Join us for an eye-opening conversation about reclaiming your health with Dr. Nisha Chellam, a "recovering physician" turned functional medicine expert at Parsley Health! Hosted by Neal K. Shah, CEO, and Nirvana Tari, Chief Patient Officer, at CareYaya.
In this episode, Dr. Chellam shares her transformative journey from traditional medicine to functional health, revealing why she believes hormone replacement therapy is being dangerously misused and why most people shouldn't feel "old" until their eighties. Discover the shocking truth about how the medical system incentivizes prescriptions over prevention, and learn practical strategies for aging better through the five pillars of health.
From her personal battle with autoimmune conditions and chronic fatigue to helping high-performing professionals reclaim their vitality, Dr. Chellam provides actionable insights on everything from the importance of circadian rhythms to why she thinks protein bars should be labeled "not recommended for human consumption."
Key takeaways include her top biomarker to track (blood pressure), why walking shoes are the best health investment under $100, and her game-changing advice on sleep, nutrition, and stress management for busy professionals in their peak career years.
Brought to you by CareYaya. America's #1-rated solution for in-home senior care, providing industry-leading quality care at the most affordable rates. It is known especially for delivering the most reliable and affordable overnight senior care and 24/7 care in many major metro areas including Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco, and Washington D.C.
This episode is perfect for anyone feeling exhausted despite "normal" blood tests, professionals struggling to balance peak performance with declining energy, or anyone ready to challenge the conventional wisdom about aging and health.
Transcript
Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to our podcast. Today, I am joined with our founder and CEO Neil Shah and the wonderful Dr. Nisha Chellam. How are you doing today, Dr. Chellam? Fantastic. I'm so glad to be here. So excited to have you on. I have been waiting for this one. Yeah, great to have you. And everyone's excited to hear some insights. I hope I'm going to give them mind-blowing insights. To keep the energy up, I'm going to go ahead and start with our lightning round questions, and then we'll get right into it. So tell me, what is the biggest health trend right now that's actually dangerous? I think it's the hormone replacement therapy. I love it, but I really do believe it's being misused in a very big way. All right. I love it. I love it. Yeah. Okay. I'll have to ask to unpack that. But let's see. The next one on the lightning round is what's one supplement that every professional should consider taking? You know, I always think about this. I'm torn between omega-threes and magnesium, but I think I'm going to go for magnesium. I find consistently those two elements are really low in most people. So almost giving away omega-three and magnesium. But I would say, yes, magnesium. Let's go with magnesium. I love it. I love it. Now tell me, what is the best investment that you can make in your health for like maybe under a hundred dollars? A pair of walking shoes. Okay. I love it. I will say, I think every single person that we have asked for advice on this whole podcast for the last few weeks has said walking. So this is your sign. That's great. And then if you could only track one biomarker for the rest of your life, what would it be? I think you should check your blood pressure, honestly. If there's anything, as long as your pressure is good, your cardiovascular health, that's a great marker. Yeah, okay. I love it. Honestly, you can get a blood pressure monitor and some nice walking shoes for a hundred dollars. So go ahead and invest in this. And have some money left for a supplement. Yes, correct. Everything that I said, you can do under a hundred dollars. Someone come sponsor us. Yeah. Cool. That's awesome. So Dr. Tellem, you call yourself, interestingly, a recovering physician. That's a bold statement. What made you recover from traditional medicine? And what are you really referring to when you call yourself a recovering physician? yeah you know I was listening to an npr podcast where they have this thing about language and they were describing what the what the word physician means and it was like um something like uh starts with physic or um physicus or something But it's a person who diagnoses and gives remedies that are natural. That's how it comes, you know, the history of that language. A doctor is someone who teaches. And it could be a doctorate of physiology, theology, medicine. And I... I really think most medical doctors should be referred to as physicians. But a physician is supposed to give you natural treatments. And that's not something I ever learned through medical school. I learned about disease. So a pill for every ill. and that was my mindset it was almost like I know exactly what to do and for me to become a recover from that mode of dog madison and do something different I felt like I went back to the roots of what a physician should be which is look asking the question why and looking at what can this person do today that will shift their health without writing a prescription I love that answer. That was, that's, that's so interesting. I didn't know about the etymology of the word physician. So that's, that's really cool. Thanks for sharing. Yeah, totally. And then, and then, you know, I think, you know, following up on that, you know, you kind of like had the pivot, you know, when, you know, you said you were at forty two, you had normal blood tests, but you felt terrible. You know, tell us more about like, what were you feeling? How is someone who's in the same boat, you know, as you, but doesn't have medical expertise like you did can advocate for themselves in that situation? I was as bad as everybody else without medical experience. I can tell you that. So I used to work for the VA, which is to me, a retirement job. You work five days. It is a nine to five job, or I work from seven to three. weekends off, eleven public holidays, twenty one paid vacation. You get personal time off. Literally, I could have retired. What happened is around that time, I remember seeing a lot of veterans and we have goals, targets to meet. Their LDL cholesterol should be a certain number. Blood pressure should be a certain number. Our bonus was tied to those things. Very easy to do that because you keep giving medications till you get those numbers. But what I noticed was my patients were getting sicker and sicker. And this was around the time the Iran-Afghan war was going, Iran-Iraq, around that time. And I remember feeling very stressed because my patient load from eight to ten patients a day went up to twenty-five to thirty patients a day. It was a huge increase. And I was... All my patients were getting sicker and sicker the more I intervened. And I remember feeling I was, you know, it's almost like going to work and failing every day, time after time. There's no other profession where you go to work and are solving the same problem without solving it. Somebody comes to me with pain. I'm giving them a medication. Yeah. Months later, they come back with more pain. I'm upping their medication, adding something else for the side effect. You're literally failing every day. And I didn't like that feeling till one of my patients who actually left when I told him, you know, you need to take a medication for your bone density. came back with a higher bone density and told me about a different way of living. And I remember feeling at that time, you know, I was in my forties. I had had migraine headaches probably about once or twice a month. I would call in sick maybe once in three months because I just would get up and puke and had this throbbing headache. I walked around with a drug called Flonase because I was constantly congested. I was always inflamed. I was gaining weight. I had two kids by then, but I was just gaining weight. And I assumed like everybody around me was gaining weight around that time. It wasn't a big deal. I had no energy when I came back. And this was like, I'm telling you, literally a nine to five job. I came back, but I would finish my notes right up till midnight and then wake up the next day, do the things for the kids and try to get to work. I almost felt like, and I was moody, very moody. And I just couldn't have a conversation with my kids without yelling or being upset about something. Yeah. And I remember thinking after speaking to this particular patient, you know, there's something actually wrong with me and I need to go get myself checked. Obviously, being a physician, I ordered my own blood test and everything came back. But B-twelve was low. Vitamin D was low. And at that time I was an omnivorous eater. So it wasn't like a vegan that my B-twelve would be low. And I replaced those. But then I called one of my endocrinology friends and I said, you know, my thyroid looks a little odd. Do you think I should do anything? She said, just check it in six months. So I went to University of Michigan, which is like one of the great universities, got an appointment with an endocrinologist four months later. waited for that. And I showed up and she said, you know what? Well, you just need to exercise better and eat differently or continue to do that and you'll be fine. And I remember feeling, I used to drink a pot of coffee at two p.m. to see my afternoon patients because I just had the energy. And I assumed that was normal because I was a busy mother. And a dietician had come to my office and she said, You know, you should look up functional medicine. It's just mind blowing. And I'm one of those. If somebody tells me something is mind blowing, I would just jump in. I was like, you know, I need a break for five days. I'm going to go for this conference. And they had a guarantee at that time saying, if you don't like what we are telling you, we'll give you your money back. No questions asked. Two days. And I was so sure I was getting my money back. so I went I went in for the pre day and the conference and by the second day and I remember mark hyman was the keynote speaker I was sobbing because for the first time in my life I realized what we were missing in medicine. I mean, I hated my job. It was just a cushy job, but I was getting nowhere with that. I was not helping our patients. I was not helping myself. And I remember going back home, doing all the tests and finding that I had an auto, the most common autoimmune condition is Hashimoto's, which is where the immune system attacks your thyroid. I it was in functional medicine talk about detoxification I'm like okay these are all buzzwords I don't know what this means so I learned what to do and I remember I went to the conference in september november I started the so-called detox process where I cleaned up my diet went completely plant-based because that's what seemed to work for me at that time and I remember it was june so november to june I had eaten differently, I was exercising differently. And suddenly I woke up one day at four o'clock, like literally my brain turned on with no, you know, with that, like I gotta go get my pot of coffee kind of a thing. I just woke up, I was awake. I realized I hadn't had a migraine headache in three months. I hadn't used my face. Wow. It was just mind blowing as far as I was concerned. I just couldn't go back to practicing traditional medicine. Yeah. Go ahead. I need to get my mom in with you because what you just is like so many of the things that she's feeling right now as well. And it's she's just like, yeah, this is a normal part of getting older. And it's that's this is what the process is like is just constantly being tired. And, you know, she also like you mentioned osteoporosis earlier. She has osteoporosis and it's. There's, you know, autoimmune diseases and just constant flare-ups. Oh my goodness, the migraines that lead to the puking. Wow, that's, it's not normal. Okay, that's good to know. That's really, really good to know. I really appreciate these insights. But, you know, like, I was talking about this earlier, that, like, most of our audiences right now, like, of professionals who are at the peak of their career and they're absolutely crushing it, but their bodies are kind of giving up on them and they're kind of falling apart. So what do you think is like the biggest mistake that high performers like yourself tend to make with their health? Oh, my God. I'm telling you, just the basics. Just in general, people don't sleep enough. I wish we could just get to bed at the right time. There's something about the circadian rhythm of the body, right? We have an internal clock, just like how you have twenty four hours day and night. We have something that happens within our body. Your stomach starts detoxing around seven. So you're supposed to have your last meal at four p.m., which is not practical for most people. Right. So we I negotiate with my patients. Can you stop eating by six? And then your liver detoxes between eight and nine. Your brain detoxes at ten and your liver detoxes again at three a.m. And most of us, I don't know when I've gone to bed before at ten o'clock. That's my dream. It's my dream to get to bed at ten. I love sleeping. I would sleep the minute I hit the bed, but I have not been able to. And I think and I wake up at four still. I just I think that is probably the most important habit we all should develop as a student. It's almost like you have to have a foreplay before you go to bed with your brain. Like when you work on the computer and try to go to bed, it's like watching a horror movie and going to bed. So spend time on figuring out how you can get to bed. And when you do, let me know. All right. That's definitely good to know. I mean, good insight. I had about a three a.m. last night, so I need the advice. Your liver was detoxing. Yeah, yeah. It was like I caught the back of it. I guess maybe as a follow-up to that, for professionals, especially mid-career, what have you seen as a reality check that often happens to shift people's behavior or seek a different way of life? Well, get the right spouse. Most of the men who come to me... come because their wives are worried about their health. They have no clue what's going on. And they'll say, I'll ask them, so why are you here? How did you hear about functional medicine? I don't know. My wife asked me to come and see you. And I think that's number one. You'll find that if you can do just see any functional medical doctor, it doesn't matter, but get your functional medical labs done. There's nothing wrong. that can shock people when they see their numbers. And you need a doctor who will actually interpret those numbers and connect them to what you're experiencing. So you can have people who come and say, you know, I just have occasional heartburn. I take Tums. Occasionally my back pains, but you know, I know exactly why it happens. But when you say occasional, suddenly, or I've never had a bowel movement, And I don't think I'm eating enough. These are the excuses they give themselves. Or they'll say, I just forget things. And I think it's just because I'm too busy. But when you do the blood work and you see that every cell is inflamed and they have so much of sugar and triglycerides and high blood pressure going, destroying every aspect of their body. Yeah. It's just mind blowing how they shift their health. Yeah. That's interesting. That's so interesting. We have to check to see a functional medical doctor and make sure your spouse cares about your health. Yeah. Okay. So for people who are listening right now, so what do they do if they want to see a functional medicine doctor? Just look up functional medicine doctor near me and insurance covers that. So the company I work for, Parsley Health, covers insurance in New York. I think we cover Blue Cross Blue Shield, Aetna. And then similarly, we take insurance in California. Okay, got it. But the rest of the states, if anybody's from insurance, reach out so we can partner with you guys in different states. It's only insurance we have to partner with in every state. And it would be great if we could be covered across the country, but it takes a lot of effort. But yes, we do take insurance. But even when you think about the cash price when you pay, I don't know whoever goes and sees a doctor for free. We have a deductible. My deductible is twenty five thousand. So I'm going to the doctor. I am paying every time I go to the doctor. So I don't know this myth of, you know, everything is covered by my insurance for majority of Americans. That's a whole nother can of worms that we can get into on this podcast. I know Neil has a lot to say. Yes, I have a lot to say on the health insurance industry. Keep it on topic. It's worth it to get your testing done. have a conversation with a functional medical doctor. And I say functional medicine because to me, that has been the first time I've understood physiology and biochemistry being utilized in clinical medicine. Most of clinical medicine is pathology and pharmacology. so we're looking at a disease and how the drug right yeah and that's what we're taught well all of the first first one and a half years it's about the basic sciences and after that it's all about pathology and pharmacology every doctor it goes into medical school excited to write their first prescription that's how we're groomed yeah right yeah if I know how to give you the diagnose you and give you the right medication I've made it But we're never taught about health. And that's why, you know, when people get angry with physicians and say, she never talked to me about my lifestyle, never asked a single question because we were not trained. We were not taught health is feasible. Disease is inevitable. That's what we were taught as disease. And you need to know the three hundred and sixty five causes of liver cirrhosis. Or you can pass the exam, right? Yeah. Follow up to that point, though, I guess it doesn't seem like it's all about incentives. Like there's clearly incentive of the system on one side of like every prescription generates profits and money, you know, for the pharmaceutical industry. But on the other side, telling somebody to go for a walk outside or, you know, walk in the grass or get some sunshine, you know, it's free. And there isn't as much of a profit motive. And, you know, do you think that's kind of like an inherent conflict in, you know, why people continue to kind of, you know, steer people towards, you know, taking pills for their illness. I don't know if I knew that was the incentive. This is where I would say in medical school, the biggest mistake or through residency that I've made is I just assumed this is how you treat people. Like people come to you and this is all you treat. It wasn't like a conspiracy theory. I didn't know that I was getting paid per prescription. I didn't know the stronger the prescription, I get paid like, you know, the... The person in the VA who used to get the biggest bonus was our nephrologist because he had dialysis every day. Those were the most complex. It's the most expensive treatment. Yeah. He got the biggest bonus because he was the biggest draw. And he did the least amount of work because most of the dialysis is done by the dialysis nurse. Yeah. to review the labs and give interventions. So I will say the system is so messed up. I don't even know if it was designed to be that way. I'm sure some business person who got and decided, you know what, if this and this is done, we get more money. So you need to start doing this and this and we need people who do this and this because we draw in the most money. And I remember when I first had a billing service, she would call and she would tell, you know, this is... are you going to see this person more often? They have great insurance. And I'm like, she's perfect. You see her only once a month, once a year. And that is how this, that's what I'm saying. We get incentivized because this is how we're getting paid. We don't even think that we're doing that. It's not like I was looking at it for, you know, Oh my God. But yeah, some people, and then she will say, you know, try to, avoid seeing this patient because their insurance doesn't yeah wow yeah and it was mind-blowing how we as physicians never think about it I I don't even know what insurance you have when you come to see me it's just when my brother turns around and says yeah you have this person having crappy insurance make sure you collect the copay because keep in mind medicine is not free you have to pay and a medical doctor you you want the doctor to call you you want an answering service you want them to be twenty four seven who's paying for all of this not your insurance it's the individual physician that's doing that so yes we are incentivized to keep our doors open but I think sometimes it can When you don't know an alternative and all you know is writing a prescription. And also now you get incentivized to write the cheapest prescription or the generic version. Even if you don't think it's well, the patient says, you know, I don't think this works for me. Like, and I give a levothyroxine. no everybody says you know this doesn't work for me but synthroid works and I have to fight with the insurance these are all the things that happen at back doors and we don't even realize that's what we're doing so when the doctors are corrupt they are trying to get incentivized we don't know that we just do it we're asked yeah don't even ask yeah it's like a system issue it's a system issue yes for the sake of everyone um do you have time to write a book dr jello Well, I have actually written a book. Yeah, it's another one. I know. But yeah, a real book where I'm sitting and writing about these things, maybe someday. Because my parents, they lived till their nineties. So there's a potential I'm going to hit a hundred. I might have enough time to write a book. That's good for us. I'm really glad to hear that. I guess maybe like kind of like going into like, some like practical advice or like hacks, but for someone who is maybe like in their mid forties, say, and they're starting to feel old, what are like the top three things that they should start to investigate immediately and start to like, kind of like start thinking about. Yeah. I think the, like I've mentioned before, always check your blood pressure. That's number one. Number two, see a functional medical doctor, get your blood work done. Identify the problem. Like everybody walks around saying, you know, I'm forty two. The worst thing that I hear is, you know, I'm I'm in my forties. My father had this in his forties. My mother had this. So this is natural for me to have it. I think that's something that people need to move out of. I think you should check your metabolic health and metabolic health will include your blood pressure, your blood sugar, your cholesterol, particularly the so-called good cholesterol. And I'm sure Dr. Tom Dayspring, who talks a lot about lipid and who I learn a lot from, will kill me for saying it's a good cholesterol. But it is. That's how people remember it. The HDL, the high density lipoprotein, that level triglycerides and your waist circumference. So sometimes you can be the same weight because you're losing muscle mass and just your pant size will change. and a lot of times guys don't change their pants as if you see and I had used to have a meme a card where the the same pant they wear as they get older but their belt keeps going down because their stomach is occupying the upper portion and that's what happens I think when that happens right yeah when you find that your belt you're going um having to go bigger on your belt I think it's time to take a a It's a reality check at that point. These are all things that you can do at home. And it's not like, and for heaven's sake, please don't go to a regular doctor and say, oh, my blood tests are fine, but I'm just feeling old. Yeah. There is no, in my opinion, and in the science that we have learned, you really don't age till you're in your eighties. When I say age, meaning stamina going down, energy going down. And, you know, you are a little slower. You're not running as fast from the parking structure into the store. Those things really slow down in your eighties. But before that, forties is like the peak of your life. No one should be old at forty. In fact, you will be the best shape of your health in forty much better than your twenties. Really? Yeah, you're more mature. You understand. And that's the problem, right? The fourth decade is when your career is at its peak or you're building. You finally know what you want in life. At the same time, your health, your family, everything comes together. the fourth decade is just amazing if you can focus on your health too. That's great advice. Yeah. That really is. I mean, also like, I do feel like as like a kind of, for lack of a better word, like a youth obsessed, like society, um, that's definitely really great to hear because I'm, I'm, I just turned like a couple of weeks ago and I was like, Oh my gosh, all right, my life is over. Like I'm old now. Like what, what next? Like, you know, I wake up, my back hurts. And like, if I sleep wrong, my neck hurts and like all of this. And I was like, okay, like my youth is gone, but that's not true at all. I just started, like, I'm in like my second year of being like a full adult, you know? So I think that's a really important insight to hear that. You are not old till you're in your eighties, guys. You hear that, everybody? Even that might be questionable. I have people, eighty-six, playing two hours of tennis and I'm like, I'm breathless when I listen. Wow. That's amazing. That's amazing. I'm jealous. I'm breathless after fifteen minutes of tennis. And then I guess, you know, curious to hear about like some of the innovations that are happening, you know, I think, you know, we've seen things like peptide therapy, you know, it sounds like science fiction, you know, I think, yeah, what else is going on, you know, a lot of stuff around obesity. Are there any other innovations that you're like, really excited about, you know, that that are under discussed? Yeah, I, I think there are a lot of, um, um, more, you know, peptides are, they mimic our natural hormone and that's a good, that's what I find about the shift in the pharmaceuticals. We're working with our body, with our, like the immunotherapies, nobody's now giving you a whole bunch of chemicals. And which is why I know as much as GLP one gets, um, and, and which might be another big health trend, which can be dangerous. Yeah. However, What I like about and there are medicines that are coming down where you get an injection, it's used for disease like where you lose muscle mass. Now you're going to get a drug that is improve your muscle mass and help you lose weight. And that's going to be a new one that will come down the pipeline. There's a lot of treatments for cholesterol lowering where they're very difficult. We have something called LP little a with a genetic trait. It makes the cholesterol stick. It's called genetic cement. And these are the people who get these early heart attacks, even though they might be normal BMI. So there are a lot of drugs that are coming down to solve those problems. And To me, they still should be provided for by someone who's educated on them. These are not like, I mean, they are great biohacks. Everybody's compounding these drugs and injecting them, feeling fabulous at twenty, anything you do will be make you fabulous. But when you get to the forties and fifties, you really need some guidance. And before you go to those trends, I think the biggest trend should be can we get the five pillars of health? And I don't think people are doing that, which is your movement. We're all sitting eight hours in front of the computer, if not more. And we're sitting, we're driving in a car, going into a conditioned building, sitting in front of a building, getting home, sitting in at the dining table, sitting in, scrolling through our phone or watching something on the computer. It's constantly sitting. So movement. The other one is nutrition. Nutrition is so confusing, right? Everybody's talking about protein and fats, but nutrition, human beings ate just about anything that they wanted. They would go like in your soil, what grew is what you ate. It wasn't like there was a good food or a bad food, but you ate real food. And I'm very glad that they're going to bring out those labels, which are just like the cigarette smoking, where a lot of the food packets are going to have not recommended for human consumption. to those M&Ms and skittles and stuff like that. We can at least make that informed choice. Hey, I'm eating something that is really not recommended for my kids and this might be more appropriate. But nutrition, do what you think you love to do, but make it as whole and natural as possible. If there's something called natural, everything around us is cultivated. And then managing your stress. We're all chronically stressed. We can choose to be stressed. Right. The situation is the situation. How you respond to it is how you would is what we call a stress. They tell me, I'm so stressed by my mom. She tells me that. I said, how else can you choose to respond to that instead of saying you're stressed? And then, of course, the community you hang around with. If you are hanging around with one-uppers, like when somebody says, you know, I have a hip pain here. I've not been able to, oh, my God, both my hips hurt. And then the third one says, my hips and back hurt. I mean, that's the community you're around. You're celebrating illnesses. Yeah. the right kind of community and of course nothing better than sleep when you sleep over things honestly your brain is going to work much better so I feel instead of going to those biohacks and spending twenty thirty thousand to do all these um you know body scans and blood tests start with the basics things that you can do focus on that and everything else comes you know it's just um I would, what do they call them? Bells and whistles. Yeah. That's great. I am curious just because like there is such like a trend going on around like Ozempic and like GLP ones and stuff like that. So in your like professional opinion, you think that it probably does more harm than good. I personally love the drugs. I will tell you this. When I choose a patient who needs to get it, it's a patient who's done a lot of work. They've actually exercised. They're busy women who've been exercising, eating right, cannot move a pound here or there. And then when I start them on a low dose of the drug, literally their food noise goes down. their personality changes, suddenly they realize they've been eating thirty to forty percent more than what they needed. It literally right sizes their food for them. And they have this enormous energy. They start hitting the gym better. And my hope is someday we will see that when people develop those good habits of cooking at home and exercising, feeling good about themselves. We can wean them off these drugs. There is some data that's coming out that we can potentially after three years, but you got to get those foundations in. I don't know if you've ever met people who are overweight and obese. It is constantly on their minds. Many of us, we look at these morbidly obese people and think, why can't they do something about it? They are. They are constantly thinking about it. They feel belittled. Everybody treats them differently. They just don't know what to do. It's very, very difficult. It's a wiring of the brain. And the GLP works on the wiring of the brain. Having said that, the bigger challenge is all of our, you know, whether it be Hollywood or Bollywood, since I come from India, everybody's using this to get that extra five to seven pounds that they would like to get rid of. Right. And we don't know what that's going to and they're not getting it from a physician or the pharmaceuticals. They're getting compounded versions of it. And after by the time you get like a fifty day supply by day thirty, it's ineffective. They're injecting this thing. I have I've seen. people get into trouble with eating disorder, disordered eating, and that gives you a slew of other problems. So this is not, this should not be a drug that people should be using without medical guidance and somebody who is familiar with the drug. And it's, I mean, this is all I do is GLP-I. I keep reading about it because I'm so fascinated by the drug. And it was initially discovered, if I remember right, on the history for when they were looking for a treatment for Alzheimer's, because that's how they discovered and they find these mice, their blood sugars were going down, they were losing weight, they were able to find their way through the maze with the initial GLP. So a lot more will be coming around down the pipeline with the GLP being used for addiction, addiction therapy and Alzheimer's disease. And that's going to be exciting too. And at that time, no one's going to judge it. We seem to judge it when it comes for obesity. I love that. That was, that was so beautifully and well said. Like, I think that there is a lot of stigma when it comes to that. And there's a whole lot of judgment. And I think that like, we forget the compassion and empathy side of it and understanding that like, that could be any one of us. And, you know, speaking of like, kind of like nutrition. And I know you mentioned like food labels and stuff like that. I think like in European countries, they do that a lot. Like they give a grade to the food, which I think is really cool. Like, A through F, like, do you want to eat this? Yes or no. And I think that that is something that as a society, as a whole, would be an amazing thing that we would be able to do together. But, you know, you talk a lot about like food and nutrition. And I know you mentioned like eating at home and eating healthy, but like, I guess what is the biggest nutritional mistake that you see busy professionals make? I think the grab and go culture, right? They do a protein bar. They will do a protein shake and they're constipated. They think they're getting the right amount of nutrition. Like we talk about these macros. If there's anything, I think protein bars should be labeled as not recommended for human consumption in my opinion and protein drinks literally you know the if if you're working so hard you don't have time for a meal I don't think you have that is the fuel every so food is not just calories and energy It shifts your genetic material. And that's my most favorite test is the nutrigenomics, where I get almost eighty five to ninety percent of my patients have their genetics mapped with me because it shifts how your cells function. So it has to be so sacred. And I always tell people, if you don't have time to eat, don't eat. I'd rather have you in ketosis rather than eat garbage and inflamed. Take the time to cook and eat, even if it is one meal a day. Set aside that one or two hours just to fuel your body and look at it as it's almost your body is your temple. Yes. And stuff that is clean. And you will see how your brain, the way your brain functions is so different when you fuel yourself right. I love that. It's not any particular food. It's just whole food. That's it. Yeah. Wow. More protein bars. I'm throwing them all out. Yeah. You can have it as a dessert, but that's, it cannot be a meal. Yeah. That's good. Okay. Wow. And I guess speaking of tips, like what, what other actionable tips do you have for people like that, that are like, you know, if you had to pick like three easy tips that, you know, somebody can take this week to start aging better, you know, what would it be? yeah yeah I I think the most important way this is something I learned from a guy his name is keith cummingham I don't know if you guys know him his um I think his book is called um something the word stupid comes there but it's the road less traveled or whatever anyway he used to be he's one of the speakers at uh tony robbins's business mastery And he would say, it doesn't matter what you're doing. If you're building something, you have a vision, you need to take out four hours in the week, what is called thinking time. I think some people call it focus time, or whatever it might be. You just take a book, you don't have any electronics, you put a board outside your room. um door tell people that not enter they cannot disturb you and that four hours just allow your thoughts to go through he does say go with a question that you want to solve a problem you want to solve how do I do this and literally think for two to four hours in a week Now, some people may take out an hour or two every day to think. I would say, please spend some time thinking. Stop doing. We're constantly doing. We're never being right. So that's number one. Number two, I cannot stop but say, please go out and walk. Walk in nature. Yeah. just stole my thunder this morning when you talked about touch grass. Literally, that's what it is. Touch grass. Put your feet on the grass and put your feet and everybody's constantly in shoes inside the house. Get off that. Take off those shoes. Take off those socks. Feel earth. That's number two. And in fact, take your computer and go walk out with your computer. I don't care. Just walk out. That's number two. And number three is please do power naps if you don't think you can get to bed. Like if you feel sick, don't fight it. Don't go get another cup of coffee like I did. I would just take a power nap for twenty or thirty minutes and you will be amazed at how refreshed you will be. That's a good tip. I love that. Might take a power nap today. And nap snacks. Yeah, nap snacks. That's what they call it. Because, you know, when when I was younger, I did that. Those really didn't work for me. Like I power naps were just like, I was like, I would wake up, but that was because I was taking like two hour long. Yes. That's true. Like I was waking up and I was like, Oh my God, what dimension am I in? Like what's going on? But I like one time, like I took, I was like, let me just try it. Let me just try a minute nap. And I don't even know if I actually fell asleep or like what happened. Cause I was like in this like weird state, but I woke up and I was like, I could go run a mile right now. So they work. From someone who was a power nap hater before, they absolutely and a hundred percent work. We are running, we're cutting it close on time here, but I have a couple more questions that I want to ask you and then we'll hop into the audience ones. But I guess like in like a couple of sentences, we've kind of been talking about this, but just like as like a wrap up, what does aging well really mean in twenty twenty five? Like, can you kind of paint that picture for us? Aging well means you have more energy as you get older. You are a little more clear about what you like. Like you're not as scattered as you are when you're in your twenties. I mean, no disrespect to my twenty-year-olds, but I'm just saying, you know, you want to do a lot. You have a lot more energy, but you really have, you're a little more focused. You have purpose. I would say You should not have any aches and pains. Your body should not create discomfort for you in any form. No heartburn, no difficulty sleeping, no aches and pains. So to me, a vibrant process of aging is you don't have fatigue. You can think clearly. You have a purpose in life. And every day you're getting out of bed totally overjoyed to do what you want to do. I mean, it is both emotional and physical, right? If you look at aging, that's where people go wrong. They are constantly complaining and they feel a lack of energy. They have lots of aches and pains and they chalk it up to age. And it is not. It is exactly what you do. Your habits create your health. So develop good habits. Yeah. I love that. I really, really, that was amazing. Neil, are there any other questions that you would like to ask Dr. Chellum before we move on to our audience? No, let's give the audience some opportunities. Absolutely. The audience has been going off. So we have someone saying, huge insights, seeing this firsthand with their grandparents and family in the medical system, short-term fixes, no addressing the care underlying drivers. and they're very disappointed in the system. So I think a lot of people are hearing what you're saying and have had these difficult conversations with their doctors, whether it's for themselves or for their loved ones. I like every question. He's going to sleep. Yeah. As long as you're consistent. I feel like I give people hell about that. So there is there is a protein called S-Hundred B. If you go to Europe, you can get it checked. But in the US, you can check it in the regular labs. It's in the trauma centers. It's a protein that goes high in traumatic brain injury. and um what happens in traumatic brain injury it's a good protein it allows you to heal anytime you have little inflammation healing happens right that's how skin treatments are done a lot of we need inflammation in order to heal right but when it goes super high it keeps you chronically inflamed and this s under b protein goes high when people are consistently not sleeping in the night and I told you at ten o'clock your brain begins to detox You will literally, your brain is getting damaged. Like it had a traumatic brain injury when you skip that sleeping time. Wow. So I would say do your best wake up at three AM. That's okay. But get to bed by ten. Wow. And I find that's my biggest hack is like, if I want to do something really good the next day, I have to prepare for something, or I want to do something new. I try to get to bed early the previous night. And I will set my alarm for three-thirty because I can wake up refreshed. But when you go to sleep at three, it's almost you're going against your rhythm. And when you're young, you can do a lot of things. You know, we've all done it. But as you get older, that's when it comes to, those are the people who will age very fast. When talking about aging, focus on your sleep. Wow, that is so interesting. You said it's called S-one-hundred B, that protein? Yes. Yeah. No, I'm going to listen to that. That's okay. You, that might've done the trick for me to go to bed at every single hour because I definitely am. I'm so not convinced. Yeah. Here's a theory. You know how they talk about personalized health and personalized medicine. You know, one theory is what if there are just personalizing your circadian rhythm and And throughout society, there are people who historically would have gone to sleep at different times, you know, so certain archetypes of people are people who tend to stay up late and, you know, like maybe back in the hunter gatherer days, you know, those were people that were keeping watch over the tribe, uh, when everyone else was sleeping or maybe doing creative work or whatever. Right. And, you know, so I wonder sometimes, like I've observed that in society that there are early birds who sleep early, wake up early. And then there are night owls. And I wonder if like the night owl should be guided towards, you know, like suitable schedules for them. And then the earlier, you know, it's almost like the night owls might have struggle doing an eight to five because their circadian rhythm and their body isn't meant be in that you know and yeah I totally agree with you but that's you know they've done the signs and it's a very small percentage of people I think the best way to get it tested get your blood tested get your brain tested you can actually do an imaging scan of your brain see how many areas of your brain light up and once you have that data then do whatever you want yeah that's what I tell people it's like do what is comfortable but make sure you're testing your body along the way Yeah. Make sure you're staying on track. Because the last thing you want, and I always think, you know, we wake up in the morning thinking, I'm not going to be the one dying of cancer. I'm not the one who's going to have dementia. But it happens. Like suddenly you get hit by this. My mother was eighty eight when she was diagnosed with cancer. She never in her wildest dreams ever thought she would die. have cancer she said I'm so happy because she never had a health issue and that's the problem right these diseases don't spare anyone so make sure you check yourself on a regular basis and then do whatever you want if you're abusing your body abusing your sleep your brain go for it but make sure you're keeping it supported yeah there you go I mean they couldn't have couldn't have said it more true I love that there is some um comments about you know people are loving this perspective and how insightful it is and uh someone really loved your quote the biggest trend should be can we get the five pillars of health um and uh but we have one more question from our audience uh we have great insights dr chela What are your thoughts on companies like Function Health? Do you think everyone should have a functional medicine doctor, should see a functional medicine doctor regularly versus a medical doctor for annual visits for like preventative care? Yeah, yeah. So I actually like Function Health more because they have made it easy for people to get testing. I think that's amazing. And a lot of my patients, of course, AI reads their test results and when they show up in my clinic saying, can you interpret this? I'm going to die of a heart attack because their high sensitive C-reactive protein is a little high. So I do love the fact that they've made it accessible. And even Parsley Health is also having a membership where You just pay the same four hundred something for the year and you get a couple of you get twice a year blood work. I will say. At least the testing, they've made testing easy. They're also going to make imaging easy, but you've got to be a membership of a function health. Now, in terms of should you should everyone have a functional medical doctor? Obviously, I'm biased. I think, yes. and should they go to their regular doctor for preventative care? What you're going to the annual visit, it's not preventative care. It is detective care, right? A mammogram is not preventive. A mammogram is detecting something early. A PSA is detecting something early. And the tests that we do in the annual physical exam is totally useless. I will say that right now. And, you know, somebody can, argue with me about that. It's absolutely useless. But yes, these screen tests like the Pap, these are all early detection because in stage one and two, most cancers are completely curable today. So it's good to detect them early. Yes, I would say the annual so-called preventative screen or early detection screens should be done, but a functional medical doctor will always try and get you down to those foundations. before they start looking at medications should be always be an option for people, but it should not be the first and only option, right? It should just be one of the things that you get to do if nothing works. yeah absolutely I mean it's almost like we go to the doctor we expect to come back with a prescription like the first question that they ask you when you get there is which pharmacy should we send your prescriptions to so I think that's that's definitely saying a lot but this has been fabulous I've had my morning this has been awesome I think it was such an invigorating conversation I have some lifestyle changes that's for sure great tips yeah Thank you. Thank you so much for this opportunity. I really loved it. Of course. Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing the insights. I think they're applicable to people of all ages and, you know, stages in life. So yeah. We didn't get through half of the questions that we had planned for you. So we're probably going to have to do this again sometime because this was super insightful and amazing. And I think the audience really loved it too. So thank you for your time, Dr. Tello. Thank you so much. Hope you have a lovely rest of your day. You too. Bye everyone. Bye. Bye.