Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys

The Fountain of Youth

• ft. Dr. Kevin Toman • Season 2 • Episode 24

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Join the Amys and their paradigm-shifting guest, Dr. Kevin Toman—a veterinarian who has officially run out of patience for nonsense after 30+ years in the trenches. His latest obsession? Not just keeping pets alive, but keeping them thriving—longer, stronger, and with fewer unnecessary pills, protocols, and profit-driven “standards of care.” He’s traded the status quo for science, and he’s not exactly whispering about it.

Dr. Toman cuts through the BS with surgical precision…Does “more medicine” always mean better medicine? What does corporate veterinary care get wrong? Can you actually extend your pet’s healthspan—and not just drag out the clock?

Expect a conversation grounded in real science, clinical experience, and a refreshing dose of honesty. If you’ve ever wondered how to help your pet live not just longer, but better, this episode will make you rethink everything you thought you knew.

There will be myth-busting. There will be strong opinions. There may be a little well-placed side-eye toward Big Vet Med 👀. If you like your veterinary advice evidence-based, slightly rebellious, and refreshingly unfiltered—this one’s for you.

Grab a cocktail, and get up to speed on the latest buzzzzzz, courtesy of your favorite VBees 🐝🐝, on the latest episode of Behavior Buzzzzzz with 2 Amys veterinary behavior podcast.



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Thank you to our amazing sponsors:
PRN Pharmacal, makers of Reconcile®
Nestlé Purina PetCare, makers of Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Diets & Purina Pro Plan® Veterinary Supplements
Malena DeMartini, Inc. founder, Certified Separation Anxiety Training (CSAT) & Mission POSSIBLE
Ceva Animal Health, makers of ThunderEase® & FELIWAY® products

Amy L. Pike, DVM, DACVB, IAABC-CDBC - Co-Host
Amy Learn, VMD, DACVB, IAABC-CABC - Co-Host
Teryn Blais, Executive Producer
John LaSala, Podcast Editor

SPEAKER_00

No hair or makeup needed. Love it.

SPEAKER_02

Love it. Really good. That's as good as it gets.

SPEAKER_00

All right. Well, if you're ready, we'll go ahead and get started.

SPEAKER_06

Let's go.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Welcome, HiveMind. We are buzzing with excitement about today's guest, Dr. Kevin Thoman. Dr. Kevin is a veteran, small animal veterinarian, founder of helping pets live longer, and one of veterinary medicine's most focal advocates for longevity first care. Dr. Kevin is joining us to talk about finding the fountain of youth for our beloved pets. This is the Behavior Buzz Podcast, a veterinary behavior podcast that aims to bring cutting-edge scientific information and education to pet parents, behavior professionals, and the veterinary community. I'm your co-host, Dr. Amy Pike, a board-certified veterinary behaviorist.

SPEAKER_02

And I'm your other co-host, Dr. Amy Lern, also a board-certified veterinary behaviorist. Hello, Dr. Kevin, and welcome to the Behavior Buzz.

SPEAKER_06

Thank you very much. And I'm just a schmo, you know, general practitioner. And so I am honored to be in the uh in the company of such educated doctors.

SPEAKER_00

Love it.

SPEAKER_01

Love it. You may not say that after we're all done. You don't even know. Things go off the rails all the time.

SPEAKER_06

What I will say in all seriousness is this I'm just kind of tiptoeing into this podcasting world. And so my hat is off to you. You know, I'm I'm learning exactly how much work goes into a podcast and putting it on on a weekly basis. Uh and so the reality is your listeners are very lucky to have you in their corner. Uh, this is a lot of work, and you're you're bringing a lot of education to us veterinarians.

SPEAKER_02

Oh, we please. I hope they all take that seriously. They are lucky to have us. The camera. And we are coming to you live from the PRN PharmaCal Studios. Do you guys know what PRN stands for?

SPEAKER_00

Um, I'm gonna guess permanently reversing nature.

SPEAKER_06

No, actually. I'm gonna abstain from this because you're wrong.

SPEAKER_02

You're wrong. Pro Ray Nata, the Latin for as the circumstance arises. And do you know how long the veterinary community has been trusting PRN PharmaCal to be here when needed with industry-leading research and innovative products to improve animal health and quality of life? That's what we're talking about today.

SPEAKER_00

I do know the answer to this. It's been since seven since 1770. Since 900 and I thought I knew the answer. That's even before I graduated. I love it. So Amy and I are both headed to Vermont this weekend. I'm headed to Vermont to um take my daughter to the UVM uh to visit the college there, and she's headed to the IAABC uh Foundation Foundation Conference. And so since 1978, Ben and Jerry's has also been making ice cream. So just as long as that. In Burlington, Vermont. In Burlington, Vermont. That's right, that's where we'll be. PRN PharmaCal is a proud sponsor of the Behavior Buzz Podcast and is committed to the physical and emotional health of animals everywhere. Which makes sense why their slogan is PRN PharmaCal, here when you need it.

SPEAKER_02

All right, now that we've gotten those details out of the way, we can move on in to the rest of our longevity and health conference conversations. We're going to another conference. All right. Well, it sounds like we're already drunk, but we're not. Let's get started by finding out what's getting us all buzzed today. I looked uh to be on theme and found a live long and prosper cocktail. Right? We're living long. We're in in increasing our pets' lifespans. This is a drink that includes raspberry simple syrup, tequila, grapefruit juice, guava, and club soda.

SPEAKER_00

Yum, that sounds delicious. Um, I am also drinking an on-theme cocktail called the Fountain of Youth, which is a combo of muddled cucumber, gin, white, cranberry juice, pims number one, which I didn't even know before I found this cocktail, and lime juice. So, what about you, Dr. Kevin? What's getting you buzzed today?

SPEAKER_06

I'm drinking the other fountain of youth, the cup of coffee.

SPEAKER_02

Lovely, lovely. Awesome. Well, remember, audience, you can find all of our signature cocktail and mocktail recipes on our website, behaviorbuzz.com. That's Behavior Buzz with six Z.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know why we did that. I didn't have a thing. I didn't have a thing today. You didn't have a word. Oh my god, what is this? The first time in two years you haven't had a Z word? I ran out of words. Do we run out?

SPEAKER_02

Do we run out of words? Zotetic. Zotetic. Something about education. I don't know. All right. So let's dive into the important topics. What are some concerns that pet parents face with aging pets? Dr. Kevin.

SPEAKER_06

Well, the reality is that at the age of 66, I can answer that very directly because, you know, mortality lifespan is a little bit more of a pressing uh interest of mine than it is for young ladies like you. And I think that it's it's very easy for us baby boomers, and I'm the last of that generation, to sit around and think not only about our own longevity, but to look at the dog on the floor or the cat sleeping next to us and think, how can we best extend their life too? Because the reality is, you know, for all the love, all the emotion we put into our pets, they're with us for just such a short time. Who doesn't want their pet to live longer? And that's really become a passion of mine after 40 years in veterinary practice.

SPEAKER_02

I love that. So what is like thank you for calling us? Hold on, I just I just want to buzz in there. I thank you for calling us young ladies. I know I was like makes me feel so good.

SPEAKER_00

Thank goodness we're not and like what is that? Uh like really up close?

SPEAKER_02

Because yeah, yeah. You you would you yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I wish, I wish. What is uh what is longevity science? Um, can you tell us a little bit more about what a longevity assessment looks like?

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, well, in answer to your question about longevity science, I mean uh, you know, I think we could all go on AI or Google and come up with some kind of a fancy definition. But the reality is for me, you know, I perhaps like you ladies, I was trained in a kind of an allopathic, traditional veterinary medicine um perspective. You know, if it doesn't come in in injectable tablet, a capsule or in halin, you know, we don't use it. But the reality is that along the way, and I I have a very personal uh story that kind of opened the door to integrative therapy for me. Uh and I've learned the value of not just scalpels and steroids, but the reality is that herbal therapy or laser therapy or acupuncture, or in the case of uh, you know, over the last eight or nine years, the use of prescription longevity drugs like rapamycin and acarbose on a trickle-down basis from human longevity science to benefit the patients in my care. And so this is typically where I start waving my arms around and saying, listen, you know, I mean, the more different approaches that you and I can use to help the pets in our care, the longer and healthier they will live. And I guess that would be my definition of longevity science, writ large.

SPEAKER_00

And so, how do you do a longevity assessment on patients then?

SPEAKER_06

Well, you know, the hard part of this whole line of discussion around longevity science is this in both humans and pets, we don't have true longevity biomarkers, at least at this point in our lives. It's very easy for you and me to look at B UN or creatinine or you know, or white blood cell count or whatever, and have a pretty clear idea as to what is going on within the the body of a pet. But what we don't have at this point is a clear biomarker that says, although a Schmo like me is 66, my body is either at age 56, or perhaps if I've joined you guys in your cocktails, you know, too much, and yeah, I'm at age 76. We simply lack that biomarker. And there's billions with a B being spent on that on an annual basis in human longevity science, trying to identify a molecule or excuse me, a blood marker that would enable us to say this intervention creates this kind of a uh a benefit or this kind of a risk. It just simply does not exist yet. And so that's a long-winded way of saying that for me, a longevity assessment involves looking at a pest genetics, their current health, uh, their lifestyle risks, and trying to develop a plan to modify, delay, or sometimes even prevent those risks.

SPEAKER_02

So tell me what made you walk away from conventional practice. And I don't mean to say that one is better than another, but you know, we're talking about, you know, the kind of traditional, like you said, traditional medicine, the traditional way that veterinary medicine is practiced, and go in on uh longevity medicine and some of these more herbal and more natural pathic kinds of ideas.

SPEAKER_06

Okay. Well, I I could interpret that question in a couple different ways. And so I will start by telling you my own personal journey, which was at the age of about 45, I was diagnosed with myeloma, which is a fatal form of cancer.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_06

And that diagnosis had been made by a uh general practitioner in rural Colorado, rural southwestern Colorado, where I was living there. And it was based on the fact that I uh that my creatinine was a little high, so I went through a uh serum immunolectrophoresis, some additional blood tests, and they found an uh M spike. And, you know, that didn't sit well with me. As a 45-year-old, I still thought I was relatively bulletproof. And so I referred, I self-referred down to the Mayo Clinic and went through a bunch of tests. And here's probably the most salient thing I'm gonna mention to your listeners. If you ever have the fortune to go through a bone marrow biopsy, take the general anesthesia. Yes. Do not think that you can tough this out under local anesthesia. Nope. Take the general anesthesia as somebody who's been through that. But to make a long story short, that workup down at the Mayo Clinic revealed that I had a precursor disease, a uh condition called monoclonal gamopathy of unknown significance or MGUS. And, you know, it's frightening enough when you use the phrase unknown significance when it comes to your own health. But all three of us are are researchers or scientists, and so the first thing I did after that diagnosis was to research, like hell, yeah, uh, what I could use to prevent the transformation from pre-malignancy to malignancy. And suffice it to say that there was not, there remains to this day, not one pharmaceutical drug that can slow or prevent that progression of disease. But there is a spice, a spice called curcumin, which was proven in three different Australian studies to reduce the incidence of that malignant transformation. And so, from a very personal perspective, that's what opened the door for me. Um it was a very selfish move on my part because what I was trying to do is save my own ass.

SPEAKER_03

Right.

SPEAKER_06

And so what I learned is that there is something to the thousands of years of of use of curcumin and some of these other other herbal therapies as very direct interventions to benefit not just my health, but eventually the the health of the patients in my care. So that was kind of my origin story. That's cool. And then the other component, the other way I could interpret your question, would be what gave me the opportunity to pursue uh longevity science. And one of the things I alluded to earlier uh in our discussion is the fact that veterinary medicine to me is broken in uh general practice and in at least in the small animal world. And one of the breakers of the veterinary medicine is the corporate intrusion into our world. And I was an early adopter of that. I corporate medicine made me an offer that I could not refuse back in 2017. I took advantage of that. And so I was able, I'm I'm now able to devote myself to passions. I try to give back in several different ways to veterinary medicine and my study of longevity science and how to best bring those uh bring longer and better health to my patients is one of those ways.

SPEAKER_02

That's great. So, do I interpret that as you went into industry, made a bunch of money, and now you can kind of do what you want to do.

SPEAKER_06

Well, you know, us poor schmoed uh GPs are never gonna be as highly paid as behavioral uh manufacturers.

SPEAKER_01

No, we make half we make half of what GPs make.

SPEAKER_06

Sadly. I mean, I I I I will address that uh because the reality is that for uh a general practitioner, I I I've started nine different practices in my 40 years. I've grown them and sold each one of them as circumstances or romance or failed romance uh dictated. And so the hard part is that in all candor, um, some practices get to a size where it's very difficult for an individual veterinarian. You know, back in the old days, before you young ladies were born, it was most common for me as an associate to eventually buy my employer out. Right. Those days, unfortunately, are long gone in today's economics, and I could not find a a buyer in private practice to to sell my practice to.

SPEAKER_04

Right.

SPEAKER_06

And so in full disclosure, the the multiple that we I banded together with a group of other practices, so we sold as a group, and the multiple that we were given by by pathway or thrive these days uh was three times what I could have made by selling to another veterinarian. And, you know, because I was 60, well, 59 when I did that, you know, I made essentially 15 years worth of income by selling. And, you know, there it was just uh it was a hard thing to pass up. But having said that, would I do that again? No, because this corporate acquirer, and again, pathway by name, they raped the golden goose. They uh eliminated a lot of the the culture that we had in place, they eliminated the relationships that I had with my clients. It was a really bad experience. It was a lucrative, but really bad experience. And so, you know, if if you're looking at at behavioral training, I learned from that and would never recommend that to another practitioner, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I hear that story more and more, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, so you can you feel free to edit that story as as you choose, but the reality is that you know I told you as part of the prelude, uh I'll answer whatever questions I can for you, uh whether they accrue to my benefit or not.

SPEAKER_00

I appreciate your history though. That's great. And it's a good learning lesson, right? It is, yeah. I mean, like you said, a lucrative learning lesson, but sad for patient care and you know, staff um quality of life, right?

SPEAKER_02

And those are also important things when you're talking about practice takeovers totally.

SPEAKER_06

Well, it's hard because uh I know what it takes, I think, to become to achieve specialty certification. And I, you know, I I I probably was never the very best veterinarian in the world, but I was a relationship builder. Right. And, you know, I believed in when when somebody walked in the door, I would give them a hug, or I would, you know, I would shake their hand, or we'd sit on the floor and we'd talk for five or ten or fifteen minutes before we ever laid a hand on a pet. And you know, I I think that that relationship building has been lost. But I also uh at that point, I was uh for a large part of my career, I was single and I built relationships on a professional basis with with my employees. I mean, we were we would work together, but we would play together. And the the honest truth is that when I look back on that transition that I just spoke of, the two things that I miss most are were the relationships with my clients and my and my fellow workers, my work family, so to speak, right, and the sense of fixing, you know. I mean, whether it's just a stupid little thing like a cat abscess, but more commonly I did a lot of orthopedic surgery back in the day. And it was nice to go home and say, I fixed this.

SPEAKER_04

Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

And so my telemedicine practice, these concierge consults that I do allow me the opportunity to get at least a little bit of that fixing in. And I try like hell to build relationships with the pet parents in my care. I mean, whether they are in California, whether in Colorado, whether they're in in rural Vermont, people these days I think are looking for that hug, even if it is a virtual hug.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, right. Yeah, I agree. I think we miss that connection for sure. So well, let's kind of wrap it back up to rapamycin um and a carbos. But and I would say when you look at kind of the lay information out there, not like the literature, but most of it is for dogs. Um, can we include cats in this discussion?

SPEAKER_06

Well, that brings up a very salient point. Yes, we can, and I'll talk more about that in just one second. But uh the larger question becomes we have clear indications for using rapamycin as a treatment, in particular oncology. And the larger question becomes when do we intervene on a preventive basis? Is it ethical? Is it smart business? Is it smart for the pets in my care to not just try to treat a disease, but also to head that disease off? And more and more, what I'm finding is pet parents want that preventive approach rather than a reactive treatment approach. And so rapamycin has been clearly shown to increase lifespan in every species studied to date by up to 14%. And it does that, guys, in three different ways. It reduces cancer incidence, it reduces inflammation, and it supports heart function. And so, in direct answer to your question, Dr. Pike, yes, rapamycin has a clear benefit for our cat patients, for our feline friends. It was just proven uh two and a half years ago by Trivium. Rapamycin is the one drug that has been proven to slow or sometimes even stop the progression of fatal hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in cats. And that's important to you and me because for the 40 years I've been in veterinary practice, 37 of those years, if I told you guys that your cat had HCM, what I was really telling you to do was to grab a shovel and go out in the backyard and start digging a hole because I had no way to intervene in the progression of fatal HCM. And now rapamycin has been proven, again, to slow, stop, or occasionally even reverse that disease. And so it's it's from a cardiac perspective for cats, there's been no bigger invention in the 40 years that I have been in practice than the use of rapamycin to slow HCM in cats.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, this was a cool study. We we actually did a um a whole podcast episode on just that with Steve Dale. So that was a fun uh episode.

SPEAKER_05

So it's a leading question.

SPEAKER_00

Well, people have to go back and listen. That's right.

SPEAKER_03

There you go. So check our other podcast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So not to get off the topic of rapamycin, I want to circle back around to that in just a moment. But you know, with your lead-in story, you mentioned your curcuman experience. And I know that there are lots of other natural products out there, right? We talk about turmeric and uh milk they'll still and reservator, right? So are those all I know that you're focused on certain ingredients and we're gonna talk about those, but are those interesting to you as well? Do you use those in either veterinary medicine or your life as far as kind of natural things to help you increase your health?

SPEAKER_06

So I you just opened the door to yet another discussion. I'm gonna stand up on my soapbox here in a couple different ways. One of the things that I try to do is to provide very clear direction to the pet parents I'm working with. And the unfortunate truth around supplements is that there is, in fact, a lot of bullshit on both in the human side and the veterinary side. And amongst that, and listen, me a culpa, I sold Cosaquin, I sold Dassaquin within my practice for 20 years or so. But there's clear evidence over the last six years that glucosamine and chondroitin products do not work in any way, shape, or form to help our painful joints as humans or the four-legged pets that do that accompany us. Absolutely. Glucosamine chondroitin simply does not work. Same thing for resveratrol. There has been no study that has ever duplicated the initial results by Dr. Sinclair coming out of Harvard. And, you know, the old French paradox about drinking red wine for your health. Well, I forget what the, I mean, it I I believe that what the calculation was that in order to achieve the blood level doses of resveratrol that were bandied about in the original study, the three of us would have to each drink 72 glasses of wine per day. Not about which might be which might be interesting for the first day. And then after that, I think we'd I'd grab Gradually lose uh uh lose enthusiasm for it. And so the if you and I were to discuss supplements in in an honest fashion, a large part of that is saying, listen, there are supplements that you know, you and I could walk down any aisle in Costco and we would find uh glucosamine, chondroit, and rose veritol products. Maybe there's a better way to use supplements. Maybe there's a better uh way to look at my golden retriever puppy and say, these are her genetics, these are her risks, these are the supplements that she should be using. As opposed to that Neapolitan Mastiff, you may uh have an entirely different set of risk profiles on a genetic or lifestyle basis. So my theory is that we should use supplements, for one thing, with a skeptical eye, a science-based eye, but secondarily as almost as prescriptions. Let's tailor uh pet supplement use to their exact needs, to their exact lifestyle or genetic risks. That's my stance on it. And the last component to this is when you mentioned turmeric, you know, so many people think turmeric is equivalent to curcumin. But the reality, guys, is that in no way, shape, or form is that true. You know, I speak as you know, I'm a little bit of a curcumin geek. And so I can tell you very clearly that turmeric is comprised of only three to four percent curcumin.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_06

The rest of the turmeric plant is absolutely inactive from a physiological perspective. So if you and I are are eating, you know, a kilogram of turmeric, the reality is that only grams of that are actually available as curcumin, and curcum is very poorly absorbed through our systems anyway. And so the honest truth is this if your listeners are using turmeric for themselves or for their pets, they are not getting any benefit from that. You need to use a bioactive, a concentrated curcumin product, hopefully with enhanced absorption, if you're gonna see any physiologic benefit to that whatsoever. So those are the, you know, you you inadvertently crossed uh right across uh a passion of mine, and that's around the misuse of supplements or the uh the unscientific, the the marketing areas where marketing has eclipsed the sun. That's right. You know, I point very directly at turmeric, resveratrol, and and glucosamine chondroidin as examples of that.

SPEAKER_00

100%. Um I'm boom.

SPEAKER_06

I'll settle down. No, no, no, no, you're starting to make me sweat over here.

SPEAKER_00

We are completely on board and and appreciate your your science uh based responses because that's what we are all about as scientists, and our audience very much is all about the science, too. So I'm gonna go throw up my Costco giant turmeric bottle that I bought. And look at the container.

SPEAKER_06

But I mean, we can talk more about that on or offline, but uh but you if you the more research you do, the more you'll learn.

SPEAKER_00

So true. So things like rapamycin and acarbos, are those controversial within veterinary medicine? Or like why are we not seeing other than I would say maybe from the HCM CAT perspective, um, why are we not seeing more use of these products?

SPEAKER_06

Because I think veterinary medicine, at least the in in the generation, in my generation, we're hell on wheels when it comes to reactive medicine, when it comes to sewing up that laceration or lancing an abscess or taking a tooth out or fixing an ear problem. We're very good as veterinarians and scientists at doing that. What we were never trained to do is to develop a proactive stance, a strategic stance. And I look at veterinary at the veterinary curriculum right now, I don't think that has changed. I would love to be proven wrong in that. But I think that when when I hearken back to my comments around corporate medicine, in general terms, we have new graduate veterinarians who are coming directly out of veterinary school. These veterinarians don't have, many do not have a great deal of practical experience. They are being told, listen, you have to see clients on a 15 or 20 minute interval. These are the drugs that you can use to solve that cat abscess that I talked about. These are the vaccines that you are required to recommend. And you don't have the latitude as a practicing veterinarian, and you don't you don't have the knowledge and you don't have the time around longevity science to sit down and talk not just about the next two days, not or two weeks or or month, but to really look at what's going to happen in the next year or two years or five years and try to develop a plan to mitigate that. So that's I just simply don't think that the average small animal practitioner has either the knowledge base around, for instance, rapamycin and a carbose and some of the other interventions that you and I could talk about, and or the time to discuss it with their clients. And, you know, let's be clear. I mean, I I told I I talked a little bit about the finances around my practice sale. You know, I I think that the the typical reimbursement model, whether you're in corporate or or non-corporate veterinary practice these days, is a base salary of many hundreds of thousands if you're a behaviorist. No, that's not true. But in a more serious fashion, you know, a base salary plus 21 to 24 percent of your gross income. And so if you and I are put in a position of doing a dental for $1,000 versus having a conversation around longevity that will take every bit as long as that dental, but generate exactly no revenue for the practice, which way are you going to be motivated to go?

SPEAKER_03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06

To go along with the lack of knowledge and the lack of time. There is very little incentive for veterinarians and small animal practice to sit down and devote the time necessary to build a plan for that pet's next decade.

SPEAKER_00

I would say the same is true in behavior, right? Like, you know, it's the focus of those puppy visits or kitten visits or vaccines and not behavior prevention, right? Like we're not going to sit down and talk about a half an hour worth of hottie training or socialization or anything like that, right? We just don't have the time. So you're speaking our language.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, and it's frustrating to me because for the very first time, I went to the Western Veterinary Conference uh here a few months ago, and for the very first time, I actually heard people talking about pet longevity. But I will tell you clearly, and I use it as yeah, as a marketing employee, I'm I'm the longevity vet. I will lay my hand on the Bible of your choice and say that to the best of my knowledge, there is no other veterinarian that works day in and day out solely on longevity for for dogs and cats. There really are, and there's a huge opportunity. If you have young veterinary listeners, build a brick and mortar veterinary longevity center, and I think people would beat a path to your door, include behavior in that, because we all know how how many pets run into problems. I guess I would leave it at that. Run into problems because of behavioral issues, but also combine that with the integrative therapies that we've talked about, combine that with a little orthopedic knowledge, combine that with the supplements that we've talked about, a nutritional component, even if you build a team around that. And I think, guys, that you the that pet parents would beat a path to your door. That is the next opportunity in veterinary medicine, I think, is our longevity-centric veterinary practices. And so if you do have veterinary listeners, think about that, you guys.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's true. Everybody wants their pets to live longer. That's true.

SPEAKER_02

I want my Neapolitan massive to live to be 20. Is that gonna happen? Not a girl.

SPEAKER_06

Worthwhile goal. Worthwhile goal.

SPEAKER_02

So I want more of the nitty-gritty. You said that we are all scientists, we're researchers, we really focus on that peer-reviewed information to make sure that we're talking about science and not snake oil. Tell me more about the journals, tell me more about the studies, tell me about the research. I want to dive in there.

SPEAKER_06

Yeah, absolutely. And so, and I I can address that in some detail for you. But what I'm gonna point out to you is that many pet parents get in touch with me and they want to skip straight to the chase. They they, you know, think, gosh, my I want my pet to live longer. Sell me rapamycin. But the reality is that as you guys know, I mean, uh a true longevity strategy, I really think has four different uh lays. There's four different legs to that chair. One are simple things like diet and lifestyle. We talked more about that. The second is traditional allopathic veterinary care, but vaccine light, you know. I mean, when I was when I graduated from veterinary school, I was told, listen, every pet needs every vaccine, you know, once a year. And the reality is now we know clearly that that, although it might drive practice uh income, it's clearly wrong for the pets in our care. And so when I speak of traditional veterinary care, I speak more along the lines of early diagnostics, kind of the functional health approach, where for that Neapolitan Mastiff, we start drawing blood and looking for inflammatory markers and early cancer diagnostics as soon as two or three years of age because we look for those trends before problems actually happen. And, you know, if you're dealing with small dogs or cats, there's huge benefits, proven benefits. I mean, just I I could talk all day long on the benefits of anesthetic dental care, where we're actually taking radiographs of every tooth and solving, you know, whether we have to extract that tooth, whether we're able to medicate our way out of a jam, you would be hard pressed to believe how many veterinarians, how many veterinary records I look at on a daily basis do not include dental x-rays. I know. It drives it so it drives me batshit because I honestly think that if your veterinarian is not taking x-rays of every tooth in your pet's body as part of a dental, there's a Latin word for that. And that word is malpractice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I agree.

SPEAKER_06

And and so, yeah, leg number one, diet and livestock. Talk more about that. Leg number two, diagnostics and dentals, maybe minus the vaccines. Leg number three, the supplements that we've spoken about, and then leg number four are the actual prescription longevity medicines like rapamycin and acarbos.

SPEAKER_04

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02

Those are good legs.

SPEAKER_06

So, and now you know, I'm happy to get into science. We can talk about any one of those guys. Uh so you know, let me know where you want to go.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I mean, if you want to talk about like, because I think we've sort of really touched on rapamycin and acarbos, but not really acarbose in great detail. You want to talk a little bit more about that?

SPEAKER_06

Absolutely. In the couple minutes that I have left, what I'm gonna say is that acarbos is known as precose on the human side, traditionally used for diabetic management. But there is a group of scientists that are, or at least used to be sponsored by the NIH. We can talk about politics a little bit here, too. But um, and they ran, they ran a three-site interventional testing program. And what they do is schmoes like you or me submit molecules that might have longevity benefits, things like metformin, things like rapamycin, things like various vitamins, and they test these on huge populations of mice in three different locations simultaneously, so that you're trying to eliminate any bias. And what they found is, for instance, is that metformin failed. Metformin showed no longevity benefit in mouse populations, much to the chagrin of longevity researchers everywhere. But they found that this molecule acarbose, this cheap human drug, did increase lifespan. But here's the thing only in male mice, and it increased lifespan by another 5 to 7% when used with rapamycin. And so if we use rapamycin's 10 to 14 percent longevity benefit as a baseline, you add 5 to 7% extra longevity on it for the males in our populations, all of a sudden, you know, you're making substantial increases in longevity. And here's the rub, you know, everything that you and I talk about, whether we talk about the human use of rapamycin for longevity, whether we talk about the veterinary use of acarbose, unfortunately, you know, we don't have direct studies. We just don't. And, you know, uh so we're trying to interpolate rodent uh data, we're trying to uh interpolate primate data. You know, some of that is going to be proven wrong. As scientists, I think we all have to understand that what we believe right now may be disproven over the longer term, and it's our responsibility to change as that science changes. But at this point in time, I would tell you that rapamycin and A. carbose are the closest thing we have to proven longevity molecules in in veterinary medicine. They're very safe, they're exceedingly safe, and they can be used not just in in longevity setting, but also in cancer and anti-inflammatory settings. And so I I really I'm I'm very excited about what the next decade will hold for us in longevity science.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that is exciting.

SPEAKER_06

You know, I I guess what I would say on a on a more serious note is just simply that I think that we veterinarians have a tendency to get caught up in the work that we do. And, you know, it's it's very rewarding in some ways, but it carries a tremendous burden in others, you know, and I have lost colleagues to suicide. I've lost colleagues, you know, I've done colleagues have dropped out of the veterinary profession because of the stresses and the emotional uh wear and tear. And I would just say that there to veterinarians that are listening to this podcast, there are ways. There are ways that you can build the practice, you can build the component of veterinary medicine that you that you want. It may be a little non-traditional, but there are ways to establish a business that you love and still maintain some semblance of self. And so, you know, if if any of your listeners want to chat about the ruminations of an old fart, I'm happy to give you my contact information because I will help them. I'll I'll help the new kids on the block, these younger veterinarians, if I can.

SPEAKER_00

Great. I love that. Thank you so much. Here at the Behavior Buzz, we know you're all very busy bees.

SPEAKER_05

Get busy bees!

SPEAKER_00

Who live and die by the science like we do. So we'll put all of the references from today's show on the website and a few more that I did a little uh research myself on. So buzz on over to the Honeypot page to find those.

SPEAKER_02

And thank you so much, Dr. Kevin, for joining us today. This was a fascinating discussion about helping pets live healthier, longer, and enhancing the care we provide our pets. Uh yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

It was a great discussion. Thank you to our premium sponsor, PRN PharmaCal, the makers of Reconcile. Reconcile is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of canine separation anxiety in conjunction with the behavior modification plan. PRN PharmaCal is committed to meeting the evolving needs of modern veterinary medicine and dedicated to developing products to strengthen the bond between pets and their people. In HiveMind, we want to thank you especially because without listeners like you, we would have nothing to buzz on about. So grab a drink or a cocktail or a coffee and join us next time for cocktails and conversations. But not too much, because you want to live long and prosper.

SPEAKER_02

That's right.

SPEAKER_00

Follow us on all our socials. Facebook at Behavior Buzz, Instagram at BehaviorBuzz, and our website, behaviorbuzz.com. Be positive. Be informed. Mel Buzz.

SPEAKER_01

If you don't like it, that's fine. He's like, leave it to the professional. He's like, that was terrible, and then your ears are awful. And then we're even recording.

SPEAKER_00

All right, and we apologize to John for what you have to do with us. John loves us anyway. John loves us. Already. You're already goofed up. I'm already goofed up. All right. Hang on.

SPEAKER_06

Well, by golly, there's that. There's no retriever for the thing. We always get some animal on to doing us.

SPEAKER_01

That is no problem with that.

SPEAKER_06

You mean I showered this morning for nothing?

SPEAKER_01

I get so mad.