The School of Greatness - 1064 The Facts About Vaccines, Improving Immunity & The Medical Side of Mental Health w/Dr. Roger Seheult

Episode Date: January 27, 2021

“Whenever someone comes to you with something new, it’s good to be skeptical.”Today's guest is Dr. Roger Seheult, who is quadruple board-certified in Internal Medicine, Pulmonary Diseases, Criti...cal Care Medicine and Sleep Medicine through the American Board of Internal Medicine. He is the cofounder of MedCram a medical education company where his mission is to demystify medical concepts for people around the world. This episode was so powerful that it had to be split up into 2 parts! Make sure to listen to Part 1 first: www.lewishowes.com/1063In this second episode, Lewis and Dr. Seheult discuss the truth about wearing masks to prevent COVID, the risks and benefits of taking a vaccine, how spending time in nature builds up your immune system, and so much more!For more go to: www.lewishowes.com/1064Check out Roger’s website: https://www.medcram.com To learn more about hydrotherapy go to: www.hydrotherapyathome.com and www.hydro4covid.com Check out Greatness Coaching: www.lewishowes.com/mycoach The Wim Hof Experience: Mindset Training, Power Breathing, and Brotherhood: https://link.chtbl.com/910-podA Scientific Guide to Living Longer, Feeling Happier & Eating Healthier with Dr. Rhonda Patrick: https://link.chtbl.com/967-podThe Science of Sleep for Ultimate Success with Shawn Stevenson: https://link.chtbl.com/896-pod

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Starting point is 00:00:00 This is episode number 1064 with Dr. Roger Schwelt. Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Author Kami Garcia once said, we don't get to choose what is true. We only get to choose what we know about it.
Starting point is 00:00:39 And Buddha said, to keep the body in good health is a duty. Otherwise, we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear. My guest today is Dr. Roger Schwelt, who is quadruple board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary diseases, critical care medicine, and sleep medicine through the American Board of Internal Medicine. He's the co-founder of MedCram, a medical education company where his mission is to demystify medical concepts for people around the world. This is the second part of our conversation that has been taking over this community in a powerful way and educating so many of us.
Starting point is 00:01:14 So if you haven't checked out the first episode where we discuss things like the importance of vitamin D and how it can treat COVID-19 and other diseases, the natural remedies for boosting your immune system, and what's the first thing we should do when we start to feel sick, then make sure to check that out at lewishouse.com slash 1063. That's episode 1063. And in this episode, we discuss the truth about wearing masks to prevent COVID, what the risks and benefits of taking a vaccine are. And I know this might be challenging for some people to hear, no matter what you think about
Starting point is 00:01:46 when it comes to vaccines. But here are the facts that he is sharing on a medical standpoint. How fasting plays a role in fighting diseases. This was powerful for me. How spending time in nature actually builds up your immune system, again, based on the science and research. Dr. Seheult talks about his outlook on faith getting in the way of taking a vaccine. Should parents be overprotecting of their children
Starting point is 00:02:09 or is that weakening their immune system? How to balance improving our health without our mental health suffering and how depression and anxiety are related to weakening our immune system. Again, this will be very powerful. If you're enjoying it and getting value out of this, please share this with a friend or two. Text them the link lewishouse.com slash 1064. We're just
Starting point is 00:02:30 copy and paste wherever you're listening to this right now. And make sure to share this over on social media. Tag me as well, Lewis Howes over on Instagram stories when you're posting there or anywhere else online. And before we jump into it, I want to make sure that you are aware of our greatness coaching program. This is the high performance program to help successful entrepreneurs, coaches, authors, people building a platform and a personal brand to help them with accountability, building community and creating and accomplishing their big goals for the year. If you are interested in taking your career, your business and your life to the next level, then make sure to go to lewishouse.com slash mycoach
Starting point is 00:03:05 to apply right now and see if you are the right fit. And again, as you're listening to this, make sure to share it with a friend and click the subscribe button over on Apple Podcasts right now and leave us a rating and review if you enjoyed this episode. Okay, in just a moment, the one and only Dr. Roger Schwelt.
Starting point is 00:03:25 Now, what is the truth about masks in your opinion, or I guess based on the data? Yeah. So basically, here's the problem. The problem is that there's two ways that the virus spreads. And here are the two ways. It can spread in large droplets. So if I'm standing in front of you and I speak and a spittle comes out of my mouth and lands on you, in that droplet are probably hundreds of thousands, if not millions of particles of the virus.
Starting point is 00:03:50 And that's a large amount. And if you, you know, if that goes into your mouth or you wipe or you touch, you're going to get the virus. So what masks do is that they avoid, they completely eliminate that. That's why the masks don't have to be to the level of being airborne. They don't have to filter out viral particles. They just have to eliminate droplets. But unfortunately, that's not the only way that it spreads. So if you can imagine being in a room
Starting point is 00:04:18 and somebody smoking on the other side of that room, even if they're wearing a mask and you're wearing a mask, you're gonna eventually smell the smoke because the very tiny little particles of smoke are going to fill up that room eventually because of diffusion. That's another way, an airborne way. That's another way that the virus spreads. Masks aren't going to help that. That's why you can go, if everybody went to a large meeting and everyone wore masks and it was an enclosed room with no ventilation, COVID's going to spread like wildfire. And that's why we get these different decisions.
Starting point is 00:04:46 Look here, the mask didn't help. Why are they making us wear a mask? It's because there's two different ways. And so the way you take care of that way of the virus spreading is through ventilation. And really, unfortunately, the CDC hasn't gotten onto this until just recently. There was a guy that we had on,
Starting point is 00:05:03 a researcher from the Harvard School of Public Health, Dr. Joseph Allen, who's been really on this since the very beginning, talking about ventilation, talking about cracking your windows open, talking about if you're in a room, making sure that there's enough turnover of air in the room. And so really, you got to do both of those. And so people don't understand that. Unfortunately, politicians don't understand that. Here we have outdoor dining shutting down. So why is that? We don't want people congregating.
Starting point is 00:05:32 But it's outdoors. And so the chances of you getting a virus outdoors in well-ventilated areas is pretty low. So what do people do? Instead of having their parties at outside dining, they go home and they have big parties inside of a house. And what happens is we get, you know, a lot of people coming down.
Starting point is 00:05:48 It spreads more. So, because I've been hearing that people are wearing the mask all day long, they're still getting it, certain people, right? So it's not only the mask helps, but it's not, you can still get the virus. Well, and here's the case in point. So imagine getting a bunch of people all wearing masks
Starting point is 00:06:06 into a long cylinder and keeping them in there for hours on end. Are you talking about when we go on a plane? Exactly. And we haven't, I mean, there's been some stories, but for the by and large, we haven't had massive outbreaks of COVID-19 coming from planes.
Starting point is 00:06:23 And why is that? Here it is. It's because that air is highly filtered through HEPA filters. 50% of the air coming out of those jets from up above, 50% of that air comes from outside, which ostensibly I would hope has no viral particles. And the other half is coming, recirculating from the plane, but it's gone through extensive HEPA filtration where it completely takes out the virus. And so that is probably the cleanest place that you can possibly be is on a plane. Absolutely. Even if someone's sitting next to you, one foot away and they cough.
Starting point is 00:06:56 Yeah. If they're sitting next to you and they've got a mask on, then you should not be getting those large droplets. But here's the problem though, is on a plane, that system is only working when the engines are running. So the most important times to be very careful and not to snack, not to take your mask off is on-
Starting point is 00:07:13 Before it takes off. Exactly. So get on the plane last. Exactly. Keep your mask on. Don't pay to go on the plane first. I know. Wow.
Starting point is 00:07:24 Yeah. Sit in the back seat if you have to, to go last. Right. Okay. What about nose breathing? I've been doing more research. There's someone we just had on who's studying the effects of nose breathing and how, I'm always getting this wrong.
Starting point is 00:07:42 Is it nitric oxide or nitrous? Nitric. Yes. Nitric oxide. when you breathe through your nose, it creates nitric oxide in it. And there's been studies, I don't know if you can confirm this, that essentially COVID cannot exist in a state of nitric oxide.
Starting point is 00:07:59 Is that true? And what does that do when we breathe through the nose and not through the mouth? Well, I'm not sure that the amount of nitric oxide, you know, in vivo. So here's the word that your viewers should be aware of. In vitro, that's on a lab bench, on a Petri dish, and then in vivo. So we may do studies on in vitro that something, you know, that nitric oxide kills the virus or that zinc kills the virus
Starting point is 00:08:25 or that hydroxychloroquine kills the virus. In a little Petri dish. In a little Petri dish, right. At a concentration that may never be achievable in the actual human body. And then we move over to the human being and it doesn't work. I haven't seen those studies. I will say this, though, that breathing through the nose humidifies the air. And I know that the virus
Starting point is 00:08:45 does not like humidity, generally speaking. It does not like humidity. And so that also may play a role. But I mean, this thing about in vitro and in vivo and getting a medication that works, and why can't we just get this medication to people? I mean, if I could show you Staph aureus or streptococcus, I mean, these are bacteria that infect people. I could put Staph aureus on a Petri dish and I could drop a little disc of methicillin on that Petri dish. And you would see clearly that there would be this halo around this disc where the bacteria were just decimated. They were just killed instantly. And I'd be like, well, great. This is amazing. Hey, we got this patient over here with a staph aureus pneumonia. Let's just give him methicillin and he should be fine. Well, as a doctor for the last 20 years, I've seen case after case and I've gotten to learn, and anybody who does this will learn,
Starting point is 00:09:38 it's not just me, that something may work really good in the lab. Something may work really good on paper. This thing may just decimate staff aureus. But you give that to somebody, maybe there's some other extenuating circumstance that's causing them not to get better. I mean, the body is a very complex machine. Putting a seatbelt on after the car accident is not going to help the person who's injured,
Starting point is 00:10:02 even though it would have prevented it in the first place. And so there's such complexities that I think the public needs to understand that just because there's a lab test or a value that seems to work, it's a whole nother thing. Yeah. Applying it to the human body. Putting it into a patient. Exactly. And testing that over and over and dosage and does it affect other, does it impact you in a negative way uh by by that much all that stuff i'm curious about this comorbidities uh idea what do you think or what is the research proving and showing is one of the main comorbidities when someone has this whether it's obesity or diabetes or
Starting point is 00:10:41 something else is also impacting it at a high level, that if they decreased that thing, they should have a greater chance of defending themselves and having a stronger immune system for not getting COVID. It's the chicken and the egg, unfortunately, because we see that stress, oxidative stress causes obesity, and then obesity causes oxidative stress. And then when you have a lot of fat, you store a lot of fat soluble things and make it not available. So like vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin. So it's hard to tease out exactly what it is, but we do know this. Here are the comorbid things. Here are the things that make people more susceptible to dying from COVID-19.
Starting point is 00:11:22 Kidney disease. Kidney disease is a big thing. Number two, diabetes. And so those are very big things. So why would that be? When you get infected with the virus, the virus is binding to this protein called ACE2. ACE2 is part of a huge complex system of enzymes that regulate your oxidative stress. And so imagine that you are obese. Imagine that you have kidney disease, diabetes. Your body is literally sitting on the edge of a cliff. Not literally, figuratively sitting on the edge of a cliff, okay? All right?
Starting point is 00:12:02 And it's basically getting by. It's getting by. You're not in any kind of, I mean, it's compensating for the system. Now imagine that you completely remove this enzyme. By the way, ACE2 is responsible for cutting down on oxidative stress and increasing proteins that cause reduction, antioxidants essentially. So now you basically pull the mat from under the whole thing, you tip it over the edge, and you can see very clearly how this type of a hit cannot be compensated for. I mean, there's so many different analogies I can use, but the virus basically causes everything to start unraveling. And once things start to unravel, things become compounded and you reach that point of no return. And once things start to unravel, things become compounded
Starting point is 00:12:45 and you reach that point of no return. And unfortunately for some of the patients, by the time they reach the hospital, we've already reached the point of no return in a lot of those cases. No return meaning death. Yeah. And kidney disease and diabetes are two major factors that will increase the likeness of this. Is that right? Absolutely. And how do we prevent diabetes and kidney disease? Well, I think a lot of it has to do with diet and activity. These are things that we as a culture, as a society, have placed more emphasis on commercialism, advertising, taste, short-term benefits, and not really the
Starting point is 00:13:27 long-term benefits. It's kind of like we've been in class and we've been cramming for quizzes all along, and now we're sitting down for the final exam and we got nothing. That was my whole life in school. Yeah. I mean, I could talk to you about so many different things we know for instance that high fructose corn syrup is a big inhibitor of vitamin d we know that we know that the scientists when they really induce yeah when they induce oxidative stress models in their in their mice how do they do that by feeding them high fructose corn syrup there's one country on this planet that consumes more high fructose corn syrup than any other country. In fact, number two is less than half of that consumption.
Starting point is 00:14:11 Oh my gosh. What is number two, Mexico? It's some country in Europe, I think. I have to look. I was surprised because Europe is really, really against high fructose corn syrup. If you go to Europe and buy a can of Coca-Cola and see what they use to sweeten the Coca-Cola, it's cane sugar. It's not corn syrup.
Starting point is 00:14:30 It's not corn syrup. Man, this is interesting. I'm going to say something very unpopular. Yeah. And I want to talk about this for a minute, about the movement of loving your body for where it's at and loving yourself no matter how obese you might become. And I think what I'm hearing you say is diet and exercise and taking care of your health is actually preventing these things to happen. Kidney disease, diabetes, which is also another cause of dying
Starting point is 00:15:07 if you contract the virus. How can we, I guess, again, talk about this in a way that gives people the facts, that helps them improve their health, the overall quality of their health, but doesn't hurt their mental health or make them shame themselves for where they're at as well? What would you suggest as a medical professional? So it's the thing that's absolutely very important. And that is realizing that accepting somebody for what they are doesn't mean that you want to keep them the way they are, that you're willing to work with them and move them to a place where they should be. So what's the absolute wrong way to do it
Starting point is 00:15:49 is to go into somebody who has a particular diet and say, here's the diet goal that I want you to be at. I want you to stop your diet right now and I want you to adopt this diet. That's the worst thing that you could possibly do because number one, nobody can do that. Number two, unless they're extremely highly motivated, I'm certainly not that person. And then number two is that if they try to do it and they fail, they're going to just throw the whole thing out. And eat more of the bad stuff, yeah. Exactly. So, I mean, I used to eat meat.
Starting point is 00:16:22 I used to eat, you know, I used to go to the hamburger place in college. The same time I was doing that vitamin D research, my girlfriend and I would go and eat out. So what I started to do was I started to find the things in my life that I felt was the most egregious. And I say, I'm going to focus on one thing, and that's the thing I'm going to cut out. So I cut out beef, for instance.
Starting point is 00:16:45 And you know what was weird? Is that after not having it for three months, I said, you know what? It's been a long time. Let's just try it, you know? And when I went back to trying it, it just didn't do it for me. It didn't hit the same receptors that I thought it would. And what I realized and what a lot of people have said is that your tastes change after about two or three months. And it's true.
Starting point is 00:17:09 You don't think it could happen, but it actually happens. You actually start to like the things that you have changed to. And you live in a blue zone. Are you vegan or plant-based? Yes, so I am plant-based. You say a blue zone. You know what that means then, I guess.
Starting point is 00:17:25 Yeah, yeah. And you're in, because you're in Loma Linda, right? You're in that area? Yes. So I am plant-based. You say a blue zone. You know what that means then, I guess. Yeah, yeah. And you're in Loma Linda, right? You're in that area? Yeah. Correct. So that's a predominantly plant-based zone in the world. And the thing about Loma Linda that's interesting is you look at the other blue zones like Okinawa, Japan and these other- Sardinia.
Starting point is 00:17:41 Sardinia, right. These other blue zones, as great as they are, they are very homogeneously genetic. These are particular populations that have maybe grown that way culturally. The interesting thing about the Loma Linda blue zone is that it's not at all homogenous. It's very heterogeneous. It's not even really a blue zone. I mean, if you go to other Adventist centers around the country, like Kettering or Andrews University there in Michigan or PUC up there in Angwin, California, you'll see the same thing. It's the same sort of thing. What's nice about it is that you don't have to be of a certain genetic type to enjoy the
Starting point is 00:18:26 Blue Zone. I mean, Southern California is—the air quality in Southern California is probably second to none in terms of being bad, especially now with the wildfires recently here. But still, you're able to get—according to Adventist Health Study 2, men seem to benefit actually more than women in terms of getting seven to 10 years of extra life. And why? It's because of not just diet. It's not a diet.
Starting point is 00:18:55 It's a lifestyle. And part of that lifestyle is exercise. And there's been some really interesting emerging data coming out of Canada, actually, emerging data coming out of Canada, actually, looking at exercise and depression and anxiety, especially in COVID-19. How does depression and anxiety play in with weakening your immune system and attracting more coronavirus? I'll have to be honest with you. This is not something that I was an expert in until recently. I'm not even an expert in it now. I'm just starting to learn about it. I'm not a psychiatrist. I'm not a neurologist. But I can tell you that depression and anxiety are two things that rev each other up. Anxiety causes depression. And anxiety is something that you get when we're in this pandemic. We've been
Starting point is 00:19:38 in this pandemic for about a year now. And people are very anxious. They're anxious about getting COVID-19. There's just a recent article that came out that showed that children, a recent study in children that have had distance learning and these sorts of things, that anxiety is becoming more and more prevalent, suicides, et cetera. And what I found, there was an interesting research article that was published by Dr. Jennifer Heiss out of the Fit Lab in McMaster University in Ontario that I thought was excellent work. She looked at, she did a randomized controlled trial, and she took students right before exams. So you remember what it was like before exams, right? Six weeks before exams. They looked at them for six weeks,
Starting point is 00:20:25 and all of these students were going to go through exams. Very stressful time in their life. Their careers are dependent on this. This was before COVID. And they randomized them to three different tracks. Number one, do nothing. Just keep doing what you're doing. That was the control group.
Starting point is 00:20:40 Number two was a low-intensity exercise regimen. So they did three times a week. So yeah, so they did- A walk, a jog, a hike, or- In this case, they were very specific. They had to do it very scientifically. So they actually did a VO2 max test, which is, if you don't know what that is, it's where they put a thing in your mouth, you pedal, and they measure. So they made it a very specific percentage of their total max. It turned out to be getting their heart rate up to about 140 beats per minute for about 20 minutes. And they did it three times a week. And they did it for six weeks.
Starting point is 00:21:16 So 18 treatments. And then the third group was this high-intensity group. So heart rate was like 180 beats per minute. Really high- high intensity exercise. Again, three times a week for six weeks. And what did they measure? They measured cytokines. So these inflammatory cytokines like IL-6, which has been implicated in COVID-19, they looked at depression scores. So validated depression scores, and they blinded the researchers to which students were getting what. I don't know how they did it, but that's what they did.
Starting point is 00:21:52 So they looked at blood tests. They looked at depression scores. They looked at a whole host of things. What did they find? This is what they found. They found, first thing they found that was amazing was in the control group, in the control group, that depression scores at the beginning versus at the end of the six weeks, which ended just at the same time as finals, depression scores went up dramatically.
Starting point is 00:22:15 So first thing that they found was, number one, it doesn't take a long time of stress exposure to increase your risk of depression. That was six weeks. We're in it for a full year. So six weeks in the control group, the depression went up across the board of all three groups? No, just in the control group. The control group, meaning the one that didn't do anything. Didn't do any exercise. Got it. Got it. Yep. They went up. So more and more stress and anxiety, what's happening? I don't know, finals or COVID. Depression increased.
Starting point is 00:22:46 And they did no exercise. Exactly. And that's not exactly what you would expect. You would expect the depression score to be about the same, right? But what that shows is that stress over a period of time increases depression. Wow. Okay. But in the exercise, immediate, moderate, and high intensity group, in the moderate intensity group, depression scores went down.
Starting point is 00:23:10 Anxiety scores went down. Inflammatory marker scores went down in all of those. So in other words, there was no bad tradeoff to doing moderate exercise. to doing moderate exercise. Now, in the high-intensity group, the depression scores went down, but not as much as they did in the moderate group. Anxiety levels, they still had actually the same amount of self-reported stress
Starting point is 00:23:40 in the high-intensity group, and interferon levels went actually up in the high-intensity groupon levels when actually up in the high intensity group. So when your body or your mind is under attack emotionally, mentally, uncertainty, it's not good to do no exercise. It's not good to go to destroy your body. It's good to have moderate types of consistent, healthy movement is what I'm hearing you say. Exactly, exactly. And this is really, really important because this data is not picked out of being unique.
Starting point is 00:24:16 There is a whole cadre of data that has shown this exact thing. It's called the J-curve. The J-curve meaning that you start off here with a normal amount. And then as you start to do more moderate exercise, the risks go down. But as you do more exercise, the risks go up. And so this is a real problem in people like Olympic athletes. They have to be very, very cognizant when they are doing high intensity workouts that they're not getting sick because they're actually more susceptible to getting sick,
Starting point is 00:24:49 more susceptible to getting, and imagine the stress that they're under, right? Their one shot at Olympic gold is coming up. They've been waiting 16 years. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. And so athletes and trainers,
Starting point is 00:25:02 they're very well versed in this literature and this information. People like you and me are not. But I think it's very, very important that one of the things that I think would be very beneficial, and I would add it to my list of things that I would recommend people do. Sleep. Sleep, obviously, because I'm a sleep physician. But exercise.
Starting point is 00:25:20 And you know what? Exercise improves your ability to sleep. It does. It does. And it makes you less anxious. But exercise, and you know what? Exercise improves your ability to sleep. It does. It does. And it makes you less anxious. When you're moving and you get that anxious energy out of you, out of your body through movement, you feel more relaxed. It increases dopamine, all those different things.
Starting point is 00:25:37 Right. So here's the key point is you don't have to be Wilhoff to get the benefit of hydrotherapy. And you don't have to be Carl Lewis, exactly, to get the benefit of hydrotherapy. And you don't have to be, you know, Carl Lewis, exactly, to get the benefit of exercise. And so I think that's the first thing that everyone needs to know. And here's the key is getting that heart rate up. So here's an extra benefit. When you're sick and sedentary, you don't have to do that much to get your heart rate up to 147. The more you do it, you know, you might not take walking after a while, you might have to actually jog after you do it. But getting started on that routine, you would be, I mean, I've had patients, not a lot, but I've had those patients come back and tell me, Doc, I followed your advice. I got
Starting point is 00:26:13 on a diet and exercise plan. And man, I feel so much better. I mean, it's amazing. Yeah. I mean, obviously, exercise and diet won't automatically cure anxiety and depression necessarily, but it's been proven to show that cure, but it could be, but it may not be, but it'll definitely support you in a massive way based on science. The thing that I like to use is this. Look, when you go into the operating room, one of the things that we don't want you to get is a post-operative infection. So what do we do to make sure that that doesn't happen? The surgeon wears a mask.
Starting point is 00:27:02 We make sure that the pressure in the room is under positive pressure so that air is coming out, not air coming in. We also use a solution on your skin to sterilize the skin. Do we do all of those things because we feel that one of those things is not working? We shouldn't. No, it's a multi-pronged approach. So everything that we've been talking about here is not in lieu of social distancing and wearing a mask. It's in addition to all of these things. So I've got the vaccine. Do I still wear a mask wherever I go? Absolutely. It's just another layer of protection. Do I still do all of these things to help? Yeah, because it doesn't just help my immune system. It also helps me in general in terms of health. Now, can you explain more about the vaccine? And this is, again, going to be controversial on different sides. We have people that are
Starting point is 00:27:50 science-based and love the science. And then we have a certain part of the population that is 100% against vaccines. We've had this conversation with doctors in the past who, you know, I'll put out information about this and people, you know, want to unfollow and unsubscribe from everything that I've ever done. So based on scientific evidence and what we know so far with this new vaccine that's out there, what is in the vaccine? You know, what is your recommendation?
Starting point is 00:28:21 And if people don't want to get the vaccine, do you feel like that's okay as well? Good question. So the vaccine is like this big umbrella and we'll have to talk, I'll probably limit my talk to just the ones that are available because there are going to be so many different types made using different techniques and how they work. The question, well, first of all, the first thing that you have to understand is that nothing in life is without risk. Everything has risk. And the decisions that we make as medical doctors, as providers, is what I'm about to do going to have more risk than benefit or more benefit than risk? And that determines what we do.
Starting point is 00:28:59 When you go to the supermarket, you could get in a head-on collision. You could get, you know, all of these sorts of things could happen, but you, in your mind, make a mental calculation that getting food from the supermarket has a better benefit than the risk of you getting in a head-on collision, so you do it. In other words, if we find that there are risks with something, it doesn't necessarily mean that we don't do it. We do things all the time in the hospital to patients that have risk, but we believe that we are correct in doing it because the benefit we're going to derive is greater that have risk. But we believe that we are correct in doing it because the benefit we're going to derive is greater than that risk. Sometimes we're right, sometimes we're wrong. But if we do it hundreds of times, sometimes you're going to have problems, sometimes you're
Starting point is 00:29:33 not. So that's the first thing. Second thing is the decision to get vaccinated in a pandemic is not a decision to get vaccinated versus nothing. It's to get vaccinated versus getting the infection. That's the decision that you have to make. And so when you look at the risks of getting vaccinated, for instance, what is the long-term effects of getting the vaccine? We don't really know the long-term effects because it hasn't been a long time
Starting point is 00:30:02 since we've gotten the vaccine. But if you look at other vaccines that we've done in the past, we can see that most of the long-term effects that have occurred on those vaccines usually pop up within the first two to three months. And so we can kind of get a sense about what the long-term side effects are going to be. Now, let's look at the virus. We don't know the long-term implications of being infected with coronavirus. Do people get diseases after viruses? Absolutely. Can people get post-viral complications? Absolutely. People can get myocarditis, Guillain-Barre. This is a condition where basically you can't move
Starting point is 00:30:41 and you need to go on a ventilator just by getting the infection. There's a recent study that showed that over half of normal asymptomatic athletes still had signs of myocarditis, that's inflammation of the heart tissue, after either a mild or asymptomatic bout of COVID-19. So you've got to do this understanding really what your choices are. In both cases, the vaccine and the virus, what happens is a particle infects one of your cells. It releases a messenger RNA, which is an information packet that tells your cell what kind of protein to make. In the case of the virus, the ribosome, which is part of the cell, is going to make more viral particles. And those viral particles are going to spread to other cells
Starting point is 00:31:32 and make more viral particles. And that's exactly what's happening in the first phase of COVID-19. In the case of the vaccine, the vaccine is much more attenuated. It's just a little component, a little information packet on just the protein. It's just making a little portion of the protein, the spike protein. And so your cell, when this information packet goes in, the cell is going to make a lot of these proteins and put them on the surface and maybe present them outside so that your immune system can kind of look at what's coming down the pike potentially and be ready for it with antibodies. So when that virus really comes in, the antibodies can cover it, can prevent it from spreading, and you can basically suppress the infection. And apparently, according to the studies, it's 95% effective at doing that. This messenger RNA is like a sticky
Starting point is 00:32:27 note. It's like those 3M yellow sticky things you can put on. So I think your DNA is like your social security card. You don't laminate it. You put it in your filing cabinet. You never take it out. That number can do a lot of good things. You can apply for a loan. You pay your taxes with it. I have my number memorized. Some people don't. But if you ever had to use it, you'd take it out. You'd look at it. You'd write it down on a sticky note.
Starting point is 00:32:52 You put it down. You put the security card back because it's very important. And then you'd use that sticky note. And then after you're done with it, you'd rip it up and you'd throw it away. The messenger RNA is the sticky note. It's there one day. It's gone the next. Messenger RNA doesn't stick around. It's there one day, it's gone the next. Messenger RNA doesn't stick around.
Starting point is 00:33:08 It doesn't last. That messenger RNA is telling the cell, I want you to make this protein now. And then it goes away. Right. You don't want the cells to be making that protein for the rest of their lives. You want the protein to be made when it needs to be made. And that's why it's so important that these proteins that go into the nucleus to tell what type of messenger RNA needs to be made have to be turned on and turned off.
Starting point is 00:33:31 That's what vitamin D, as we discussed, does in many different senses. But the messenger RNA is there when you want the protein. It's gone when you don't want the protein. So the cell has a way of breaking down this messenger RNA so it doesn't exist. In fact, the scientists have to go above and beyond to try to keep this messenger RNA intact long enough to get it into the cell so that it can actually make the protein because after a day or so, it gets degraded and it gets broken down. So the DNA is like the social security card. The RNA is like the little sticky note that you write and it gets thrown away. Now, I've talked about this on my show before. Most of my audience, if they've been
Starting point is 00:34:09 listening for a while, know this. I grew up as a Christian scientist where we never took medicine. My dad didn't believe in medicine. We believed in healing through the mind and thought. And I never had vaccines. I never had a shot until I was 24, 25 when I went to another country where I needed to have a shot to just get into the country. I got the measles. I had that in the 90s when there was an outbreak. And I remember getting sick a couple of times, but nothing really as bad as the measles. But eventually, I was fine. I was still alive.
Starting point is 00:34:41 I'm here. I'm semi-normal. I function. And I never had vaccines growing up necessarily, right? So I'm curious. And there was flus and the pandemic in 1912 and all these other diseases that have come since then. So do people need vaccines to survive, to thrive, to be healthy in today's world?
Starting point is 00:35:04 Should kids be getting the vaccine or, you know, can we still survive and live our lives without it? You know, sometimes we take things for granted when we don't have them. What kind of a quality of life would you like to have is the question. The fact that we don't have polio today, the fact that we don't have to worry about smallpox today, those are direct consequences of our ancestors in this country and around the world realizing that if they took this vaccine, we could eliminate those diseases. And we've effectively done that. When we in this country started to say that a vaccine choice for me, what's the stuff that goes into the integration of making
Starting point is 00:35:47 a choice about whether or not I get the vaccine? And for some people, it's been, hey, if you don't want your daughter to get HPV, basically cervical cancer, then get this vaccine. If you don't want your son who's going away to college to get meningitis, get this vaccine. If you don't want your son who's going away to college to get meningitis, get this vaccine. And that's how, honestly, that's how the pharmaceutical companies have marketed these vaccines, is this vaccine is going to help you. What we've completely forgotten, I think, is how vaccines help us, us as individuals. So all of us have gotten the benefits because our ancestors, maybe our grandparents, got the polio vaccine and the smallpox vaccine. And they didn't spread it.
Starting point is 00:36:35 Essentially eliminate it. They didn't spread it, yeah. It's eliminated. It's gone. It's not really even a risk at this point, right? Because they got vaccinated. And so since they didn't spread it and kill more people, we don't have it anymore. And it got eliminated. It's because everybody's science. So it's kind of gestalt, right?
Starting point is 00:36:54 Gestalt by definition is when the sum of the parts are greater than all of the sum of the parts, right? That the greater is greater than some of the parts. So yes, there is a benefit to the recipient of the vaccine, but there is something bigger. There's something bigger that we all get as a derived benefit when everybody gets the vaccine, and that is the elimination of the disease or the near elimination of the disease. What are the negative effects, potential negative effects? Obviously, we haven't had enough time to really test this, but what could be the negative
Starting point is 00:37:27 effects of taking the vaccine? What could that do potentially to the body? So yeah, I'm not going to tell you that this is a panacea. There are, first of all, there are common reactions that can occur when you get the vaccine. So this basically is your immune system. Your immune system is revving up. You're going to feel bad when your interferon levels go up. You're going to feel sick for a few days.
Starting point is 00:37:48 You're going to feel sick. And it's the same thing what happens when you work out. You want to be a muscle man. You want to look fit. What happens after you work out? Do you feel great? Or do you feel sore? Well, you feel pumped, but then you're sore. You're recovering. You can't walk. Yeah. Yeah. And so this is the natural consequence of doing something that eventually is going to be good for your body in that sense. But there are some adverse reactions that have nothing to do with that. So allergic reactions is a possibility. But hey, if we had people out distributing peanuts, we'd have allergic reactions and that's a perfectly natural substance, right? There is some evidence that
Starting point is 00:38:25 on certain vaccines in the past that people have gotten diseases that we would never have wanted them to get. For instance, there's the flu vaccine that was given in Europe back around 2009, 2010 that caused a rash of narcolepsy. And it's probably because there was an autoimmune response against the vaccine that cross-reacted and started to destroy parts of the uh of the patient but that's on the vaccine side does that mean that's not going to happen if you get infected with coronavirus people say hey look there's a 99 chance that i'm going to survive infection with coronavirus why would i take a vaccine if i've got a 99% chance? Right? So the thing is, number one, is that's kind of black and white.
Starting point is 00:39:09 That's like living versus dying. And who's to say that in that 99%, you're not going to have disease? You're not going to be living up? I mean, you're going to have people, these long haulers. Let's talk about the long haulers. People who have these, I get questions all the time now. Hey, I had coronavirus three months ago. I'm still having burning.
Starting point is 00:39:28 I'm still having chest pain. I'm still having all of these things. And what do we do with that? You know, people get clots from coronavirus. People, it's not unheard of people coming to the hospital to get discharged. And then a week later, they come in coding because they've got a massive blood clot. So it's not like this is a cold virus. You're just going to get over it and no problem, and you're not going to have an issue. So yeah, do we know the
Starting point is 00:39:48 long-term side effects of the vaccine? No, we don't until we have a long time. But we don't know the long-term side effects of the virus either. And at least preliminarily, there may be some issues. The other thing I was going to mention too, because you sort of made me think about it, was this thing about faith. And I know there's a lot of people, you know, so there's two ways of looking at the vaccine. For an individual, does the benefit outweigh the risks? And that may be different. If somebody has horrible allergic reactions and anaphylaxis, I would say do not get the
Starting point is 00:40:19 vaccine because you're at high risk for getting another allergic reaction. But that's a medical risk-benefit ratio. There are some people that believe that it would be a denial of their faith that God is going to protect them if they went ahead and got the vaccine. And I would just say, because I've wrestled with that as well, I would just say there is a very, very fine line between presumption and faith. And that's something that each one of us has to work out together. But to think that there is no such thing as presumption, what do I mean by that?
Starting point is 00:40:53 I mean, to put it in terms of religious or spiritual terms. So you remember the story about when Satan tempted Christ. One of those temptations was when he took him up to the top of the temple and said, hey, look, it says in Psalms 91 here that, you know, he's going to bury you up in your hands lest you dash your foot against a stone. Why don't you just go ahead and jump off the temple? He's going to save you anyway. That would have been presumption on Christ's part. He said to Satan, he said, I rebuke you, you know, it was also said, thou shall not put the Lord thy God to the test.
Starting point is 00:41:26 And so the question is, are we jumping off the temple when we have a vaccine available to us that could actually take care of not only ourselves, but also people around us? And so that's a real question that people have to look at. Yeah, we got to make those decisions. And unfortunately, those are challenging decisions for some people. And some people will say, well, let's just focus on getting herd immunity. You know, let's destroy this thing by, I guess, everyone, you know, beating it through herd immunity. What do you say to that? I don't have a problem with herd immunity. I think we need to get there. The problem that we have
Starting point is 00:42:01 is that we only have 900,000 acute care beds in the United States and we have 300 million people. And so even if 1% of the people in this country die from coronavirus or go on their way, I mean, probably ostensibly a lot more than that need to be hospitalized. We just don't have the acute care beds to take care of everybody at once. And this virus rips through people quickly. You know, some people last on ventilators weeks. And so if this virus has an incubation period of five days and we just let everybody get the virus, you know, there's going to be so many people at the hospital,
Starting point is 00:42:38 there already is, that we're not going to be able to take care of the rest of the 99 who are going to be fine, but let's say they get in a car accident, or let's say they break their heel or their foot or ankle, or they have a heart attack. We can't take care of those people. And so right now, for instance, in Southern California, we have literally, we have made beds, ICU beds, just to take care of the extra people. Really? Yeah. I'm curious your thought. I want to talk about kids again for a
Starting point is 00:43:05 second, because obviously there's a lot of parents who are, um, you know, not sure about what's proper information. What should I do with my kids? All these things should kids at a certain age be getting this vaccine. Is that more dangerous to have young kids getting vaccines? And also what's your thoughts on, in general, on protecting and trying to have your kids so perfectly clean and never touched by anyone and always rubbed down with wipes in your face and sanitized life bubble versus allowing kids to be exposed to as much potential diversified organisms to build their immune system. What's your scientific thoughts on that? Okay, so let's, that's, there's so many things that just popped into my head. So let's talk about the vaccine. So the vaccine is approved down to the age of 16 years of age right now. So anybody over the age of 16 or above can get it. I think that's a reasonable thing to do. I would say that the reason for
Starting point is 00:44:06 children or kids or young people to get the vaccine, although I have seen people in their 30s in the hospital, I have seen that, it's more for herd immunity at that point because it's those children or those individuals that are going to go to grandma and grandpa and spread it potentially. or those individuals that are going to go to grandma and grandpa and spread it potentially. So to the degree that we have data now that shows that asymptomatic spread can be prevented by getting the vaccine, we do have some data on that, about 67% in the Moderna vaccine, for instance, that would be helpful. I don't believe that a vaccine in a 16-year-old is going to do much in terms of preventing them from having hospitalization, because they're not getting hospitalized right now.
Starting point is 00:44:46 They're actually doing fine. So they're getting COVID, but they're just like no symptoms or very little. It's like, I lost my taste, but I'm fine. Yeah. And why is that? It's because young people have great innate immune systems. Innate immune systems in children are very strong. I mean, any little virus and what
Starting point is 00:45:06 do they do? They get a fever. I mean, most pediatric visits are for fevers. And that's because kids have great innate immune systems. And that's what we ought to be doing with adults is trying to figure out how to improve their innate immune system. Now, if you're going less than 16 years of age, in that situation, you know, we need more data. And right now, we don't have that data. They're looking at doing that. They're actually doing the studies at this point. But even more so for the young kids, right?
Starting point is 00:45:33 Because they're not, while there are some risks of getting post-infectious complications, like we saw this thing earlier last year about Kawasaki disease type of thing, post-infectious type of things. It would be good. But I think the primary protection that we're getting there is preventing the spread to those that are going to be ending up in the hospital. That's why the vaccination schedule that you're seeing, the 1A, 1B, 1C, 2, 3, et cetera, is starting out with these very critically elderly patients who are in nursing homes, for instance, who are the most susceptible to getting the disease. And probably the last people that'll be getting this vaccine will be those less than 16. Now, what was the other thing you mentioned? Do you think parents should be protecting their kids and being the cleanest? Or should we be
Starting point is 00:46:20 exposing our children in general to touching dirt, touching walls, licking everything? What should we be thinking about? Yeah, they're going to do that. I think you probably should let them do that. There's actually good data. This goes back 10 years, that in parents who do this type of thing where they protect their kids from antigen exposure early on, they have a higher incidence of asthma and atopic diseases. So it's well known that when you, in the maturity of the immune system,
Starting point is 00:46:57 the immune system has to understand self from non-self. Otherwise, you're going to get autoimmune conditions. And when you do that, when you expose them to these antigens, for some reason it appears as though the immune system is better educated at not attacking itself when you do that. And so, you know, I don't know. I grew up in that era where we were latchkey kids. I came home, I had a key, I opened the door, you know, I made my breakfast,
Starting point is 00:47:25 I studied. We didn't have helicopter parents taking us to these things. I don't know what kind of upbringing you had or if that was the same. Yeah, I was like, go outside and just do whatever. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's powerful. Anything else we should be asking ourselves or no, as I wrap up with the final few questions. And I would love to have you come back on at some point and talk about sleep and all these other things that I think are extremely important for us. But any other questions around this
Starting point is 00:47:56 you think we should talk about? In terms of the vaccine? Yeah, in terms of boosting the immune system, in terms of anxiety and depression and mental health around this, in terms of some of the things we've talked about. No, I think there's plenty on that plate. I know that you've been talking to some of the interviews that I've seen about fasting. I think that actually has a role to play as well.
Starting point is 00:48:21 Really? Intermittent. Oh, yeah. There's very good data out of USC. He's probably talked to you more about this data than I have, but there's plenty of data that intermittent fasting rebuilds the immune system. The other thing that I was going to mention too is, and this gets a little bit more kind of weird at first when I first started to learn about it, but there's a lot of research, especially out of Japan, that looks at something called forest bathing. Have
Starting point is 00:48:49 you heard of that before? I've heard of this, but you mean just being in trees and hugging trees? Yeah. You don't need to hug them. No. Just walking outside in a forest, there are aromatic compounds or phytocides, they're called, that have been shown to improve immunity. One of the ones that has actually been studied probably the most is eucalyptus. So, you know, at first my wife was sort of getting into these essential oils. I thought she was crazy. We live in LA, right? Yeah, exactly. But you know what? There's actually some science behind it. Do you know, for instance, that back in 1918 during the flu pandemic, that eucalyptus was a major export of Australia?
Starting point is 00:49:34 In fact, they almost chopped the trees to extinction, it seems, because eucalyptus was well known even at that time to have medicinal properties. It's the main ingredient in Vicks VapoRub, believe it or not. But there's actual data, and this was data that I looked at, not for COVID-19, but for chemotherapeutic agents. There was a group that looked at what could they do to boost the immune system of patients that were on chemotherapy, because people on chemotherapy are susceptible to all sorts of infections. And the sentinel members that are out there to make sure that infection doesn't happen, again, is the innate immune system.
Starting point is 00:50:12 Well, this was, again, an in vitro study where they took cells and incubated them in a very low concentration of eucalyptus. And it had the same effect as basically a bacterial antigen, how it activated the system, turned on, increased something called phagocytitic activity. This is where these cells go out, find something that's not self and eats it. And I was just really impressed
Starting point is 00:50:40 with how something like that could improve the innate immune system. The studies out of Japan looked at these people living in Tokyo and they took them up for just a few days into the forest. And they tested actually something called the Hanoki cypress tree. So they used Hanoki cypress oil.
Starting point is 00:50:58 And the effects on the immune system were not only significant, but they lasted for about seven days. So it's not something that you have to do every single day. So they tested their immune system before and after. How did they test this? So they looked at cytokines. They also looked at natural killer cells, natural killer cell activity. And then they looked at the little bubbles inside the cells that have the enzymes that degrade and kill bacteria,
Starting point is 00:51:26 granzymes, things of that nature. And they noticed that in all of these counts, the natural killer cell activity, the amount of enzymes, everything was increased when they were just basically walking through the forest for a couple hours. Yeah. A couple hours once a day or once in the week? Well, in this particular one, they did it for two or three days, and they walked for about two hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. And then after they were done, they went back and measured it again seven days later, and they still had elevations even seven days later.
Starting point is 00:51:56 So walking in the woods a couple hours a day for a few days will increase your immune system based on science. Absolutely. That's crazy. I mean, people say, yeah, just be in nature and you'll feel better and your depression and anxiety will go down. But I'm hearing you say that you're, why does your immune system boost? Is that because of what you're breathing in?
Starting point is 00:52:19 Is it because you're walking? Is it, you know? No, so here's what happened. They asked the same question that you just did. And so what they did was they took the Hanoki Cypress oil and they diffused it in a hotel room in downtown Tokyo. So basically they tried to simulate exactly the same thing. In the room, yeah.
Starting point is 00:52:36 In the room. And they found everything was exactly the same except for one thing. And that one thing was is that urinary cortisol levels were not as low as they were in the forest so in other words the stress level they knew that they were still in downtown tokyo the phytocytes from the trees were still having the effect on the immune system but they were still not in nature and enjoying nature and and we know we don't have to get into this but cortisol levels have everything to do with immunity and how that affects your immunity. So it's multiple benefits. That's the other thing that we tend to do in medicine. We try to hack, biohack. Let's do these glasses. Let's do these creams or whatever.
Starting point is 00:53:17 And how do we know that this stuff isn't put together in a way that it actually helps us in a way that couldn't happen if it was just individual. To give you a quick example, they noticed epidemiologically that lung cancer patients did better if they had diets high in vitamin E and vitamin A. So what they did was they extracted those, they fed to lung cancer patients high doses of vitamin E and vitamin A, and what did they find? That it actually accelerated their death. So here's the point, is maybe it's the way the vitamin E and the vitamin A is packaged in nature
Starting point is 00:53:51 that helps those people get it. And maybe we don't need to extract it and isolate it from how it's coming. You know what I'm saying? Sure, sure. So maybe those phytosigns in nature are packaged in a way that we just as human beings need to get there
Starting point is 00:54:04 and experience that. So what I'm hearing you say is that you could take this eucalyptus, you know, scents or oils and you could put it in a more manufactured arena like your room or something and it might have some benefits, but it's not going to have the total benefits as if you were in the nature. No, So I'll actually fill you in on something there. Back in 1918 and 1919, when they were doing the hot foot baths and they were doing the fomentations that we talked about, they would put eucalyptus leaves in the hot foot bath. The oil from the leaves would dissolve and absorb into the skin. You can also rub it in a carrier
Starting point is 00:54:40 oil like olive oil and put it on your skin and the aroma you can breathe in, like your mom used to do when she put Vicks on, right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Now, is this a particular forest or just in nature in general, you think? So they're finding this. There's all sorts of these compounds in trees like the fir, like the cypress, like the cedar tree. This is not, it's not like you've got to
Starting point is 00:55:06 go out and find a particular tree we find. It seems as though that this has an effect in a number of different trees. The ones that we've studied the most is eucalyptus. And so fortunately, eucalyptus is endemic here in Southern California, obviously in Australia, but it's not hard to get eucalyptus oil. But I would caution, eucalyptus oil is very, very potent. It's very strong. It should not be ingested. There's been some side effects when people ingest eucalyptus oil. And I've got a couple of final questions here, but one is about new mutations of COVID impact on the vaccine testing and treatments. If you get the vaccine and then there's a new mutation, will we need multiple vaccines?
Starting point is 00:55:55 How will that impact those strands, those new strands, I guess? Yeah, very good question. So the four variants that we're looking at right now is the UK variant, which we found out first. There is a South African variant. There's a Brazilian variant. And then, of course, there's a variant here in the United States out of San Jose. And so what we know as of today, we know that there is data that was just published yesterday that showed that the UK variant is going to be just fine in terms of the coverage that we have with the current vaccine.
Starting point is 00:56:25 So that's good news. And that's despite mutations in the spike protein. We don't yet have that data for the South African or the Brazilian or the United States variant, but they are working on that currently. As it turns out, if those go the way as the UK variant, we will not need to have a new vaccine. But if there is, if there's something called an escape mutation where the vaccine, where the virus is able to escape the immunity put on by the human body, here's the silver lining there a little bit, is that all they would have to do is change the sequence of the messenger RNA in the vaccine that they're already giving to reflect the new structure of the spike protein. And so it would not take very long
Starting point is 00:57:11 for that new vaccine to be developed. Gotcha. The other thing I was gonna mention real quickly is that your immune system is so smart that it also, that the cells that make the antibodies against that virus also have in it a slight mutation to anticipate, believe it or not, to anticipate that type of a mutation. That's crazy. Yeah. The human body is fascinating.
Starting point is 00:57:36 Yes. This has been probably one of the most informative interviews I've done on this topic, definitely. interviews I've done on this topic, definitely. And I'm just very grateful for your consistent research, testing, understanding, and access to this information to be able to share this with us. I know you're in the hospital on a weekly basis, treating people. I know you're constantly doing research. And I know you're educating people over at MedCram.com with incredible data, you know, information that is extremely helpful for people to putting yourself out there and educating us with content, with videos so that people can be more informed and, and hopefully make better decisions for what's right for them and their families, for their health. And, uh, I'm again,
Starting point is 00:58:35 I acknowledge you for, for doing it in an understandable way where you can break down the data and the science, but then also give some good stories and analogies so that common people like myself can understand what, what you're talking about. I want people to follow you over on social media. You're everywhere, MedCramVideos, Twitter, MedCram on Instagram, Facebook, and MedCram, C-R-A-M.com. Lots of incredible videos over there. We'll have it linked up in the show notes. Where else can we go to connect with you or support you?
Starting point is 00:59:05 Well, that's it. You've just mentioned those. Just, yeah, thank you very much for inviting me on, Lewis. It's been amazing. But yeah, follow us on Twitter and also on the YouTube channel, MedCram. Yeah, your YouTube is great. You've got some amazing videos, and I'm sure they'll be linked up here as well. And I'd also say, too, it's not just me on MedCram. We also get experts in the field. We recently had Shane Crotty, who is an expert virologist, immunologist
Starting point is 00:59:35 down there at La Jolla, and recently Dr. Joseph Allen at the Harvard School of Public Health. So we try to get experts in the field to talk and explain. Amazing. Yeah, I want everyone to check this stuff out because I think we're going to need more of this information over the next year and beyond as things evolve in this virus. I want to ask you a question I ask everyone at the end of my episodes. It's called the three truths question. It's a hypothetical question. And I'd like you to imagine you live a very long life and it's your last day. And for whatever reason, all of the content you've ever created, all the stuff on MedCram and anything else you create for the rest of your life, it has to go with you to the next place after you leave this earth. So no one has access to any of your information.
Starting point is 01:00:17 But you get to leave behind three lessons you know to be true from your life and your existence that you've learned that you would leave with the world? And this is all we have to remember you by are these three lessons, or I like to call the three truths. What would you say are yours? I would say that whenever someone comes to you with something new, it's good to be skeptical and not be driven by every wind of saying. But at the same time, at the same time that you're doing that, leave part of your mind open to the possibility that it can be true of what they're saying and investigate it for yourself. Don't believe anybody.
Starting point is 01:00:59 Be skeptical, but investigate it because it could be the truth. The reason why I say that is because we live in a world of information, and it's no longer a question about whether or not the truth is out there or whether we have to search for the truth or find the truth. The truth is there. The problem is expressing it and getting people to believe it because there are so many alternative motives that people suspect other people of having to be open-minded and to find it. That's number one. Okay. That was number one. Number two, your second truth.
Starting point is 01:01:32 Number two, I would say that, you know, I guess I'm informed by my upbringing and by my spirituality. And so I believe that good doesn't come from within. Good comes from above. And what I try to do on a daily basis is simply reflect that as much as I can. So that means every day polishing the mirror as best as I can. Because people will say, hey, you did a great job. You're so this, you're so that, you're so the other. I'm like, you don't know who you're talking to. Do you know who you're talking to here? This is just me. And so I've noticed that if you try to grasp at wealth,
Starting point is 01:02:13 riches, money, all that sort of stuff, it's like ropes of sand. As you try to grab for it, it's hard to find. The other third thing I would say is don't be afraid to think big. Don't be afraid to explore your mind. There's so many things that I love to get involved with. Medicine is just one dimension of my life. I love music. I love all of these things. And I guess if someone were to say to me, that was truly somebody like this, I would want to be known as a renaissance
Starting point is 01:02:46 man. Yeah. Me and you both. Yeah. Somebody who is good at a lot of different things and investigated things and tried to put things together. One of the things that I really find interesting is the grand unifying theory of life, trying to put it all together. Yeah. Have you read the book Range? No, I have not. By David Epstein. You should check that out, Range, talking about in a world of specialists and people specializing, we should really be expanding our range and the benefits of being really good at many different things and how it'll impact the overall quality of your life and decision making and relationships, et cetera. So it might be an interesting book for you to check out called range. Um, those are three powerful truths. I want to, uh, I want to have you back on if people want,
Starting point is 01:03:36 uh, Dr. Schwelt back on then in the YouTube comments below, leave a hashtag greatness, or let us know if you want them to come back on. I think it'd be amazing. And talking about sleep and more things about the immune system and how we can really improve the overall quality of our life based on science and the medical research that you've been doing. And my final question for you is, what is your definition of greatness? Definition of greatness would have to be, huh, that's a good question. I think it would go along with my second point, somebody that reflects and doesn't get in the way, somebody that can reflect greatness and doesn't get in the way. That's the definition of greatness. And that's what I try to
Starting point is 01:04:16 do is try to get out of the way. Yeah. Well, Dr. Schwab, thank you so much for being here. We appreciate it. Thank you again so much for listening to this episode. I did not want to stop. And if you didn't listen to part one yet, make sure to go to listen to part one at lewishouse.com slash 1063 or just go on Apple Podcasts and check out the previous episode. You'll see it right there. It's a game changer. And I really love the research, the science behind a lot of the things that Dr.
Starting point is 01:04:44 Schwelt is sharing. Again, make sure you do your own research. Make sure to dive in and check peer-reviewed articles. Make sure to check out the facts of everything before you take action on anything for your personal life. My goal is to find the brightest minds in the world, the people that are applying these things, learning on the ground, and share it with you. That's my mission, to find great people. learning on the ground and share it with you.
Starting point is 01:05:04 That's my mission to find great people. And he's got some amazing videos over on his website at medcram.com as well. So make sure you check that out because some great content that just kind of breaks everything down and makes things more easy to understand. So hope you enjoy that. And if this is your first time here,
Starting point is 01:05:19 please click that subscribe button right now over on Apple Podcasts, as well as leave us a rating and review. Every time we get a new subscriber and a new rating or a review, it actually spreads the message of greatness to help more people in the world on that platform. So every time you subscribe or leave a rating and review or share this with a friend, you're helping spread the message of improvement, of growth for someone else in their life. And if you want inspirational messages from me sent to your phone every single week, then make sure to text me the word podcast right now to 614-350-3960. Again,
Starting point is 01:05:53 text me right now 614-350-3960. And I'll leave you with this. The most important thing that I've been thinking about over the last year is how grateful I am for my health and getting to a destination of your health, it's never gonna happen. This is a constant journey, a daily process of a lifestyle that you need to start living in. If you feel like you're out of whack
Starting point is 01:06:13 in your health in some way, or you're out of shape, or your diet is off, or you're seeing some symptoms come out, make sure you're asking yourself, am I eating whole foods? Am I eating healthy whole foods? Am I moving my body? Am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting some sunshine on a daily basis? Am I eating whole foods? Am I eating healthy whole foods? Am I moving my body?
Starting point is 01:06:25 Am I getting enough sleep? Am I getting some sunshine on a daily basis? Am I in nature? Am I taking some time for myself? Ask yourself these questions and make sure your lifestyle is set up in a way so you can incorporate some of these things in your daily routine so it becomes a part of your lifestyle, not something you do once in a while. And I want to remind you, if no one has told you lately, you are loved, you are worthy,
Starting point is 01:06:47 and you matter. And I'm so grateful for your time today. I hope you found value out of this message. And as always, you know what time it is. It's time to go out there and do something great.

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