Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Bringing together local businesses and neighbors of Bergen County
Good Neighbor Podcast: Bergen
Ep. # 114 Data-Driven Wellness: How Nava Health Is Changing Our Healthcare Mindset
Ever wondered why we wait until we're sick to see a doctor? Zach Dancel from Nava Health challenges this reactive approach to healthcare, sharing a powerful personal story that transformed his family's understanding of medicine and launched their mission to revolutionize wellness.
Zach's journey from Division I football player with NFL dreams to healthcare innovator began when his mother fell seriously ill. After conventional doctors prescribed 16-20 different medications with little improvement, an integrative medicine practitioner finally identified the root cause of her condition. This life-changing experience inspired Zach's father to transition from his successful debt management business to founding Nava Health, dedicated to helping people live longer, healthier lives through functional medicine.
The statistics Zach shares are staggering: America spends $4.5 trillion annually on healthcare—more than any other nation—yet 90% goes toward managing diseases rather than preventing them. Meanwhile, chronic conditions continue to skyrocket. Nava's approach flips the script by conducting comprehensive evaluations every four months instead of the typical six-minute annual checkup that reviews only basic biomarkers. Their personalized protocols address underlying causes rather than just treating symptoms.
As Zach eloquently puts it, "Health is a crown that the healthy wear, but only the sick can see." Most chronic diseases are preventable through lifestyle modifications—proper sleep, nutrition, movement, stress management, and minimizing toxin exposure. While genetics may load the gun, our daily choices pull the trigger. Nava helps you take your finger off that trigger to rewrite your health trajectory.
Whether through their seven physical locations or telemedicine services available in 17 states, Nava offers comprehensive care including lab work, personalized supplementation, IV therapy, nutrition counseling, and more. Ready to transform your approach to health? Visit navacenter.com or call 800-762-6282 to discover what true wellness feels like.
Nava Health and Vitality Center
Zach Dancel
34 Farm Vw, Montvale, NJ 07645
(800) 762-6282
Clientsupport@navacenter.com
navacenter.com
This is the Good Neighbor Podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Doug Rohan.
Speaker 2:Everybody, welcome to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast brought to you by the Bergen Neighbors Media Group. Today, we are joined by Zach Dancel from Nava Health. Nava Health is a somewhat, I would say, novel way or approach to our health and wellness, and I'd love to welcome you to the show, zach, and let's talk a little bit more about Navahealth.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no thanks, doug. Just to kind of introduce everybody to Navahealth and who we are and what we do. We're a functional, integrative medical practice where we take a personalized root cause approach, where we pair data to basically focus on our health and wellness. Right, you know we go beyond the traditional model of, you know, reactive disease management to how medicine really should be. You know where it's being proactive and preventative and putting you know longevity medicine at priority, right, you know our mission. Nava's mission is to help people live longer, healthier lives. You know so in a short frame, you know that's who Nava Health is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I love that approach and I think we're starting to see a little bit more of an awareness of that, of being more holistically minded when it comes to our health. And there's a lot of things, you know, it's not just health, there's a lot of things in business and other things that we do that we look at in a more holistic way. But I love the approach because we're so caught up in managed medicine these days with you know the typical practice. That's owned by a hospital chain. They have to see 40, 50 patients a day and it's just in and out, in and out. You don't know who you're going to see. When people ask me, when I fill out a form, you know who's your primary physician. They ask me for a name. I'm like I don't have a name, I just have who's ever available the day I make an appointment. It could be anybody that works at this practice. But you know, let's go back a little bit. You're a relatively young guy. How did you get into this business? Why Nava Health?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so my whole life, since I was at a very young age, four or five years old I thought I was always going to play football. My dream was to go pro, play in the NFL. So that's from a young age, all the way through college, played at the University of Maryland, finished my last year at Wake Forest playing Division One football, got an opportunity to go out to Green Bay for the rookie mini camp and didn't work out out there and I came back home. But also, you know, while going through that process and while I was in college, you know my, you know my parents have always been my biggest fans and I started to notice, you know, my mom stopped traveling to my games, right? So you know I started having questions and you know what was going on and obviously you know them being my parents, right, trying to protect me, letting me focus on football, they didn't really let me in on really what was going on as to why she wasn't traveling. So about 13, 14 years ago, my mom got sick and did what you know regular people do, right, go see your primary care, right? Um, you know, just wasn't getting the answers or wasn't getting better and so started to see different specialists and, you know, basically get getting getting the whole work around, right, you know, oh, you have this symptom. I'm going to write this medication for you, let's see if that helps out. Right To where, you know, she was on 16, 20 different medications. Nothing was working. She was bedridden, you know. She couldn't get out of bed, which is why she stopped traveling. And so, you know, it got to a point where the doctors were just like we're not really sure what's wrong. Right, but you know, we can help manage, you know, make her feel more comfortable. You know, as, basically, you know, they were putting their hands up and you know, my dad basically looked at them and and said I'm not going to take that as an answer, right, so basically he took her, her health, into his hands and basically they, you know, went out and saw, you know, different providers, different specialists, to try to get answers, until they finally came in contact with the integrative doctor who, you know, for the first time, was able to say I think I know what's going on, but before I do anything, you know we're going to do an in-depth workup, you know, go really deep into your medical history and before you know, we're going to make any recommendations. You know, go really deep into your medical history and before you know we're going to make any recommendations, you know, let's take a peek under the hood, right and actually doing extensive lab work not just your generic annual workup and finally got those results back. You know he was able to say that I know what's wrong. Here's what we're going to do put together a protocol for her to. You know, slowly, work on and slowly but surely, she started getting better and better and better.
Speaker 3:Um, you know, through this root cause medicine, uh, functional medicine approach and uh, you know my dad has no medical background. You know my whole family doesn't, until now, obviously. Um, my dad, my dad, was a successful entrepreneur and his creative mind started thinking well, if this helped my wife so much, why isn't this everywhere? Why isn't this offered to everybody? Why don't more people know about this?
Speaker 3:So he basically came back to his executive team because they had a very large debt consolidation.
Speaker 3:To his executive team because they had a very large debt consolidation debt management business that were in 50 states.
Speaker 3:They were the leaders of that industry and told his executives we're going away from this business.
Speaker 3:They were doing $200, $250 million of revenue a year and he said we're not doing that anymore, we're going into healthcare. And obviously they all looked at him like he was insane because none of them had any medical experience or medical background. But he felt that there was this call. You know that this is what, ultimately, what, what, what brought him here to today and what, what he is supposed to be doing while he's here with us. He's here, you know, with us, and so he set out on a mission to basically, you know, create a platform in an area that can truly help deliver health outcomes. So you know, that's really how NAVA was founded and started, and that doctor is actually our medical director today, dr Doug Lord, still with us today. He's 87 years old, golfs every other day but still very active with NAVA, with our patients. So you know, I started to kind of catch on to that towards the later end of my college career and you know I've always had, you know, two dreams in life.
Speaker 3:One was to go play in the NFL, and once I knew that you know, football isn't forever right, you know it's, it's for a certain time period. And I knew, once I was done with football, you know, I would be able to transition to my second dream, which was to work with my dad. So went out to Green Bay, didn't work out for theirs, came back home and kind of sat around for a week and you know I I sat down with him. I said I'm, I'm, I'm done with football and I'm ready to get into the family business, cause I saw how much benefit that it brought to mom that you know I wanted to be a part of something so powerful and so life-changing, to to be really be able to help people you know live a healthier, longer life.
Speaker 2:You know, and I guess as a football player, you know you deal with a lot of pain, chronic pain, all the time. Depending on how long your career is, you know it could be for the rest of your life that you're dealing with chronic pain. So what was that like? Cause I'm going to segue to why I'm asking this question but you know you're, you're obviously a standout high school football player, college, and then you go to tryouts at green Bay and the pro level and now you're. You know you're like the 1% of people in the world are all competing spot. And there was a guy that I was talking to who actually no, it's a pro golfer and he went through some brain tumor issues a couple years ago. But he was actually a standout basketball player and he said I think he's from Oklahoma and he played for the University of Oklahoma. But then he realized when he got to that level that okay, I'm not going to be in the NBA. You know I'm good but I'm not that good and I'm sure you know it's just a different level.
Speaker 2:But I'm using that example because now you started a healthcare wellness business and you guys are one of many, many, many different choices that I can make, and certainly the ones that I'm fed through. You know, the typical traditional system is go see my primary, they write me a script and off we go. So how do you guys become that 1%? And you talked about data driven. Walk me through the process of what it's like when I, if I were to call you guys and step in to the office, like what, so let's you know it's kind. When I, if I were to call you guys and step in to the office, like what, so let's you know. It's kind of a two part question. But how are you now going to be in the NFL of healthcare providers, like, what have you guys done to achieve that?
Speaker 3:Exactly so. You know we we've tried to create it. You know the the process as simple and streamlined as possible. Right, Obviously there's. You know we have as simple and streamlined as possible. Right, obviously there's.
Speaker 3:You know we have to be able to, you know, educate our, you know the people out there about what we do. You know, right, True root cause medicine. Right, Because we're up against the traditional medical system. Right, you know which is massive, what people are just typically used to when they get sick they go see their primary care. Right, you know which is massive, what people are just typically used to when they get sick, they go see their primary care. Right, so you know we have to do a lot of education in helping people reframe the way that we think about health. Right, you know we shouldn't be going to the doctor once we feel sick. Right, we should be going to the doctor before we get sick.
Speaker 3:Right, because you know that's how you can be proactive and preventative. Right, because when you are waiting around and you're only doing your typical annual visit with your doctor, who's only testing for 19 biomarkers and is going to look at those biomarkers for you know your six to eight minute visit, you know where half that time it's just you know they're just introducing themselves and you guys are catching up. You know I don't know what doctor can actually do something in that amount of time. But then look at your results uh, where they're just testing for simple cbc, cmp is not true, not a true, full, you know, extensive workup to be able to say or address any you know issues but to be able to say, yeah, you know these labs are, are. You know, look normal. You know these labs are, you know, look normal? Right, you know these are. You know you're getting older, right, and these biomarkers look like they should because you're getting older. So it's reframing and helping educate clients on how we should really be. You know, viewing our medicine to become more of a proactive and preventative medicine mindset.
Speaker 3:Right, because you know proactive and preventative medicine. It's not a luxury right. You know that's one of the things that people think that you know is a luxury right and that's one of the things that we have to debunk that it's not. Health is everything. Without health, like what do we actually have? Right, good health is a necessity. You know our type of medicine at Nava and you know just functional medicine in general. Right Is a necessity. Every person should be seeking a provider that is trained in functional medicine. Who can, you know, do a comprehensive workup every four months? Right? Not once a year? Every four months, you know where they're able to look under the hood? Right, you know? Because, where we're at right now as a society, we are in a chronic disease pandemic. Right, chronic diseases are skyrocketing through the roof. Right? The US healthcare expenditure, you know, has the highest expenditure in the world, yet we're one of the sickest developed nations. Right? $4.5 trillion of healthcare is spent a year and 90% of that is just spent on managing diseases. Right?
Speaker 3:Just managing, not preventing, you know, not being proactive, just managing chronic diseases like cardiovascular disease, cancer, metabolic diseases like diabetes or neurodegenerative diseases like dementia, right, Well, yeah, sorry to interrupt.
Speaker 2:I mean, it's kind of like back in the day you could buy a TV and still TVs last a long time. But there's something in consumer products called the planned absolescence and companies realized a while back that there's more money in making things that don't last forever because you want to keep reselling. You know a new product. Why? Why build something that lasts for a generation? You know you're never going to upsell or resell that same client. So there's more money in treating the cause than than than than curing it. You know, like somebody I know with vaccines and things, it's like polio and measles and all these things are pretty much eradicated. Um, and I think chris rock, you know stand-up comedian made a comment like you know when was the last time they actually cured something? Because there's more money in treating it rather than curing it.
Speaker 3:So 100 and that you know that's what how the traditional medicine system is built. Right, you know a lot of people think the traditional medical system is is failing. You know it's failing the people, but it's not failing as a system Right, it was specifically designed to get the outcomes that it gets. Right. You know an industry that large. You know your big farmer, your big food, your insurance payers. You know they're making more and more profit every single year and it's being driven off of disease management and sick care Right.
Speaker 3:So one of the things that we like to tell our clients and try to help with this reframing and this mindset is you know you wouldn't expect your car insurance to pay for your service or your tire rotation right, which is how we can maintain that car's longevity. Right, but it's there for an emergency right. It's there for if you get in an accident right, healthcare should be treated the same way. Right, to be proactive and preventative. You're going to have to come out of pocket or you're going to have to do things you know differently than what you know your insurance is, you know.
Speaker 3:Therefore, right, insurance, health insurance is there for an emergency right. Therefore, if you break a bone or you know, hopefully not. But you know, if you come down with insurance or something real serious, you know disease or illness and so it's just shifting that to helping our consumers rethink. Right, because we have to do something different. Right? Nothing changes if nothing changes, right? So the current healthcare system people are just getting sicker and sicker, and sicker. You know we can have all these problems in life, you know, until we have a health problem, right, and then we only have one problem right.
Speaker 3:Health isn't just something that we have a health problem right and then we only have one problem right. Health isn't just something that we have.
Speaker 2:It's literally everything you know there's a famous saying that people don't really think about until they are sick, which is you know, if you don't have your health, you know health is everything. At least you have your health. That's what people would say oh at least you have your health.
Speaker 2:I hurt my back in the gym last Sunday and it was some innocuous thing. I think I was actually doing mountain climbers and then I did some bent-over rows later on and I knew immediately like it was probably just an inflammation of disc. I did things to my back years ago but it took about a week for it to alleviate and I knew at the time. But, you know, just getting out of a chair I was, I felt like I was 90 years old because it took me forever to stand up straight and, um, you know, luckily I've been here before and I knew it was going to go away if I just do the right things in terms of warming up and stretching and not, you know, not lifting weights for a week. Um, but you don't realize how.
Speaker 2:And when you have back pain, it's debilitating and you hear about people who have had back pain. Luckily I've never had anything chronic. But when it has happened and you can't walk or you can't move, I mean it's. It's one of those things that now I appreciate it. So a lot of times, people, you know, when you say we should have your health, it just seems to roll off your you know, roll off your shoulders because you don't really think about it until you're not healthy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, there's this really good quote that I really like. That says basically health is a crown that the healthy wear but only the sick can see. Right. Yeah, yeah, so it's literally, it's true, you don't notice until it happens, right? But again, this is where we have to kind of reframe and reshift the mindset of how we view health and wellness.
Speaker 2:So you say you have to re shift the mindset and you mentioned education. So I would imagine that's the toughest part of what you do, because we have this cultural mindset of you know where we see these pharmaceutical ads every single day. Yeah, so we have this cultural mindset of I go see the doctor when I'm not feeling good and they give me a pill and then I feel better, whereas you know, when you people talk about, well, lifestyle change, you know the best way to you know to feel better is to exercise, and getting that lifestyle change is not easy. Everybody wants a quick fix. It's the same way marketing everybody wants likes and and clicks and they want to see that immediate gratification.
Speaker 2:And I always talk about a holistic approach to marketing and how it's people finding them in different places and how it's building up familiarity. And you can't you can't mess with mother nature. The human brain works in a certain way when it comes to remembering and memory and trust and all that, but everybody wants that quick. So what is your challenge in terms of educating people on what the benefits of functional medicine is and then what you guys provide, because you also have have. You know, you have a non-member and a membership. So it's sort of like concierge, I guess, is another way of saying it. Yeah, so what? What are the challenges and what are you guys doing to educate the? And and let's also back up a second so you have a location in montvale, new jersey, in bergen county, but you're not just in bergen county, you're not just in new jersey, right, correct?
Speaker 3:no, we in New Jersey, right, correct? No, we. We started our first location in Columbia, maryland, about 11 years ago.
Speaker 3:We then expanded throughout the DC Maryland Virginia area where we have four locations now two in Maryland, two in Northern Virginia, we have the one up in Mount Vale, new Jersey, and then we have two in South Florida. We have the one up in Mount Vale, new Jersey, and then we have two in South Florida. You know our plan is to start expanding into additional states and slowly make our way across the nation to where we can have actual physical brick and mortars. But you know one thing that you know, that I want you know, your viewers and other viewers to understand, is that you know, in this day and age, in the modern era, right, you don't have to live by location to come to Lava or to be seen by our functional medicine experts. You know, through telemedicine, right, you know. Obviously you know that became huge during COVID, but you know we were actually doing telemedicine two years before COVID even came, just for operational efficiencies and and making it easier to continue to be innovative for our clients, to to help make their life easier. Right, because you know every step of the way and what we do we consider as part of the healing process. Right, just them going to our website, them calling into our call center, them not having to come to a location all the time, um just allows them to give back more time, you know, at work or with their friends and family. Um, so you know, I say that we, you don't have to live close by a location.
Speaker 3:We're licensed in 17 states, uh and counting, and we're going to continue to just continue to add more to be able to help, you know, clients get, you know, get the answers that they need and to be proactive and preventative so we're able to do everything through telemedicine.
Speaker 3:We'll send you to your closest LabCorp because we're partnered with LabCorp through, you know, with our process and then anything that you might need programs, medications you know, our medications all come through a compounding pharmacy. You know where we're ensuring the quality, but also we can get very specific with the dose and the strength to be personalized, right, you know, one of the things that is different from traditional medicine to functional medicine is that it is personalized medicine. It is not a one size fits all model, so it's very engineered and detailed to the individual, right? So me and you can both be on the same medication, but your strength is going to be a different strength than mine or the same supplement, so we can do all of that through telemedicine and just ship it to you. So we're in 17 states that we can see clients in and we're going to keep adding more, as well as adding more of the brick and mortar, so that clients can come in and experience the full offerings of what we bring to the table.
Speaker 2:That's great and aside from the, let's look at, I mean the term, functional medicine, functional health. You guys also provide, which is an offshoot of that certainly nutrition, but then things like aesthetics, iv therapy. You have massage therapists. So how does? Was that always part of the model or did that kind of grow from a need and kind of an opportunity that you guys saw?
Speaker 3:So I would say everything was a part of the model other than aesthetics to begin with. Functional integrative medicine right, integrative medicine isn't just focusing on one area or one aspect of health right, it is focusing on the full body, right. So you know, not only is it, you know doing labs meeting with the full body, right, so you know, not only is it, you know doing labs meeting with provider, you know going over, you know the different compounded medications or the different programs, the supplements right, but it's everything else. It's the nutrition, right. You know we are what we eat, right, the food that we're putting in our mouth, making sure that it's organic and whole foods are as clean as possible to limit the toxic exposure that we have. That can be a lot of the indicators or causes of, you know, the increase in chronic illness.
Speaker 3:So you know offering the IVs right, not everybody can, you know, not everyone likes taking pills. But also just the delivery mechanism Right, you know. Getting an IV, you're getting those, those vitamins and those antioxidants, 100 percent absorbed because it's going directly into the bloodstream versus someone who you know taking orally. It has to go to the digestive system, be broken down. What we put, you know through, you know, our mouth, you know, is about. You know, we're only able to utilize 20 to 30 percent of that because of everything that has to go through for then our body to then use and for nourishment and then obviously, just the full picture. Right, we offer massage, we offer acupuncture to be able to fully integrate and treat the full body, right. But then what came along, you know, shortly after, you know, was aesthetics, right, you know the people that are coming to us. They started feeling better and you know, then they started asking questions. Well, you know, I'm feeling better, I want to start looking better, right?
Speaker 3:So, you know that. You know, with a lot of the advancements in the technology on the aesthetic side, you know the, the RF microneedling, prp. You know Emsculpt Neo, where you know it's, it's not just about the aesthetics of muscle, right, it's the functional. You know the muscle is is our longevity organ right, the lean muscle mass right. So to to be able to help just provide people with different tools to to be able to be able to optimize our health is kind of how we brought everything together to offer that one-stop shop.
Speaker 2:So since the title of this podcast is Good Neighbor Podcast Bergen, let's focus a little bit more on Montvale. How long have you guys been open?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we've been open. I want to say we opened June or maybe May of last year.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 3:So we're coming up on a year. Great location right next to the Wegmans and the First Watch over in DiCaprio Farms.
Speaker 2:I ate at First Watch for the first time a couple weeks ago. It was great.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't know how new it is, but it's a newer shopping center right there. They're putting beers restaurants and shopping all around there, so a great location to be in that area. You know it's definitely. You know that environment is that health and wellness mindset right. They have all the different boutique fitness studios, so it's a great area for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so what I know? We've touched on a lot of different things. Is there anything else? Because we'll have to come back and do some maybe specific talks about maybe hormone imbalance or regenerative therapies or functional nutrition. But is there anything that you'd just like to, you know, get across to the listeners today that we haven't touched on already?
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know, I would say you know just. You know, in the era that we're in, health and wellness, right, it doesn't just have to be about seeing a functional medicine provider. Or you know spending. You know hundreds of thousands of dollars on supplements that you've seen on social media. You know three of the most important things that we can all do for ourselves that you know don't cost much of anything are, you know, prioritizing our sleep. You know our nutrition. You know getting movement, doing exercise. You know the. You've heard of the Pareto principle, right, you know where 20% of the work drives 80% of the results. So, in health, right, 20% of our habits like sleep, diet and exercise, can drive 80% of our overall wellness. So you know it's.
Speaker 3:It doesn't have to come at it at a monetary expense to to start working on these things changing your diet, changing your lifestyle Right, because you know one thing that I would love for your viewers to understand you know although you know chronic disease is skyrocketing Right, most of those chronic diseases are preventable, right, and it's preventable through our lifestyle, right. You know, one of the things that we like to say is you know, the genetics are the gun, right, but our epigenetics is how those genetics get expressed. Right, those are the bullets and our daily lifestyle choices, our diet, our sleep, our stress, the toxin exposure and movement. You know that's the trigger, you know. And finding a company or functional medicine practice like Nava, you know, we're going to help you take your finger off that trigger to basically rewrite the trajectory of your health.
Speaker 2:That's great. That's great, I love. I love the mission, zach, and, as I said, we're going to have to have you back on and talk about some more specific topics, but thank you very much. So let's just go through the exact address of where you're located and how people reach you. I mean, Nava Center. com is the website, and you can also just type in, if you're in Bergen County, navas Center, and then the Montvale location will come up. But where are you? What's the address, what's the phone number there for people to reach?
Speaker 3:So Nava Center. com will have you know, that's our website. You can view more information about what we do, what we offer. Um, it will have our locations, our phone numbers where you can reach us at. Uh, but just to give it to your viewers here, um, in montvale, the address is the shops at deporio, deporio, depiero dep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a really great farm. That whole shopping center was a big farm.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, that's why everything's fine, because then our address is 34 Farm View, montpelier, new Jersey, and our phone number you can reach us at 800-762-6282.
Speaker 2:And, for those that don't know, it's really on Grand Avenue, right before you or right after you get by the Garden State Parkway, so it's very convenient, even if you don't live in Northern Bergen County. It's right off the Garden State and there are a lot of shops there, as you said. So there's many things to do if you guys make the trip to Nava Health. So, zach, thanks very much for being on the show we're going to have, we're going to have Chuck take us out and you and I'll be right back. All right, thanks, doug.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to the good neighbor podcast. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, go to gnpbergen. com. That's gnpbergen. com, or call 201-298-8325.