Lies I Taught in Medical School

Speaker 1:
Rethinking Healthcare takes more than disruption, it takes more than thought leaders. It takes change makers and doers. That's who we'll be speaking to on the Healthcare Rethink Podcast, giving you, our dedicated listeners, a rich body of insights to make your own change. This is the Healthcare Rethink podcast.

Brian Urban:
[00:00:30] Yes, this is the Healthcare Rethink podcast. I'm your host, Brian Urban, and today we're finishing out our very large author series across the healthcare ecosystem. So thankful to have on our little show here today, Dr. Robert Lufkin, the author of USA Today bestselling book, Lies I Taught in Medical School: How Conventional Medicine is Making You Sicker and What You Can Do To Save Your Life. If that doesn't get you going in terms of a book title, I don't know what will. But I'm so excited. Dr. Lufkin, thank you for joining our show here today.

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
Oh, thanks so much, Brian. I'm a fan of your work. It's an honor and a pleasure. And actually we just got another boost that in addition to USA today, the book just made the New York Times bestseller list too.

Brian Urban:
[00:02:30] Well, I think Dr. Lufkin for our audience, it makes you think, I want to go back to medical school, see what these lies are, and then see if I can survive in the healthcare practitioner world. I think that struck a chord with me in my love for population health. I think there's such a disconnect that the US healthcare system has as an operation to what the human condition is. And your book goes through the metabolic lie, the diabetic lie. It kind of goes through a lot of these things that are not broken down in medical education. And I actually wanted to kick off a first question with that. Medical education today, it seems like it's starting to blend with MDs and MBAs, MDs and MPH, and so on and so forth. It seems like it's a band-aid answer for helping medical education start to bridge traditional to next generation. And in your day, I mean University of Virginia, MD, Brown University as well, an undergrad, you saw probably an evolution of medical education. Can you explain that experience then and what it looks like today?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:03:30] That's a great question, Brian. If I could, I would like to introduce a disclaimer. I am not a conspiracy theorist. I'm actually part of the problem, I am part of the medical establishment. Basically, I've spent my whole career as a professor in a medical school teaching. And I have to say the book is critical of western medicine, but I want to go on record, I love western medicine. I think it has transformed our lives in the 20th century with the pills and surgery, largely public health and infectious disease. But the problem is in the 21st century, we're facing literally a tsunami of these chronic diseases that we'll talk about. And when western medicine applies the same pills and surgery that were so effective in the 20th century, they don't work. They may work on symptoms, but in many cases they don't do anything to reverse the underlying conditions.

[00:04:30] And that's what the book is about. So when I went to medical school back in the 20th century, medicine was in its heyday. We were antibiotics and breakthroughs in cancer and infectious disease, and everyone was so hopeful and medicine was doing tremendous things. I have to admit, even today, if I get hit by a car out on the street, I'm going to want western medicine. I want that blood transfusion, I want my spleen removed, I want my bone set. But the problem is 80% of our healthcare is now spent on these chronic diseases that were present in the 20th century, but they've just exploded now in the 21st century. And there are many, many possible reasons for them. But one of the things you hinted at is that our medical education, our nutrition education, our food system is increasingly influenced by conscious and unconscious, pernicious, financial and other incentives that now drive our habits.

Brian Urban:
[00:06:00] It's a pleasure-paying cycle that we are in the middle of in terms of economic development relative to our health. It's fat, sugar, salt, the food science that a lot of the big organizations have continued to put out there. Fast food organizations as well. And now the hyper-consumerism that we're in, it's one or two clicks away from getting something delivered to your door that's most likely an unhealthy choice. You do describe a lot of that, and you talk actually about your book, an interesting piece, the longevity spectrum, a healthy lifespan and an optimal lifespan. And Peter Attia came to mind, the Chen family came to mind in terms of how you're looking at optimal health and wellness beyond the current perspective that we have as a US healthcare consumer in many facets. But back to your world, before I go way, way, way down and deep into the book, you give a great nod too and a forward that's done by Dr. Jason Fung, and I'd be remiss if we didn't give him a tip of the cap as well. And it seems like you've had a strong relationship in how you've thoughtfully put this work together. And was that an influence from Jason or from not only your learnings but also your current day teachings in medical school? How'd you really formulate the idea for this book, I guess is what I'm asking?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:07:00] Yeah. Well, Jason is a genius. I recommend his books. He's an inspiration, such a wonderful man. The inspiration for my book, I wish I could say I wanted to make the world a better place but actually I was forced into this out of self-interest. I was going along doing my medical school professor thing, and I came down with four chronic diseases. And I went to my doctor, and they were four the diseases that are very common, and I was given four prescription medicines and I asked about lifestyle and they said, "Well, it really doesn't work. But you're going to be on these drugs for the rest of your life, so get used to it". And that was the incentive because I had young kids at the time, I knew that wasn't going to end well. So it forced me to examine my closely held beliefs and the beliefs of my co-workers, many of whom are still teaching these things which I believe are incorrect.

[00:08:30] In other words, by looking at the most recent literature and there's a revolution in our information, our understanding of these metabolic roots to these diseases. Based on that and following the advice and the research that I was able to look at and study, I came up with a plan for myself, which I changed my lifestyle around. And long story short, I was able to reverse those four chronic diseases to the point my doctors thought the labs were broken, they couldn't believe it. And ultimately they wound up [inaudible 00:08:04] Something that was very uncommon before is called deprescribing. In other words, they took me off my prescription medicines because I didn't need them anymore. But that's the kind of results you can get. And this book is about sharing that information, that knowledge about what we can all do with other people so that other people don't make the same mistakes that I did. And there is hope and there are possibilities for change that aren't being offered to people with the conventional medical system. And that's the message of the book.

Brian Urban:
[00:10:00] Right. And it's amazing because you see that in the core of it, at least in the beginning for sure. The system that we're used to in healthcare in western medicine is that of if something happens to you, you're immediately triaged into whatever care that you need. And preventative care is not there, there's a big investment. Mental health care is not there, there's a big investment and a big desire to be able to create more access for all types of populations, regardless of age or accessibility. So I love where you're going with this. And all of your posts on social media, I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think they're taboo, I think they're just right to the point. Especially with something that struck me recently is you had a label that looked at all the ingredients on baby formula and oh my God, it was toxic. You could see the incremental coding of how obesity is so high in our country versus others that are breastfed babies or don't have these types of ingredients in formulas for medical prescriptions, et cetera. You catch the eye of, I think, a lot of interested people in how we can start to code better health into our habits, into our daily routine. So I love you for doing that, and I feel like that's a daily inspiration that might spur book number two maybe.

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:10:30] Yeah. No, it's so important. I mean, nutrition is one of the foundational blocks for lifestyle. It's not everything, there are other things we have to do but nutrition certainly is key. And when we see our children and our newborns that are started on the path to metabolic disease and a lifetime of chronic diseases with this junk that they're being fed that is harmful, it's deeply, deeply disturbing.

Brian Urban:
[00:11:30] It is. And I think there's a behavioral component, pressure put on young mothers or uneducated mothers, and it's stemming into a very big problem. But not to take us off that path. I did want to get onto something very relevant that you had partway through the beginning of your book. And you talked about metabolic syndrome and you talked about TOR activation, and you had spectrum that showed how this activation occurs. And for our audience, I didn't want to take it too deep into the biological sciences, but this is very important. This is literally how the machine of the body works and how good things and bad things can be activated based on our behavioral choices. Can you walk us through a little bit, plain language, of the metabolic syndrome and the activation that you are representing there with TOR?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:12:30] The TOR, yeah. I love TOR, it's such an amazing molecule. It's a protein kinase or it's a metabolic switch basically. But the wild thing about it, it's conserved over billions of years of evolution. In other words it's present in yeast all the way to human beings, and that indicates its importance. And it's all about survival. TOR is a switch and it goes either one side or the other side, and it detects the presence of nutrients, things like glucose or a hormone called insulin or oxygen in the environment. And when those are present, TOR switches on, it turns on inflammation and tells the cell to grow. Start building cells, and if it's a multicellular organism growing. And that's a good healthy thing, we need it to be turned on. TOR turns off, the other direction, when it doesn't sense food. So when glucose is low or oxygen is low, it turns off. And that tells the cell not to grow, hunker down, turn down inflammation, and turn up something called autophagy, which is a repair system for... Very healthy thing.

[00:14:00] So that's healthy too. In fact, organisms can't survive without TOR being in both positions over our lives. But what's happening with modern civilization for a number of reasons, especially as we get into adulthood and grow older, TOR is chronically turned on all the time. Well, what's wrong with that? Well, by turning it on all the time, we turn on inflammation and we turn on growth signals. Growth signals are good when we're an adolescent and our bones are growing and our brains are maturing. But once we reach adulthood, turning on this growth signal can have negative effects because the growth signal, the hyperfunction, we talk about in the book how it's a driver for a number of metabolic diseases, things like type 2 diabetes, things like obesity, things like cardiovascular disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease, and mental illness. And those are really the major diseases that will end my life, your life, and most of our listeners. So when we improve our survival with those diseases, or decrease them, then we're increasing our longevity. And that's how we get to the last chapter or second to the last chapter is about longevity.

Brian Urban:
[00:15:00] And I don't want to go there just yet, but the way that you took us through that process, Dr. Lufkin, is fascinating because you actually took, to even back up more, a bit of a anthropological view on human health and the TOR switch and in terms of survival, and you took us down to the relation of yeast and billions of years of evolution. So it's a beautiful way to look at how we can prevent inflammatory disease as a human in modern society. So you had a sophistication of breaking it down, and then you had a very common way of making it relatable to what's happening right now.

[00:15:30] I appreciate that in your book, because I think the rest of healthcare, tech, care delivery, et cetera, in our audience, they'll see medical practitioners as science and, in terms of western medicine, very therapeutic-based and prescription-based. But you broke this down as a true aficionado of health. I thought it was so cool that you took us through that, and I know our audience will be appreciative of it too. So I got to ask, today you are a professor. You're shaping young minds, those going into residency and starting their careers in medicine. Are you taking a bio-social psych approach into your teaching? Or how are you changing it to advance medical education from what you once experienced?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:16:30] Yeah. I mean, part of it is just any time I interact with medical students or any teaching situation, I bring this perspective into place that metabolic disease is important and foundational. And one of the things we're doing with our book is we're setting up a charitable foundation that is going to support the book being distributed to all medical schools at no cost. The publisher has waived any fees and I'm turning my royalties back into the foundation, and we hope to do that in 2025. So this book will be in the hands of essentially all the new medical students who want it.

Brian Urban:
[00:17:30] I love that. I couldn't be more excited to hear that because I think there's very few authors that are doing that today. Edward Marks and the current CIO I believe of Cleveland Clinic, I believe Dr. Robert Pearl as well, and other California residents, closer to your neck of the woods just more north, are doing similar things. Because I think you're on this really interesting peak of your career, this third, fourth peak of your career, that you're realizing, maybe not to take some thoughts out of your brain, but what else can I contribute back or what can I give to the next generation of XYZ? And it seems like this is a large part of that. And has the adoption and the uptick been really high since you've started to do this with getting this book into the hands of the next generation medical students?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:19:00] Yeah. I mean, that's a great point. My first part of my career was literally as the establishment doctor writing hundreds of peer-reviewed papers, I wrote 12 textbooks in many languages that were technical books that nobody read. I mean, just the technical people read, but the average person out in the community didn't read it. And I had a lab that received millions of dollars from drug companies and from device makers and the federal government to do medical studies. So I was deep into it. But this phase of my life now is about getting the message out to everybody. I mean, I've got two young daughters that aren't even in high school yet, and they're eating junk food and they're not going to listen to me, but they may listen to their friends if the message gets out there. But it's a point about reaching people, and that's why this book, like you say, thank you, it is aimed for regular people. It's not a textbook. There are a lot of pictures and photographs and diagrams, me with my dog and stuff like that in it to make it potentially accessible. And then we've been very fortunate getting the attention from the New York Times and USA Today. Now we're on the Today Show, we're on Fox News, and different media outlets to help get the message out. And your podcast too, thank you so much, I appreciate this.

Brian Urban:
[00:20:00] Oh, no, this has just been a true pleasure because there's so much more I see beyond this other chapter in your career of contributing back to the ecosystem and education and also to active practitioners today through this. You made this book relatable, you really did. And you have such a cornucopia of publications, to your point earlier. But this, it spreads and I think it's adopted well to the masses. And it's understandable, the language, the personality that you exude in this, it's very relatable, it's very understandable. And there's so much more, I think, that your book makes someone think about the economics of our system, how the gears are turning and how they're oiled. And sick care is a lot of the, I guess, trending definition of our healthcare system in the US.

[00:20:30] So I'm curious, Dr. Lufkin, if you could help us look into the future a little bit. And this will be a nice tease for our audience to pick up your book and learn more about your self, your podcast, your subscriber population they can jump into. And maybe this is a tease for your next book, I don't know. What are you seeing in terms of US healthcare that's changing for the better? Is it more patient led care? Is it more tech that's helping enable care? Is it more access to care? Is it the education around medical science changing? What's one of the biggest contributors, in a positive light, that's helping you see a good outlook for how western medicine is going to evolve in a more holistic manner perhaps?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:21:30] Yeah. I think people are beginning to understand, we still have a long way to go, but beginning to understand. And I'm a doctor, I'm saying this, doctors don't make me healthy, doctors make me less sick. If I'm want to be healthy, I need to take control of my lifestyle and do that myself. So I think there's a growing awareness of metabolic health and the problems that we're facing. One political party has mentioned it, hopefully the other political party will jump on it. Also, it shouldn't be a political issue about making America healthy. And addressing metabolic disease is really foundational. These organizations like the FDA, the American Heart Association, the Diabetic Association, the Dietetic Association also, they all have corrosive corrupting financial influences. My mom was a dietitian. She would go to her conferences and they would be sponsored by Coca-Cola and McDonald's. And I go, what's going on there?

[00:22:30] But I am hopeful. People ask me, you write this book, aren't you depressed about the healthcare system? No, I'm deeply disturbed, but I'm also hopeful because I think we're entering a new era in healthcare where me as a patient, I get to take charge of my own life. And sure enough, I go to my doctors and I take their advice and everything, but I get to make the decisions about lifestyle. Doctors can't do lifestyle for me. And I would argue that lifestyle for most of us is the most important medicine we will ever take. It is about being CEO of my own health, and suddenly I have agency. I'm in control. It's my life.

[00:23:30] And even though the doctors went to medical school and studied the disease very narrowly, I as a patient and every one of your listeners knows more about their own personal life experiences, childhood trauma, other events that have happened, that a doctor will never know because they just don't have time to get into it. So I think it's a hopeful time because every day it's a new day. When I wake up, I get to choose the lifestyle. I get to decide when I eat, what I put in my mouth, when I sleep, when I exercise, stress. The way I look at the world, is it a hopeful, grateful, loving place or is it a dangerous, stressful place? And part of that at some level is our choice. And it's a new era for patients. We're suddenly in charge of not only helping reverse diseases, but also prevent them.

Brian Urban:
[00:24:00] Wow. That is the hopefulness I was hoping to hear because everything else now is you hear healthcare crisis, shortage, and a variety of other negative headlines. So wanted to hear it from a physician's mouth and an author's mouth, so that very helpful. And before I let you go, can you tease our audience a little bit more, anywhere you're speaking, events or virtual, webinars, anything coming up on your schedule where audience can find out more about you?

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
[00:24:30] Yeah. Well, you could come to my website and I have a lot of information on there. And I think we mentioned before if people want to check out the book before you buy a copy or go all the way to your library to get one, you can download a free chapter from my website that's both in PDF and audio format. See if you like the writing style, see if it resonates with you. And Brian mentioned we're both active on social media, so definitely reach out and say hi. I'd love to hear from you.

Brian Urban:
[00:25:00] I love it. Thank you so much for joining our little show. Dr. Robert Lufkin, the Lies I Taught Medical School: How Conventional Medicine is Making You Sicker and What You Can Do To Save Your Life. That book is a notable bestseller across many mediums, please check that out. Thank you again for joining our show here today, Dr. Lufkin.

Dr. Robert Lufkin:
Thanks so much, Brian, for having me. And thanks for the great work you're doing.

Brian Urban:
Thank you very much. You made my day for sure with that. And for more exciting insights and excerpts, please visit us at finthrive.com.