Functional Medicine Reality Podcast

05. From GI Struggles to Stability: Anti-Aging in Real Life

• Dr. Mark Su MD, Functional Medicine Practitioner for Health and Longevity • Season 1 • Episode 5

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From GI Struggles to Stability: Anti-Aging in Real Life

A Patient Conversation with Jean

In this episode, I’m joined by Jean, a long-time patient who generously shares her real-life health journey, not from a place of perfection, but from lived experience.

This conversation is about what healing actually looks like over time. It is about chronic gut issues, instability, fatigue, and inflammation, but also about perspective, gratitude, resilience, and what it means to pursue longevity in a realistic, human way.

What This Episode Covers

  • Jean’s transition into a new chapter of life, including relocation, retirement, and change
  • Years of chronic GI symptoms and the complexity of digestive healing
  • The role of journaling, self-awareness, and trial-and-error in recovery
  • How inflammation shows up across multiple systems over time
  • Why healing is often cyclical, not linear
  • What “anti-aging” really means outside of hype and extremes
  • The difference between chronological age and biological aging
  • How energy, cognition, stability, and connection define quality of life
  • The importance of movement, nature, sleep, and routine
  • Why social connection and lifelong learning matter for longevity
  • How to think through anti-aging options without overwhelm or fear

A Realistic View of Longevity

Rather than chasing every new trend, this episode walks through how to think clearly about longevity based on values, resources, tolerance, and life stage.

We discuss data-driven strategies like nutrition, exercise, and inflammation reduction, alongside emerging longevity concepts, while always coming back to what is sustainable and meaningful for the individual.

Key Takeaway

Longevity is not about doing everything.
It is about doing the right things for you, at the right time, in the right way.

Stability, resilience, curiosity, and connection matter just as much as supplements or tests.

And healing does not mean erasing the past. It means building a steadier future.

Important Note

This episode reflects a real patient conversation shared for educational purposes only. Nothing discussed should be taken as individual medical advice. Each person’s health journey is unique and should be navigated with appropriate professional support.

Thank you to Jean for her honesty, wisdom, and willingness to share.
This is what real-life healing looks like.

Dr. Mark Su:

I'm Dr. Mark Su and welcome to the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast. Join me and our community weekly as we bring you unfiltered health from inflation to longevity, real stories, real people, real solutions. Experience real life health changes from both patients and practitioners, and learn how to turn cutting-edge information into real results in your own life so you can feel better, live longer, live healthier, and be confident and clear in your healthcare choices. Let's get real and get results. Hey, welcome friends. I'm Dr. Mark Su. This is the Functional Medicine Reality Podcast, where we're all about creating clarity and truth-telling to help you live your best life. Today I have the privilege of talking with Jean. She's a real patient who's willing to share her experiences for the sake of helping others in their own healthcare journeys. As always, this is our first of many to come of authentic patient visit interviews for the purpose of these podcasts. And we're very grateful for Gene and those to follow who are doing this in part and very much out of heart and service to others. Our patients' names have been altered for sake of privacy, but the discussions, the stories that are are going to be relayed today are as authentic as they can be. Hi again, Jean. Welcome. Hi. I really appreciate you. And especially thanks for caring to share your experiences with others so they can benefit as well. Pay a forward system.

Jean :

No problem. Happy to do it.

Dr. Mark Su:

For a little background for other people, um we've known each other for you tell me we've known each other for a lot of years. A lot of years. I for me it's been a it's been a heartfelt, very professionally and personally very fulfilling experience. So I I thank you for the opportunity to be have been in your journey and your walk in life, not just in your health, but in life for all these years.

Jean :

Thank you.

Dr. Mark Su:

So all the more I that yeah, there's a lot of reasons you and I know there's a lot of reasons I thought of you as perhaps our our first person to uh walk through this podcast genre with the patient interviews. So again, thanks for being here.

Jean :

No problem.

Dr. Mark Su:

Let's jump in. Is that cool?

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

Okay. Let's go. So you you moved, you and your husband moved just in the last three weeks. And and as we were just spending a couple minutes chit-chatting before we hit the record button here. Yeah. How's it been going the last uh I know you guys have been moving in, things have been settling a little bit better than you expected, or maybe I would perceive as the usual kind of move scenario. But can you just uh maybe for the sake of others, uh, just a little a little brief intro of like who you are to whatever degree or extent you'd like to share is who are you, how are you relatable to other people, whether just age range or uh life experiences, who you are, your relationships with the kind of people in your life, your past and or current work experiences, et cetera, et cetera. Just so people have a sense of who you are.

Jean :

Sure. I uh my husband and I just moved to New Hampshire three weeks ago. We had been living in Vermont for a couple of years, and we're here in senior housing now. We're in our 70s, we're in senior housing, so that's an adjustment. And the other thing is I have retired at the same time by moving into senior housing. There's that there's a lot of transition with that thought processes and things, behaviors, and that on top of the move has really created a uh, I don't know, I was gonna say uh whirlpool of emotions and but also opportunities. We happen to love the Northeast because we love being outdoors and we're we were in the green mountains before, but now we're in the white mountains, and it's just glorious, and and the the fall season is coming and it's going to be unbelievable here. We're just surrounded by trees and and uh hiking trails and Mount Washington is not far away, and you know, we're glad that we landed in such a beautiful place. Yeah, our inside space is still a little chaotic, but we are we're liking what how it's coming out, and you know, and then there's uh the whole paperwork side of it, getting all your addresses changed and updating banks and all that stuff. So there's really quite a bit going on, but it's America, it's America. But in the midst of it, I want to just say that I how good I feel, because as I was saying to you earlier, that it's just I think life is going to be simpler, and that's a good thing as we go through the years, just not having so much to juggle. Yeah, it feels like a real gift. And so I look forward to more of that.

Dr. Mark Su:

I love your this is not new, but I I love your but it's always not it's also not been easy for you. I love your attitude and your gratitude. What I hear from you just right now is there's a very illustrative because you're uh you're a a writer, you're an artist in different ways, and so I hear I you take me into this kind of uh descriptive, illustrative visual in your description, right? In a very meaningful way that I don't do. So I appreciate that from people like yourself. Okay. But not only is it visual and illustrative with what the outdoors and nature, but your connection to it and the appreciation for it all, and then transitioning it to the appreciation of despite the changes, the shifts, the semi-chaos or outright chaos, the yeah adjustments and all that, you're uh you have a lot to be thankful for.

Jean :

That's for sure. That's for sure.

Dr. Mark Su:

And in that context, if it's okay to jump in here, so our as we stated as a minimal prep for this, because our goal of these podcasts is always to be authentic, real, and not scripted and keep it raw, if you will. Our goal with these uh visits is to problem solve something to be able to in real time show others the reality of functional medicine and how we problem solve either a diagnostic concern and or a make decisions with the plethora of treatment options that we might have. And so we've delineated ahead of time today that you're in this kind of good place with your health in several ways. And you've listed that hey, your goal, and correct me if I'm wrong or however you'd like to word it, but your current thinking focused goal is to improve or optimize quality of life and explore anti-aging and longevity.

Jean :

Exactly.

Dr. Mark Su:

Is that fair or do you have specific kinds of no?

Jean :

That's a good summary. It is a time when I'm considering like I'm settling in, but I'm not. I'm I I'm looking forward to new opportunities. Yeah, I'm remembering, I'm spending a lot of time remembering old things that like memories are coming up of things I've done and places I've gone and people I've met, and things I haven't thought about in a long time. So I'm doing a little bit of memory lane stuff, but reflections. Reflections, yeah. Sure. But I am committed to the the role of good food, exercise, meditation, good night's sleep. And and so I'm because I've over the last couple of years, I've really learned how those things make a difference. And I I think I feel as well as I feel because I've committed to some of those things.

Dr. Mark Su:

And I'll take that as a prefer, whether you meant it or not, I'll take that as a subtle but respectful reminder and coaching jab at me about my sleep habits. So thank you.

Jean :

Oh, I didn't mean to.

Dr. Mark Su:

Yeah, yeah. But and again, that's something I've always really appreciated about you is uh also is your attentiveness to your self-care in those ways, right? Because you and I both know that's yeah, we talk about a lot, but executing it's a whole nother story. And then executing it over the longitudinal time span is yet another story.

Jean :

And when you have other things going on that are major distractions, you are still committing to the meal or the sleep or the exercise.

Dr. Mark Su:

So let me, if it's okay, let me jump right in and just ask you. So when you say you're interested in improving your quality of life and exploring anti-aging, longevity, et cetera, because we both know it's all over news media, it's mainstream news media, right? It's not just it's not just social media, it's not just functional medicine arena, it's in mainstream stuff all the time. Let me just go ahead and ask you what how do you define anti-aging or longevity, or do you have specific goals in mind when you say, I'm looking to optimize my quality of life and pursue those, explore, pursue those things? What does that mean for you? I no right or wrong answers.

Jean :

Yes, I know. No, I'm trying to think what it means for me is finally allowing myself to do the things that I'm curious about, that I'm passionate about, that I always put back on the shelf because something else was going on.

Dr. Mark Su:

And now I'm and you mean life activities, I assume.

Jean :

Yes, activities that things that are intellectually stimulating.

Dr. Mark Su:

That's for you, like what is the what's the top one or two examples in your mind? For me, nature is a big thing. So being physically active and being able to be outside, yes, to hike, to walk, to hike, exactly just and experience being outdoors.

Jean :

Yes, definitely the physical action exercise. I'm like I went through a period, as you remember, where I was clumsy and I fell and I broke things and I had various injuries. And I don't want to have it be like that anymore. I want to be stable when I say to my husband as we're going through the woods, having to go over all these rocks and roots is really good for my stability. And then I'll trip or something. And then I say, Oh, not always, but it's I appreciate that I can still do it, yeah, because my parents weren't like that.

Dr. Mark Su:

I'm just I'm just saying that one as long as the physical ability to do the physical ability, both structurally, as you say, coordination and strength and not falling, but also hearkening to some of your past issues, having the energy to do some of these things too.

Jean :

Exactly. Yes, I did for so long.

Dr. Mark Su:

Yeah, that's one thing that you want to, I'm gonna infer for you.

Jean :

Uh-huh.

Dr. Mark Su:

Interject a little bit. Like you, one thing is like, how do I maintain resiliency and prolong that chapter of life?

Jean :

Yes.

Dr. Mark Su:

Not to say it's eminent that it's not gonna happen. Since you've been down the road where you couldn't do that well, it's not like it's not a total prevention thing because you've already been there and you've turned it around. Yeah. So how do I maintain, maybe even grow that further? But how do I, yeah, how do I maintain resiliency and continue to do that? So that's number one. Okay.

Jean :

I think the the thing, the other thing I'd like to see myself expand is my circle of like-minded people, because I've moved a lot in the last few years. My anchor people no longer live near me. And but there are so many things that I like to do that are involved with nature and nutrition. And and I there, oh, we already found a farm that's there's even a spool on the farmyard, and there's just so many opportunities there to meet with people who love food, who grow food, who prepare food, and are teaching kids about it. So it'd be really fun to have someone to do coffee with. I just know the can the connection to people makes a big difference. Again, because I saw what my parents went through, and and it's I'm not a hot, I'm not really gregarious, but I enjoy the conversations with people about topics that I like. And so being able to sit around with a group of them over coffee or whatever, and to share those ideas.

Dr. Mark Su:

So I I love this because I purposely I was assuming you might say to me, that's you're right, that's more of a it's not so much like a an anti-aging longevity goal, it's more something I just want to do behaviorally or socially, whatever. But yeah, but you you proved me wrong, which I love, and you said, no, no, like I'm aware that this has to do, this is part of it is part of it. There is data around the benefits of socialization and of deterring ourselves from loneliness and being withdrawn, and how that impacts longevity and anti-aging, but also that is something that's something that you can do on your own, and it's something that you can take ownership with over and be empowered with. It's not something you have to lean on a practitioner about, right? And it's something that fills your soul in so many ways, right? And I and I'll just not to over medicalize, but if we were to put that a little bit in the sort of more medical arena of aging longevity, then part of that is gonna certainly come back down to having energy to be out and about and socialize, but also cognitive function. Yes, yes. If we're not if we're not firing too properly, then uh not only do we commonly not have as much interest or motivation or whatever to socialize, but it's hard to socialize because we're not able to follow conversations, we're not able to add to conversations, yeah, and the content of those conversations changes meaningfully.

Jean :

It does. I would add that the whole sort of the drive behind this has a lot to do with lifelong learning. Like I'm still looking to learn things.

Dr. Mark Su:

And which I don't know if but that's another anti-aging strategy. No, I didn't. You didn't okay. There's all kinds of data around that. Okay, okay. You see it on my Apple feed all the time, like probably once a week, there's some article about I'm a neurologist, and these are the top five things I do to anti-age, whatever. That's like a common headline on it's like an algorithm AI thing that Apple Newsfeed shows me or something. Yeah, commonly they're talking about like keep learning new things, keep challenging yourself. Don't get complacent. So you don't even know it. Good for you. Keep curious, natural at this.

Jean :

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, it's just not to be specific about stuff, but I have overcome a lot of stuff. I've been through a lot of things physically, emotionally, spiritually, intellectually. And uh and so sitting here now, it's really great to, you know, to realize I I'm still wanting to to do new things, to, you know, or inspire somebody else if I can. Whatever. Not that's not a thing that I think of all the time, but I'm happy to do it when I can.

Dr. Mark Su:

Beyond myself. Yeah. Inspiring people beyond myself.

Jean :

Okay, yes, yes.

Dr. Mark Su:

I'm just reminding you. I'm I'm incurring, I'm kindly reminding you that you inspire me, as you already know, but I just wanted to put it out there. Thank you.

Jean :

Thank you. Yeah, I am yeah, I'm optimistic. I'm looking forward to this new chapter, as they always say. But the new, I mean, it came through not great circumstances. I was laid off my job of a zillion years. I got unemployment for a little while. It wasn't sustainable, so we're in senior housing, but we were able to get in here. It's a great place, it's a great part of the world. Uh I have a really a great family and a lot of friends and practitioners who support me. I'm optimistic.

Dr. Mark Su:

Again, I think a lot of that is I yes, you are optimistic. And again, you're redemonstrating your your proficiency and natural inherent tendency towards gratitude, which you yeah, you wouldn't have known it, but that is an active intention of mine of trying putting more into play in my life. Um in fact it some of it I was uh stemming from encouraging my daughter, who uh just went into college's freshman year just recently. So Um I'm like, I gotta practice what I'm preaching. I got I it's been on my mind, but it's time to get into action, Mark, right? Um But you know what, just for a second, you touched on um especially talking about gratitude, which again easily arguably easily argued and supported as another meaningful part of healthy aging or longevity pursuing pursuits, etc. But uh you have a lot to be grateful for. You've gone through a lot. Just to if we were just briefly rewind some of the things you've you worked through, because a lot of the a lot of the patients we might work with in whether in our office or in the uh the virtual root seek practice, people struggle with a lot of these chronic inflammatory conditions.

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

Some of them mainstream diagnoses, many of them aren't. Yeah, when you think back on what you've gone through, what kind of what kind of list comes to your mind as the things that we've worked through together over the years, or not just by names of diagnoses, but perhaps do you have like one or two or maybe three chapters of life or symptoms that you really wrestled with in your life that you care to just again in reflections, think back on that were darker times and real challenges for you that make your current status all the more appreciated.

Jean :

The this is where this is what makes me think about how much I appreciate your approach of doing the wandering together, thinking through something, because so many of the times it would be a symptom that just could have been one of many things. But the types of questions you would ask would get me thinking so that I became more aware of things that then I could continue to monitor on my own. And I think that's helped me develop the the system or whatever you want to call it that I have now. Just that yeah, pay attention to that, yeah, research that, talk to somebody about that, because that helps, first of all, talking about it and short of whining, but talking about it and um and learning what could this be, because there's it's not just one symptom, one treatment, everybody's the same, although that's a prevailing idea in a lot of practices, but this being able to consider different things and seeing how my life is uh happening at the moment and what could be contributing. I love that it's as I keep saying, it's the holistic thing because we are our emotions, we are our thoughts, we are our we have them. We're not necessarily are them, but we have them. And it's it all feeds in.

Dr. Mark Su:

So I hear you talking about probably a collection of different symptoms or conditions or chapters of life where your experience I hear you saying your experiences were like, okay, these are the symptoms I'm struggling with. And you ask easily many times you asking me, like, what could that be from? Or like, how do we explain that? Like, why? That's always the easy the most frequent question, like why? That's the nature of functional medicine, is we at least have many ways to think through a response. It's not a clear answer, as you already alluded to. It's kind of impulsive, in my opinion, to just throw a rash answer out. Oh, it's gotta be that or it's gotta be that. And then you already alluded to, it's oftentimes not just one thing, even. But yeah, so do you recall any like uh being a little more concrete? Do you recall specific symptoms or collections of symptoms that were especially hard for you, or particular diagnose conditions, diagnoses that we work through that you found to be more challenging, darker for you, whether physically or mentally, emotionally in any in specific ways?

Jean :

I think the the thing that's impacted me the most, it's not at the moment, but that kept me busy wondering for years was all of the digestive issues, the GI stuff. And how many there were just so many things to consider uh what my body's doing on its own, what I put in it, what supplements I put in it, all of that. And and we we were quite experimental. I feel like I really check that. And so I learned more about myself. That doesn't I don't think garlic bothers me, but I still have a little issue if I have dairy products. So I'm not but so I've just tuned in to myself and how I'm feeling. I've done all sorts of journaling about it and love that. Yeah, journaling. Yeah, write it down, write it down, write it down because you think you'll remember, but you don't always, yeah, some of it's for I I love it for a couple reasons.

Dr. Mark Su:

Actually, that's not the top reason I love it when I said that it's now again. That's another thing I've been I literally have that in my personal calendar to-do list right now to myself is get back into journaling on some level. Like I haven't done that in since childhood, I think. But again, it struck me as we were again talking about transitions. That could be another time. But for me, life transitions often are a golden opportunity that make us hit the pause button just for a second, because everything is like such a shift that you have to pay attention to the here and now, right? So we're not distracted by all the things we commonly are, and like on 50 mile an hour speed in our head or 70 mile an hour, whatever. But yeah, journaling gives us empowerment by tracking as you're alluding to, but it also there's so much value in the whole reflections and getting things out of our head so it's stops the monkey brain spinning up here a bit and puts it out so that we can start to sort it out a little bit on some level.

Jean :

But right, and make space for new stuff that uh could be more valuable. I love that. Thank you for that.

Dr. Mark Su:

Thank you for that nugget today. Okay, you're welcome. I love that. I don't know if I've ever even with my own therapist. I'm not sure if I've come across that principle. So thank you.

Jean :

Make space, make space for new stuff.

Dr. Mark Su:

But speaking just for a second on your gut topic, right?

Jean :

Sure.

Dr. Mark Su:

So just as a review, when you say we ex experimented a lot, yeah, we might experience it as experimenting, or we we geez, like we did that functional stool test probably three times, four times over the many years, at least three, probably. Yeah. Going back a lot of years because we've known each other for not quite 20, but it's gotta be at least 17. Yeah, it's gotta be at least 16, 17 years or more. Yeah, that's right. So we've in that span of time, it's surprising we've only done it three at the most four times, okay. But yeah, we've did we've done the uh that functional stool testing. I think most of the times we've done um the GIFX from Genova. Sometimes we did the GI map from diagnostic solutions. We did that trio smart breath test for SIBO.

Jean :

Yes.

Dr. Mark Su:

We've done so, we won't get into it here, but we've done some energy testing. We've done a lot of different modalities to figure stuff out. And then if I'm as I'm rewinding that stuff, we uncovered lack of digestive enzymes. So you took digestive enzymes, that's helped you some. Obviously, probiotics, pretty much a thing for I argue for anybody and everybody, but a bigger need for yourself and other people. We uncovered a lot of inflammatory topics or too much bacteria, too much fungus. I think we worked through worm parasites for a little bit, also. We did. Okay, thank you. Yeah, and then for me, the big memory, the big thing for in your case, which was as I've said before to you, which is really rare, right? For me, in at this point, 22 years of practice post-residency, you are only one of still only one of less than five, maybe probably three or four people. And one isn't even a patient, it's a a more a non-blood family member or family friend. Okay. Um, who ended up having a surgical intervention for that hiatal hernia. Right. And I'm my thing with people, as I said to you before, was yeah, hiatal horner is not that uncommon. A lot of people have it, they don't even know they have it because the practitioners don't talk about it because it's just like we just overlook it because so many people have it.

Jean :

It's asymptomatic.

Dr. Mark Su:

Hers was a different story.

Jean :

Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

Woo-wee. Yours was a different story. Yeah, you remember that, right? That wasn't that long ago. Yeah. And I think, and then of course, there's all those topics that you already alluded to with like food intolerances and food allergies, however you want to call that. Some of it's conventional food allergies, but most of it in your case is like more intolerances or alternative functional medicine testing, and a lot of it, even outside of testing, is still journaling, as you just said, and trial and error, because the tests aren't always 100% accurate, even in the functional world.

Jean :

That's right.

Dr. Mark Su:

So you're right. That's me fleshing out for you your comment about we've gone through a lot of pieces, and it's yeah, some of that stuff kind of recurs. So it's not necessarily like it didn't work, it just regressed. Or how many years could have how much time could we have gone on where that hydrohernian topic was either progressing or was an issue that we didn't see because we didn't see it on the previous imaging and then it had worsened, and then all of a sudden we find it to be, whoa, what happened there?

Jean :

Exactly.

Dr. Mark Su:

But yeah, sometimes I think it's just I just think about how a lot of people, uh, this day and age with the especially with the internet or AI or whatever, it feels it starts to feel more and more once we've looked once, then it should check off the list.

Jean :

Yes.

Dr. Mark Su:

But as time goes on, like you gotta know that's not necessarily the case because things change.

Jean :

Exactly. Yeah. And when I said experimenting, I wasn't I didn't mean it in the true sense of an experiment. It was like thoughtful consideration up to making choices about uh what I could afford to do, what I could stand to do time-wise in my life, because some protocols are pretty complex.

Dr. Mark Su:

And I love your comment there, because we that's a topic that is real. You just you've already commented you're in senior housing, right? You're not living a charmed life.

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

I obviously you're not taking that the wrong way, but the reality is you're not living a charmed life where you've got a trust fund from three generations ago and stuff like that, right? Which some people are. But but that doesn't mean you can't work through this stuff. There's always options.

Jean :

Yeah, there are. And our conversations have been very helpful in knowing what those options are. And then and what helps is then really trying to uh synchronize it with what's going on with me so I can be the most successful. Be your best. Yeah, be my best. Those kind of conversations are so helpful. And it it feels good to be included in the decision making of what's going to happen to me because sometimes you just get a prescription and take it, and sometimes that's all you need, but uh a lot of these more ongoing uh things, inflammatory things, yeah. They just take more investigation and more.

Dr. Mark Su:

So I love the I can uh just in the moment here, in the spur of the moment, use a couple of topics we just landed on and pivot us back to where we started with the longevity anti-aging topic, right? So you just commented on the word inflammation, right? And ultimately, as you that is the key and crux to everything. It's not all bad. There's inflammation is necessary in our bodies. We would die very quickly if we couldn't mount an immune inflammant inflammatory response. But in this day and age, with all the bugs and toxins and all the crud we're exposed to, not of our own fault, a lot of it not of our own fault. We have as a as a on a public health level, on a population level, definitely on an individual level, we're just more inflamed as a population in humanity than we were decades ago or centuries ago, certainly. And that inflammation isn't just about symptoms, whether with IBS or chronic gut health issues, gut issue, gut problems, or the myriad of other things that you've wrestled through with chronic Lyme issues. We've worked through mold topics, we've worked through like dysautonomia and like heart rate, blood pressure, weird issues, like returning passing out, as you were alluding to, like coordination and passing out, not being able to stamina, uncertainty about walking, even all that that's a lot of stuff. Actually, those some of those things are a lot, but aging itself is also at its root, all about inflammation, also, right? And so so now when we go back to your want of I would like to prolong and maintain and um fortify that resiliency to have energy, to have cognitive function, to be engaged with nature, so it's just a positive cycle going the right direction to socialize with people, those kinds of uh uh connections, those end goals.

Jean :

Yes.

Dr. Mark Su:

Let me let me go ahead if it's okay, just to summarize this for you in in shorter order. There's a couple different ways we think through uh that I could propose we think through longevity and anti-aging. Okay. The first thing is we ought to think about where the person's at in their life in by chronologic age. Okay. Okay, so you've already said you're in your 70s. And we're thinking about this for someone in their like 40s and 50s, possibly even younger, but let's just say 40s and 50s. It's arguably a different story. It is a different story than when we're talking about in our 70s or 80s or even 90s. Okay. Yeah. So that aside, without going into more detail, there are these four age-related disease categories that I think Peter Tia's brought to the forefront as in a more um mainstream thinking way. He calls it the four horsemen. And as you know my by name, I don't think you ever met her in person, but my wife in her research at Harvard and a lot of that's gone down that anti-aging longevity world. And so in the research world or the clinical world, we call it the age-related diseases, ARDs.

Jean :

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su:

Wow. Uh, but they very much line up. Okay. These four categories are a vascular disease, which is like heart health, largely, okay. But we could say stroke too, but heart health. We could say it's the metabolic issues with sugar, so it's diabetes. And then the third category is cancer, and the fourth category is brain health, neurodegenerative disorders, which dementia. So we cross that topic about cognition, right? So we got dementia, we got Parkinson's, Almers, and all kinds of other uh other subconsiderations there. So the point is when we're at younger ages, there's more ability to catch that earlier in its staging, but people have to be minded toward wanting to look for those things and then take action. Yes. Because a lot of people are like, if I don't feel it, I don't care. Or if I don't feel it, then is it really worth it? And that's a personal mindset, right? Okay. When we're at later stages, like yourself, we know we know you have you have a positive calcium CT score. And and you're not alone. It doesn't need to be doomsday, it doesn't need to be whatever. There's there are no practitioner colleagues who are like, oh my gosh, that's terrible. And but it is what it is, it's not necessarily it's not a doomsday matter, but it does give us a picture of where we're at with calcification of plaque in our blood vessels around the heart and presumably elsewhere. Okay. So I guess in big form, this is how I strategically think through these things for you and for others, is number one, you have to make your own, you have to have clarity within yourself on some level, okay? Because it's a journey and it changes, but you have to start with what do you really want? Which is why I intentionally asked you up front, what do you define as longevity or anti-aging? Or when everybody, when I say what do you want, most people just say, I want to be healthy. Yeah. Or I want to be healthier. Yeah. I'm like, okay, what does that mean?

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

Because that's awful. Some people are like, I want to get on testosterone. That's their definition of want to be healthy. Other people are like, I don't want to fall. Yeah. Okay. You know, so it's so varied. Everybody says I want to be healthy. Yeah. Yep. Okay, so you've been clear. Like, I want to have energy, I want to be able to connect to nature, I want to be able to socialize and cognitively like function and be creative and all that stuff. And so, okay, yes, fatigue and cognition, if we focus on those, okay, then we can in if we were to work through that structure, we could say, hey, there's we could think of it like through brain health. We could think it through all those pieces, certainly vascular health, heart health, the diabetes sugar topic, brain health, it all they all enter bleed over. But the next topic becomes, okay, so now that you have clarity on what you want, the next topic for me is how aggressive do you want to be? Okay, because there's a lot of options. And of course, most people are going to say, Well, I don't know, what are the choices?

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

Because I think a lot of people, I don't know about yourself because we haven't had that kind of conversation yet, but a lot of people when they think about anti-aging longevity, they're reading about or thinking about everything's expensive and out of pocket. And yes, a lot of it is out of pocket, but it doesn't have to be expensive. And as we just talked about, even like with chronic information, and you worked through a lot of it, there's always choices. Yes.

Jean :

Yep.

Dr. Mark Su:

And we can think about does someone want to go down the IV routes? You know, there's therapies there with NAD and other things that are that have strong rationale data support. Do we want to think about things like hybridic auction chamber, lots and lots of data around that stuff? Do we want to go down the road of flip end of the pendulum? Do you want to go down the road of prescriptions? Right. I mean, we've talked about this with statins. You're there's many people in that boat that I see who like, no, thank you. Yeah. But I'm I'm all comers. Okay. Right. Now I don't I haven't told you this, but there's now data. I I think it was only printed in the last few months of a statin showing, proving proof of concept, proving reversal of biologic clock markets. Markers and thus you can proclaim this statin. I'd never heard of the statin, actually. It's an oldie, and I never heard of it. Interesting enough. Now touting that statin has anti-aging properties biologically. Okay. And that suddenly is a little bit of a game changer. I've already had two or three patients who have decided they're at least going to retry a statin because all of a sudden they're looking at it differently. Again, and not my persuasion, because I'm neutral. Okay, but so that's a thought. Okay, because look, by cost, yeah, it's a that's a lot cheaper than other things. Okay. But sure. I know there's all kinds, as you and I both know, there's a lot of people who have different opinions on statins. We'll put that aside. And then there's all kinds of oral supplementation in between, all kinds of anti-inflammatories or neurotropics for brain health, all kinds of things we can do in terms of the hormones. And we're not talking about estrogen progesterone per se, even we're talking about adrenal hormones and pregnantone DHA, lots and lots of data around DHA, especially. Um, those are a lot cheaper and easier. We've used some of those at times. Okay. And then, of course, you got the whole piece that you've already started to cover, all those things that we can do for ourselves, which is very self-empowering and often experientially is even more feedback positive, right? With dietary matters. So there's dietary, there's sleep, there's uh movement exercise, including being outside, but even if it's not outside, ex movement is movement, okay. And uh and socialization. So let me pin this down for you to help some decision making for yourself, at least starting some decision making, okay? Sure. Ryan Smith, who I consider to be a real brainiac in this rural arena, I think I mentioned him to him too before. He's started true diagnostic as the biologic clock testing, arguably the most accurate biologic test out there, commercially available. When I asked him that question, I don't know, somewhere less than a year ago, at that time, a lot of the the end summary for that he relayed back to me. The question was what's the data showing these days as the most effective for anti-general longevity? And what are practitioners actually doing? And if if it's not, if it's total anecdotal and they're just experimenting, then I don't want to know that. But what are practitioners doing that? There's some rationale for positive return yield, a benefit. Okay. And so yeah, number one, still number one with data, amount of data was um rapamycin, which I don't know if you and I have ever talked about, but it's rapamycin is a it's a prescription medication. I won't get into all the details around it, but we largely have to get it through compounding pharmacies. It's yeah, more or less that's what we do. And then number two is a lot of nutritional work. Okay. And so if we had to pick one diet around it, it would be or eating lifestyle, it'd be Mediterranean diet still, right now. Really? Okay.

Jean :

All right.

Dr. Mark Su:

Okay. Uh it's not there are there's a lot of diets that are eating lifestyles that are beneficial for longevity. Okay.

Jean :

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su:

I've seen raw data that I don't know if it's been published yet, but a year ago, I've seen raw data between my wife's work and some people she was in a meeting with, where their data in the research world that was going to go in publication, looking at various kinds of healthy dietary habits, basically, they all had anti-aging reversal and anti-aging and biologic age reversing data outcomes. Reversing, okay. Outcomes. Again, to be clear, we're not talking about reversing time because we can't. We're talking about reversing biologic age. That's for another time, but how our bodies actually age biologically, and we can actually turn that down so that for every unit of time, every month or year that we age by time, our bodies are aging less slowly than that chronologic time. And therefore, relative to time, in a few months, half a year, whatever, we are anti-aging literally. Okay. Okay. How much that translates, yes, that does sound good. Yeah. Yet how much that translates into what we physically feel that might be a different story. Gotcha. Okay. If I if my brain anti-ages over the next year of time by a half year, I anti-age by a half year, so that I'm only aging a half a year's worth by my brain, even though it's been a whole year in time. Okay, yeah, but do I feel less tired? You know, that as you said, there's a lot of reasons I could be tired, so maybe not. Okay. But nonetheless, we know we're doing something positive. We know we're doing something good. And it's just to me, it's no different than treating high blood pressure. Who feels when the blood pressure is high? Hardly anybody. Yeah. But we don't question whether we should do something about it. Back to where we're at. You got rapamycin, you got dietary measures, and and then there's a whole host of options. But hyperbaric oxygen chambers, as I just mentioned, is like fast climbing the ranks. Really? Fast climbing the ranks. Okay. And uh it's I won't go into details, but historically there's a landmark paper on it read stabilizing telomeres, which are the sort of caps at the end of our DNA structures that prolong longevity by keeping our DNA intact and not damaging over time. But there's more and more data in other ways now beyond just the telomere topic. Okay. I just in the last half weekend spent time um shadowing a brainiac doc in Arizona, Trevor Berry, a functional neurologic chiropractor. He did, I will almost say he like does magic. It's almost like magic. It's just it was eyes wide open. Okay. But when um this just came up in our conversations over the last couple of days as well, and he happened to say, Yeah, when I looked into this and included AI in my sort of uh summary conclusions for him, like, yeah, top three, top three topics that uh that he purports for longevity, for brain health specifically. Okay, so that's the difference. At first, I'm talking about just aging in general, from data as a whole, true diagnostics data, but the the longevity research collectively. Now I'm saying for brain health, from Dr. Berry's my discussions with him, number one, exercise. Really? I know there's a cardiologist out there named Eric Topol. He has a really meaningful podcast and all that. He's he's out there. That's his number one, also. Okay, from what I recall. All right, it's exercise. And so you you do that, check, right? Number two and number three, I've forgotten what rank order, but oh, number two actually for him was the laser, which I don't know if you and I talked about, and I'm not gonna get into detail, but yeah, these low-level laser therapies, all right. We have one in our office, so I won't get into detail, but that's what yeah, that's the point he brought it up, was like he couldn't believe that came up. All right, so low level low these laser therapies, and then number three was hyperbaric auction chamber. So the hyperbaric has like I say, that I my point was just that's rising the ranks pretty quickly. Okay. Okay, but is that the treatment when people have been deep sea diving and they have to by FDA approval, it's for wound care and yeah, the the pressure disorders from air pressure disorders from coming up too quickly from scuba diving us. Okay. Wow. But going back to you, okay, for you, okay. Hey, the hyperbaric oxygen thing, you would have to look to see if there's a clinic around you that has one, and then how much is it? Because they all vary. Sure.

Jean :

Okay.

Dr. Mark Su:

If that's amenable, yeah, I'd give it all thumbs up. I have no emotional attachment, I'm not tied to anybody around you. Like, I would give you total thumbs up. Okay. But if that's not an if that's a no-go, don't sweat it. All right. Exercise, keep doing it, right? And then for you, it becomes a matter of when it's cold and it's snowy and it's icy, and then okay, you got to be careful and pick and choose for your safety. But the goal I find is we have to keep ourselves like in a very uh routine pattern because otherwise the routines come and go, and then longitudinally, it it doesn't really happen. Okay. So exercise, just keep on doing what you're doing, and then let's put the laser aside because I don't expect you to find someone around you, but that's also typically more expensive than the hybridic oxygen, okay, for session. And I don't think we're gonna talk about getting one for yourself. And then probably not at this point. They're expensive, yeah, they're pricey. Okay. But if we go to back to rapamycin, like that doesn't have to be expensive, but they're a little more expensive, it's a little more expensive than your typical supplement on a month-to-month basis. Okay. And then back to uh dietary matters, right? So that's where again we got to customize that for you because hey, Mediterranean diet, okay, but what within the Mediterranean diet have you found like you know, don't it doesn't sit so well with you? Like dairy, cheeses, that kind of thing. Yes, exactly. Or so you have to you have to, there is a little work there when we talk about self-care topics, okay, as you well know. Yes. But I think for you right now, without you know, I'm happy to see if you have other thoughts because there's so many other things we could talk about. Okay, but these are the top things that come to my mind.

Jean :

That's very interesting to me.

Dr. Mark Su:

Reflection and gratitude, gratitude, the practice of gratitude. I can't that might not be high on the data list because it's hard to measure those things. Right. It's hard to measure attitude, the practice of gratitude, meditation, that kind of stuff. But I'm still very much gonna say I affirm for you all those things that you started out talking about that you some of them you didn't even know. Like there is support for anti-aging. Okay. Socializing, gratitude, meditation, the attitude practice, the mindset, those are things that doctors don't spend much time talking about or any practitioners because we don't we suck at coaching as you know. So we'll talk about that, okay? Oh we're not trained in that, we suck at that, okay? And I'll ultimately I'll also say we don't have control over it. Yeah. That's a big thing for practitioners. Is we're taught to like, you know, our training is like, what are the things that we are in control of and what are things that we just prescribe? If we can't, if we prescribe something, but we don't have control over, you just take this pill, or I write the prescription, you fill it, and then you take it. But now it's now it's in your hands, it feels uncomfortable for a lot of practitioners because if you don't get the outcome, then what am I gonna do about that? I can't do anything about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't know how to then do I have find myself in a position of having to convince you to do something else, or what do I do about that? Like it's we're not trained with that. Yeah, but you make my job easy in that regard because you already do these things. You appreciate them, you do them, and you inspire me to do them, and you inspire other people to do them. So again, thank you, light to you, thank you, honor to you, all hearts. So gratitude, meditation, exercise, being in nature, socializing, you've got that, which is awesome. Keep doing those things. Okay, and then back to the data-driven stuff that I talked about with patients and the exercise we crossed over. And then, yeah, if you want to, like when we like offline, we can talk through some supplements that make most sense for you, perhaps. Okay, if you want to. All right. But if we walked away from this and you just said, what I took from there is I'm already doing a lot of things that are on the list. And you decided, I don't know right now that I want to or need to do anything more. Okay. Hey, I'm fully supportive. Okay, thank you. If we were to go down, you could find yourself down those rabbit holes of like, oh, okay, what about my calcium CT score? Like, what else do I do about that plaque? Or what do I do about we've played around, we've seen some not diabetes, but some high sugars at times, pre-diabetes and stuff. And okay, what else can I do with that? Like, there's holes we could go down, rabbit holes. Right. But it that's where it all comes back to, as you said, like the decision making. What by data is more arguable to have a greater yield of impact for you by rationale, or what just resonates with you as a priority of topic, like heart health versus diabetes versus socializing or whatever else, okay? What resonates with you? Because you can't no one can do it all. Exactly. So you get you got to pick and choose, and the decision making around what you pick and choose is also a collection of priorities, and so that's a lot of fleshing out. I I just uh hog the airspace here, but I wanted to at the risk of uh verbal diarrhea here, yeah, at the risk of dumping too much info here. I snapshot it for you what I think through these days with all the information I know from that's like almost hot off the press from research where I from my wife's side and what I hear about on a every couple day basis when she's either on calls or we just banter about something or another here and there and passing, like ships in the wind in the house. Um, but also um what's out there on social media and what patients are bringing to the table asking me and stuff, such like that. You're doing a lot already. Bottom line, you're doing a lot already. And again, if you had a calcium score that you have, but you are 50, yeah, there's even more argument. A lot of people are gonna be even more aggressive, but when because you don't want it to worsen. But if you're only where you're at now in your 70s, then um there's a lot of people who are gonna have some kind of calcium score in their 70s, right? So we don't we don't need to get overly threatened. It's not to say don't worry about it. I'm not saying to any given person, like, oh, just blow that off. But it's just different. It's you gotta we gotta customize a little bit, right?

Jean :

The context of my life.

Dr. Mark Su:

Yeah, if you and I see on a social media, oh, if you have a calcium score, you know, the numbers you have, if you have a calcium score, then you should be on this, this, and this. Well, okay, but let's take into account like, do you tolerate those things? What how old are you? Do you care? There's a lot of factors at hand, right?

Jean :

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would rather, you know, go do the exercise, the connecting with people, all of that for the the Mediterranean diet, except for all the feta, because I but I would rather do those things than so I'll propose we can we can connect off, we can sure wind this down and we can touch base afterward if you want to talk through some other options just to um it'll be more finite for you.

Dr. Mark Su:

But look, yeah, I feel like I I didn't I I wanted to give you all the information and bring value to you in return of thanks for your willingness to share your experiences and your life journey, past and present, a little bit on this on this recording for other folks. And um, as always, as I said to you at the beginning, we uh we gift everybody with a we give everybody a little gift for their willingness to share their a little bit of their journey here on this podcast.

Jean :

Yeah, I'm good with that.

Dr. Mark Su:

So I'll be sure to execute that for you as well. Thank you. But thank you so much. What a pleasure. I hope that yeah, so easy. I think some of that was I think uh definitely there was definitely some new stuff there between you and I there for sure.

Jean :

There was, yeah. But it's all it's also fun for me as easy as it's been to just converse and listen and problem solve and wonder. That's my favorite word about it. Let's wonder about it.

Dr. Mark Su:

Yeah. Some people wonder more easily, and other people have a hard time with it. But yeah, but actually, it is the reality, as you already know. It is the reality of functional medicine too, because things aren't so straightforward like they are in conventional medicine for many reasons, and we have to be okay with that. But you've come a long way, Gene.

Jean :

And I thank you.

Dr. Mark Su:

I really enjoyed it.

Jean :

I feel like it too. I feel like I have too.

Dr. Mark Su:

Yeah. And I really actually appreciate just taking the moment, just on a personal level, to reflect on those things and and then stop and appreciate where you're at now.

Jean :

Okay, good. Thanks for giving me the opportunity.

Dr. Mark Su:

Tell your husband I said hello. I hope you I hope he's feeling settling in as much as you are. I think you guys are probably in the same place, probably.

Jean :

Yeah.

Dr. Mark Su:

I know you guys are great supports for each other.

Jean :

Thank you. Yeah, yes, we are.

Dr. Mark Su:

Okay. Well, thanks for sharing. Thanks. You are a gift to others. I'm praying for your continued resiliency and uh your stamina, your fatigue, your coordination, your cognition, the digestive stuff. You've done a lot of work around that. So I'm always rooting for you as you and uh for for others listening. Nothing in this discussion obviously is to be taken as medical advice for others. This is just a conversation between you and I, but it's a little bit of a like an insight and a preview on how we at RootSeek certainly in approach patient care and think through diagnostic challenges. In this case today, we talked mostly about the sort of evolving longevity anti-aging world, but the same kind of process applies when we're thinking through chronic inflammation as we have for yourself in the past with all kinds of different symptoms and system needs. So as Eugene, our mantra here is just we want to help more people get better faster. So exactly to be a service to humanity. And thank you for contributing to that.

Jean :

You're you're quite welcome. I was happy to do it. All right.

Dr. Mark Su:

Good until next time. We'll talk again. All right, all right. Yes, we will. All right. Thanks so much. All right, bye bye.

Jean :

Just the way it's