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Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
This podcast is designed to help with suicide prevention. That is the #1 goal! This is also a Podcast of perseverance, self-help, self-Improvement, becoming a better person, making it through struggles and not only surviving, but thriving! In this Podcast the first 25 episodes detail my life's downs and ups. A story that shows you can overcome poverty, abusive environments, drug and alcoholic environments, difficult bosses, being laid-off from work, losing your family, and being on the brink of suicide. Listen and find a place to share life stories and experiences. Allow everyone to learn from each other to reinforce our place in this world. To grow and be better people and help build a better more understanding society.
The early podcast episodes are a story of the journey of my life. The start from poor, drug and alcohol stricken life, to choices that lead to success. Discusses my own suicide ideations and attempt that I struggled with for most of my life. Being raised by essentially only my mother with good intentions, but didn't know how to teach me to be a man. About learning life's lessons and how to become a man on this journey and sharing those lessons and experiences with others whom hopefully can benefit from my successes and failures.
Hosting guests who have overcome suicide attempts/suicide ideations/trauma/hardships/difficult situations to fight through it, rise up, and live their best life. Real life stories to help others that are going through difficult times or stuck without a path forward, understand and learn there is a path forward.
Want to be a guest on Brandon Held - Life is Crazy? Send Brandon Held a message on PodMatch, here: https://www.podmatch.com/hostdetailpreview/brandonheld
Brandon Held - Life is Crazy
Episode 50: Len May Discusses The Science of Personalized Wellness is Transforming How We Approach Health
Len May shares his remarkable journey from being a homeless teenager to becoming a healthcare innovator focused on personalized wellness through genetic testing. His accidental discovery of cannabis as effective medicine for his ADD led to a lifelong exploration of the science behind personalized healthcare.
• Born in Lithuania and diagnosed with ADD as a teenager
• Discovered cannabis provided better focus than prescription medication
• Kicked out at 17, became homeless with just a suitcase and $500
• Completed high school and attended Temple University despite housing instability
• Career pivots from physical therapy to internet company to commercial real estate
• Built cannabis dispensaries under Kush Kingdom brand
• Founded EndoDNA to offer genetic testing for personalized health approaches
• Holds patents for using DNA to make recommendations related to the endocannabinoid system
• Company now offers multiple genetic tests including female hormone health, male hormone health, and nutrigenomics
• Believes in personalized healthcare versus one-size-fits-all approaches
• Advocates for treating root causes rather than numbing symptoms
• Demonstrates how lifestyle choices affect genetic expression
Check out Len's podcast "Everything is Personal," his book "Making Cannabis Personal" on Amazon, and follow his "Record of the Day" series on social media at Len May DNA.
Go to BrandonHeld.com and Subscribe to Podcast for exclusive content.
BrandonHeld.com iPad drawing for Life Coaching clients
Welcome. Welcome back to Brandon Held. Life is Crazy. We have a special guest with us today and, if you don't know him, his name is Len May. He's quite a prolific podcaster himself and he's deeply involved in producing and hosting podcasts, and I'm very excited to talk to him today about his journey and his life and how he started versus where he is today. How are you doing today, len? I'm great.
Speaker 1:Brandon, thank you for having me Appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Thank you for being on Excited to have you. Let's just give people an overview of who you are and what you're about.
Speaker 1:I was born in Lithuania, which is most people are like where the hell is that? I would say Eastern Europe. It used to be part of the Soviet Union, one of the Baltic states, and I immigrated to the US when I was about six, I think I turned seven, through the journey of the Baltic States and I immigrated to the US when I was about six, I think I turned seven through the journey of coming to the US, moved to Philadelphia and I grew up in Philadelphia and I was the kind of kid that teacher would call on and my mind would be elsewhere. I was always like spacing and daydreaming and then I became disruptive after a while and the teachers were like we don't know what to do with this kid. So I was diagnosed with ADD tension deficit disorder. I wasn't hyperactive when I was a teenager and I was put on prescription medication and I can say that I'm not sure if it worked, but it depends how you define work. So it did help me to focus, but it took away my emotional connection to myself. So there are no feelings. You just go through the day like a zombie and you do your stuff and you come home and you expunge yourself from any connection to any feeling. You come home and you expunge yourself from any connection to any feeling.
Speaker 1:So one day I was in school and I think I was just starting, maybe ninth grade or some of that there were some older kids I was hanging out with and they're like hey, before class do you want to smoke a cigarette? Yeah, man, cool Hanging out with a cool kid, smoke a cigarette. I never questioned why they only had one cigarette, but apparently they only had one. So they passed it around, got to me, I smoked that cigarette, I inhaled it. It didn't taste like a cigarette, did it again and they're all laughing at me, I'm like what? And they ended up putting cannabis in the cigarette. So when I went back to class, the windows that were always open in my head narrowed and I could focus. So that became my medicine. I got rid of all the prescription medication and focused on trying to get cannabis as my medicine. Even though I was hanging out and trying to get weed with people, I never mentioned anybody to anybody. That was actually therapeutic for me.
Speaker 1:My parents kept catching me over the years and then at some point, when I was just about 18, they came downstairs. I was sleeping and I came downstairs and I had a little pouch on the table that I kept in my car and a bowl of cannabis and they said what are we going to do with you? Anyway, long story a little bit long. They ended up calling the cops. Two female officers came in. They were saying they're going to arrest me. I'm like okay. Then they ended up throwing out all my stuff and the one lady was like if it was my son I would just kick him in the curb. And my dad said you have five minutes to get your shit. So I went upstairs, packed the bag, five minutes. He literally kicked me out the door. So that was the beginning of my homeless journey.
Speaker 2:And you were how old again? Sorry, I missed that part 17. 17. Okay, so funny, I was on my own at 17 too, but I didn't get kicked out. I left voluntarily, all right. So, yeah, what a hell of an introduction to adulthood, if you will. So now you found something that worked for you. That was making you feel better and making you feel more confident in who you are and what you could do. But your parents and, let's face it, the world didn't understand at that point, because cannabis was just illegal. It was just an illegal drug back then. So they kick you out and now you find yourself with nowhere to live. And what's your next move?
Speaker 1:So I had a suitcase of clothes, a car and $500. So the first thing I did was get motel rooms. So the first few nights or so I spent in motel rooms that I would sleep on top of the covers because it was one of those weird motels and I was dating this girl and she talked to her parents I could come over and stay with her. So I stayed with her for a little while and then her parents said it's time for me to go. So I ended up couch surfing for a while. So I was staying at different friends' houses, staying at their couches, and then every once in a while the parents would be like he's got to go, he's got to go. So my grandmother was alive at that time and she said yeah, you can come and stay on my couch. So I did. I stayed on her couch for a while. I finished high school and I got accepted to Temple University.
Speaker 1:I was a big music fan, so I would go to this record store all the time, even though I didn't really have money to buy stuff. Every once in a while I buy a CD here and there. Tower Records A lot of people remember Tower, younger people don't, but it was the most amazing record store that I've ever been to, and one day I was talking to a guy that worked there. He's like, yeah, we're hiring. So I applied to get a job as a cashier at Tower Records. So that was my job that I was working on, making $7 an hour.
Speaker 1:At some point my grandmother said she'll help me put a deposit down in an apartment, and she did, and I got an apartment in a building in the basement. So this apartment, it was really inexpensive, but every single time there were rain it would get flooded. So I called the office. They would get a shop back, suck out the water, but it would still rot and smell underneath and it was filled with roaches too. So many roaches all the time. At a point I was just catching roaches and pinning them to this little board to show the people in the office. These are the type of roaches they had. So it exterminated, but they would all come back and then one day, going through this, I had this nightmare. I was sleeping on my mattress and I thought roaches were calling on me and I wiped my face and I heard a clang against a little against the wall and it was actually a roach in my face, so it was time to get out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that sounds pretty horrible, but, considering your circumstances, the ability to not only finish high school but then get yourself into Temple University for those of you that don't know is in Philadelphia, pennsylvania, so that's commendable, right there, just to be able to make those moves in that situation. So when you went to college, did you go for a music degree, or what did you go for?
Speaker 1:No, I went for physical therapy. Okay, and I've never worked as a physical therapist in my life. I opened up an internet company back in 1992 and I went through school and I was like one year I was doing this internship in a physical therapy center and I was like I do not want to do this for my life. So I got in my company and I ended up exiting out of that and then I was sitting around I was dating this girl, different girl, and she's like if we want to get serious, you have to get a real job. So I applied and got a job at a company called Pricewaterhouse PW at that time, right before PWC, which I was Waterhouse PW at that time, heard of it, right before PWC, which I was there for as well, for that merger.
Speaker 1:So I was people that can't see me, I don't have any hair now, but I used to have really long hair. I used to dress like I don't know. It was a grunge time so ripped up t-shirts, ripped up jeans, combat boots, big hoop earrings. So I had to go to big six at the time, consulting, put my hair back in a ponytail, take out my earrings, wear a shirt and tie, and it was just. I was so out of place there it was funny, but I learned a lot.
Speaker 1:And then there was a merger with Coopers and I stayed at the PWC for a while and then I went to work for a venture capital company called Safeguard Scientific, worked there for a little bit, then I did an on-site offshore development for another company and then I invested in a property and I sold it. I made some money. Like real estate sounds interesting. So I resigned, quit my job and became a realtor. But I was a commercial realtor and then I became a commercial real estate broker and I was the managing director of Keller Williams Commercial. So that was my introduction to real estate and that's what I did in Philly until I moved to LA about 16 years ago.
Speaker 2:So, again, a great journey. I understand you had some motivation from a girlfriend who was like, hey, I need a breadwinner around here. But a lot of people get told that but they still don't become as successful as you did your journey. A lot of people would go get a job, just a basic nine to five pay, minimum wage type job, but you actually increased your value as an employee and you got promoted and you did new things and so that actually says a lot about you as a person and your journey could have gone a completely different way at 17, as a lot of people's do in those circumstances. All right, so how are things going at this point in life? Are you married yet? Are you having any kids yet? What's going on at this point? Just to address what you said.
Speaker 1:I really do believe part of his ADD is my superpower. When we get diagnosed with things and somebody tells us we have a disorder, we start feeling that something's wrong with us Instead of saying what does that give us that makes us different, and how can we utilize that thing that's different about us as an asset instead of a liability. So I believe there's a lot of people that get into this job and they sit there and they're like oh man, I hate this job or I can do better, but they're comfortable. So we're creatures of comfort and we're creatures of comfort. It's uncomfortable, but for me it was comfortable being uncomfortable. I couldn't sit in one place. I needed that challenge, I needed that dopamine release. So that's why I kept moving on different things that would give me that challenge until I find something that's fulfilling for me, and maybe it's fulfilling for a while, and when it stops being fulfilling, I get to move on to something else.
Speaker 1:So my girlfriend at that time, who told me to get a real job, became my wife and got married. I had a daughter. She became an actress and she was an actress. We were going back and forth to LA from Philly and at some point she said I really want to do this for real. Seriously, if I do want to do this for real, I have to be in LA. And so I moved my daughter and her to LA and I was still going back and forth for a year I had a real estate business. Then I ended up moving like putting my house up for sale, everything moving to LA, and then I ended up getting a divorce a year after I moved.
Speaker 2:Wow, and how old was your daughter at this time when the move took place?
Speaker 1:I think she was like six or seven.
Speaker 2:Okay yeah, just trying to keep a timeline. What's funny, I've never been diagnosed with ADD. But a lot of things that you're saying I completely identify with. The longest amount of time I've ever I'm going to be 52, and the longest amount of time I've ever had a job in my life is the four years that I've served in two branches of the military. Every time I get to a job and I feel I've mastered this role, there's really not a whole lot more for me to learn. I'm ready to move on. So I get bored pretty quickly myself and I always need a goal and I need something to do. So maybe I have ADD. I don't even know. So it's pretty wild. You move to LA because you're trying to do the right thing for your daughter and your family, and that is obviously commendable and something to respect. Doesn't work out. You end up getting a divorce a year later. What happens from there?
Speaker 1:So a little before that I was Pennsylvania and California not reciprocal states so I was trying to figure out what to do with my life because I gave up my business. I'm still a real estate broker, people know me. So I'm sitting in an office but I'm still not sure. And these guys walk in. They were looking to open up an alternative pharmacy and they were talking to another agent. He's like I don't know what these guys are talking about. So they're like talk, you talk to them. So what do you guys want to do? Like alternative pharmacy? I'm like what do you mean? What does that mean? Like a dispensary, cannabis dispensary? I'm like okay, that I get. I said all right, where's your documentation? You need to be compliant with prop 215 and SB 420. It's got to be a non-for-profit entity. We don't know what you're talking about. So I helped them and then we found the space and they offered me a partnership. So I ended up owning four more of these dispensaries under the same brand, called Kush Kingdom.
Speaker 1:So again, I was in the cannabis business. So I'm going through my divorce. We were together for 18 years. At that time married for 14, I think. Trying to figure out what to do with my daughter.
Speaker 1:I had this business, but the one thing I started noticing was that two people will consume the same varietal of cannabis and have a complete different experience. So I was like this is interesting. My ADD kicked in where I can hyper-focus. So I got obsessed and I was looking on the internet and trying to figure out why could this be happening? And I came across a video by a guy named Kevin McKernan who was one of the first people to genetically sequence the plant. Long story, maybe shorter, let's see. I met. I reached out to Kevin. He said we need to get together.
Speaker 1:I ended up working with a company called Medicinal Genomics. So the idea of what I was doing was meeting cultivators around the country, getting plant material, bringing it to my lab, extracting the DNA and sequencing it. So we started the first genetic library of different cannabis varietals, chemovirus and cultivars and put it on the blockchain and it was called Canopedia, so we could see what the difference was, regardless of what they're naming them. What is in the plant? And the parent company of medicinal genomics was a company called Cortagen Life Sciences and did what's called pharmacogenomics, which is a study of how drugs affect our bodies and how drugs interact with one another for adverse effects, drug to drug contraindications. I got into the human side and one day I had a light bulb moment. We have plant genetics here. We have human genetics here. Let's bring those two together and guide people to a personalized experience. They really didn't want to do that. They closed down the human side. So I got lucky, grabbed some smart people and opened up my company, launched it in 2017, endodna to do just that.
Speaker 2:I have a lot of questions Growing up for me. I was surrounded by weed smokers and alcoholics and drug users, but anyway, weed smoking was part of their trade and there was a lot of negativity around cannabis weed smoking back when I was younger and still to this day it's debated. What are the long-term side effects of many years lifelong cannabis smoking? So I just want to ask you directly obviously you you probably don't know or maybe you do any biological genetic effects it's had on you, but how do you feel it's helped you, both positively and negatively, smoking it for so many years?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there's a lot of misnomer in drugs in general. We separate these drugs into categories, and there's no reason why they should be separated in these categories. A pharmaceutical medication has much worse side effects than plant medicine for you.
Speaker 1:So the thing how drugs work, I think is important for people to understand. We have what's called an endocannabinoid system, which was discovered just in 1992 by Dr Rafael Mishulman, an Israeli scientist who passed away a couple of years ago, and it's our primary modulating system. It actually works on. Its role is to maintain balance, or homeostasis within our bodies, and the way that it does that it gets signals from the other systems in our bodies, sends that signal up the central nervous system to your brain and your brain determines which neurochemicals to release that are endogenous, that we actually produce ourselves from your brain. And the two that the endocannabinoid system uses. The first one is called anandamide. The word ananda means bliss in Sanskrit. This is our bliss molecule that we release. The second one is called 2-AG, which helps to modulate our immune and digestive responses. Just to give an example, when we have deficiencies in our own naturally reoccurring neurochemicals, we're lucky that there's a plant in nature that we have receptors for. When we consume it in the heated decarboxylate state, it binds to our receptors and it releases our own endogenous endocannabinoids.
Speaker 1:Now the issue is getting the right amount is key. So when you take too much, think about it as having a free radical in your bloodstream that your immune system will overreact to, which will turn on if you have genetic predispositions, may turn on some adverse effects. What are some adverse effects? It depends what you're predisposed to. Some people are predisposed to anxiety, so it can trigger anxiety and some people it reduces anxiety. For other people it triggers a depressive state, brain fog, sleep challenges or better sleep. So it's the same thing with any other substance that you take. I like to use like cocaine as an example. It's schedule two narcotic. Cannabis is schedule one narcotic. By the way, I'm 53. So we're around the same age. So I went through the same.
Speaker 2:Nancy Reagan, your brain on drugs and all that other stuff. Yeah, say no to drugs.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, I know exactly what you're talking about. But the thing is so we have this schedule right. Cannabis is schedule one. Narcotic means it has no medicinal purposes whatsoever. The interesting part of that is we have 38 states and more that have cannabis laws that they're saying it is therapeutic. There is an FDA approved drug called Epidiolex for early for childhood epilepsy. It's already approved, so it doesn't have medical benefits. But then you have creating drugs and the US government has a patent, several patents on the neuroprotective qualities of cannabis. So it's really odd. So I'm using cocaine as an example scheduled to narcotic.
Speaker 1:We use it in medicine lidocaine, all these other things. So when we consume cocaine exogenously from the plant, whatever it's processed, we consume it, it binds to our dopamine receptors and it squirts a shitload of dopamine into our bloodstream from our brain. Now our brain says oh, this is amazing, I'm going to reduce my production endogenously of dopamine and I'm going to give more signals. So when the dopamine actually is reabsorbed back, our brain sends a signal saying I want more of that. Now, if you have genes for dependence, it can trigger that as well. Now you're constantly wanting that exogenous substance, even though this is what you produce yourself. Same thing with cannabis when you are not producing enough, you're actually getting it from the plant.
Speaker 1:And to answer your question about adverse effects, there are people that are predisposed to adverse effects. We have a patent on the use of DNA to make recommendations associated with the endocannabinoid system. So some of the side effects are memory and people that don't have formed brains it can actually impact their memory over time, for sure. Other people not at all. So it depends if you have a genetic predisposition to that. Things as I mentioned anxiety, stress, sleep I guess I don't want to say best or worst, but I guess the side effect that I would be concerned about is called psychotomatic effects, which is psychosis-like effects, which is a perfect storm, and I've seen it probably in the last five, six years, maybe a handful of times. What happened was we have a very high amount of concentrated Delta-9-THC in products nowadays, way more than we've ever had in the history of cannabis, and people that are predisposed to stress reactivity and are poor metabolizers that consume edibles with Delta-9-THC. They trigger stress reactivity slower onset, much more powerful onset and if they have a genetic predisposition to psychosis, it can trigger a disassociative experience, extremely uncomfortable not permanent, can go away, but it can make somebody feel very uncomfortable and if that's their first experience, they may not go back to the devil's lettuce and also tell all their friends stay away from this stuff, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:So getting the right amount and the right quality is really important. I want to mention on that to answer your other question. It's really interesting if you compare and I don't compare because I think it's a therapeutic plan but if you compare cannabis use to alcohol use. So if you have way too many drinks, you're going to say, oh shit, man, I drank too much, you blame yourself, you took too much and you feel like shit. If you're doing cannabis and you have an adverse experience, oh shit, my heart's pumping, I felt some anxiety you blame the plant. Instead of blaming yourself for taking too much and it's a really interesting dichotomy why not say I just took too much and I have to make sure that I take the right amount in the right dose with the right quality that matches what I need for myself?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you said a lot there. Clearly, your passion for it and your knowledge and the way you speak about it is real. You can tell it means a lot to you and you know a lot about it. I have so many things I want to say from that. First of all, nothing negative. I'm an open-minded person and I asked you that question with an open mind because I wanted your genuine response as both a user and an owner that distributes this to people.
Speaker 1:By the way, I just want to say would you not touch the plant? We have no plant touching, so we don't touch anything in the plant. Our business does genetic, human genetic testing. So we swab the inside of your cheek, you register, we're HIPAA compliant, we treat it like a 23andMe report and we give you a genetic profile.
Speaker 2:But you did in the past.
Speaker 1:right, you did, oh, I did.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I had dispensaries and I consumed the plant for sure.
Speaker 2:I wasn't trying to lead you down any path. I just want genuine, honest response, and everything you said was very well spoken, and I understand where you're coming from. Too much of anything is bad for you, right? It doesn't matter what it is. If you get too much of it, it's going to have some type of negative side effect. And as someone I'll tell you straight up, I've never drank a drop of alcohol. I've never smoked anything in my life. I've never done any drugs except prescription drugs. But I will tell you this from what I know, being around this and being a part of these kinds of things for my entire life I definitely feel like cannabis is the least concerning To me. Alcohol and cigarettes should be outlawed before cannabis should ever be close to that. So that's just my own personal opinion on that too. So I feel your passion on it and I get it and I understand it. So you're doing this genetic testing now to help people out. So what else have you got going on in your life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean. So our company expanded from that. We have numerous patents, but the main thing that my company does is provide a decision support platform for healthcare professionals to help them personalize their experience of health and wellness for their patients. So we have an endocannabinoid system test, but we have many other tests like female hormone health, male hormone health, nutrigenomics, skin, even cognitive function. We have 11 clinical studies. We have a phase two clinical trial at Harvard published 16 citations in PubMed. So we are focused on personalized health and wellness.
Speaker 1:My passion is always when a doctor tells you to take two of these and call me in the morning. I always like why two? Why not four? Why not one? How do you know? So that personalized experience is really what drives me and having that also preventative healthcare, not sick care.
Speaker 1:So one of the things I always look at is my knee hurts. So I go to a doctor and say we can give you a painkiller for that. We can inject something in it, instead of saying why does your knee hurt? Did you injure it? Maybe it's something else, maybe it's inflammation caused by something else that's creating inflammation in your knee. Your pain is an indicator that something is off, so maybe you have to follow the pain and figure out the root cause of that instead of numbing the pain. And this is what we have in Western society. We don't deal well with pain. So what do we do? We take pain killers to numb the pain instead of following that signaling. So that's one of the passions I have is to really help healthcare professionals functional medical professionals focus on healthcare versus sick care.
Speaker 2:Yeah, hell, I'm going to have to get in touch with you for some of these tests that you take, because let me just tell you a personal one for me. So I have insomnia and I do take Ambien for sleep, but I'm only allowed 10 milligrams of Ambien a night, that's all the law will allow. 10 milligrams last me at six foot one", 235 pounds, about three hours, and so I have proven, by doubling my dose, that I can get a good night's sleep. Now, doctors, legally, aren't allowed to give me more than 10 milligrams of Ambien, but I have proven I need more than 10 milligrams of Ambien for it to actually work and for me to sleep well, and there's just no workaround for me.
Speaker 2:I'm basically told by my primary care provider it's illegal for me, so suffer, you got to deal with it, and it's really frustrating because we all know that a good night's sleep is key to everything in life your memory, your health, just everything that you try to do in life and I'm basically being told, too bad, it's illegal. So that's why, when you talked about dosage and how important that is, that really stuck with me. If you want to go through your list again, I really am curious. What are the things that you do test on exactly Everything is whole genome, so from the endocannabinoid system test.
Speaker 1:and by the way, just to add to what you're saying, in sleep, sleep is extremely important. Some people have genetic predispositions to insomnia and you can still get your six, seven hours of sleep or eight hours of sleep, but the quality sleep is what suffers. So if you're not getting really good theta, really good deep sleep, you're not getting that recovery sleep and you're on this hamster wheel. So cannabis does help with that as well in a lot of people if you have those genetic predispositions.
Speaker 2:All right, can I cut you off then while I'm thinking about it? So what's the difference between cannabis and CBD oil? Because I tried CBD oil.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there is no difference at all. It's all the same plant family. It's the government told us that anything that's part of the plant and, like I said, it's classified like that by the government. Not all CBD is created equal, just not all cannabis. Not all THC is created equal. It's one of the cannabinoids in the plant. So the plant when it's grown think of the plant has its genetics. So its genetics include different components, genes. They all have some cannabidiol. They have CBD, which is CBD. They may have Delta 9 THC. They have CBG, cbc, et cetera. These are the genetics of the plant.
Speaker 1:Each one of them has its own effect but the combination of them has a different effect. So if you use the whole plant, it works differently than individual components of the plant because we metabolize those components through a different metabolic system with a different enzyme than the individual components. The other thing that the plant has is called terpenes. So terpenes or terpenoids, they give the planet smell and they also have an effect. Terpenes are essential oils. Every single plant in nature produces an essential oil and in cannabis they have those effects. So some of them are sedative, like if you're taking the right amount of CBD, as you mentioned, with the terpene profile, like myrcene, which is also found in mangoes, at very small doses.
Speaker 1:It's sedative if you take it in a certain amount, and with CBD, I'm an ultra rapid metabolizer of CBD, so I talk to a lot of people like CBD doesn't work for me. First of all, what are you taking? Are you taking gas station CBD? Are you taking something that's gone through a lab, has been tested? You can see what all the components are. And the second thing is dosing how much are you taking? I'm a rapid metabolizer, so a dropper full of a tincture really does nothing for me. I absorb it, I metabolize it, I pee it out really quickly. So I need two to three times the amount, as you were saying with Ambien, to know that I'm getting an effect.
Speaker 1:Now what is that effect? It's a calming effect. Maybe it's partially sedative, maybe I'm getting better quality sleep. Maybe I'm combining with a little bit of THC very small amount, not to feel euphoric or high, but just to get that sedative effect. And maybe during the day I'm consuming something differently. That'll help me reduce my anxiety during the day, because I also have a predisposition of bruxism which is grinding your teeth. So if I'm stressed, even though I push it down during the day, when I'm sleeping at night, I'll be clenching and grinding my teeth. So if I look at my biometric device, I may have slept for seven hours, but I'm really getting shitty quality sleep. So those are the things that you have to take into account.
Speaker 2:That's a lot to take into account. And so, yeah, I use an aura ring, if you're familiar with that. Yeah, and it very much shows me that my sleep patterns are horrible. So if I get six to seven hours of sleep a night, a good night for me is an hour of deep sleep, that's a good night. So my sleep patterns are awful and I have been fighting tooth and nail with doctors to try to get this figured out and try to get it worked on so I can get better sleep, because I'm getting older and if I don't sleep it's going to kill me. It's literally going to kill me.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. That's why it's not just sleep, it's a full regimen. So what you do during the day affects how you sleep at night, and vice versa. So I completely agree. But to finish answering your question about the different tests that we do, one day I got a call from Dr Jennifer Berman, who's one of the top female sexual health doctors in the country. She was in Oprah Dr Phil, all those shows and she said look, len, I'm experiencing two things with my patients lately. I'm getting a lot of younger women late 20s, early 30s that are coming in with perimenopause symptoms Interesting. That can't have anything to do with the hormones that's in our food or anything else, I'm sure.
Speaker 1:Or water, yeah, and then she says I have a lot of older women that are coming in with menopause symptoms, but they're getting very severe symptoms like a hot flash, severity, really severe hot flashes, weight gain, sleep, all these different things. She said is there a way that we can do a test to get ahead of these things before they turn on? So just genetics, one-on-one kind of thing. When we do a DNA test, dna is an indicator of predisposition to something. So we get like 50% of genetics are a mother, father and then some of them are turned on. Think of a big circuit breaker with on-off switches. Some of them are turned on. So like our hair color, eye color, our skin color, our predisposition to height, like all these things, are in the on position. The rest of them we make lifestyle choices to epigenetically turn on. What it means is there's be a signaling from your genetics to a cell with encoding for certain proteins. Those proteins can turn those switches on. And how do we do that? Well, our lifestyle choice. The first thing is food, what we put in our bodies. So the food that we take in can turn on or off the genetic predisposition. So because we have a genetic predisposition, it doesn't mean that it's set. We have the control and power to turn those things on and off. The other thing is exposure to things heavy metals, pesticides, all these different things. They can also affect expression, epigenetic expression, our own neurochemistry. So if we're stressed all the time, we excrete a bunch of cortisol that can affect the expression. So, knowing what genetic predispositions you have, you can get ahead of that by using that as your life's GPS. So now that you know where your potholes are in your own road, where the traffic jam, you can go around and avoid those things. So how do you do that? You do the genetic test. Then you have a treatment protocol that's specific to the individual, based on their genetic predisposition, and you work on measuring how well that treatment plan works for the individuals. Our AI learns from that and makes more predicted inferences and suggestions to the doctor and learns, and it continues on and on.
Speaker 1:So some of the things for female hormone health. So we have this menopause biotype test. So what can you do? You can optimize hormone levels. You can create exactly the hormone optimization, bioidentical hormones for the individual woman. You can create supplements. Maybe they're deficient in certain things, maybe their diets they're vegan, but they're predisposed to low iron levels. So add iron, add calcium for bone strength, the vitamin C, omega-3 to feed your brain. So personalized supplementation and then other things that you can add to that. That creates a personalized experience for the woman to prevent the epigenetic expression or to turn that down so you can reduce those side effects from menopause, and so that test is available.
Speaker 1:Men go through male version of menopause, called andropause. What happens to us? We start losing testosterone, we start reducing testosterone. Once the testosterone reduces all kinds of issues Sleep, we start reducing our muscle mass, we can't build muscles fast, we have sexual health issues, we have brain fog, all these different things. So if we're able to get ahead of that and increase our testosterone level, naturally great. If not, there's also hormone optimization for men. So all these things are available as part of our testing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I might have to do some of your testing. It's funny, I do a lot of the things you say. I actually we're on camera but people aren't going to see this. I have a testosterone gel that I use. I work out, I lift weights five days a week. I eat right. I actually was vegan for about four years, but now I'm just mostly, I'll say vegetarian-ish, because I was also having problems being a vegan. It was causing me some intestinal issues and stuff. But I will say this I was the strongest I had ever been in my life while I was a vegan, which probably a lot of people wouldn't understand why that would be the case, hey man.
Speaker 1:By the way, our strongest animals in nature are vegan, are vegan, yeah, so it makes total sense to me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know, but a lot of people don't get that. They don't understand. I mean, a lot of our world champions the world's strongest man he's a vegan right. A lot of our champions are vegans. There's a lot of science to support veganism, but I was just having digestive issues. There was a lot of stuff I couldn't eat because my body wouldn't handle it. So to add more to my stomach's biology, I started mixing it up a little bit and adding some other things I had taken away. But either way, I know I could use probably some of that testing you've been talking about.
Speaker 1:No problem, we'll do your genome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm definitely going to have to look into that. All right, so let's just say, someone like me wants to come do my genome. Is that a? Is that a one size fits all pricing, or is that based off of what you're looking for? How does that work?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we usually go through healthcare professionals. We have some direct to consumer tests on endodnacom, but you want to talk to your doctor and see if they want to get those tests for their clinic. That's usually the way we work. It's more B2B, but we definitely have some tests on endodna that you can take. There are certain tests that range from $199 and up, depending on what you're going to get. You're usually it's not thousands of dollars, it's within a few hundred dollars, but you get. Not only do you get your genome tested, but you also have a treatment plan that goes along with that. So you can take action. Not just I. Always I take all these tests and I'm like now, so what? I know this about myself.
Speaker 2:What do you do so?
Speaker 1:without an action plan that's measurable, you're only getting maybe 50% of the information that you really need.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to me, a few hundred dollars, or several hundred dollars even, is worth your health and your life and what you can know to guide yourself in the right direction. I personally use VA healthcare, so I don't know if they would use your service or not. I really have no idea.
Speaker 1:They don't use ours. We've worked with a lot of veterans over the years. We've done a ton of studies. We're in a million veteran project.
Speaker 1:The challenge is because we're classified what's called RUO research use only. It's not FDA approved as a diagnostic device, for many reasons why we didn't do that. So when we met with the FDA, they said what is the purpose of your test? And we said to help people either avoid or mitigate a possible adverse event. It's a great. You just can't make claims. We're fine with that, but that's why we sell it to doctors. Doctors can use it for whatever purposes they want and then they can use it to help them with the diagnosis. So, yeah, the VA only. Unfortunately, if you're not FDA approved, if you're not, if you don't, they'll give you a pill.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I work with a lot of veterans. I'm trying to be careful what I'm going to say, but we've lost a lot of men and women over the years. Yeah, We've lost a lot of men and women over the years, especially since COVID started, and one of our investors is a SEAL SEAL Team 6. And there's a lot of alternative treatments that are much more effective than the treatments I'm not advocating you. Talk to your doctor, do whatever you have to do, but there has been a lot of plant medicine therapies that have been very helpful for veterans who are going through challenges, and I just want to make sure that people are aware that options exist.
Speaker 2:No, that's exactly what you're doing. You're just creating awareness, you're not giving medical advice. That's not what we're doing here, and that's people need to know that stuff. They need to know their options and their alternatives. Because I, too, try to be careful with what I say about va medical, because while I have some frustrations with them, I also recognize there's plenty of room for improvement. I don't want to crap on them because they have helped me and they have done good things for me, but there's also things they need to get better at and I need more help with on a personal level, and I know a lot of my fellow veterans do as well. So I think you've given us just a lot of phenomenal information today, len, and I'm just super glad that you came on the show and you shared this with everyone. So, as we wind down here, what last words would you like to give the listeners?
Speaker 1:There's a couple of things I want to say. First of all, every person should be responsible for their own healthcare journey and collaborate in partnership with your healthcare professional. Be in partnership with them. They're not miracle workers. Know as much about yourself as you possibly can Do. Every single test there is. Power of knowledge is incredible on the things that you can do. Try different things. If it doesn't work for you, try something else, but always look at the science behind it. I'm a science-y person. I read everything ingredients, all the testing. Not everything is created equally just because there's a label on there. So I think it's really important.
Speaker 1:Like you mentioned in my intro when you were saying I do have a podcast as well. It's called Everything is Personal, Like 260, some episodes of interesting people. I'm a guest in other people's podcasts. Also, I have a couple of books. I have a book that's called Making Cannabis Personal that you can get on Amazon wherever you get books. I have a couple other ones that are about to come out and they're completed. If people are into music just a side fun thing I do something called record of the day. So every day, if you follow me on social, Len May DNA I do a record of the day. I have a very large vinyl collection, so old school, pull out a vinyl, put it on and share with people what I'm playing with. Some info about that record.
Speaker 2:All right, cool, yeah, that's all great stuff and people won't see this. But you got a nice Guns N' Roses little plaque hanging up behind you and I know for you, because we're the same age, that means something because you were listening to them in that time. It's funny how they're retro now and all the young people like them, but for us we're og guns and roses lovers. Yeah, axl rose, did you know this? Axl rose has the greatest vocal range of any singer in history any singer I had no idea yeah, he has the highest high and lowest low that any one singer can ever have in range.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah, amazing. A lot of people don't know that about him. All right, len, it was great having you on the show and I really appreciate the information you provided to not only the listeners but also myself. I learned a lot from you today, so thank you. I always try to keep an open mind. Whether it's something I use, don't use, don't do, it doesn't matter. Adding knowledge to your arsenal is great and you can only do that if you have an open mind and you're willing to hear it and you don't close yourself off to your predisposed opinions. So I appreciate you and I appreciate that.
Speaker 2:For me, I would ask my listeners to go to BrandonHellcom and just subscribe to my podcast. It's a button right there at the top of the page, easy to find and help me out with getting the word out and pushing my podcast out to others. Follow me on Instagram at BH underscore life underscore is underscore crazy and help me build that social media following to get this show out there to more people so they can hear great things like what Len had to share with us today. And that's all I have for today. So Brandon held life is crazy and we'll talk to you next time.
