, Executive Director and CEO, and Mark Hunt, marketing and admissions coordinator at the Martha Jefferson House. And then later in the show, bring him back on, Dr. Martin Katz with Advanced Wellness

and Longevity. So we've got, we're in the healthcare space. It's always amazing how these things work out because I know Nick doesn't set out, like he doesn't schedule desks with themed shows. It's just who is available when. Exactly. Right? But inevitably, we end up with these like themed shows, or that healthcare-themed show, winery-themed show, cooking-themed show. And it's amazing how it works out. And I'll ask him. He said, no, I just tell people to pick the first available thing. He'll probably take credit. Now that you said that, he'll probably take credit for it, though.

Yeah, he'll probably take credit. I actually was secretly. I just didn't want to say it. I didn't want you to feel bad, but I was planning the shows out in my ingenious where he actually has a logistical mind. We don't want to give him too much credit. So it's going to be a fantastic show lined up for everyone. As always, love being here on the Isle of Seville Network set.

Love our fantastic partners, Emergent International Services, Mattias Yonrealtis, Charlottesville Opera. And so we're a big fan of them. I think we had them on last. Oh no, we had the... The... Oratorio Society of Virginia, I think, was on. And from what I heard, I mean, sadly, with my little newborn, I was, I couldn't quite get her everything

lined up to be able to go. It was tragic because it was Bach's Mass in D Minor, but I think Nick was able to attend the rehearsal and he loved it. He said it was fantastic. So I'm sure everyone who attended that concert really, really enjoyed it. They always do a beautiful job. I mean, I was lucky enough to get Beethoven's ninth from them last year. So as tragic as it is that I missed Bach's Mass in D minor.

I still put Beethoven on top of that. If I had to miss one, I would miss Bach before I missed Beethoven's ninth. No offense to Bach. He won't be offended. Nontaking. He probably doesn't even hear it. So that was, I know you had them on last time, so that's fantastic. And we will have them on Charlottesville Opera as we enter opera season. I'm pretty sure they're coming up on future shows, so be sure to stay tuned for that. Already got some people tuning in this morning. Rosalia de Rosalia Tordaro from New York watching the show this morning. Nicholas Erpy tuning in. So always appreciate when he tunes into this show. We've got people liking the show. We've got Ditchie Bowlin Aiken liking the show this morning. Appreciate that.

Thanks for watching. So we always love all our viewers. And of course, if you send us questions, comments, we'll be sure to ask them to our guests. We always read the nice comments. There's never any bad ones. It's hardly ever not nice comments unless I'm saying something. The only mean comments are Nick on his computer saying something about a Dave yourself. We'll ignore those. I'll be generous. We'll ignore those. I'll be generous. But I don't know about you.

I'm excited to jump right into today's show. Sure. Absolutely. All righty. So we are excited to welcome to the show this morning Rebecca Griffith, Executive Director and CEO and Mark Hunt, Marketing and Admissions Coordinator at the Martha Jefferson House. Rebecca, Mark, thanks so much for coming on this morning. Good morning.

Thanks for having us. No, it's a pleasure. It's a pleasure. So for those who maybe haven't yet heard of the Martha Jefferson House or haven't met you guys, maybe you could tell us a little bit about the history of the house and also how each of you got involved. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, so the Martha Jefferson House is kind of this hidden gem of Charlottesville of senior living. It has a lot of history. We've been open since 1957. And we were opened by a local philanthropist at that time in affiliation with Martha Jefferson Hospital. So that's how we got our name. But we are no longer affiliated with the hospital. We actually became independent as a 501c3 nonprofit

in 2000. So we've been independently owned and operated for 25 years now. So, yeah, it's been great. Oh, yeah, this is your 25th anniversary. Congratulations on that. Yes, thank you. Thanks. And how did you yourself get involved? So I started at Martha Jefferson House actually as the marketing and admissions coordinator three years ago.

And the CEO at that time actually put me through an administrator and training program, which is how I became the now executive director and CEO. So it's been great. Wonderful. Mark, how about yourself? So I was at the Laurels before this for the last five years, and a different role in staffing. And then this position kind of, I became aware of this position and I applied

because I was kind of wanting to change the pace and I've heard amazing things about Martha Jefferson House. And so I met Becca and they brought me on and I had some big shoes to fill. Obviously. But yeah, it's a wonderful place. They brought me on and I had some big shoes to fill, obviously. But yeah, it's a wonderful place. It really is.

It's a hidden gem, literally. You hear wonderful things about Martha Jefferson House and everybody will say, oh, I've heard amazing things about Martha Jefferson House, but where is it? Or I've never been there. Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. I saw the pictures, I looked at the website and I'm like, where is it? You see this beautiful courtyard and this beautiful house, where is it? Yeah, so we're on Gordon Avenue, tucked off of Rugby Road.

So we're kind of in the heart of UVA student living, but we are tucked down a private cul-de-sac so you really can't see us unless you kind of drive down. But yeah, we're kind of hidden and we like it that way. So for those not familiar, what's kind of the mission of the Martha Jefferson House? We actually just created a new tag line of living well together. And I think that really encompasses a lot of who we are. So we offer independent living, assisted living, but also long-term care. So the whole idea is that you can come in independent, age in place,

and then when you need long-term care, you don't have to leave. You can stay right at the facility, which is really unique to us. The other really unique thing to the Martha Jefferson house that not a lot of people are aware of is that couples at different levels of care can stay in the same apartment together. And that's a huge draw for a lot of our residents. It goes back to that term longevity. Yeah. And that's wonderful because in the work we do with financial advisors, but we sometimes meet couples where one of them just needs more

assistance than the other. And that's always a challenge is like, I still want to be with my husband or my wife. So the opportunity to be able to do that is great because they can then continue to kind of live more of a united life together as they process, move along. So that's great that they can do that. And I would bet that helps contribute to that longevity. Oh, absolutely. To have your loved one with you instead of going through that stress of separation and visitation and things like that. Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely. So what are the types of, so I guess you've got, so what is kind of the services, the staffing look like? Because I guess you can have different levels that someone may go through in their time at the Martha Jefferson house. And so what do those levels of service look like? What sets Martha Jefferson house apart from, especially the skilled nursing field that I just came from is the staffing ratios and the personalized care.

ratios and the personalized care. I mean, one CNA to six residents is unheard of. And that's kind of something that we get to offer, just being a smaller facility. It's very patient-centered, person-centered care. So our staff get to know the residents. They're like family. Everybody's like a big family. So it's very special

Yeah, we kind of say we're a small boutique style senior living because we are small So we have about 30 assisted or independent living residents and then about 28 long-term care residents So we average to be about 60 to 65 for our census Which if you're looking at some other facilities in the area, that's pretty small. So our residents get to know each other. It really has that really tight-knit community feel to it, and I think that's a huge draw and what a lot of residents and their families are looking for. Absolutely. Do you see a lot of challenges with, you know, older people

beginning their, you beginning their maybe getting into Alzheimer's and how does that work at this facility? Yeah. So cognitive impairment is pretty much going to happen as you age. And I always like to stress that we're not memory care. We were never designed to be memory care. We are an older facility. We actually originated from a 1921 Georgian style

brick mansion. And we've kind of expanded over the years. So with our location, we can't take memory care residents just because we're not gated in. We're right off rugby road. It's a safety concern. But, you know, we can provide care and support to those that are not exit seeking or aggressive. So I always recommend memory care services to those families who might need that support, but ultimately we can provide support to those with Alzheimer's or dementia. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, no matter who you are, you probably

will face, right, the brain ages as the body does. So even if you don't get into one of those categories, right, it's still nice to know that you have, you know, the tools to help them, you know, and to be with them in that. Yeah, absolutely. And what's nice is, I think smaller is probably better, right? Because they get to meet enough people and then it becomes almost part of your extended family. Sometimes you go to these places, they're enormous. And I've been to a couple, so you see them at,

especially at lunchtime or dinner time, and they're all just kind of eating. They're not really communicating with each other that well. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But when it's a smaller group. It's definitely intimate, especially our dining room is very intimate. It's definitely a social place for all the meals.

They enjoy getting there and hanging out with their friends. Now is there like a waiting list to get into? There is, yeah. Not that I want to, I'm not saying. Come see us anytime. Thank you. So, I was going to ask actually, that's a great segue because I was asked what is kind of the process when people are like, okay, they're thinking that I may one day

want to be part of Martha Jefferson House. What's kind of the process of talking with you guys? Do they meet with people? How does that kind of look like? Yeah, so usually they'll come and tour, or their family member will come and tour for them or with them. And then they make the decision that, yeah, this is a place that we would like to join in the future and then they get on the wait list.

So kind of how the wait list works is whoever has been on there the longest, we reach out to them first when the availability comes open and they kind of work our way down. Many times, so we always, Becca always says don't let it intimidate you how long the wait list is, because a lot of times people aren't ready to move forward yet. So you know, like we last month we had a couple that was not on the wait list and we went through everybody on the wait list, nobody was ready yet, and so we were able to bring them in from the community. That's a good point, because I was going to ask this, what if you say, oh, I'm going to

get on the list, and then it's like, oh, suddenly call you and say, okay, we got room. It's you like you say I'm gonna get on the list and it's like also Nicole you say okay we're you know we got rooms like well I'm not really ready yet. A lot of our people on the waitlist are just being proactive. Maybe they know of Martha Jefferson House they always wanted to be there they want to get on the waitlist it's kind of that peace of mind you know I'm gonna get a phone call that a rooms open but I can decide at that time if it's the right fit for of mind. I'm going to get a phone call that a room's open, but I can decide at that time if it's the right fit for me or if I just want to wait a little bit longer. And that's, I would say, the bulk of our wait list. People being proactive, they want to be there, but they're thinking three to five years from

now. But there's that peace of mind for them if their situation changes and we're calling every time a room's open, they can be like, hey, well, my health has changed, my situation has changed, maybe this is the right time for me to make that move. I thought it was going to be five, six years, but you know what, I think now is the right time. Yeah.

So that's nice that you can be on that wait list and if it's not the right time, you can remain on the wait list. You remain right where you are. So you don't lose your spot, we don't move you to the bottom, it's by date added so you'll get a call just in the same order. If you lose your spot you'll whoosh. Which is nice. I would imagine the peace of mind is a huge element there too to know I have this wonderful

place that I can go right when the time comes. Absolutely. Now, can people come visit Martha Jefferson House and take a look or walk around and just see? Absolutely. That's as important. Yeah, we welcome tourists anytime. They would be meeting with Mark, so you get to see the face that you've been meeting

with. He puts on the smile and there you are. That's all I care. I'm done. So you would see the whole campus and get a feel for the community. Usually we have activities going on, so hopefully you get to see a resident or two, which is really nice. And then at the end, he'll kind of go over pricing and any information that they want to learn. And then they can decide at that time if the wait list feels right for them or if they still want to kind of do their research and get a feel for other places in the community.

I always say it's like going to college later in life. What type of dining experience am I going to have? What type of room am I going to be in? So it's a huge decision. It's a huge commitment. And we don't take that lightly. When you make that choice, that's a huge decision, it's a huge commitment. And we don't take that lightly. When you make that choice, that's a huge life transition. So we want to support them.

And I always say, you know, we're on your timeline. And we can help and support you in that timeline. And you keep us informed if your situation changes because that's how we can better serve you. But it's a good little community. It's really sweet. What are some of the amenities and things that... Activities, yeah. I was going to ask what are some of the activities?

Yeah, so we have a leisure and enrichment program and an activities team that helps maintain that on the daily. A lot of workout classes. We have seated yoga, tai chi, moving and grooving, workout with weights. We also have a lot of bingo lovers. So you will play some bingo. Trivia and Rummikub is a crowd favorite right now. It's a little competitive. So watch out. But it's really fun.

They really enjoy that. And you'll just see them throughout the home, you know, working on puzzles. There's the literature group, a music club. We have a lot of musical programs that come in, which is great. So we have a banjo player that comes in. He's volunteer. He actually has family members from his past that has lived at the Martha Jefferson house and he's continued to come. And then we have guitar players, all sorts of stuff, a lot of piano players. Yeah. That's beautiful. Those are the key things that you kind of want. We talked about it

in retirement playing, you got the dodo years, the slow dodo years, and the nodo years, right? And anything you can do to try to get those no-do years where you're not traveling anymore to resemble, I think, the slow-do years with movement, exercise, music. You don't want it to be like this cliff where like, all right, yeah, okay, my fun retirement time is over. Now I just sit around and wait, right? You want it to really be a transition where you, as much as possible, right,

you continue to do the same things you were doing in a different way in the previous phase of retirement. Oh, exactly, exactly right. And I think when, as you get older, one of the things that I've noticed is that if you stay home and then just don't have a lot of company, your brain activity begins to slow down dramatically, right? But I think when you are gathered with other people,

you're raised a little younger, a little older, whatever, and there are these activities, right? Especially, some people like to dance, some people like just to listen to music, some people like to read old or whatever. And there are these activities, right? Especially, you know, some people like to dance, some people like just to listen to music, some people like to read books, whatever. Also, you find somebody that has the same likes like you do, right? And so you're able now to gravitate to that area

and there's conversation, right? And that's the key, to be able to converse with people, talk to them, and keep active, whether it be mentally or physically, and I think that is very helpful. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, when you think about health, you know, you have to look at it from a holistic point of view.

You can get great care somewhere, but there's that emotional and mental need of being engaged with others, being socially present with someone you can have a conversation with. And that's something we really strive to do, is approach each individual that comes to us from a holistic point of view. Yes, we can provide your medical care needs, but there's more to a person than that. What religious background do you come from? What are your spiritual beliefs? How can we support you in those?

And it's just really important that we approach care as person-centered as possible. And I think we do a really wonderful job at that. Absolutely. I would imagine that that ratio of caregivers to patient is probably key. There's a lot more to be done in terms of, you know, that you're not just having nurses rush in and out because I have 30 rooms to visit today and I don't have time to spend more than five minutes with you. It probably can contribute to, okay, what else? We can talk a little bit. I remember when I've had relatives, even in rehab and

things, sometimes they just want to talk with the nurse. It's like, yeah, I just want to talk. And you realize as they're talking that, yeah, they don't have any actual medical questions. They just want to, they need some of the chat. They just need somebody to talk with. Exactly. Exactly. And you don't have to worry about that rush because of the ratio that you have.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And it's such a small community. Everybody knows everybody. And with our new residents that move in, our existing residents are really great about getting to know them and getting them out and getting them engaged in activities are just in you know in social activities so it's great. That is fantastic. That really is. That's wonderful.

How would you say I mean would you say being a nonprofit has helped you in that regard what would you say is kind of the the benefits of being a non-profit has helped you in that regard? What would you say is kind of the benefits of being a non-profit in this space, the 501c3? Yeah, so I think so. When you think about residents and what they're looking for, a lot of them, that really matters to them. They don't want to go to a corporate-owned facility. They prefer to go to a non-profit organization. I think the main benefit is that we can be independent.

We can make our own decisions. We don't have corporate telling us what we need to do. Of course, we have regulations we have to follow and guidelines that we have to stick to, laws of the land. But ultimately, if a resident has agency in what they can choose to have at their facility, I think that makes their experience that much better. So if they come to me and they can voice their opinion on maybe the care that they're getting

or services they'd like to see, and I can change that and they feel like they've had a voice in that, that's huge. So I really like that. Or a nonprofit, I think that's really important for me on like a personal level and also for the residents who are coming in to join a facility. That's a good point. That's a really good one. Yeah, there's gotta be a good comfort to know

if I go talk to someone and I'm talking to someone who could actually make a decision. Make a change. I'm supposed to, I'm talking to someone, but yeah, the decision got made 2000 miles away at a corporate headquarter. Exactly, that's what I was gonna say. Where the corporate headquarter says, nah, that's really not in the budget and it's going to

hurt our returns. So we can't do that. So we are governed by our board of directors. But that's another really cool thing about us is they're very active. When I say we have a working board, I mean we have a working board. I bring questions, concerns, comments to them and they really help make that change and drive that change. And it's really great to know that if I go to our board of directors, they really feel the impact that they're making and they want to make a difference in the community.

So I think that's just great. And they come to our town hall meetings, they meet with the residents themselves. So when a board member walks in, they know who they are. And that makes a difference as well. That's fantastic. That is really great. So I mean, this has been so much. It's amazing to learn about this in jam because I had not heard before. Matias Young had sent them to us and said, yeah, I'd like to. Me neither. Me neither. Before I had to go to it, Mathias Young had sent them to us and said, yeah, I have to look into this.

Next time you guys want to come for a tour, just let me know. We'll do it. We'll do it. And so, I mean, is there a way that people can both find you guys and support the mission? Certainly. Yeah. So you can find us at MarthaJeffersonHouse.org. We're also on 1600 Gordon Avenue.

Come see us anytime. And volunteer. I always encourage people to just come in, sit down with a resident, get to know them and their story. It means so much to them. Play a bingo game. Come join us for trivia. Do a workout class.

We're always open to that. So our volunteer program is pretty good. It could be better. I think any nonprofit would say that. So come. You can never have too many volunteers. No, come volunteer with us. We'd love to see you.

Wonderful, wonderful. Thank you both so much. Thank you so much for having us. I know you do. Really appreciate it. It's a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you so much.

And so yeah, be sure to check it out as we make our transition here, Martha Jefferson House. And if you can visit them on Gordon Avenue or you can go to MarthaJeffersonHouse.org. It's all one building, MarthaJeffersonHouse.org. Thank you guys so much for coming on. Really appreciate it. It's nice to see places like that, right? Because like I said, we've seen enough where they're huge and you just feel like almost...

We sadly visited some. Almost like cattle. It's like, okay, move them in, give them what they want, but they're lost a little bit, right? Some people talk to each other, but it's nice when it's a smaller community. I really do think so. I remember this from watching the Blue Zone guy. I forget the guy's name. And I know not everything on that documentary he did for Netflix was, you know, the day, all right, it's his opinion.

But I knew there was something when he went to the place in Italy and there was this sense that the more people you had around you, the longer you lived. Yes. And one of the things they found there was just no one ever ended up alone. Right. They always had, were living with family, community, friends, right. Exactly. This was a small Italian town. I'm not sure they even had an Arthur Jefferson house, but they basically,

they did it themselves. Everybody took care of each other because of the fact that they were so small. You never got the sense that okay uh-oh you're you've hit 75, 80 you are now on your own in a hotel good luck you might get one visitor every once in a while right exactly it was never that sense and it helped their longevity. I think there's something to that so it's and just even feeling useful right in other words yeah you've reached an age where it's like, OK, what can they do for us? And just make sure that, yeah, that's still good enough. And they feel useful. They feel like they're part of the community, right?

And that's fantastic. Exactly. Exactly. A couple shout outs. Bill McChesney watching the show this morning, Dr. Elizabeth Erpey, and Maria Erpey watching the show this morning. I don't know how much Maria is paying attention, but everyone to Aussie who watch the television. So maybe she's watching the show, so shout out to them.

And so always love our special viewers there, no matter what age you are. Absolutely. You can always today and tomorrow. So and speaking of longevity and wellness, we're excited to bring back on the show, he's back again, Dr. Martin Katz from now, this time, last time it was something, but this time with advanced wellness and longevity. Dr. Katz, thanks so much for coming back on with us this morning. Absolutely, welcome. Alex Xavier, thanks for having me. No, it's always fun to have you on. So tell us a little bit about the new practice and the idea behind advanced wellness and longevity. Sure, so I've always been really passionate about how we think about health, not really disease management, and there's a big distinguishing factor there,

and we can talk more about that. So, you sort of try to figure out, what does the conventional practice look like? We're there, we're spending maybe 13, 16 minutes with patients, it's not really enough time to get to the root cause of disease, it's not really enough time to address things that drive disease like inflammation, what nutrients you're taking in, the things that drive disease.

And so I was like, you know what? I'm so passionate about this. Why am I driving myself crazy? Why am I driving my patients crazy who want more time with me to explore these details? Why don't I start my own practice? That's wonderful. That was a big jump. There's some other reasons, but that's the major reason.

And how would you distinguish, I mean, I'd love to get your thoughts on it, between health and that disease management or paradigm of medicine? Yeah, so we gotta think about where we are now. And currently we have extended over the last four decades until more recently we have extended lifespan, certainly. We're living longer, but we have not extended health span in any way, shape or form. And you just look around, and part of the reason that drove me to start this was neurodegenerative

disorders. They are a very fast growing concern in this country. Cardiovascular disease has remained a huge problem. It kills approximately 900,000 people annually, which is a remarkable number. If you figure out how much we've invested, billions and billions of dollars, cancer is still a major concern and killer of people. It's the second leading cause of death in this country. Lots of people are diagnosed with it. Lots of people have a lot of morbidity, which means they don't die, but

they have a lot of trouble and disease around cancer. And then you look at this neurodegenerative, which is just increasing by an incredible amount. And part of what drove me is seeing my mother-in-law suffer from neurodegenerative. My wife and I, she actually moved, she was actually living, helping take care. So it's not just affecting the person, but it's affecting family, it's affecting so many people, and it's incredibly draining financially, responsibility, time. It's really hurting us in so many ways.

And so I don't believe that we're destined to have neurodegenerative disorders. I heard that young lady say as we age, our memory declines. And yes, we have some sarcopenia. We have some mental deterioration, possibly. I don't think we absolutely know because we're resigned in this country as we get older to not necessarily take as much care of our health. I'm like, I'm 70, 80. I can eat what I want to eat.

I don't have to exercise anymore. I believe that is an absolute falsehood. We don't pay as much attention. I think if we did, and we put as much time and effort understanding those disorders and what contributes to those chronic disorders, we would have a much better health span. So again, there's a big difference now between health span and lifespan.

And lifespan. Yeah, because I mean, there's also, I mean, there's, because you're right, there's a huge difference between, okay, I'm aging and, you know, maybe I can't remember something from 20 years ago the way I used to, maybe, okay, I forget something every once in a while, and a neurodegenerative order that is basically sapping my ability to live a good life in those last 20 years of life. It's basically almost cutting that lifespan short by saying you won't be able to live your life to the fullest anymore. It's debilitating in a way. And there's a big difference between those two things and you don't want the latter.

No, you absolutely do not want the latter. It is what's costing this country trillions of dollars. I mean, we have a 4.5, maybe 4.9 trillion-dollar U.S. health care system, and 90% of that 4.5, 4.9, whatever, massive number, 90% of that is chronic health care, disease management. And the WHO and the CDC says at least 80% of that is chronic health care, disease management. And the WHO and the CDC says at least 80% of that number is preventable. And that has been proven over and over again, certainly in my practice. I see it when people take the time to listen, to make changes in their lifestyle,

to understand what their labs are showing, what their advanced labs are showing. Now in the new practice I do do body composition, so looking at what their visceral fat is, what their body fat is, what their muscle mass is, are they losing it, are they gaining it, what's their basal metabolic rate. I do actually also do a breathing test looking at basal metabolic rate, which also gives you a respiratory exchange ratio. So at rest what are you burning? Are you burning fat, which you should be, or are you burning rate, which also gives you a respiratory exchange ratio. So at rest, what are you burning? Are you burning fat, which you should be, or are you burning carbs,

which you should not be? So you're now into insulin resistance. And if you look at insulin resistance, we now think that is contributing to a significant amount of disorders, obviously diabetes, but we- Even prior to diabetes. Even prior to diabetes, absolutely. And we now think that that is type 3 diabetes is dementia. People refer to that as well, so it contributes to brain disease as well, neurodegenerative disorders. And so insulin resistance, body composition, looking at these finer details that certainly contribute to disease. And that's important. I think part of the issue is that, and maybe it's just people in general,

you know, have this sense that if I'm sick, you know, just find the right pill, give me the right pill, and I go home, take the pill, as opposed to taking a step back and saying, how did I get here? In other words, what is it that caused me to have this particular illness? And going forward, how do I make sure that I either mitigate that or eliminate it completely? But I think the problem is that that's an extra effort that I think a lot of people just don't want to take because it's just incredible. You know people's homes and it's like, you know, they'd like there's pills galore somewhere and it's like, yeah, I got to take this for that, this for this,

this for that. It's like, it just feels like there's just too many pills, you know? Yeah, well, and the reason they don't want to take it is because they have this idea, this fantasy, based on our healthcare system. If you take a pill, you get better, but you don't. It's managing chronic disease.

It's not actively finding the root cause of illness, figuring out what did that, and then helping support that. So as a physician, again, spending a very little bit of time, and my peers, hey, by the way, you need to eat better in excise. Well, what does that mean? Yeah, I know I need to excise and probably eat better. 60% to 80% of Americans know that.

20%, maybe 17% are actually doing it. I think we, if you give people the data, give people the support that they need, help them understand what's going on. They'll make that change. They'll understand that, wow, okay, this pill may help short term. It may help that, you know, send a lifeboat

out for that drowning person. That's awesome. We have an amazing acute medical care system in this country. We have a terrible chronic disease medical system. And that's the difference. I mean, the surgeon in this country, you know, some medicines, I'm not against medicine. I'm against an integrative holistic approach.

Where we understand that some of these things may help us initially. But let's figure out what is happening at the root cause. I'm one of the few doctors that I know that actually ask people, were you breastfed? Were you vaginally delivered? Were you C-sectioned? That has an effect. How many antibiotics did you take? Where did you grow up? What toxins were you exposed to? You know all these root cause what do you do for a living? What kind of stress do you have? How much do you sleep? You know what and then nutrients I go through breakfast lunch dinner I asked what snacks you're doing what meal timing when's your biggest meal? I mean all these things are incredibly important

You know we we think we take a medicine. We're like yeah that has an effect on our body But we don't for a minute think that these nutrients do, but nutrients and food should be your medicine. Exercise is probably one of the most brilliant medicines out there. I mean, it does so many things to work on insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction, BDNF,

which is brain-derived neurotrophic factor, it increases that, so decreases your risk of dementia. Cancer is breast cancer, primary breast cancer, prostate cancer. It decreases that, again, through these mechanisms. I mean, why? Which are easy to do in the sense of you don't go through an insurance company and have to pay a bunch of money to exercise.

Right. Right. It takes time. It takes effort. But they're not, in other words, they're not financially beyond your reach to be able to exercise. Right there. It takes time, it takes effort, but they're not, in other words, they're not financially beyond your reach to be able to do. Absolutely, but so does being sick take time and effort. A lot. And as you age and get sicker and sicker, it takes more and more time and it's more and more debilitating and more and more unfortunate.

And you're not living that last whatever, 10, 15, 20, 30 years to your ability. After 50, 60, I think now the new old is maybe 80 plus for sure if you put in the effort. There's people who are just living unbelievably well with the effort, 80 plus, playing pickle ball, hanging out with friends. This community was so funny hearing you guys talk about the blue zones and it's Dan Buettner is the author. I mean, he does a brilliant job of helping people understand when we live in community, when we have purpose, when we have contribution, these are essential to human nature, having growth, purpose, contribution.

These things, once you're doing that and you're living in a community that supports it, does well, you don't probably need nursing homes. And Martha Jeff's analysis is absolutely beautiful and I'm so glad that they're here. But some of the other nursing homes in this are not places you want to end up. For sure. It's not going to be the best last five, ten years of your life. So spending time with family and being active, watching your grandchildren grow, For sure. It's not going to be the best last five, ten years of your life. Yeah, absolutely.

So spending time with family and being active, watching your grandchildren grow, going traveling, whatever, playing a sports game. And you know that would be everyone's preference. I think you know what- In other words, if you take the steps to not have to go to a nursing home, you know that nine out of 10 people, 99 out of 100 people would say, yeah, if I was healthy enough that I didn't have to, I probably wouldn't. Absolutely.

That's one of the first questions I ask my patients. Do you want to be healthy? Hopefully they say yes. If they don't, I say no. And mental disorders are another contributing cause, but, you know, is that, you know, cell phone use, how much sleep you're getting, exposure to toxins, again, insulin resistance, mitochondrial dysfunction, how much of that contributes?

We're a system, we're not just a brain and a heart and a liver, we're a system, so all of these things contribute. And so making sure that people understand that and understand that they can add to their health span and really live the way they wanna live is, for me, incredibly important. that people understand that and understand that they can add to their health span and really live the way they want to live is, for me, incredibly important. And I'm unbelievably confused as to why we're not doing it and why the system doesn't support

it. I have my reasons and I have my thinking and unfortunately it has a lot to do with money. And the systems that are in place are very big and very, very wealthy and make a lot of money on the system. So to change that is going to be massive. But it needs to happen. And there are certainly countries, and there are people talking about it, you know, more and more podcasts that are coming out talking about it. And so if you haven't looked for a wellness or a longevity podcast about time you did, there's a lot of very intelligent guys out there speaking truth to this. Pretty happy about that.

But like we said before, really it's up to the people, the person, right? In other words, you know, it's the old concept. You can bring a horse to water or a camel to water, wherever it is, but they don't drink, right? It doesn't really matter, right? And I think more and more people recognize that. Now, I want to ask you a you a question because you know we keep reading about this and I wonder whether whether it's true or not true or a little bit but we also hear now that the food source you know that we get in this country right really doesn't quite have the the vitamins and nutrients that they used to in the past maybe because of you know whatever we may pesticides or growth hormones or or by the time they nutrients that they used to in the past, maybe because of, you know, whatever,

maybe pesticides or growth hormones or by the time they pick them, they pick them really young and by the time you get them, they don't, you know, they lose some of that. Is that also a cause of concern or is that also possible as to why we're not as healthy as we should be? There's no question and there's lots of good studies that show that too many people, 60 to 80% of people that show that too many people, 60 to 80 percent of people, eat way too many ultra processed foods.

And Michael Pollan wrote a great book called Omnivore's Dilemma where he talked about this understanding that you should eat food that's made by a plant, not in a chemical, not in a plant like a chemical plant. So we should not be getting our foods in the middle part of the grocery store on the outside. We should likely be using CSAs, these local agricultural communities that are at your local Saturday or Thursday evening farmers market. Yeah. And these guys are really putting out some delicious foods. And start your own garden. There's absolutely no reason you couldn't do that.

Raise bed or even, you don't have to raise the bed, but just have something there at home. So I absolutely agree that our quality of food has some challenges, but I think if you, the environmental working group has a clean 15 dirty dozen at list that you can look at which food you should really be thinking about doing organic, which foods maybe not just because food is expensive these days. And we want to think about how we can keep that under wraps while trying to ensure we

get nutrients into our system to support a healthy body, a healthy cell. Yeah. Well, without any doubt, I mean, that's the other thing for sure. I mean, it's true. It's like, you walk into a store and then you go through the processed foods and it's just so many people just like, they put that into their heart and it's like.

And I think part of it is also educating them. I know you talked a little bit about, obviously what it means to be a doctor. Right. And to teach because part of it is, I think a lot of people don't realize, if you haven't been taught, like you walk into a grocery store, you see bread in the middle aisle, you grab the piece of bread, you don't realize what's in the bread. Like people just say, well, it's just bread.

I said, well, no, that bread is no longer made. That's not just flour, eggs, and butter anymore. There are things that bread has been ultra processed, but if you don't know what to look for, how to look for it. So I would imagine there's a big teaching component of, all right, it's one thing that you need to eat healthier. You've told me how you eat. You've told me what you eat.

How can I help, like this, do you help lead people to what they should be eating and how to sort of look for, look into the food that they're eating? Yeah, absolutely, and there's great apps out there as well, Yucca being an app. I mean, there's lots of good apps out there to help you sort of figure out, some of them give you a thumbs up if it's not ultra- ultra processed and there's not too many ingredients in them. So I strongly encourage people to use those apps and instead of going to the grocery store with people, I encourage them to do things like that.

I used to do that, well, I used to have a nutritionist who did that and would go to the grocery store and come up with lists of what people should be eating. Interestingly, AI has made that a little easier so I can use some AI occasionally to come up with nutritional plans for people that are less ultra processed,

more nutrient dense. And everybody's different trying to figure out is maybe a more plant strong diet better for you? Is more keto animal protein diet going to be better for you? Is, do we need to do an elemental diet? What do we need to do to get you healthier and on the way to health and feeling better? Everybody's different.

Do you need to have gluten out your diet? Do we do need to do more intense gluten testing? There's so many different forms. You know, just what we do now is probably inadequate. And so there are more advanced tests on that front So many different forms, you know, just what we do now is probably inadequate. And so there are more advanced tests on that front if you just aren't getting better, which some people really struggle with. So that's where these functional medicine docs, I'm not functionally medicine trained,

but it's sort of how I practice. But there are docs out there who are, you know, getting more advanced. Unfortunately, it tends to be a little bit expensive. So instead of doing that, well, let's take it out and see, add it back. And so that's where that personalized approach comes in and sort of spending time with people and trying to figure it out. Test, yeah, sort of, because yeah, you're, because let's face it, it's not, once you have an individual person, it's no longer something that's like lab controlled.

You just have to work with testing. All right, see's no longer something that's like lab controlled. You just have to work with testing. All right, see how you feel when you're not eating this. See how you feel when you're not eating this. There's only so much you can do to, I guess, do a little cause and effect because there's not two versions of me, one control group and one out there inside the system. Absolutely. Exactly.

Yeah, and that's the fun thing about being able to spend time with people and doing a personalized approach and having these tools at your disposal to figure out these things that we can take a personalized approach because so often I have people come in and say, oh, my neighbor was vegan. I went vegan, but I felt terrible. My neighbor was carnivore. I tried that and that, I felt horrible. And that, oh, my labs felt terrible. My neighbor was carnivore, I tried that, and that, I felt horrible, and that, all my labs looked terrible, my inflammatory markers went up.

So really trying to figure out what best approach is yours rather than your neighbors, and you know, great, they felt better, you can be happy for them, but you may need an approach. Exactly, absolutely. Yeah, and what vitamins and supplements do you need to help with that? That's the other thing I did create a supplement company

with three other guys who we've been trying to create, buy available, personalize supplements for that. And as you know, the last time I think we talked about the book I wrote, to try and educate people. And that's the fun thing when kids come into the office, the first thing I say, do you want to be healthy? All of them are super excited. Absolutely.

And then the next question I say, well, what does that look like to you? So very specifically I ask them, you know, about sleep, about nutrition, exercise, what are they doing to manage stress, are there any stresses in their life, just to keep that conversation. So I see them, you know, once a year, once they're old enough to sort of understand those concepts, maybe five,

six years old, and every year I ask them the same thing just to try and hone in on that, to help them understand, you know what, I can make a difference in my life, I can maintain health and be intentional towards it. Wonderful. Yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

So how do people, so what's the process like for now, because I guess now that you have your own process, you know, if people are interested to say, hey, I want to meet you have your own practice, if people are interested, they say, hey, I want to meet with Dr. Katz. I want to learn more. What's kind of the process of becoming a new patient? So they're welcome to visit advance.

That's no D at the end. So advancewellnessandlongevity, or spelt out dot com. They're welcome to call me at 434-448-9456. I think that's the number. I have a card somewhere. I think that's the number. I have a card somewhere. I should probably check that. And yeah, just get in touch with me there.

434-448-9456. That's it. Or go to the website and they can email me through that. Are probably good ways to get in touch with me. And they're welcome to come in. I'm happy to have a conversation with them to see if it's a good fit and go from there. Wonderful. Yeah, and if they wanna come in

and do a free body composition, if they listen to the show and mention the show, we can certainly do a free body composition to get an idea of where they're at. Where they're at, yeah. That's fantastic. That's great. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's fantastic. That's great. That is fantastic. That's wonderful.

And we did, Bob Schatza watching the show says, Dr. K is the best. Thanks, Bob. Brighton Wirt watching the show says, he's known you for long time, Dr. Great Guy. Thank you, Brighton. So you definitely, so there you go, you have some testaments on the show.

Let's see. Yeah, I see Vanessa Parkaments on the show. Let's see. Yeah, I see Vanessa Parkville watching the show this morning to our point about food says Shaw's story about a place in Europe that's growing meat in a lab. And then the product that is grown is put through a 3D printer to produce a steak or chicken breast, which does not sound appealing or healthy at all. Yeah, exactly some to the grocery store and you're like, if you don't know what to look for, you don't know what you're eating. So yeah, just speaks to that point.

Thank you, Vanessa, for watching. Well, Dr. Tatch, this has been such a pleasure. Every time you talk about it, I feel like learned so much. And just it's nice to know that in the field of medicine, there's people like you out there that are looking to say, how can we be healthy before I have to give you a bunch of pills? So I think that's so important in our community, and we really appreciate what you're doing.

I appreciate you guys. Thanks, Alex. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. All right, which gives us a little bit for Xavier's... Yeah, but I just want to say that, you know, that's what's really important because I think what happens is as human nature is you feel well, so you ignore everything you're doing that may lead to some day, some time,

you know, something like, I'm sluggish, I don't feel well. Then you go to a doctor and it's like, oh yeah, you got this, here, take these couple of pills. There's those 10 years, right, where you're eating the potato chips every day and not exercising, but you feel fine. Yeah. And you're like, I'm fine, I'm good.

I get the underage. And you don't realize that what's gonna happen is 10 years later, you will be suffering the other facts of how we eat potato chips. Exactly, exactly, absolutely, yeah. So it's good to really start from the beginning and say, ten years later, you will be suffering the effects of having potato chips in your diet for ten years. Exactly, absolutely. So it's good to really start from the beginning and say, how do I eat healthy to make sure that I don't have those issues in the future?

And again, it's a mental thing. People have to, in a way, re-educate themselves to saying, yes, I know what I have to do, I just definitely have to do it, right? You know, and exercise is one and it's just eating the right foods. Well, I just think someone like you, Dr. Fink, should probably help you with that. In other words, you've got someone on your team saying, you can do this, here's another plan for you, here's what works for you. Because like you said, you know, that's the important thing. That's the important thing. It's not like, okay, yeah, everyone needs to not eat gluten,

not eat meat, not eat, you know what I mean? Well, no, for you, for your neighbor vegetarianism worked out fine. For you, it's not working. So don't be vegetarian, you know what I mean? Exactly, yeah, there's something else. Your body needs something, right? And so, you know, Dr. Katz will be able to say, you know, this is where you're at. This is kind of the proteins. This is the, what you should follow as far as diet is concerned.

Yeah, that's important. You know, just to get you off that I think get people off that road of I'm not feeling good I take this pill it has this side effect so I take this pill it has this side effect so I take this pill and before you know it you're taking a bunch of pills each of which is in some way making fixing a symptom but each of which is also making you sick. Exactly you're causing some other issue. Yeah, and before you know it, by the time you get 70s, like, you know.

I definitely feel like, you know, we're definitely feeling a movement in this country towards people wanting to actually become healthier. Yes. You know, and not on the basis of taking pills. I agree, I agree. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. No, so I mean, so really from a financial point of view, right, from finance, I think a couple of things. One is, you know, last week the Fed met. They didn't do anything on Wednesday. But I thought what they said was interesting in the sense of why they're so reticent about doing anything, right? So they kept mentioning the fact that, you know, their uncertainty, right? That they're a little fuzzy about and cloudy about the policies that are being, I guess, implemented by this administration. And so because of those policies, they're unsure of

what the future is going to hold. Therefore, they're unsure of what to do themselves, right? And, you know, I'll be honest with you. I sit here, I go, so here is the Fed, right? And to a certain respect, they control the value of money. If anybody else, other than the administration, there's only one other entity, if you want to call it that, that can move markets, right? And that's the Fed, right? And so you sit there and you're going, so you're telling the markets that you're fuzzy, uncertain, you don't know what's going on. How are we supposed to feel about that, right?

Yeah. In other words, instead of giving us a roadmap and saying, here's what the administration is trying to do, right? And here's the challenges that we see ahead, right? And if these happen, then this is why we wouldn't want to race. Exactly. If everything works out the way that the administration wants to do, this is what will happen, this is what we will race. If everything works out the way that the administration wants to do, this is what will happen, this is what we will do. If everything falls apart and it doesn't work out the way they want it to, this is what we're going to do. You could even do that if you wanted to answer back. Absolutely, yeah. They just kept, I mean, there was one certain, one word, and I can't, I don't remember which one it is, but there's

one word that they repeated like 20 times which was basically the word that says uncertain or and it's like it's not what I want to hear from the Fed. In other words, you guys are smart, right? You guys should be able to say here's what's happening, right? And I mean let's face it, from the time that this administration put tariffs, From the time that this administration put tariffs across the board, where panic was just, oh my lord, we're going to see inflation go through the roof, to even today, we see a tremendous change. And I think most people expect there's just no way that this administration is going to put 145% tariffs on China.

And never change it. And never change it and never change It's just that's just ridiculous, right? In other words, it's a tactical strategy In other words who needs us more do we need China or does China need us, right? It's probably a little bit of both, right? But he realizes they still need us more at this point than we need them, right? So how do we begin to negotiate with all these countries, right? And this is how you begin the negotiation process and we already know. I mean, he is a pure negotiator. He wants to say, we need to make a deal that's better for the

US, right? And in the end, that's the bottom line. He's just saying, we just need something better for us. And yes, if it's also good for the other country, there's nothing wrong with that, right? So having said that, you know that that's kind of what was unfolding and it's already started to unfold. So I think going forward you can say, well, if the UK, the deal with the UK and what's coming out as far as the relationship between China and the US, if that turns out to be what happens, those are pretty good numbers. In other words, there's nothing in there that you should say, oh my lord, that's going to create a tremendous amount of inflation.

So as the Fed, shouldn't you be saying energy prices are down? And the Fed talks about the second effect, right? In other words, it's not just these prices going up, but the second order effect. Energy works the same way. Energy works the same way and maybe energy has a second order and a third order effect because if anything, energy is what runs everything. So if you get oil prices down, gasoline prices down and all that begins to impact everything else. Before you know it, you have a situation where inflation has decreased in that area and it

decreases across the board. So if something else is now more expensive, and let's face it, we're talking about tariffs. So they raise the tariffs on XYZ. Well, it's only that product. It's not everything. So yeah, that product may be more expensive, but not everything is more expensive. And maybe that product when it gets here, it's cheaper to ship. As a result of a deal. Of a deal, exactly. The 145 was temporary on everything.

Exactly. As a result of the deal. And second of all, once that product gets here, well, now energy prices are lower. Getting that product from A to A. Getting the product here is now cheaper if the energy prices are lower, getting that product from A to B. Getting the product here is now cheaper if the energy prices are down. Exactly. So in essence, I was like, wait a minute, we're really not going to see a tremendous increase in this and getting this to the consumer because everything else is down, right? And so I think to a certain respect, they're sitting back and waiting when they should be at least be telling the

market something else, right? And I'll be honest with you, I don't think the markets care that much anymore. I mean, bonds were- Other than bonds. We walked in today. Well, bonds went up because the PPI was down 0.5, right? So it's like, well, if the PPI is down 0.5, obviously the inflation numbers don't look as bad, right? In other words, we're not seeing the inflation...

The bond market is not interested in what the Fed's about to do, well, at least the long end of the bond market is not interested in what the Fed's about to do now. They're interested in what is the long-term inflation picture. And if they start seeing data which says that the long-term inflation picture is not in fact a complete disaster. It's not double prices, right? Then it doesn't matter how uncertain the Fed tells them they are. They're going to be like, well, you're telling me you don't know what's going on, and I'm getting data saying the long-term picture looks better. Bond prices are going to go up.

Exactly. Yeah. So I think to some respect, I was disappointed. Not so much from, they can make a decision whichever they want, but I want a little more clarity as to why you're doing that. Which is unusual, because I mean the usual, I mean the Fed has no shortage of people, let's put it this way, that truly believe that they are very smart and know what the economy's doing.

So for them to come out and imply that they don't know what's going on is a little unusual for them. Yeah. So anyway, so all that, again, it creates uncertainty in the marketplace and when there's uncertainty, and I mean, you and I talked about going into 2025, right?

There's going to be challenges, right? I mean, nothing looked rosy, right? Yeah. So 2025 was going to be a challenging year no matter who came into administration, no matter what was happening, right? We walked into this this year on January 1st and there was over a trillion dollars of consumer debt. Yes. Right? So doesn't matter what, you know, who was president right now, you still have a trillion dollars of consumer debt.

That's gonna show up eventually somehow some way. Now, can you do things to exacerbate it? Could you make decisions to mitigate it? Yes, but you can't make it disappear. Exactly. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. So I think from that perspective, you know, 2025 was one of those years where you say, okay, I'm going to mitigate maybe some of the risk, right, in portfolios because, you know, focus a little more on income, right, because income is safer, right, and mitigate a little bit of market risk so that no matter what happens, the markets go up great, right, but if the markets do not go up, if there's, you know, obviously volatility in the marketplace, then I know portfolios are a little more protected right so so I

think 2025 has turned out to be that kind we see markets go up a little news comes out they go up news comes down they come down and so on and so forth so we've seen that right I've used some volatility so so I think being a little I don't want to say the word conservative, but again, just kind of pull back a little on the reins in portfolios because of that, I think made sense in this particular year. And I feel that when you've got volatile markets, right,

you need to do two, one is you can be tactical, you can do certain things in between the periods of volatility, right, to gain a little extra in the portfolio. But the one thing you can't do is just pull out and stay out. Because if you pull out at the wrong time, think about it, April 2nd and 3rd and 4th of the big rough. If you pulled out on April 10th, because you were like, this thing's going to crash, it's over, I've lost a bunch of money, I'm putting all my money in cash, well, right now you are taking yourself.

Yeah, exactly. Because you, in other words, yeah, it was volatile, but it was also volatile on the way back up, and if you had left it there, you'd be exactly where you were on January 1st. So, the S&P 500 finally kicked into positive territory yesterday. Exactly. Right? So, the worst thing you could have done was to try to guess and leave the whole thing.

It doesn't mean you can't make certain moves in between and be tactical, but you can never take the strategy of like, I need out completely. Yeah. Oh, no, without any doubt. I mean, that's a very good point. And these are the kind of years where opportunities pop up all the time, right? Volatility creates opportunities, they always say that.

And we've seen that, right? And that's one, yes, if you have the ability or the time to look for them, you can find them. And that's the key, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Well, that's some Xavier advice for the day. Yeah.

Your two cents. My two cents worth. I thought it was more like five cents today. So that's good. That's good. I thought two cents doesn't quite do it justice. Yeah. What was that Yogi Berra, a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore or something like that?

Yeah, a nickel ain't worth a dime anymore. Or maybe it was the two cents. And two cents ain't worth a nickel anymore, I think. That wasn't. I forget exactly. It was something of that sort yeah that's always good but it was a good show it was always appreciate some some great people in our community doing great things so we're looking you know

that always enjoy that be sure to send us anyone you know that that you think would love to be featured on the show we love we love featuring people from our community we strongly do on today mananaana. Next week we got some other great desks lined up, we're two weeks from now. We're going to have Mardo Steinlage, Angela Windet from the Steinlage Insurance Agency. Oh yes, yes, yes, and that's important, yeah. And Weston Wirt from Breezewell Builders is going to be coming up, so always appreciate that, that'll be fun. Absolutely, yeah.

So we're going to have some great desks in a couple weeks. Of course in the meantime, really appreciate everyone who tuned in today. All our fantastic viewers and everyone who commented. I always appreciate that for sure. Love being here on the I Love Sivo Network set. Judah behind the camera made this all the good. Judah had his work cut out for him today. He helped us to organize everything. So we appreciate that. We threw him a curveball. We threw him a curveball and he was able to hit it out of the park. And he still hit it out of the park, so he always does that. So he's a great curveball hitter, too. So we appreciate that. Of course, love our partners, Emergent Financial Services, Charlottesville Opera, Matthias Yonrealti. Appreciate all of you out there. Enjoy. It's

going to be a nice day. I see the sun now. So we've brightened you up during the FOD, and now there's some sun. So be sure to enjoy the rest of your day. We look forward to seeing you all in a couple weeks. But until that time, as we'd like to close it out on the show, hasta mañana. you