The Rich Roll Podcast - Sanjay Gupta, MD On Chasing Health, Work-Life Balance & Responsible Journalism

Episode Date: June 7, 2019

“Human existence is but the blink of an eye. It doesn’t take much research to think about how we evolved and why we evolve the way that we do.” Dr. Sanjay Gupta Western medicine is extraordinary. Over the last several decades, scientific advances in the diagnosis and treatment of previously thought incurable diseases has utterly transformed how we live. But with these breakthroughs comes an arrogance — a hubris that modalities outside the very narrow rubric of our dominant paradigm are without value — archaic, outdated legacies of less developed cultures. But is this always the case? Or do lessons remain to be learned by taking a critical but objective look at how other societies approach health and well-being? This question nagged at Sanjay Gupta, MD. So he decided to find answers for himself. For those unfamiliar, Sanjay is the associate chief of neurosurgery at Atlanta's Grady Memorial Hospital and assistant professor of neurosurgery at the Emory University School of Medicine. But most people know him as the multiple Emmy-award winning chief medical correspondent for CNN. In his tenure as a journalist he has spent decades covering everything from the 2003 invasion of Iraq to the Haiti earthquake in 2010, where he performed surgery on a 12-year-old girl earthquake victim along with Henri Ford and two U.S. Navy doctors. If that's not enough, this dad, husband, and novelist was named among “The Sexiest Man Alive” by People magazine and in 2009 was selected for the position of Surgeon General by President Barack Obama — a job he declined. To answer the aforementioned question, Sanjay spent the last year traveling the world, finding where people live longer, happier and more functional lives than anywhere else on the planet. The result of his quest is the recently-aired CNN Original Series Chasing Life — must-see TV if you haven't caught it already. Today we cover his origin story and incredible career. We discuss the responsibility of journalism in the era of alternative facts — and the role storytelling has played in his personal brand of reporting. We talk about his time in the White House, what it's like covering overseas conflict zones overseas, and how he manages his work- life balance. In addition, we canvass the current state of health care in America, what he learned about health, happiness and longevity in the course of producing Chasing Life, and the not to be overstated incredible impact Sanjay has had on my own life. Over the years Sanjay has become a good friend, as well as a mentor to me. He is someone I have wanted to get on the show from day one. I love this guy, and I’m delighted to help share his story with you today. The visually inclined can watch our entire conversation on YouTube here: bit.ly/sanjaygupta446 (please subscribe!)  Peace + Plants, Rich

I love our healthcare system in this country. I'm a member of it. I practice in it. But I also recognize that we spend three and a half trillion dollars on healthcare, and we don't get in return what we should for that. We have dropping life expectancy three years in a row. We're 23rd in the world with regard to life expectancy behind Cyprus and Chile and Costa Rica. They're all ahead of us. We're expected to drop even further over the next 20 years. So there must be places around the world where people are living happier, healthier, better

lives than we are. And I want to know what they're doing. I want to know how they're doing it and to understand what really works, prove it, and bring those stories back to the viewers. That's Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and this is The Rich Roll Podcast. The Rich Roll Podcast. I think we can all agree that Western medicine is a good thing, an extraordinary thing. The progress, the scientific advances that we've made when it comes to everything from the diagnosis, the treatment, and the curing of acute conditions,

previously thought incurable diseases, is absolutely staggering. But I also think that with these breakthroughs comes a sort of arrogance, an arrogance that we have it all figured out that systems and modalities that exist outside the very narrow rubric of our Western medicine paradigm are of no value, that they are archaic or anachronistic, outdated legacies of less developed cultures and minds. But is this always the case? Or do lessons remain to be learned from taking an objective look at how other cultures approach

health and well-being? My name is Rich Roll. This is my podcast. And today I field that question with our guest. His name is Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Sanjay Gupta, MD. And if that name sounds familiar, it's because it probably is. In addition to being a practicing neurosurgeon, Sanjay has a habit of showing up on television screens around the world as the multiple Emmy award-winning chief medical correspondent for CNN, something he's been doing for many years. And to answer this question, Sanjay travels around the world. He looks for people who live longer, live happier, live more functional lives than anyone else on the planet. Kind of like my buddy Dan Buettner did with all the work he's done with the Blue Zones,

but also a little bit different. And Sanjay pulled all of this together for this really cool CNN original series that aired recently called Chasing Life. It's really great. It's a must watch if you haven't seen it already. And it's just a part of what we're going to cover with this man today. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time.

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the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, Sanjay Gupta. Oh, he's a beautiful man of many talents, neurosurgeon, bestselling author, television show creator, investigative journalist, war correspondent, husband, father. I mean, I don't know if there's anything this guy can't do. And if that's not enough, in 2009, President Barack Obama offered him the position of U.S. Surgeon General, which he declined. We talk about that today. And today we cover it all. We cover his origin story, his incredible career, the importance of storytelling in journalism, what it was like to work in the White House, what it was like covering conflict zones overseas, how he manages his work-life balance,

the current state of healthcare in America, what he learned traveling the world to study health, happiness, and longevity doing his Chasing Life show, and the not-to-be overstated incredible impact that he has had on my own life. So I love this man. Sanjay is a friend. He is a mentor. He's somebody I've wanted to get on the show from the get-go, and I'm delighted to help share his story with you guys today. I do want to mention one final little weird thingy I feel like I need to address. During the conversation about 55 minutes in or so, right when I felt like we were finally just getting warmed up and hitting our stride, Like we were finally just getting warmed up and hitting our stride. Blake, my video guy, slips me this note that I guess was from Sanjay's publicist that said Sanjay had a hard out and that I had five minutes to wrap up the whole thing.

So needless to say, this was news to me. I was pretty sure that I cleared a good two hour window for this conversation. So suddenly I found myself in a pickle and a bit of a predicament what to do in this moment. And I opted to just relent, which meant having to bring this whole thing to a rather inelegant close, which was less than ideal. So there was just lots of stuff that I wanted to talk to him about that was left on the table, stuff that I planned to talk to him about that I just couldn't get to. And so that's why the whole thing might sound a little bit awkward and rushed in the final minutes, which is kind of a bummer. One hour conversations aren't really what I do. But I do want to make sure you know that none of this was Sanjay's fault. He was totally

good to go as long as I wanted to talk. I don't think he had any idea about any of this. And the irony here is that I don't actually think there was a hard out. That's the odd thing. I'm pretty sure it was a publicist thing. So I'm just going to leave it at that. Nonetheless, like I said, Sanjay is awesome. I really do love this man and there's plenty here to enjoy. So that's it. This is me and the great Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Who came up with the three meals a day anyway? Food industry. Yeah.

I mean, you know, the vested interests, you just start channeling it further and further back. And yeah, I mean, you know, and then I think it got sustained by our own emotional needs, you know, as a substitute for the comfort foods, so to speak. And then it became entrenched conventional wisdom that breakfast is the most important meal of the day forever. And now that's sort of out the window. It's interesting how these things change, as they should, as we learn more, right? Yeah. And it's funny when you're a TV doc doing this stuff because, you know, you always get accused of flip-flopping, right? That's the thing.

One study today, another study tomorrow, and you can sort of see why people get a little annoyed by that and breakfast was a good example because i've always said that i think and i i think you and i even have this kind of conversation breakfast like a king lunch like a prince and dinner like a peasant you know front load your calories uh-huh that made the most sense and um and there were studies that i read well, you'll eat fewer calories then throughout the day. You won't have as many cravings, all this sort of stuff. You'll be more productive earlier in the day. And then the study comes out that says, actually, if you eat a big breakfast, you're not likely to lose weight. And everybody's like, are you kidding me?

And first of all, they blame me. I based my whole life on this idea. Yeah, and somehow it's your fault. Right. But, you know, the thing about it Yeah, and somehow it's your fault. Right. But, you know, the thing about it is that those studies are just really hard to do. Almost all of them, they count on people recalling their meals really well. They count on people being honest about what they've eaten. Yeah, super unreliable.

Super unreliable. And then if you actually looked at the data, the difference in weight was about 1.6 pounds. Now, it's not nothing, but it's not sort of earth shattering either. But the sort of binary response is breakfast no longer good. That ends up being the headline. And if people want to dig just another layer under the surface, they get a more complete picture of things. So I still think breakfast is the most important meal. Have you experimented with intermittent fasting? Yeah.

In fact, I did Walter Longo's program where I did the five days and I ate the meal replacements, which I guess was probably under 500 calories a day. And the one thing he said to me, and I experienced it, was sort of by end of day two, you think you're hungry day one. End of day two, I felt great. I actually felt like I probably had more energy than a guy who'd just eaten 500 calories for the entire day. And he says it's because all of a sudden your body is forced into this production

of new stem cells. And it gives you this jolt of energy. And anecdotally, I felt it. How about on day five, day six? How long did you do it for? You know, I did five days. And I'll tell you, by day five, I sort of thought to myself,

I had a fleeting thought that if this was the rest of my life, I could probably do it. I could do it. I'd probably have days where I splurge from time to time. But for the most part, eating a low-calorie diet like that, once I got past the first day and a half, I found it not that challenging. Right. Yeah.

It's cool. I mean, I've been doing intermittent fasting where I just eat dinner, you know, like, and I, I've kind of acclimated to that. Like even when I'm training, I find that unless I'm training really hard and it's not something I would recommend doing all the time, but to kind of tap into that once in a while. Yeah. It's empowering too, because you realize like, I don't, you don't have to be dependent on these things that you think you can't go more than a couple hours without

yeah yeah and i always people must ask you all the time like oh you travel all the time how do you what do you do on airplanes you're on airplanes constantly it's like well at the most you're looking unless you're going intercontinental you're looking at five or six hours right it's not that big of a deal really true bring some nuts some bananas or something like that and you can get by don't get sucked into the bad snacks and all that kind of a deal really true bring some nuts some bananas or something like that and you can get by don't get sucked into the bad snacks and all that kind of stuff you won't you will regret that decision stay hydrated you know try and get some sleep you know the the basics sort of apply for sure but i think that not not sort of saying well i deserve to to be able to break a bad break

a habit and you know do a cheat, food or whatever. You don't necessarily deserve that. That's the thing, just because you're traveling. So I try and be good about it, even if I'm on the road. You're on the road all the time, though, aren't you? Yeah. No, I'm on the road a lot. In some ways, I find that I can be more disciplined on the road.

The only person that I'm accountable to on the road is me. Yeah. When I'm home, I have my wife and I have three kids and you know, I got to be a team player. So you know, if a meal may involve something that I otherwise would not eat, am I going to be obstinate and say, you know, I refuse to eat, you know, or make everyone else eat what I want to eat, you know, it's so you know, it's just, it's, it's, it's living. Luckily, you know, my wife, who you've, you've met is, is, she's interested in the same things that I am. And our kids have developed really good palates. We used to stick all kinds of food on their high chair tray when they were babies and let them just try different things. And I think they developed good, interesting palates as a result. So like all, all different foods. Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah yeah well yeah that's good that's encouraging i mean it's hard to get kids eating healthy yeah i know although like

you've always said and you even you said it last night is that i think that our default position probably is to want to eat food out of the ground it's it's it's very it's very natural it's you know if left to our own devices and no no to all the other things around us, advertising and all these other choices, we probably would eat as humans a very specific way, which would be a good way to eat. But that exposure is a problem. And when you have kids, they are exposed to those things and you're not always controlling their environment. And so it becomes a bit of a dance. It really does. environment. And so it becomes a bit of a dance trying to guide that. Yeah. Well, I'm really excited to have you here. It means a lot that you would take time out of your

busy schedule to sit with me. And there's just a couple of things I want to say publicly. One is that since I started this podcast, you've been at the top of my list as somebody I wanted to have this conversation with. And just to kind of create a little context, you have played a massive role, whether you're aware of it or not, in my own personal story. Back in 2008, 2009, when I started doing these ultra events and trying to figure out how I was going to change my life and having made certain progress in that regard, I was still practicing law and very unhappy in that and trying to sort of read the tarot cards about what would come next. And you, unbeknownst to me, had taken

an interest in my story and came out here. We did a story. I wrote a little blog post for CNN. And it really changed the trajectory of my life. I mean, that was, you know, perhaps, from your perspective, you know, just an interesting small gesture, but it was one that really kind of moved the tectonic plates on how I thought about what I do and the possibilities for what it could become. And you really catalyzed an energy in me and have encouraged me from afar and sort of mentored me from afar to kind of blaze this path that I'm on. So I just wanted to thank you for that and acknowledge that. It's been super meaningful to me. Rich, thank you.

I mean, that means a lot to me. I want to, we have these mics in front of us, so I'll lean across the table and give you a hug. It means a lot to me. We have these mics in front of us so I can lean across the table and give you a hug. That means a lot that you tell that story. And we don't know sometimes about how life's going to unfold or the people that we're going to meet. And I definitely felt like when we met, and I was super inspired by your story, just what you had overcome.

And I think we're all trying to overcome something. And even in my own life at the time, I was trying to overcome things. So selfish in a way because I draw off your energy. But, man, I'm so proud of you, and I think everyone's so proud of you and looks at you as a beacon of inspiration. When I'm working out and I'm digging deep and I feel like I cannot dig any deeper. I think of you. I think of Rich Roll. I think of that picture on the cover of Finding Ultra.

No, seriously, you really are. I mean, the majority of people that you've inspired are people you will never meet. There's just all these people out there who you touch. And I mentioned your name. I say I'm going to see you. And they know you. They're inspired by touch. And I mentioned your name. I say I'm going to see you. And, you know, they know you. They're inspired by you. You've changed their lives.

So I appreciate that I've done something small for you because you've done so much for so many people. I appreciate that. And you're a big reason of, you know, why I started this podcast and kind of wanted to propagate and spread this message of health and wellness and longevity and fitness and all the things, you know, that we both love. So let's get into it a little bit. I mean, the first, you know, you have a really interesting story and trajectory of how you became, you know, I'm always interested in the superhero origin story. You do so many things. In addition to being the chief medical correspondent for cnn i mean you're doing docu-series or you do 60 minutes are you still doing 60 minutes right now that's on hold i gotta

you know you gotta make decisions in terms of writing books and yeah you had a television show for a while on the mornings like how do you balance all of this um i think you need to be realistic at any given time in terms of what you're taking on. It's a full life, but I think for me, all these various things fit together in some way. I don't think of them as independent things. I think if you're doing a lot of things in life, no matter what they are, finding time to really figure out what the connective tissue is between these things makes a big difference. It makes it easier for you to organize your time, to prioritize

things, to figure out how you can get multiple sort of use out of something. Like if you're working on something and you think, well, that could also be beneficial to another project or to somebody else who's working on something to make sure that you're constantly collaborating that way and sharing. I mean, for me, you know, medicine and health and wellness has always been the common denominator. I continue to practice medicine, you know, which is my first and truest love. That kind of pulls everything together. But the idea that, you know, when I see patients in the office, 90% of them don't need an operation.

They just need to be educated about something. Through television, we're sort of doing the same thing. The docu-series, to me, was based on the realization that when I teach people things, stories are what matter. Stories are what really force something into the brain, make it memorable, and make it more likely to be shared. So it's still teaching. It's still educating my patients or potential patients, but just in different ways.

So I learn something one place, I apply it somewhere else. And it's busy, but it's really good. It's really good. How often are you practicing medicine? What does that aspect of your schedule look like? You know, on paper, it's sort of like a 50-50 split. I mean, I operate every Monday, every other Friday. I see patients in the office on Thursdays.

I think people would be really surprised to hear that. I would imagine most people don't realize that you're actually still a practicing doctor. Yeah, I know. It's funny. And it's funny for me because that is still very much how I see myself. You know, I mean, I started thinking about medicine when I was 16 years old,

and I finished medical school 26 years ago now, and I've been practicing neurosurgery for a good 20 years. So it's a big part of my life, and I think I see everything through that lens still, through medicine, through neuroscience, through my interest in the brain and the spinal cord and all that. But I've in some ways kept those parts of my life a little separated. I never wanted – and the people at CNN are so good at – I operate on Mondays. They know that.

They leave me alone. Ronnie's not like texting you. Ben is not yeah typically not but um you know it's but it's it's gonna be busy sometimes you'll get breaking news and things that uh but you know they they all say and and i say that you know obviously my hospital life and hospital world comes first right i see myself as a doctor first and and luckily they see the world that way as well, and they're very respectful of it.

So 18 years now I've been doing this, and that sort of blended life has sort of worked out. Yeah, yeah. So you grew up in Michigan, a precocious, smart kid, born to Indian immigrants. Yeah. Your parents are first generation?

First generation, yeah. Mom was born in what is now Lahore, Pakistan. People know of maybe this partition that happened in 47, led to the greatest, largest, I should say, human migration really in history, all through South Asia. My mom was one of those people. It was a five-year-old kid who then lived as a refugee for the first dozen or so years of her life. My dad was from northern India.

They ended up meeting in the States, which is very unusual for Indians who got married at that time. It was almost all arranged marriages. It's kind of a funny story. My mom goes to school in Oklahoma. She comes here to go to engineering school. She wants to become the first woman engineer in the automotive industry. So drives from Oklahoma to Detroit.

That's where the cars are being made. And ironically enough, her car breaks down in Ann Arbor. So she's an immigrant from the other side of the world on this mission to become the first woman engineer in the automotive industry. She has no friends, no money, broken down car. And what do you do, right? You're in a strange town. So you go to the phone book and you look for Indian-sounding names. Oh, my God.

Yeah, that's what it was like, right? So you go to an actual phone booth and you pick up an actual phone book and you look for Indian-sounding names. Oh, my God. Yeah, that's what it was like, right? So you go to an actual phone booth, and you pick up an actual phone book, and you look up names. And so most common Indian name, Patel, right? Right. So he goes and finds a Patel, calls Patel. Just cold calls. Cold calls.

But, you know, when you're living in such a small community of people at that point, nothing's a cold call because everybody is so, they want to take care of each other. They're really invested in everyone's success. So calls this Patel guy, but he's not home. His roommate is, whose last name is Gupta. Wow. Her future husband.

That's amazing. My father. So what is this, like, late 50s or early 60s or something? No, it's late 60s. It's 66, 67, that time frame. Right. And so they get married. And it's a love marriage, which is, again, it's all arranged marriages at that time, but a love marriage, you know.

Unbelievable that it could happen, and it did. And, you know, so that was, what, 50, 51 years ago. Yeah, you come out three years later basically they didn't waste any time that was quicker than that yeah it was a real love marriage and did she become an engineer in the automotive industry she became an engineer in the automotive industry and she was the first woman ever hired as an engineer which is which is kind of incredible she she for a woman who was a refugee on the other side of the world for the first 12 years of her ever hired as an engineer, which is kind of incredible. For a woman who was a refugee on the other side of the world for the first 12 years of her life,

sees some book about Henry Ford when she's in a library sometime and says, that's it. That's absolutely what I have to do. And this is India. I mean, girls didn't even go to school, let alone go to college, go to grad school, talk about becoming an engineer. And so she did. We're very proud of her.

Well, coming from being a refugee for seven years, you said? Twelve. Twelve. Oh, my word. Twelve years. And it's interesting. She's the only person I know, obviously, that lived that life. And it's interesting because her way of dealing with people, her way of navigating herself through situations,

her way of not taking no for an answer, just being so steadfast in how she approaches things, I think in some ways comes from her life as a refugee. A little girl in a refugee camp, you've got to figure things out. And that's, I think, she's tough. She's a tough lady. If you met her, you'd love her, but you'd also see that, you know, someone who's clearly been toughened by that. But, yeah, she got the job as the first woman engineer.

And, you know, I think in a lot of ways opened up that path for a lot of other future women engineers. Yeah, so did that make her a taskmaster as a mother? Yeah. I would imagine very, you know, sort of education-focused. Very education-focused and very, you can't do that. I'm sorry, is that what you said? You can't do that? If I ever said, I can't do that, Mom. I'm sorry, I don't understand. You can't do that i'm sorry is that what you said you can't do that if i ever said i can't do that mom

i'm sorry i don't understand you can't do that or you won't you know it's just it was very it was there was always this sort of feeling like she never she never held it over us that let me show you what my life was like although we all knew the story but the idea that we would think of something as too challenging or too hard or you, it was probably never going to be an acceptable excuse for her. So I can't was not something that was said. Yeah. And my dad's different. My dad is much more easygoing, much more lackadaisical in this regard.

So that was always an interesting tension as well in the house, going to the dad instead of the mom for things. Knowing who to go to for what. Exactly. So what kind of kid were you? I grew up in a really small town, right? Very homogenous small town. instead of the mom for things. Knowing who to go to for what. Exactly. So what kind of kid were you? I grew up in a really small town, right? Very homogenous small town. The only Indian family living there.

Very middle class, you know, sort of a lot of people who are neighbors also worked in the auto industry, but mostly on the line, you know, more blue collar workers. My parents were young, really young when they had me, early 20s. So I was, I think it was a, it was a, it was a good childhood because my parents were very invested in me. And, you know, my dad, you know, was a student of mathematics and taught mathematics. And he wanted to spend a lot of time with me just teaching me things. So it was good in that regard. But it was a tough time, I think, as well, being Indian, living in a town like that where I was the only person who looked like I did.

Had that sense of otherness. Yeah, and it was everything, right? It was the type of name you had, the food that you ate, the religion, the cultural beliefs. In the middle of it, the food that you ate, the religion, the cultural beliefs. In the middle of it, the Iran hostage crisis happens, and suddenly anyone who's darker skinned is really ostracized. You know, even people didn't make any distinctions. You were either, you know, American or you weren't. And so there was that part of it.

But I think overall, I think it was it was a good it was a good childhood I mean I because of my parents I was allowed to like think about things and dream about things and my mom was a big dreamer you know so she encouraged that when was the doctor dream born you know it was it was it was interesting for me because neither one of my parents are physicians like a lot of my friends who who went into medicine and who are my, you know, sort of medical colleagues now were sort of came from generational families of doctors. In some ways, it was just that was their fate no matter what. My parents were not doctors. And medicine, you know, going to medical school and all that was a pretty audacious thing in terms of cost and time and all that.

So there wasn't a lot of Indian families, I think, who want their son or daughter to be a doctor. That wasn't necessarily the thinking in my house. My grandfather, my mom's father, got sick when I was young, 12 or 13 years old, and was in the hospital. And he and I were very close, so we spent a lot of time together. And I think it was the first time I really got exposed to hospitals and doctors, and in this case neurosurgeons, because he had a stroke and he ended up having to have a procedure to open up his artery, his carotid artery. And I think it was the first time that I started thinking about medicine.

I wasn't necessarily thinking about neurosurgery at that point, but just thinking about medicine as a career. I like science. I like the idea that you could be a doctor in the healthcare world and help people as a job. I thought that sounded really interesting. So it was around that time, and it sort of grew from there. Right.

You end up going to university of michigan yeah and you're part of the the interflex program right which is this this fast track to becoming a doctor combined medical school and undergrad right to get you like get your degree as quickly as possible yeah you've done your homework i know a couple other people that have done they've discontinued that program they discontinued it yeah, yeah. So it was a program that was basically designed to anticipate what they thought was going to be this primary care doctor shortage in the United States. So they wanted to basically, from a young age, get people interested in primary care. And the way that they did that was they accepted you into medical school out of high school. You had to do two years of college, and then you started your medical school classes. So it was much shorter.

And my parents liked it because it was much cheaper. You're saving two years of tuition. But I think part of the reason that it got discontinued ultimately was that the idea that people would go into primary care fields only, it didn't, It just didn't necessarily pan out that way. I went into neurosurgery, a specialized field. Friends of mine went into ophthalmology or other specialized fields. But it was a great opportunity if you were certain you wanted to be a doctor. And I made that decision at 16 years old that I wanted to be a doctor, which is, you know, my kid's 13.

I can't imagine her making that decision, which is really not positioned. I think it was Eric Erickson, I think the evolutionary psychologist, he talks about the fact that really not until our mid-30s should we be making any important decisions about job, about marriage, about whatever. I mean, listen, I didn't start figuring it out until my mid-40s. So I don't know how somebody is supposed to know what they're supposed to be doing at that age.

It's crazy. I know. But our system is set up for that. We're supposed to know. Yeah, you need to develop those decisions and have that inertia that sort of carries you in that direction early on. Otherwise, you feel like you're behind.

Yeah, you've missed the boat. Your life is over. It's never going to happen. It's crazy. So where do you begin your practice then? So the way the neurosurgery works, after you finish med school, you train. And training for neurosurgery is seven years long. So it's the longest, which, again, wasn't something that my parents appreciated too much

because you're still going into debt during that time. You're making some money, but you still have a lot of debt from med school. Then I did a fellowship on top of that, so it was like eight years long, seven and a half, eight years long. And then I stayed on at the University of Michigan for a while. I had trained there, went and did my fellowship elsewhere, came back and stayed on faculty there, and then a few years after that moved to Atlanta and the Emory

Clinic. And Emory Clinic has sort of been home for 18 years. Where you've been, right. So how does the whole media career begin? Somebody knock on your door and say, hey, you got a face for television? How does this happen? It's really serendipitous, and there's no strategy here. And so when I'm trying to give people advice on blending their lives with something else, I have to remind them that sometimes you just got to accept things that are serendipitous. So for me, in the midst of this, when I was in my training, I got really interested in health care policy and writing about it,

and I worked at the White House for a while, mostly writing about health care policy, working as a White House fellow. It's like early 2000s when you were doing that? This is late 90s, 97, 98. So Clinton administration. And I was a White House fellow and then very interested in health care and wrote speeches on health care for First Lady and the President. And what was interesting is that there was a guy who was running CNN at the time named

Tom Johnson, who would oftentimes come around the White House. And there's sort of a porous border, I think, between public service and the White House work and media. You see it a lot nowadays, right? People sort of going from White House work, then they're becoming analysts or pundits on television. It was happening back then as well. and Tom wanted to build a medical unit. That was his desire.

He had been a newspaper guy at the L.A. Times, ran the L.A. Times, now was doing television, knew that medical and health and wellness was just a really important thing that he didn't think was getting enough coverage. He wanted to build a medical unit, and this was in 97. He was talking to me about this, and I frankly didn't think was getting enough coverage. He wanted to build a medical unit. And this was in 97. He was talking to me about this. And I frankly didn't know what that meant. There was no context for it. There was occasionally medical reports on television, but like an entire medical unit, what would that do?

What would it be doing when it wasn't actively doing television? All that sort of stuff. So I kind of, we kept in touch, but I didn't really understand what that sort of work so i kind of i kind of um you know we kept in touch but i didn't really understand what what that sort of work would entail four years later five years later i moved to atlanta to to take this job at the emory clinic and i run into tom physically physically run into him in in the airport and he's this big guy and he's got this booming deep voice and you know so andre gupta tom johnson good to see you you remember me you should come by cnn and um i said sure and he's got this booming, deep voice. It's all Andre Gupta, Tom Johnson. Good to see you.

You remember me? You should come by CNN. And I said, sure. I'm living here now. I'd love to see CNN. I'm a news junkie. And I go to the CNN newsroom in Atlanta, and it just blew my mind. It was this amazing place where you get all these people

in the middle of this newsroom who are basically taking in whatever news is happening anywhere in the world. And they're hearing it, and they're trying to determine if it's something that should be reported. And if it's going to be reported, how would they do it? Do they send people to go to the area where the news is happening? And all this stuff, just curious people who somehow had their fingers on the pulse of the world's news. And I thought that'd be really interesting. I'd love to be a part of that.

And so prior to this, there was no sort of health department at CNN of any formal nature. Right. There were people who sort of had niche interests in medical and health and wellness stories. had niche interests in medical and health and wellness stories and but not now you have an entire unit where that's that's what they they are medical producers and they work in this particular unit that is their that is the the types of stories that they're always interested in pursuing and looking at so it's it's totally different i think in some ways because of tom over the last 20 years right so he says come on board you You say, okay. And then. Yeah.

I mean, so now just keep in mind the timing here is really interesting because it was August of 2001. And, you know, it's first term, first year of George W. Bush's presidency. And I'm a healthcare policy guy, right? Besides practicing neurosurgery, healthcare policy is kind of how he knows me from the White House stuff. And he's like, you can talk about, you know, the president's new healthcare plan, because there was a healthcare plan back then as well. And then, you know, not even a month, three and a half weeks

after I started, 9-11 happens. And the world changes, you know, everybody's world changed. And my world, your world, everybody. And they said to me, hey, look, you know, we're probably not going to be doing health policy for a while on television. I mean, this is, you know, one of the biggest stories in the world. What do you think about covering this story instead? You know, being in New York, doing reports on people who didn't die but didn't really survive either, you know, sort of badly injured, wounded in hospitals. There was the anthrax attacks that October.

And then the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have been ongoing stories for my entire career here. And I was always interested in how people take care of each other in battlefield situations. So all of a sudden, within a month, my world, again, everybody's world, but my world really, really changed. Yeah, so you think you're going to be this talking head on political policy. Yeah.

And then you end up becoming embedded over in Iraq, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. On political policy. Yeah. And then you end up becoming embedded over in Iraq, right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, I watched the Gulf War on television in 91, and I was riveted. I remember I was in college, and I just remember the greenish screen on TV and seeing the bright lights. And like, what is that?

Is that those missiles going up or those bombs falling? You know, what am I looking at? And, but you knew that people were getting injured and that there were people who were rushing in to help them, which I just, I, it still gives me chills when I think about it, you know, just total strangers and you're going in and, and risking your life to, to help them. Um, it just felt like the most human of all stories. And I was just curious how it even happened. Like, where were the nurses and doctors stationed? How do they get in? What did they have with them? What sorts of injuries were they seeing? You know, all that stuff. So when, you know, the possibility of me going into Iraq as an embedded reporter with the first

Marine Expeditionary Force and a group of doctors known as the Devil Docs, I really wanted to go. I'd never done anything like that before in my life, but I knew that I wanted to be there. What was the reality of that experience in the context of what you imagined it to be or what perhaps we think just from seeing it on television? I think one of the, maybe not surprising to people in the military world, but, you know, as somebody who lives a pretty fast-paced life, what you find in a conflict situation like that is that 90, 95% of the time,

it is just totally quiet. There's just nothing happening. You know, it's still, it's almost deafeningly quiet in the middle of the desert. And you're sitting there and, you know, you pitch your tent and it's like sheer boredom, you know, and you end up having conversations with people and having these really deep conversations with people because, first of all, you have the time. And second of all, there's this sort of overlying veneer that something really bad could happen at any moment. You just don't know when. And that kind of makes, forces these deeper sort of conversations and relationships about things that you otherwise wouldn't talk about. And then you have this whiplash, right, going from just sheer boredom

to utter terror, you know, back and forth. And I think that that was one of the surprising things to me. I just imagined that it was always going to be sort of like hustle-bustle and constantly strategic, like you always knew where the enemy was and they knew where you were, and you know, you were constantly sort of strategizing, you know, like, I think of Vietnam or Korea, like you fight a war across a line. Here, it was hopscotching around the desert, nobody really knowing for certain what was about to happen. You could be riding along on a convoy ride on a beautiful day, just staring at the sky. And all of a sudden, a sudden you come under fire. And you think, oh, my God, I could die right now.

And I was just fine looking at the sky a second ago. So things like that. And you're like, wait, I'm a neurosurgeon. Why am I not back at the hospital? There's a surreal aspect to your life and your career. There must be moments in which you're like, how did I end up here? Yeah. Well, no doubt.

And I think what's really important, and I think it's true for anybody in any field or anything they do, is you constantly have to remind yourself of why you're doing what you're doing. I mean, like covering a war, and I got young kids at home, and my wife, obviously. There was times when things were really looking pretty bleak when I thought, God, I am stupid. You know, I'm just stupid. Why am I doing this? I'm going to die out here.

And then, you know, you remind yourself that the stories that you tell and getting this information out there is important. You know, you've got to see it as important. Otherwise, you probably shouldn't do it because the price is too high to pay, you know you've got to see it as important otherwise you probably shouldn't do it because the the price is too high to pay you know otherwise so and and and covering conflicts i think are a time when you really really remind yourself of that like i i really understand the importance of what we do and why we do it yeah well there's also an excitement to it and an energy to it i mean this is something I've talked with Dan Harris about.

Like he got so into it that he couldn't stop going overseas and being involved in conflict to the point where it really eroded his health and he had PTSD and all these issues as a result of that. Yeah, and Dan's obviously a great example of someone who's been able to find really effective ways to deal with that. But yeah, I think there is an addictive quality to it. I think it's probably physiologic. It's probably not different in some ways than what you experience with all your exercise.

But you get that adrenaline rush, and it feels really good. I mean, you get these spikes of adrenaline where you're like, oh, my God. It's almost too much. these spikes of adrenaline where you're like, oh my God, it's almost too much. And then when you come down from it, it's pretty appealing. You can see why people want that sort of feeling from time to time. And I definitely have that. Working in a place like CNN, when there is breaking news, when something big is breaking, there's nothing like it. I mean, the entire company just comes together. It's galvanized as a group that I have not seen anything quite like that. And so I see the allure to it.

I was in New York City. I can't even remember why. But I went over to CNN to go see Ronnie, who runs your unit. What's her official job title? What is her official job title now? It's executive producer. Executive producer. And I'm sitting with her and we're catching up.

And right as we're talking, the Boston Marathon bombing happened. So I was actually right with her when that occurred. And I got to see the whole newsroom jump into action yeah figure out like what's going on how are we going to cover this what do we know what do we not know it was amazing it's it's you know i mean if there's things that sort of um allow a organization to to click on all cylinders to really you know use their talents to the max uh obviously tragic situation but in terms of breaking news,

CNN, when that happens, it's unlike anything I've ever seen. I mean, the closest thing, I think, would be when you're working in a trauma hospital and a child comes in who's been the victim of trauma. And all of a sudden, you've got people coming out of the woodwork who are just there to help. People come in from home. It's just like everybody comes together and takes care of this. And it's the same sort of thing with a big story like that.

And, by the way, you've got a lot of, you know, before we actually start broadcasting and on television, there's so many moving parts. There's the editorial judgment. Like, what are we seeing here exactly? What are we willing to say on television? You know, are families whose loved ones been affected, do they know? Or are they going to hear about it first on TV? You know, how do we make sure that doesn't happen? Because, you know, people should have the courtesy of hearing these things without the rest of the world hearing it at the same time. Yeah, balancing that responsibility against this increasing pressure to be first and to be fast.

That's right. And, you know, I mean, that's an interesting thing as someone who came to television sort of more mid-career. I think if you grew up with the world of TV journalism, that becomes this really important metric. I need to beat the other guy by, you know, 15 seconds, you know. I never saw the real appeal in that because I felt like if you could wait the extra, you know, time and tell a much better, more complete story or picture, it was worth it. And I think in the medical, you know, we have the luxury of doing that. You know,

there's absolutely no benefit at all for us being early and even possibly being wrong. There's just no – that's – trust is the most important thing. Yeah. So how do you think about CNN and its responsibility and this kind of culture of fake news and fast news, all the kind of epithets that get thrown around, you know, now? I mean, how do you process that? Or what are your thoughts on that? It's hard. It's hard because, you know, no one ever probably looks at anything in life and says, I have 100% confidence in this. I mean, there's what things in our life are absolute honest brokers, are true North Stars?

Very few things. I mean, you know, small businesses in your community, you know, mom and pop stores, those within the military. There are certain organizations that tend to be very, very high trust organizations, but just about everything else, government, media, even mainstream medicine, there's always a bit of suspicion or distrust. So anything that sort of opens up that crevasse even more, the president calling, you know, CNN fake news, gives voice to, you know, people's sometimes totally unsubstantiated suspicions, but just gives it voice all of a sudden.

totally unsubstantiated suspicions, but just gives it voice all of a sudden. So, you know, it makes it hard. You have to, in some ways, you don't do anything different than you normally do. You want to make sure that you're right, you're accurate, you maintain that level of trust, that relationship with the audience. But, yeah, it's hard. I think it's really hard probably for the political reporters because in some ways it may even be dangerous for them because people, they get really angry. And, you know, there's people who, you know, who worry about their own physical safety as a result of these, I think, largely unfounded suspicions.

But it's been challenging. Yeah, yeah. Well, the temperature is different than it was just a few years ago. And, you know, some of that, there can be a healthy mistrust, and that sort of puts the pressure on the media to maintain that level of integrity and honesty. But when it tips over into, you know, insanity world, I would imagine it makes your job more difficult. But, I mean, you're not, you know, overtly reporting on politics. You're breaking news around health.

But most of what you do are these long-form, kind of heavily researched, long-tail stories. Yeah, and that's a real luxury, certainly, in our world of television, to be able to really dig into topics, to have programming time long enough to be able to tell these stories. And, you know, so you feel very lucky when you get to be able to do it. But, yeah, you have everything really buttoned up. I mean, you spend most of the time producing something like this. A long-form medical story is the research, is the background. And then, you know, telling the story part of it comes very naturally.

search is the background uh and then you know telling the story part of it comes very naturally but we we you know the facts and the evidence and all that really kind of lead the way with these types of stories i feel like i get to get a mini master's degree and you know a thousand different topics which is which is a lot of fun yeah yeah well you're very deft at communicating your communication skills are amazing and you have, I sort of see you as somebody who is steeped in the science and has this, you know, history and experience in medicine and all its facets. But you know how to take that information and translate it in a way that the everyday American can actually not only understand it, but digest it, and then implement it into some kind

of tangible behavior change. Well, I appreciate that. That means a lot coming from you. Yeah, and it's hard. I mean, you get a lot of scientists, they can't communicate with the public. Like, they don't, you know what I mean? So it doesn't matter what they're saying,

because it's not penetrating. Yeah, I think that it's interesting, because I think there's sort of two aspects, I think, when it comes to health, medical, science reporting. Part of it is, I think, just an intrigue, like people are interested in science as a general thing. I just want to understand the science of this. How would that work in the body?

But the vast majority of people, when they hear these stories, you immediately place yourself in that situation. How does this affect me or how does this affect people that i love you know this this new thing and whether it be some new breakthrough in an immunotherapy drug for cancer or breakfast isn't necessarily the most important meal of the day whatever it may be um true like truly empathy takes on a different meaning here in the sense that I really want to put myself in the viewer or listener's position here. They're hearing this, and are they screaming at the TV going, well, what does that mean? Or, wait, you said the exact opposite thing yesterday, or whatever they might be saying. Truly sort of anticipating how they're going to react to something and, and, you know, crafting a message

that you think you would want to hear, you know, something that would be important to you or relevant to you in your life. So it's, it's, and there's times when you get scientific studies that are, you know, they're, they are scientific studies, they're in journals, you know, they're, they've been peer reviewed, but they still lack a certain common sense to the way that the conclusions were drawn. Breakfast no longer important because people on average over a certain period of time weighed a pound and a half more. Let's look into that study really.

How do they know what people ate? Were people honest about what they ate? To really look at data and also apply a common sense filter to it, which after doing this for 18 years and turning 50 this year, at some point in life, you figure, look, I've earned the ability to analyze this and not just regurgitate facts and data. I should be not just an antenna that's receiving information and then putting it out there, I should be able to actually process this and make it a value in some way. It's not to adulterate it or add my own editorial spin to it as much as it is to make it accessible and relevant to viewers.

Here's what I took away from this study. Here's why this is important. Here's why it may not be as important as you think. Here's the headline you're going to read tomorrow, but let me give you a couple caveats on that headline as you read this. That sort of thing, I think it's how I've looked at the world. So being able to apply it to journalism, in some ways, it was a very natural fit. Yeah. But you didn't go to journalism school, you went to medical school. They don't teach this skill in medical school. How did you learn? Did

you have mentors at CNN that helped you learn this kind of craft of storytelling um yeah you know you certainly learn from uh you know there's people who i work with in television that are i think just like ben tinker who's here just a natural storyteller you just got really great instincts on things in terms of what i'm talking about um But I do think there are some parallels between medicine and media this way. My wife, Rebecca, who you know, she loves to tell the story because she ends up looking really good in it, which she should. But when I first started doing television, my natural speaking style was not to be enunciating my words very clearly necessarily.

And I stutter a lot and I pause for periods of time that are maybe longer than seems normal and things like that. And it was just my sort of speaking style. She reminded me like when I'm talking to patients in the clinic, in the office, like what was it that I was trying to convey to these patients? First of all, they came in search of something, you know, so to really be empathetic to that, to not be dismissive of how people are approaching an issue or how they're thinking about an issue. Two is that I really want them to understand what I'm saying. So I need to make sure that what I'm telling them is factual, but I've got to find language and find a way of communicating it that they're really going to understand it.

And then to take the time to, if there's questions around it, to be able to really answer those questions. And in some ways television is the same thing. The lens became the patient in some ways. And I think that was a click moment for me when, when she told me that. And for the first time I could look at a lens and not be totally freaked out by it. Right. I mean, I would literally like look away from it. Like I was in some sort of hostage, you know, protection program, yeah. Witness protection program. And, and now I can, you know, try and make a better

connection. I think than I used to be able to and find the right words and not stammer and stutter and, you know, have these weird pauses as much. Yeah. One of the things that I've noticed with increasing regularity is the frequency with which a scientific paper or study will come out. And there'll be a news cycle around it with crazy clickbait titles that have no bearing on what that study actually said and completely mischaracterize it,

characterizes it to the extent that it becomes fake news, right? And this is what generates interest, this kind of hyperbole. And it's rampant and completely out of control. There's an irresponsibility out there with how we're reporting science and medicine. Yeah, and I think with science and medicine, I think the stakes in the bar have to be even higher than other things because people make decisions in their life based on this. Sometimes small decisions, sometimes big decisions, but always important decisions. I think that one thing is there's a lot of, you know, I'll call them fly-by-night organizations, organizations that aren't really interested in being around for the long haul.

They come in. They want to create a lot of content quickly. They use clickbait headlines and their goal is to basically, you know, make as much money as they can by generating a certain readership and viewership. But they don't, they're not investing as much in the long-term relationship with the consumer. Because the consumers read the articles that accompany a clickbait headline, and they say, well, wait, hang on a second. These don't match up.

The headline and what you put in the article don't match up. And after a while, it just becomes a violation of trust. But it can last long enough, a couple of years, for companies to have generated revenue, get acquired, do whatever, and then they're out. I mean, I think there is an advantage of working at a company that has been around for a long time, has an interest in being around for a much longer time, because they take the sacred relationship between the producer of the content and the consumer.

They take that very seriously, and we try and be careful about that. I'm sure that there's examples you could point to at CNN.com of that exact thing, but I would dare say I think it's further and fewer between as compared to other places. Well, the good news is we've never seen more interest in health and wellness. I mean, this is really, you know, something that people are keen about

in a way that didn't exist in prior generations or even a decade ago. Like people really want to know the kind of information that you're imparting. And I wonder, I'm interested in your thoughts on this. I wonder whether, like if I, you know, I'm sure I live in a silo, in a bubble, where I'm reading about all kinds of new wellness tactics

and strategies and things like that. But is this really, is this trend penetrating the mainstream in a meaningful way? You know, like I saw somebody tweeted the other day, in my Twitter feed I see people arguing that we should only eat plants and then other people arguing that we should only eat meat, the carnivores, but I go out in the world and I just see people eating donuts.

Right. So it's definitely not penetrating that guy. I think you sort of have said this, but this idea that wellness has taken on a bit of an elitist sheen, that it's become sort of a privilege of the more wealthy or the people who have more resources. And I think there's probably some degree of truth to that. some degree of truth to that, you know, to simply practice healthy behaviors for some reason, seems like much more of a luxury, rather than a than a necessity or a basic right for people. I think that the first part where people are very interested in this is true. And that surprised me a bit, you know, you sort of I sort of imagined people would go get their information about

health and wellness, you know, from their doctors or from their nurses, from medical establishments. And when I started doing this work, I realized that there's a real appetite for this type of knowledge in other ways, television, magazines, Internet, and things like that. And keep in mind, this is 18 years ago that I started. So obviously now you see that. But 18 years ago even even there was a huge, huge appetite for medical content in these ways. But I think that, um, I think that the, the, uh, the idea of, of do I trust it? Right. I think, I think going back to the suspicion thing, people will get this knowledge, but part of the reason it may not always penetrate is because do I trust it? Is someone just trying to make a buck off of me?

Or is there some vested interest that I'm missing here? Or if I'm looking up a new drug, is it just the pharma company? Or do I really trust the government's recommendations on diet? Whatever it might be like, who are the honest brokers when it comes to health and wellness? Who are the people who I say they have no other vested interest in other than giving me good, reliable knowledge that will help my life in some way? And, you know, it's hard to find. And what we see in the news cycle with what's happening in the pharmaceutical industry and

even with certain government guidelines, you know, the diet plans that change year to year. I think that just makes that sort of, that makes it worse. It makes it hard to find that honest broker. Yeah, the same trends that give rise to mistrust of the media, provide mistrust, create mistrust in the medical establishment in general yeah pharmaceutical industry people are even questioning whether their doctors really know what they're talking about sure and of again there's a seed of you know a seed of that is healthy but at the same time in this internet world that we live in um you know this gives rise to the flat earthers and, you know, all kinds of crazy ideas. And it makes it difficult and challenging for the well-intentioned consumer to just find reliable information that's bankable.

Yeah. And I'm curious. I don't know how you even approach this sort of thing. I mean, I have my own sort of strategies in terms of how I find my own. I'm calling them honest brokers just as a metaphor, but, you know, where are the places that really don't seem to have any sort of conflict, right? Because if you have conflict, now look, there's no reason that a university shouldn't be able to raise money to help fund their research labs and, you know, keep the, keep the hospital,

you know, afloat and all that sort of stuff. But if, if, if there's real conflicts here, if you may now make a decision that you otherwise wouldn't have made or reach a conclusion that you otherwise would not have reached because of a financial relationship with, with something or someone or whatever, that's obviously a problem. And if it happens once, I think the trust is totally violated. So it's hard to find. I mean, I'm not, you know, I'd like to think that we in the world of journalism get to do that. I feel like I've had a chance to do that because I don't, you know, I don't take any money from anyone other than my employers.

You know, I don't have any conflicts whatsoever, which sometimes people find hard to believe. They just assume everyone has vested interests in some way. But I've been really, really diligent about that, not only because I don't think it's right, but also because once it gets in your headspace, I think it's very hard then to be objective on things. If you feel like even in the back of your mind you may have some kind of conflict, I think it's very hard then to be objective on things. You know, if you feel like even in the back of your mind, you may have some kind of conflict. I think it's really hard to be objective. But I think it's harder for people to find those honest brokers who are truly objective in their lives. And, you know, that makes it challenging for this stuff to penetrate.

So then how do you vet your information sources? to penetrate. So then how do you vet your information sources? It's so this is a it's a big process for me, you know, I it's, first of all, even reading a medical journal article. So you know, people will say, well, it's peer reviewed, it's a double blinded, randomized control trial. Nuff said, right, that's it. I think I have the ability now to look at the stuff and, first of all, look at the methods of a study, really understand how they sort of progressed through this. What was their hypothesis in the first place? Did they have some sort of preordained conclusion before they even started the study? How did that influence the findings?

And then to be able to take that and analyze it myself. So in some ways, I'm taking existing knowledge, but then applying, you know, two decades worth of analysis to it. I think one of the best examples for me, and this is something where I learned something personally, because I think I was wrong on this, was medicinal marijuana. Yeah. You know, it was not a thing that I thought had, you know, frankly, much merit when I first looked at it. But after I was able to look at existing studies and apply my own analysis, my own common sense,

my truly unconflicted, you know, objective opinion and thoughts on this, I reached different conclusions. So that's an example. It's existing knowledge with a healthy dose of homework analysis and healthy skepticism. Right. Well, the marijuana example was a big deal when it happened and you kind of made this formal apology you know said i i had said these things in the past but now after you know immersing myself in the science and and learning about all of this i've changed my mind yeah and that made like headlines around the world like oh my goodness like doctor changes his mind yeah right it goes back to what we were talking about the very outset of the conversation. It's like science evolves. You learn as you go.

And I worry about a culture in which we're not allowed to change our minds. Yeah. I 100% agree with you. I mean, what kind of world would that be where we just figure that we already know it all. We're not going to learn anything new. I will say with the medical marijuana and cannabis in general, with all due respect to the scientists that were out there, really pounding the drums on this long before I changed my mind.

I mean, for them, they look at me and they say, well, yeah, you know what? It wasn't that science evolved so much. It's that the establishment, both medical, governmental, It's that the establishment, both medical, governmental, just bought into this idea that this was a substance that was highly toxic, highly addictive, and had no medical benefit. And it was a Schedule I substance. And that's just the way it is. And oftentimes people don't do the extra digging. You know, a lot of the data that I ended up really looking at that informed my newly changed mind was data that existed. It sometimes existed in labs outside the United States, existed in labs that were not federally funded. I mean, when you have a substance

that is already, you know, preordained as having no medical benefit it's very hard to do research on it it's illegal and the scientific community is already saying you know go look somewhere else there's nothing to see here uh and everyone bought into that yeah so there's the cultural barriers and the cognitive bias that that's right prevents that realization from occurring yeah and then you know by the way, you write something like I write where, and I can't remember what the headline was, but I think it was like, why I changed my mind. And I wrote this thing and, you know, I wasn't sure how it was going to be taken. And I wasn't sure how it was going to be taken by people who had read it as a, as an op-ed piece, but I

wasn't sure how it was going to be taken by my colleagues in medicine. And, you know, I work at an academic university, how the deans and, you know, the leadership was going to take it. I mean, it was a little nerve wracking in that regard. In the end, I was comfortable with it because, you know, we spent a long time doing this research. I mean, it was well cited and, you know, had all the sources for why I was saying what I was saying. But people could still say, hey, look, you became a guy who's endorsing an illegal substance that doesn't have any medical benefit. We're not sure that you should be X, practicing medicine anymore, B, being a journalist or whatever. So it was tough. Yeah, you stuck your neck out. My recollection of that moment was that it was a big media event,

but it was something that was ultimately embraced. I'm sure you got some marginal blowback from some people, but overall I think people were, you know, were kind of delighted that you were coming out in a very public way to say this. I think so. And I think people who were knowledgeable about this topic but maybe had never really dug into the science now had this article that had all these citations where you could spend a couple of hours reading this and looking at the sources and reading the studies and saying, wow, I kind of get it now. I understand why this could be medically beneficial. I understand what it does in the brain. I understand why it might help people with inflammatory bowel disease, with pain disorders, with epilepsy, whatever it might be. Like you could become

knowledgeable about this. So it wasn't just a emotional argument that people were making based on sort of the reefer madness of the mid-30s or early 40s, whenever that was. And that was pretty gratifying. I got these calls from some calls that I, you know, to this day stick with me from people in the medical world who say, look, you can't talk about me publicly. But there's sort of revered people in that world who came out and said, yeah. I mean, I gave this to my father when he was suffering with the side effects of chemotherapy, and it really helped him. Or I saw how this helped a kid with refractory seizures, you know, who's having 300 seizures a week. a kid with refractory seizures, you know, who's having 300 seizures a week.

I got a call from a judge in New York, someone who had actually been responsible for putting people away, you know, for the real sort of, you know, criminal aspects of marijuana and who recognized that maybe there had been people who had been taking it for medical reasons who had been, you know, treated as criminals. And the person was very upset and actually started weeping on the phone. So some of that was pretty powerful. It didn't seem to follow any particular political line, gender line, young, old. I mean, everyone in some ways had a story to tell.

And that was pretty amazing to me. How do you make decisions about the stories that you want to pursue? You know, there's always the news aspect of it. So things that are in the news, I think, drive. That's the biggest driver of what we do, you know, things that are currently happening in the news. And we'll look at opportunities to educate people more about an issue because of something that's happening in the news, and we'll look at opportunities to educate people more about an issue because of something that's happening in the news. So like when Bill Clinton had his heart operation,

people were very interested because he's president of the United States. But here was an opportunity to educate people about heart disease but also about a plant-based diet, something that he had adopted to try and control his own heart health. So that's it. But the news really ends up being a big driver. When you're doing a docuseries or a series of longer-form things, sometimes you have the luxury of being able to look into things that are totally enterprise stories.

They don't necessarily have any particular news value in the current news cycle, but they're so interesting. We think they're so relevant that they're going to make some sort of impact on people's lives that we still do it. And so those are the two big ways. The news is the big tip of the spear, but the idea of being able to do enterprise reporting about things we find interesting is also something that we do quite a bit. So what was the thought process that went into the newest series, Chasing Life, where you traipse all over the globe trying to unlock the secrets of health and longevity? You would love going on these trips. I would.

Yeah. I'm jealous. I know. It's wild. It's a lot of fun. It's really super interesting. No, it's wild. It's a lot of fun.

It's really super interesting. But the basic thought process was very simple in a way. I love our health care system in this country. I'm a member of it. I practice in it. But I also recognize that we spend $3.5 trillion on health care. And we don't get in return what we should for that. We have dropping life expectancy three years in a row. We're 23rd in the world with regard to life expectancy behind Cyprus and Chile

and Costa Rica. They're all ahead of us. We're expected to drop even further over the next 20 years. So there must be places around the world where people are living happier healthier better lives than we are and i want to know what they're doing i want to know how they're doing it and to understand what really works you know prove it and and bring those stories back to to the viewers that was that was it i think you know we live in a really global world now. I think when I first started practicing medicine, the idea of some Far Eastern tradition, well, that's something fringe and crazy and acupuncture and massage and all that.

And now we have real data behind these things. Well, there's all sorts of thousands of practices like this around the world that we could learn from that are easily incorporated into our lives and we could benefit. Yeah. Well, it's exciting. You go to India, you go to Japan, Bolivia, Turkey.

Turkey, yeah. All these cool places. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it was amazing. You know, I got to live in the middle of the Amazon rainforest with an indigenous tribe in Bolivia. I spent time in mainland Japan, the most stressed country in the world, but also Okinawa, where people live over 100 more than other places.

Italy, you know, just a healthy country, despite their love of food and alcohol and all that sort of stuff. How do they stay so healthy? It was an amazing experience for me. I would have done it if I didn't, you know, even if I didn't have a series to produce, I would have still done these trips just to learn. Yeah. And what's interesting is that so many of these kind of quote unquote secrets are, you said it last night, they're like, well, it's kind of common sense and it's

kind of obvious. Like they're just living more in alignment with the natural rhythms of, of the earth and the planet. And they're in environments that are conducive to community and eating well and sleep and a reduction in stress and all of these things that we have to combat our environment to master. That was probably the most surprising thing to me. Even when we were writing and starting to tell the stories, I thought to myself several times, you know, this is going to make sense to people, right? Because this is so obvious. Some of this is so obvious that we live the way humans should live. We move the way humans should move. We fuel our bodies the way humans, for most of our existence on this earth, have fueled their bodies. That's the way we evolve. Those are the receptors in our body. That's how we were designed.

It sounded so obvious sometimes, and yet I would say these things, and people would say, really? Wow, that's amazing. I would have never thought that. It's like, well, you should have thought that because, you know, we are but the blink of an eye in our human existence, and it doesn't take much research to think about how we evolved and why we evolved the way that we do i mean even going back to the cannabis thing we have cannabis receptors in our

body why are they there how did we interact with our environment in a way that would have evolved us to have cannabis receptors in our body what do they do how do we stimulate them you know um and there's there's countless examples like that so. So I got in some ways to tell people something that was so basic and so fundamental, but needs constant reminding. Yeah, and profound. Yeah, and profound. I mean, I love the discussion around it because I feel like it's totally defensible. Like whatever we're talking about, I can explain really well, not in terms of just how it works,

why it works, but the fact that this is the way it should work. This is how we humans evolved. And it feels big. I feel humbled by it in some ways. Well, my friend, you have a heart out and I'm going to have to let you go. Before I do that, if you can indulge me with one last question do we have time of course yes which role healthiest man in the world this is i've asked this question to a number of doctors that have been on the program um was that the question on that piece of paper? No, this is saying that you got to go.

I don't have to go. I could do this all day. If you suddenly became Surgeon General of the United States, which was actually a very real possibility for you, Obama wanted you to become the Surgeon General. You ended up declining that amazing opportunity. But had you taken advantage of that, or should that ever become your reality in the future, what would be the first order of business? That's a two-hour answer to that.

There's so many big, important issues, I think, that we're dealing with in this country. And I think most of the diseases that people are taking care of in hospitals are totally preventable due to lifestyle issues and the types of foods that we eat. I would certainly work on our food policy, which I think would change a lot of the way that we look at medicine and health and wellness overall. I would really beat the drum on our energy policy and its impact on human health. Some of the regulatory or deregulatory policies that are happening now are frightening and totally unnecessary and will have a long-term impact on human health. Those things, the opioid crisis, there's all these things that

I'd want to dig into. But I'll tell you one thing that has surprised me and that I've learned. And that is the real toxic impact of social isolation on our emotional health, our mental health, and I think in terms of our outlook on the world. I mean, we are dying in this country, deaths of desperation, higher than any other developed outlook on the world. I mean, we are dying in this country, deaths of desperation, higher than any other developed country in the world. Self-inflicted deaths, essentially. Suicide, overdose, liver cirrhosis due to alcoholism. And I think a lot of it has to do with this sort of psychic stress that we're dealing with in this country.

And I think social isolation, loneliness, lack of community, lack of social fabric is a big part of that. And I always, I hesitate a little bit when I say this, because I know it sounds sort of hard to define around the edges, fuzzy. Like, what does that mean exactly? How would you invest in creating a social fabric? Well, I have all sorts of ideas on that. But one thing I would start off by saying is that most countries around the world do invest heavily in social fabric, making people feel like they have a true safety net, that they're not forgotten, that they're a part of something larger than themselves. And I think the impact on physical health is something that we have learned so much about. When you live a life where you feel some sort of predictability, some sort of security, everything else follows from that.

Like the bigger problems, we'll figure out the big ones that we're talking about. But you want to treat the root cause versus just the symptoms. That's one that I would focus on for our generation and certainly for the next generation as well. Yeah, that's a solid answer, my friend. All right. All right. I have to release you to your life. Thank you so much for doing this.

I just want to, again, acknowledge you for the amazing work that you do. You're an inspiration to not only me but millions of people all over the world. And, you know, I just love watching your career from afar. And it's an honor and a privilege to know you and to talk with you here today. So thank you. Thank you. Love you, brother. All right.

Love you too. Chasing Life on CNN. Yeah. What's next? Let's chase life. Yeah. All right. Come back and talk to me again, please.

Okay. You got it. Peace. Flats. All right. What'd you guys think? I think we can all agree that Sanjay is the best. He's Super cool. But I think I'm referring more to how I tried to like wrap the whole thing up gracefully.

Oh, what I could have done with another hour. But hey, I did my best. And again, Sanjay was amazing. So please let Sanjay know what you thought of today's conversation. You can hit him up on Instagram or Twitter at Dr. Sanjay Gupta. And don't forget to check out the CNN original series, Chasing Life with Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Set your DVR to record it. If you are struggling with your diet, if you are really desiring of mastering your plate, but feel like you don't really know what to do in the kitchen

or you don't have the skills or the time. I cannot tell you how much I think our Plant Power Meal Planner can help you. We basically created this product to solve a very basic problem. How do you make nutritious, delicious eating convenient? And I think we did that. And I'm really proud of this product. It's helping a lot of people out there. To check it out, go to meals.richroll.com or click on Meal Planner on the top menu on my website. And there you will get access to thousands of plant-based recipes that are delicious, easy to prepare, and completely customized based on your personal preferences. You get unlimited grocery lists, you get grocery delivery integrated into the product in most metropolitan areas, and you get access to an incredibly experienced team of

nutrition coaches who are available to you seven days a week to answer all your questions. And you get all of this for just a dollar and a idea a week, basically nothing, literally a cup of coffee. So again, to learn more and to sign up, go to meals.richroll.com or click on meal planner on the top menu on my website. If you would like to support the work we do here on the podcast, I would appreciate that. And there's a couple of simple ways to do it. Just tell your friends about the show or your favorite episode. It's that one-on-one communication that I think really is the key.

So that's my favorite way for you to support the show. Share it on social media. Take a screen grab or talk about your favorite conversation. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, which is important. Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, wherever you listen to the show. Leave a review on Apple Podcasts

and you can support us on Patreon at richroll.com forward slash donate. I do want to thank everybody who helped put on the show today. I do not do this alone. Jason Camiello for audio engineering, production engineering production show notes interstitial music all kinds of other behind the scenes stuff blake curtis and margo lubin for videoing and editing today's show jessica miranda for graphics that i share on social media and on the website dk for advertiser relationships and the music as always by Anna Lemma. Appreciate the love you guys. I'll see you back here in a couple of days

with an amazing conversation that I've been looking forward to for a very long time with author, professor Cal Newport. It's all about digital minimalism. Until then, chase your life people, get after it. You only have the now.

All right, peace, plants. Namaste. get after it. You only have the now. All right. Peace plants. Thank you.