Building Sustainable Care Plans: The Popkin Method Approach to Lasting Health

Welcome back to The Popkin Method! In today’s episode, Dr. Matthew C. Popkin tackles one of the biggest challenges in modern healthcare: making care plans that truly stick. Most people don’t fail their health plans; the plans fail them, often because they’re too complex, reactive, or fragmented. Instead of bouncing between specialists and juggling conflicting advice, Dr. Matthew C. Popkin shares his approach for building a sustainable, integrated care strategy that focuses on foundational lifestyle changes and personalized medicine. Whether you’re dealing with chronic conditions, looking to optimize your performance, or simply tired of the revolving door of disconnected treatments, this episode is all about creating a clear, cohesive plan to help you achieve real, lasting results.

Timestamps:

00:00 Integrative and functional medicine approach

03:47 Challenges with wellness programs

08:26 Coordination challenges in healthcare

12:31 Integrating functional with traditional medicine

14:43 Patient reporting challenges and efficiency

18:45 The importance of health consistency

21:02 Importance of consistent exercise

24:06 Accountability in medical care

26:42 Managing expectations in weight loss

30:57 Evaluating Hormone and Cholesterol Health

35:15 Simplifying complex treatment plans

37:28 Introduction to the Popkin Method

You can see Dr. Popkin through his online virtual functional medicine program anywhere in the country or the world for that matter.

You can visit Dr. Popkin in his Hollywood Florida office for an in person weight loss experience.

Visit thepopkinmethod.com to send a message to schedule an appointment with Dr. Popkin or email Dr. Popkin at mcpopkinmd@yahoo.com.

Podcast Website - https://thepopkinmethod.com/

Matthew C. Popkin, M.D. - https://thepopkinmethod.com/about

Podcast Partner - TopHealth - https://tophealth.care/

“Disclaimer: Informational only. Not medical advice. Consult your doctor for guidance.”

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Most people don't fail their health plans. The plans fail them. Too complicated, too reactive, too disconnected. So let's dive into today's topic. We're going to be talking about how to build a care plan that you can actually stick with.

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Thank you, Jamie. Welcome back to the Popkin Method podcast. I'm Dr. Matthew Popkin. And in this podcast, we talk about something that I believe is missing from a lot of modern healthcare conversations: how to actually build a health strategy that works for the long term. Not a quick fix, not a temporary diet, not a single prescription, but a true care plan. Because one of the biggest problems I see in medicine today is patients are often given treatment plans, but very few are given care plans. A treatment plan is usually episodic. It addresses a problem when it appears. However, a care plan is continuous. It is structured. It's intentional. It's designed to guide health over time. And one of the things I want listeners to understand is that the Popkin method is not disease specific, whether we're talking about diabetes, hypertension, heart disease, weight loss, hormone optimization, sexual function, hair restoration, chronic pain, orthopedic issues, inflammatory conditions, metabolic health, or whatever issues are ailing you. I approach these conditions using the same fundamental structure. Process always begins with the foundational layers of physiology. We talk about lifestyle optimization, dietary strategy, movement and exercise, and fundamental supplementation. Once those foundations are stabilized, we may add some targeted supplements and metabolic support. And only after those layers are addressed do we consider more advanced therapies such as peptide therapies, hormone modulation, regenerative treatments like stem cells, exosomes, secretomes, or adjustments in prescription medications. Everything is applied in a structured, intentional sequence. And this approach blends two major components of my professional training. First is my Internal Medicine Foundation, which I developed during my training at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation, where I learned the importance of evidence-based medicine and careful medical oversight. With that, I add in surgical knowledge that I gained during my general orthopedic surgery training at Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York City. The second component is the more than 25 years of functional and integrative medicine experience, which focuses on understanding physiology, root causes, and individualized treatment strategies. So if I focus on diet and exercise and lifestyle modification, if that is termed functional medicine, then so be it. However, I think it should just be part of regular internal medicine. These are components that are extremely important. The goal is not simply to treat the disease, the goal is to restore the physiology and guide patients through a clear, structured path toward better health. And today we're going to talk about something incredibly practical: how to build a care plan you can actually stick with.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

All right, Dr. Popkin. So why then do most traditional healthcare plans fall apart within weeks?

SPEAKER_00 3:18

This is something nearly everyone has experienced. Someone decides they're going to improve their health, they're going to get motivated, they start a new program, and within a few weeks the entire plan falls apart. This doesn't usually happen because someone lacks discipline. It happens because the plan itself was not designed to be sustainable. And there are several reasons for this. One of them is decision fatigue. If a health plan requires dozens of decisions a day, what to eat, what supplements to take, what exercises to do, what tests to order, people quickly become overwhelmed. Another problem is overcomplexity. Many programs introduce too many changes at once. Patients may be asked to simultaneously change their diet, start multiple supplements, begin an intense exercise program, track multiple metrics, and eliminate numerous foods. And even if the plan is theoretically beneficial, the human brain struggles to maintain that level of change. The third major issue is lack of integration. Patients often receive advice from multiple sources. They're doctors, their trainer, their nutritionists, online programs, podcasts, such as this, and friends. There's too many influences out there and people don't know how to sift through the information. But if these recommendations are not coordinated, the patient is left trying to assemble their own strategy, which generally does not work well. And when people are forced to design their own medical strategy, the system eventually breaks down. A sustainable care plan must be clear, structured, and prioritized. That is exactly what the Popkin method attempts to create.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

So what happens is people are just getting information overload in like a positive effort to be better, to get better, to optimize their life. But it's, you know, in your best efforts to do that, just completely failing because it's way too much all at once. It seems like it's Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 5:03

Information overload is the perfect term for that. And everyone has really good intentions, but the problem is there are too many inputs, and unfortunately, it does not create a cohesive care plan.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Which then can actually keep you stuck on the hamster or gerbil wheel because then you're getting stressed out that you're not doing the things that you wanted to do to get better and can actually increase stress and increase cortisol and perhaps even get you to a worse starting point to begin with. So really advantageous it seems to be direct and clear and simple and systemized with this. So tell us now the difference between a treatment plan and a care plan. What's the difference there?

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Well, Jamie, this is an important distinction between the two. A treatment plan is usually episodic and reactive. You develop a problem and the healthcare system responds to that problem. For example, you develop high blood pressure, so a medication is prescribed. You develop knee pain and an imaging test is ordered, X-ray, MRI, so forth. You develop elevated blood sugar, and another medication may be added. Each issue is addressed individually, but a care plan works differently. A care plan is continuous and proactive. Instead of reacting to each new issue, it asks, what is the underlying physiology driving these conditions? How can we improve metabolic health, inflammation, hormone balance, and structural function so that fewer problems develop in the first place? Treatment plans tend to be fragmented. Care plans are integrated. Treatment plans often focus on symptoms, whereas care plans focus on systems. And when patients begin to think in terms of a care plan rather than isolated treatments, their results tend to become much more stable.

SPEAKER_01 6:44

I love that delineation. It's so interesting. It's just like you said, taking care of one individual issue versus looking at what actually could be causing all of this and taking a step back instead of, like you said, just putting a band-aid on. Like why do we actually keep falling down and skinning our knee to begin with? Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

It's common sense. It's common sense that we don't see in medicine. I mean, we just react to problems rather than putting a program together to eliminate those problems in the first place. And then when they do come up, you got to realize that you have to put a system around it. It's not a simple fix. And everyone wants that simple fix. We're trained to, you know, I mean, you have your smartphone, there's a problem, you fix it. You know, you go on your phone, you order something from Amazon, or you go online, you Google something. Everybody wants, you know, fast food. They want it fixed now. It's more of a structured care plan that will fix not only the issue you're dealing with, but other issues that may come up or other associated issues.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Yeah, exactly. So that, you know, things don't keep happening down the road, right? And and and at the same time, it's more sustainable, right? So it's going to improve the quality of your life, but it can be something that can be integrated for years to come and help in in more ways than one, not just that isolated reactionary issue that we were talking about. I guess again, I just I love that delineation there is so important for our listeners. Okay, so it's wonderful that we have so many different specialties in medicine, right? We want to be going to the experts that have, you know, the right information for each little kind of ailment that we might have. However, why does seeing multiple specialists often delay real progress? Is that it again, it seems kind of like the information overload kind of a deal. But tell us more about that.

SPEAKER_00 8:26

Yeah, this is kind of where, you know, too many cooks in the kitchen, that analogy comes up. Don't get me wrong, specialists play an extremely important role in modern medicine. But when multiple specialists are involved without coordination, several problems can arise. And one of the issues is conflicting advice, right? You have more than one, you know, person talking in your ear trying to create a treatment plan, and it may not work with another plan that you're already doing. Different physicians may focus on different priorities, which can sometimes create confusion for the patient. I constantly hear people, you know, they come in and they just assume that everything that is being done by other doctors that I have access to. And everyone says, oh, well, it's in my record. You don't have it. It's like, well, no, I don't have access to the cardiologist that you went to that I didn't know about. And now I don't have that information. So that's it's important to understand that you you you need to have that coordination of effort. Another issue is lack of a central strategy. You know, each specialist may be addressing their specific area of expertise, but no one is responsible for managing the overall direction of the patient's health plan. And a third issue is lack of coordination of care. And I see this all the time. Tests may be duplicated, treatments may overlap, and sometimes therapies are introduced in the wrong sequence. So when healthcare becomes fragmented, the patient ends up trying to manage a system that was never designed to be managed from the outside. A well-designed care plan requires leadership and integration, and that's what I like to have in my care plans.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Yeah, and for the patient, not only can it be ineffective, but it seems like we might be double-zipping there even in expenses with, like you mentioned, that different specialists doing the same tests over and over. So it could, at the end of the day, also have a negative effect on your wallet instead of just being inefficient when it comes to creating a plan.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

And Jimmy, I'll cut you off here for a second. One of the other things that can happen is in the duplication of therapies, I see many times patients come to me and they're on, let's say, an anti-inflammatory that was prescribed to them from, let's say, an orthopedist, but they're also taking Motrin or Advil, leave ibuprofen, and don't realize that these are you can't be on two, you should not be on two different anti-inflammatories. It can cause elevated blood pressure, it can cause stomach issues, it can cause kidney problems. So, you know, different doctors prescribing different things, not knowing what the patient's actually taking. So we can't expect the patients to be the pharmacy, right? Or the pharmacist. We have to understand that someone has to coordinate this care so that that doesn't happen because there could be some very potential dangerous uh scenarios that are set up. So I wanted to interject that as well.

SPEAKER_01 11:02

Yeah, I love that. You know, it's the reason why there's doctors and there's patients. You know, like you said, we can't expect them to know exactly what to do with all of that information if there's overlapping information. Okay, so what does one doctor, one plan, one strategy actually mean in practice?

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Well, this is what I was talking about earlier, and this principle is central to the Popkin method. In today's healthcare environment, patients often accumulate multiple treatment plans rather than one coordinated care plan. For example, someone might have a primary care physician managing their blood pressure, an endocrinologist addressing their diabetes, an orthopedist treating joint pain, and then a telemedicine clinic prescribing the GLP1 medications for weight loss, another provider that's prescribing hormone replacement therapy, then a peptide therapy clinic or someone purchasing peptides online, or even regenerative medicine treatments like stem cells, exosomes, or secretomes that are obtained out of the country through travel medicine programs. I see a lot of this. And many of these treatments can have real value individually, but the problem is that they are rarely coordinated. And that's where the problem usually arises. Many patients feel like they must go underground, so to speak, to obtain their functional or integrative therapies because those treatments often exist outside of traditional medical systems. And again, I don't think diet and exercise and lifestyle modification and basic supplementation and peptides and other therapies, I don't think they should be considered outside of traditional medical systems. That, you know, functional medicine should be integrated with internal medicine. One of the goals that I have is to try and democratize functional medicine into mainstream medicine because there are so many really good therapies out there that are just not being used. And what happens is, you know, with this confusion of, you know, you have your your traditional internal medicine and then the separate functional medicine component and not integrated them is a problem. And the result is that patients end up running two separate healthcare systems. And, you know, one is conventional Medicaid, one is conventional medical care that I discussed. And the other is a collection of functional or longevity therapies prescribed by clinicians who may not necessarily know the patient's full medical history and don't collaborate together to coordinate the patient's care. So this creates numerous risks, including conflicting recommendations, therapy interactions, duplicated testing, poor sequencing of treatments, and sometimes concerns about product safety and sourcing. When I see patients uh flying out of the country to get stem cells or exosomes, you know, I caution them because you don't know what you're getting. There's no oversight within the area where they live. So what happens when they fly back to their hometown and there's an issue? Who are they going to hold accountable? That's a concern to me. This is especially important with advanced therapies such as hormone modulation, GLP1 medications, peptide therapies, stem cell procedures, exosomes and secretomes, the therapies that are associated with those things. So these treatments, again, they can be powerful tools, but they require very careful oversight and sequencing. Because my career has combined traditional internal medicine from my training with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation with over 25 years of functional medicine expertise, I focus on integrating these disciplines into a single coordinated strategy. That allows me to coordinate the entire care plan, prioritize treatment steps, understand therapy interactions, and guide decisions based on the patient's full medical history and context. When one physician is guiding the strategy, the plan becomes intentional rather than fragmented. And that's where the patient can really benefit.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Something that came to mind while you were mentioning all of those different things and all the different places where patients can go to get these different treatments is they also there's a chance that not every patient would be reporting that they were doing those things right. It's like when when you have to answer on your paperwork at the doctor, well, how many drinks have you had a week? You know, or do you have a week, right? It's like, do you ever really get the straight answer from the patients? And they might say, Well, because I did this kind of unofficial way to get this medicine, that might not even register as like something that they report on their paperwork to you, which can also, you know, cause a problem or or a discrepancy there, right? Especially with your treatment. So really having it seems like all under one roof and kind of like a one-stop shop, which is fabulous, that that you do is really, I mean, the word that keeps coming to mind is just efficient.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Yeah. And it's it's interesting you mentioned that because anytime someone comes into my office, you know, typically it's for, you know, for many different things. But when they're coming in specifically for, let's say, weight loss or hormones, peptides, even Botox or fillers, I always tell them, you know, or I ask them, you know, is your primary care physician aware that you're doing this? And they're always surprised. It's like, well, why should my primary need to know this? And it's like, well, you know, if we're we're adjusting your hormones, that's important. You know, if you're doing, you know, peptide therapy or or whatever we're doing, it's important to have somebody coordinating the care. And I just find it amazing that everything is so fragmented. And that really is one of the major problems that I see in in modern medicine these days.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Well, something that we've talked a lot about on this podcast is stress. So, how does the popkin method at the end of the day decrease stress while helping to improve results?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Well, one of the biggest advantages of a structured system is that it reduces uncertainty. And uncertainty leads to stress. And stress causes all the bad things we talked about. Yeah, cortisol, insulin spikes, uh, glucose spikes, insulin spikes, mood changes, hormone imbalance, weight gain. So we really want to reduce stress. It's not stress is not just annoying to the person, it is damaging to the body systems. So we want to manage that stress. So the Popkin method follows a clear sequence that I think my listeners can pretty much dictate verbatim now. It's lifestyle modification, diet, exercise, foundational supplements, then targeted metabolic support and advanced therapies where appropriate. I follow that format with everything that I see in the office. So because the sequence is predictable, patients are not constantly wondering what's the next step. There should also be clear checkpoints and established endpoints, which I clearly lay out. So if you if people are following a program and there are certain checkpoints and endpoints that we are realizing, these milestones, we're saying we expect to be at this weight by this amount of time. It gives people appropriate expectations and that manages their anxiety and their stress. And we have established endpoints. You know, we're going to stop with this particular therapy when you get to a particular endpoint. You know, there's not just going to be this nebulous, you know, we're treating and we don't know what we're treating and for how long. We really try to, you know, manage patients' expectations so that decreases stress. I evaluate progress, I adjust when necessary, and I move forward deliberately rather than reactively. And this structure tends to reduce stress while improving consistency and the patients enjoy it and it helps them to really become an active participant in their care plan, which is extremely important.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

Not to mention that it probably eliminates a lot of appointments and a lot of different voicemails and calls and just to-dos you have to do when you're trying to manage, you know, five plus doctors that you're trying to go see to, you know, find a solution for all the the different things that could be going on humanly. Okay, so you mentioned consistency, and I think something that applies not only to medicine, but just life in general, but definitely in the healthcare space. Why is consistency so much more important than intensity when it comes to healing?

SPEAKER_00 18:45

Well, consistency is something that we try to achieve in every part of our lives. Uh you know, our family, our business, our friendships. You know, so why not have consistency in our health system? The body is it follows a rhythm. The body follows systems, it episodic, quick changes the body does not react well to. And the older we get, the less tolerances we have to changes. So metabolic health, hormone regulation, nervous system balance, and inflammation are all influenced by daily signals. And these signals are things that over time, the consistency, if it's if these are healthy signals, then our body will act healthy. But if these are not healthy signals, then certainly that's where people get into problems. When I say signals, I mean your body is responding to the signal of the food and the fuel you're putting in your body. So if you're consistently putting in good food and fuel, your body's going to respond well. If you're constantly eating bad foods, it's not going to respond well. And that sets up these vicious cycles that we talked about in our previous episodes. So when patients attempt extreme changes, they often create temporary results followed by relapse. And we don't want that. But when the changes are consistent and sustainable, physiology gradually stabilizes. And that's what we want. We want the physiology to adapt to the changes that we're making and not be reactionary and not see this as a major change. We want to be able to get the body to adjust to the changes that we're doing. And this is why most of the strategy I most of the strategies I discussed in the podcast series focus on repeatable habits rather than extreme interventions. They're sustainable, just like you mentioned earlier. And I believe in progress over perfection, which is accomplished if the treatment plan has proper expectations and is sustainable over the long term.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

It's it makes me think of like working out, right? Like I could go do one super hard, amazing workout with a trainer, right? But is that's not gonna give me the same results as if I were was, you know, maybe going to a class, a 30-minute class three times a week for a whole month. I might have worked out, I might have done more one time with that trainer, but you know, the the small but consistent steps over time are gonna give you a result. Abs aren't made, abs aren't made on workout.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Yeah, it's not gonna be helpful for you either because if you do, you know, if you worked out hard one day a month, you know, you're gonna be, you're gonna be sore for the next couple of days, you're not gonna want to go back. It's gonna create anxiety and stress over those exercises, not just, you know, on your body, but mentally. You're not gonna want to do those things. Whereas if you start off slow and structured, you're building over time, your body is responding, and then you're getting that, you know, you're getting that endorphin release, you're getting those feel-good hormones, you're starting to see progress and you want to continue with the treatment plan. And whether it's a workout plan or if it's a medical plan, whatever we're trying to do, the consistency is what's important. It's not just, you know, high intensity, let's try to fix this right now. Because as we know, the body does not respond to it. And even if you're 20, 30 years old, you're young, you're healthy, go do a hard workout that you've never done before. And you'll be cooked for the next couple of days, and then you're not going to want to do it again. So imagine as we get older, the body is reacting even. More harshly to these changes. So, all the more reason why we want to be very slow and consistent and deliberate in the treatments that we're doing.

SPEAKER_01 22:08

Yeah. So I think that's a perfect segue of how, you know, we haven't have a goal or the best intentions that can backfire on us. You know, we've we made a decision, we committed to it, but then after we did it, kind of backfired, didn't work so well. So how do you help your patients set goals that don't backfire?

SPEAKER_00 22:26

Well, one of the most common mistakes in health planning is setting goals that are unrealistic or poorly timed. The goals need to be specific, they need to be measurable, they need to be realistic and aligned with physiology. We see this all the time in diet programs, right? Patients, they go on a diet and they want, they need to lose, they're going to a wedding, they need to lose 10 pounds in two weeks or 10 pounds in a month, or whatever it is. And, you know, they they set unrealistic expectations. And then of course it sets up a vicious cycle and things that we talked about previously. I also build flexibility into the process. I understand that life happens, travel happens, stress happens. So you need to be able to adapt to those changes. A well-designed plan must allow for adaptation without losing direction. So just because there are things that don't necessarily go exactly as planned, that doesn't mean that the program is not working. That just means that for that particular patient, the physiology is a little different. You have to be able to adapt to those changes.

SPEAKER_01 23:26

Yeah, I think that's great. We always need to allow ourselves some grace when starting anything new. But again, if the consistency is there and you know, something happens on the off chance here or there, it's okay. It's not the end of the world. You know, we always fall off the horse, we can get right back on. And again, something that's easy to get back on and not overwhelming information overload is gonna give us the greatest chance to do that. So into into like patient accountability. Okay, let's move into into that part. What role does the patient accountability play in a care plan and just you know, hoping for the best and just willpower? Why is that not enough?

SPEAKER_00 24:06

Well, accountability, again, that's a word we always hear pretty much in daily life, right? You you work, you have accountability to a boss, you have a family, you have accountability to your family members. Why not have accountability in medicine, right? A lot of this is common sense, things that we don't really think about. When you see accountability, it creates structure, and patients benefit from that. They benefit from regular check-ins, from objective measurements that can be tracked, feedback loops that improve physiologic processes, and professional guidance. These elements transform a plan from good intention into organized processes. And I always say that organization is the key to success, and that's especially important with a treatment plan. So accountability is achieved through multiple layers of oversight by the physician who is coordinating the care plan. And the accountability leads to appropriate course correction based on the information and the inputs that are gained from such thorough coordination of care. So that oversight really leads to accountability and that leads to the flexibility in the care plan. If it was easy, I could just write it down on a prescription or on a piece of paper and give it to the patient, they'd be able to follow it themselves. Everybody's different. So without accountability, you can't find the discrepancies and make those course corrections. And everybody is different, right? Everything has to be individualized. And without that accountability, we can't achieve that level of precision care.

SPEAKER_01 25:31

So we talked about, you know, why having multiple different information and expert outlets is ineffective and what a good care plan looks like, not just a treatment plan. So let's talk about when we make the decision to actually go forward with a correct kind of care plan. What are the signs that it's successful? What are the signs that it's starting to work, that progress that you always talk about?

SPEAKER_00 25:56

Sure. Well, interestingly, the first signs are often psychological and physiological stability, not dramatic changes in lab values or measurable physical changes like weight or blood pressure or blood glucose. It's it's usually subtle things at first. Patients may notice less anxiety about their health, fewer flare-ups, more predictable energy levels, better sleep patterns, improved exercise tolerance. The system becomes more stable and more predictable. And that stability is often the first indicator that the body is moving in the right direction. And over time, we begin to see changes in objective, measurable data points, like I mentioned, like weight and blood pressure and blood glucose readings, cholesterol values, and other lab measurements. So we want to see the subtle signs first, and that'll give, you know, pointing those things out will give the patient, you know, the inspiration to keep moving until they start to see those objective data points. When you put someone on a weight loss program, they expect to see weight loss right away. And that may not happen, and that might frustrate patients. And a perfect example is they're looking at their focused and fixated on their weight. And if a patient has changed their lifestyle around, they've, you know, they've made the lifestyle modifications I talked about, they're managing the stress, they're getting better sleep, they're eating better, they're exercising, you know, they're taking some basic supplementation and replacing things that are deficient in their body, but they don't see a a change in their scale weight. That doesn't necessarily mean that their body isn't changing. That just means their scale weight isn't changing. And as they lose fat but gain muscle, that you may not see those dramatic changes in weight, but they'll see the difference in, let's say, their clothes fit better, they look better, they feel better, they're sleeping better. I think we're so fixated on numbers that you know we don't see the forest through the trees, right? So I try to get patients to understand that there are other things other than these objective numbers that we're looking at. We want to look at these subjective changes. If you're feeling better and you're sleeping better and you're looking better, that's usually where it starts. And then the numbers follow after that.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Yeah, sure. I mean, we don't walk around with our weight plastered on our forehead, but you know, the the body is the billboard. So if you're looking better and you're feeling better in your clothes, that really, for me anyway, is always the other ultimate kind of measurement of you know whether it's whether it's working or not. And two right, that's always more than fat. So if you've started integrating, you know, lightweight training into your workout routine, then you know you might not see that change on the skill right away. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 28:30

So for someone who is inspired and feeling compelled to kind of stop that revolving door of healthcare inefficiencies and start their real journey, where should they begin? What should they do?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

Great question. The first step is actually quite simple. And I usually start with three simple principles. And one of them is a stable habit. One stable habit that they can change, you know, not 10 different things at once. So one stable habit might be you know, you know, start walking after you eat to help decrease those glucose spikes. One medical leader guiding the plan, all right? Trying to centralize the focus of your healthcare with one medical leader guiding that treatment plan and one structured method. That's what this podcast is about. And you know, my method is by no means, you know, the absolute in in medicine. There are different methods that you should follow, but as long as you're following a method that is structured, then you're going to have a much uh better chance of success. Health improvement, it does not require chaos or dozens of disconnected strategies that just leads to stress. It requires clarity, consistency, and coordination. And that's the philosophy behind the Popkin method. And I'll give a couple of examples here that I see pretty much on a daily basis of where this structured format comes into play. Patients will come into my office for a number of different things. Either they come in specifically for weight loss, they want the GLP1 medications, or they're coming in for hormones, hormone modulation, or peptides, or Botox, or other medical issues. And, you know, I always start the conversation the same and apply the same method. So when a patient comes in, you know, with an idea in their head that they they want one of the GLP1 medications for weight loss, I don't necessarily just reflex into giving them that medication. I start with, you know, we talk about their lifestyle, we talk about a diet, talk about exercise, talk about basic supplementation, and I tell them that they don't necessarily need to start a GLP one medication, which seems, you know, counterintuitive from a business perspective, right? You know, they want a medication, you know, give it to them, right? They're gonna, you know, it's part of the business plan. No, it's gotta be part of the medical plan. So when we put this treatment plan together, you know, they're just amazed. Sometimes they just look at me and they go, I just want the shot. And I say, well, you know, if you're gonna spend all this time and effort and money with an expensive therapy, it's not going to succeed unless you surround it with a program. So whether it's the GLP1 medications we talked about. Similarly, with hormones, patients come in and they just, you know, they want to go on testosterone and they want to go on estrogen replacement therapy. I I look at the, I go back to the same structured program, lifestyle, diet, exercise, basic supplementation. And we start to look into, you know, do they really need hormone replacement or hormone modulation, or is the problem even hormone related? So again, by putting this structure into the care plan, it really focuses on what the patient's actual needs are, not necessarily what they think they need based on social media or based on, you know, what their friends are doing. So we really want to focus this into a program. And I'll give you another example that I think is pretty interesting. I got a message on through the podcast. A patient asked me, is cholesterol good or bad? And that was all they said, you know, is cholesterol good or bad? And I'm like, wow, that is a loaded question. Uh for a physician trained at the Cleveland Clinic Foundation who has spent over 25 years doing advanced cardiovascular risk reduction. We start to see, I know why this question came up too, because we're starting to see a lot of conflicting information about cholesterol. Cholesterol used to be, you know, bad, bad, bad. And everyone that had high cholesterol went on a statin medication. Uh now I see a lot of people in social media, they're touting there's the benefits of cholesterol. And the question is, to answer the question is is cholesterol good or bad, the answer is it depends. Depends on a lot of different things. And cholesterol is needed to make pretty much most things in our body you need cholesterol to make. So we don't want to necessarily get rid of cholesterol if it's high. We want to know if the cholesterol is high, and what environment is it living in? Is it living in an inflammatory environment where now it's causing heart disease or it's causing strokes? Or is your cholesterol high, but your body knows how to process it? Are we talking about is cholesterol bad, like to eat cholesterol? Because you know, if you're eating cholesterol from animal products, is that necessarily bad? Well, it depends on how your body processes it, right? So one of the things that I generally do with my patients is I get something called a coronary artery calcium score. And what that does is that looks at, looks to see if calcium and cholesterol plaques are being formed in the heart. And that's a good indication. That's a good starting point. It's a cheap, inexpensive test that's relatively easy to do. 50, 100, 150 test takes five minutes. And it gives us an idea, it answers the question, is cholesterol bad? Because if cholesterol is not laying down plaques and causing a problem, it's not bad. If it is laying down plaques and causing blockages in the arteries, then it is bad. So that simple decision-making process by looking at a coronary artery calcium score will help me to make that decision. Is cholesterol bad for this particular person? What type of cholesterol do they have? What is the type of LDL, bad cholesterol? What is the type of HDL or good cholesterol? I use advanced lipid profile testing, which looks at 30 or 40 different biomarkers. I don't just look at, you know, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol, total, and fibolesterides. I look at everything around it to see, to answer that question, is cholesterol bad? So again, it's the systems that are being put in place that are determining what the treatment plan is going to be. So again, it's not just, it's not, it's about consistency. It's it's about putting together a program that the patient can follow, but it's about getting as much information as you can to make the appropriate care plan.

SPEAKER_01 34:25

Yeah, Dr. Popkin, that's a great philosophy. Life is complicated enough, right? We have, in an effort to make things more simple and more street-minded, more efficient, we've actually almost overcomplicated it. And there's too many different paths that we could go down. So I, for one, love the idea of, you know, like I mentioned earlier, having that all under one roof, one-stop shop. Everyone is on the same page because there's only one person that you need to be on the same page with. And in order to optimize your life, optimize your health, and really get on a plan that not only is going to be effective, it's going to get to the root of any underlying issue that you have, but it's going to be sustainable for the rest of your life. So co-sign on all of this. This sounds wonderful to me. Any last thoughts that you have?

SPEAKER_00 35:15

No, I appreciate that, you know, you recognize the fact that, you know, we really try to use common sense and common principles to simplify the treatment plan because there are so many things we can do now. And that information overload, we want it managed appropriately. And physician that is running the care plan is the person that is the most appropriate to handle that information and create a care plan that is sustainable for the patient to follow. And that's pretty much, you know, that's that's what I do on a daily basis, regardless of what the patient is coming in for. If it's for something that's purely internal medicine, it's always blended with functional medicine with me because that's just foundational to me. If someone's coming in for a specific treatment, I always look to make sure it's a well-rounded program that integrates well with what they are currently being treated for and make it simple for them to follow. So if you found this episode helpful, I encourage you to share it with someone who may also be trying to navigate the complexity of modern healthcare. Because the reality is that many people today are stuck in what I call the revolving door of treatment plans, seeing multiple specialists, receiving fragmented advice, and never quite developing a clear strategy that ties everything together. The goal of the Popkin method is to change that. And this podcast series is designed not only to educate, but also to help people understand that there is a more structured and integrated way to approach health, one that combines the principles of internal medicine with functional and regenerative medicine in a thoughtful, coordinated care plan. So if you feel like you're ready to move beyond scattered treatment plans and start building a personalized care strategy, I invite you to start a conversation with me. You can learn more by visiting the website at thepopkinmethod.com. And from there, you can schedule a discovery call with me, a virtual functional medicine consultation, or an in-person consultation at my office here in Hollywood, Florida. You can also follow along with additional information and updates on my social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and you can find longer educational content and lectures on my YouTube channel as well. My goal with all of this is simple to help patients understand their physiology, organize their care, and develop a clear path towards better health. Thank you for listening to the Popkin Method, and I look forward to continuing the conversation in our next episode.

SPEAKER_01 37:28

Yeah, you don't need more opinions, you don't need alignment. It just all starts with one plan that's built to last. So if you're ready to explore these therapies in the right way, visit thepopkinmethod.com to learn more and schedule an online discovery call or an in-person visit with Dr. Popkin today. This is the Popkin Method, and see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 37:49

See you next time.