Mark Divine speaks with Dr. Gabrielle Lyon (@drgabriellelyon) about her muscle-centric approach to medicine, why obesity is a secondary problem, and how resistance training, high quality protein, and sleep are crucial to health and longevity.
Dr. Lyon received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from the Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine and is board-certified in family medicine. She earned her undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention and management, and the physiological effects of diet composition. Dr. Lyon also completed a research/clinical fellowship in Nutritional Science and Geriatrics at Washington University in St. Louis.
Key Takeaways:
- Dr. Lyon’s muscle-centric medicine focuses on the root cause of obesity: loss or defect of skeletal-muscle—skeletal-muscle is not only important for the well-known reasons of strength and increased metabolism, it is an endocrine organ. Every time skeletal-muscle contracts it excretes myokines. Myokines affect immunity, brain health, and the way we use nutrients.
- There are two ways to drive skeletal muscle: resistance training and dietary protein. Resistance training looks different for everyone, but it is important to train to the point of muscle failure. Protein should be high quality, animal protein.
- Worldwide, over 100 million people suffer from sleep apnea. Some of the risk factors for sleep apnea are: environmental exposure, inability to lose weight, anxiety, hypertension, and TBIs.
- Untreated sleep apnea is incredibly dangerous, as it is linked to hypertension, poor cardiovascular health, hormonal imbalances, anxiety, and depression. The good news is that it is easy to diagnose with an at-home sleep test.
- Testosterone naturally declines as we age. Training, diet, sleep, and reducing stress can all increase our testosterone levels, but it may not be enough to reach optimal levels without supplementation. Optimal levels of testosterone affect quality of life in several ways including mood, energy, sex drive, and ability to maintain muscle.
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Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:03
Sometimes there is fat infiltration that happens within skeletal muscle, which makes mitochondria less which makes contractility less, which makes its ability to manage blood sugar less utilize substrates, so it all actually changes first in skeletal muscle, and then people become overweight and then you have issues with diabetes.
Mark Divine 0:28
Hey, welcome to the Mark Divine show. I’m Mark Divine, your host. In the show, we discover we dive in and discuss just what makes the world’s most inspirational, compassionate and resilient leaders so fearless. We talk in depth to people from all walks of life, martial arts grandmasters meditative monk CEOs, military leaders, Stoic philosophers, proud survivors and more. In each episode, we turn our guest experience into actionable insights that you can learn to follow and use to lead a life filled with compassion and courage. And this is the last episode of 2021. And what a year 2021 has been holy schmoly. Well, I mean, I was just recounting the other day, all the interesting things that have happened this year, a lot of challenges, of course, with a pandemic, and everyone experiencing that collectively. But it’s just been an incredible year and setting the stage for 2022, which is going to bring a lot of change and a lot of up leveling here. On our end of the things, we’re going to be launching a new website, and a new newsletter called divine inspiration. And we’re rebranding this show and up leveling the show. We’re changing the name from unbeatable mind to the Mark Divine show, all of that be happening in late January. So stay tuned. If you want to be on our email list. Please go to Mark Divine .com and sign up on our email list. Every week, I’ll be sending out inspirational information, insights, fun things that I’ve learned what’s on my mind, that type of thing. It’s going to be awesome, super stoked about all of that. And I really, really appreciate your continued support of the show and also of everything else we’re doing here. I’m excited to have this guest, Dr. Gabrielle Lyons on particularly because Dr. Gabriel Lyons is my personal concierge doctor. She does a lot of work with seals, special operators, and has a unique perspective and expertise which you’ll learn about on this show. She received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, and she’s board certified in family medicine. She got her undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Illinois, where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention, and management and the physiological effect of diet composition. Well, dr. Lyons mission is to help people all across the world, optimize their health, their metabolism, control their blood sugar and mitigate disease using her groundbreaking muscle centric approach. You’re going to have to listen to the podcast to learn more about what that is. Nice to have you here, Gabrielle appreciate you being on the show. Your husband’s in med school, Shane, for folks to know that there’s a connection between us to Shane was the SEAL Fit athlete, mentee I guess you’re gone? Yep.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:07
He actually says that. That’s one of the reasons he made it through hell week was the training that he did with you.
Mark Divine 3:13
That doesn’t surprise me. Most people have some sort of connection. What I’ve heard is anecdotally a full 1/3 of those who graduate buds have participated in SEAL Fit training. That’s
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:24
amazing somehow like that. Well, he never lets us forget about winter Hell Week.
Mark Divine 3:30
So he was he was a seal for a number of years and then left and he’s going to Rutgers med school. Yeah. What’s it like to be a doctor married to a med student?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:38
It really is funny. Actually, we joke a lot about it. Because there’s something that comes with practice. So I’ve been practicing medicine for roughly 15 years. And there’s a certain combination of art, do you
Mark Divine 3:51
think you’d get good at it? If you’re practicing?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:53
I know terrible. But it’s really interesting when you’ve been in practice for so long. And then there’s a medical student that you’re actually living with. There’s all those medicals,
Mark Divine 4:03
and he wasn’t your student before you got no, he didn’t reach any boundaries,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:07
right? No, he was obviously not right. That would be really weird.
Mark Divine 4:11
So you’ve got 15 years of experience, and he’s a student getting taught whatever doctrine the med school believes in? Has there been any gap or disconnect between what you see him learning and what your experience is? In reality?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:24
Yeah, there’s actually quite a bit of discrepancies, especially as it relates to the nutrition information and also what can be done. The medicine framework is that things are not treatable, that the major illnesses you use, I don’t know antibiotics or chemotherapy, but that things are not necessarily prevented, as opposed to some of the basic things like diet and exercise and don’t smoke, but in my clinical practice, so
Mark Divine 4:52
they grossly underestimate or don’t even pay attention to the preventive factors.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:58
Or if they do, it’s increased be generic. I’ll give you an example. I take care of a lot of Hashimotos patients, and Hashimoto is an autoimmune disease of thyroid, which the majority of my patients go into remission. But he’s taught that it is a disease that just doesn’t remit that. Once you’re diagnosed with Hashimotos. That’s then you have it.
Mark Divine 5:19
Yeah. So not only is nutrition ignored and preventative, but it’s not given any Right. Any places.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 5:25
Yeah, it’s interesting as a recuperative or healing Yeah. And also the, you know, kind of the tie in with gut health and sleep. And it’s largely left out. That’s interesting, because my main practice is really about optimization. Yeah,
Mark Divine 5:39
this is a huge generalization. But it almost seems like though, Western medicine has been very effective for dealing with acute illnesses. It also seems to be designed to keep people sick. Yeah. And that’s why they called this the sickness industry instead of the early illness industry. So the wellness industry, which is, I guess, the question is, work that you’re doing, and others, you know, tons of people we’ve had on this podcast is trying to change that paradigm. But it doesn’t seem like there’s any movement from the mainstream medical establishment in that direction. From my perspective, I’m curious, is that accurate? Oh, there
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:14
are groups of colleagues that I believe really pushed the health and wellness forward. But as a staple, it would not be considered mainstream medicine at this point. But it’s moving that way.
Mark Divine 6:26
What’s it going to take for it to become mainstream, peer reviewed articles?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:33
Well, it’s interesting, because there are some, you know, for example, in my area, I talk a lot about nutrition. And there are many randomized control trials that support it. But I think there’s not necessarily an interface between nutrition and health care. Hmm. And, you know, in my perspective, if we define things as a medical need, so let’s say there’s an illness or a medical necessity, then that’s one thing. And then there should be an interface with nutrition, but it doesn’t necessarily have to come from the physician, if the physician isn’t very well trained. So right now, what you have is physicians that aren’t necessarily knowledgeable on certain other healing modalities. And instead of that being a part of it, they’re just not aware,
Mark Divine 7:15
right. I mean, a similar thing could be said for the field of psychotherapy or psychology. Absolutely. And so there’s this disconnect, right? Yeah, this ignorance that the mind the body are one. Yeah, they’re integrated. So the leafs you have the behaviors you have that are going to affect the physiology and then disease expression. Yep. So how would you characterize your expertise? Your specialty, Gabriele,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 7:39
I practice a kind of medicine called muscle centric medicine. And really, I am on a mission to change the paradigm about how we think about health and wellness. And specifically, what that means is right now, we’re very obesogenic focused. We’re very focused on obesity. We’re very fat phobic, and everything is addressing this problem of obesity.
Mark Divine 8:00
This pause there. So most of the mainstream diseases that come from or related to,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:06
they would have you think they see or yes, yeah, that is the belief. Interesting. But what if I told you actually at the root, cause it’s skeletal muscle, and that we’re not actually over fat, we’re under muscled, and muscle as the skeletal muscle in particular is the first organ that is actually affected, and then you become obese. So these diseases like Alzheimer’s, especially the metabolic component to Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, these are diseases of even obesity of skeletal muscle first, not diseases of extra adipose tissue or not disease of obesity, that’s subsequent, that’s secondary.
Mark Divine 8:44
So you’re saying that someone first loses their muscle, and then the fat
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:47
follows, or the defects are in skeletal muscle first defects. So their defects could be in the skull as well. Sometimes there is fat infiltration that happens within skeletal muscle, which makes mitochondria less which makes contractility less, which makes its ability to manage blood sugar less utilize substrates, so it all actually changes first in skeletal muscle. And then people become overweight, and then you have issues with diabetes. But the root cause is actually skeletal muscle. And because we exist in this paradigm of thinking that it is all about, if you are a hammer, everything is a nail and we’re constantly focused on obesity, we haven’t been very good at treating it. Decades later, we’re still dealing with the same issues, if not worse, and my argument is that we are approaching the wrong problem. The problem is not obesity. That’s a secondary issue of skeletal muscle.
Mark Divine 9:42
Interesting. So what’s different about the tissues or the cells? Yeah, muscle? This Yeah, so not there. And yeah, fat cells
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 9:51
or skeletal muscle is very robust. And obviously, you need it in terms of activity. And that’s the tradition of what people think about skull. Muscle muscle. They think about skeletal muscle. I mean, you train hard every day. And I do believe that that’s one of the keys to your longevity is your lifetime of training, right? But skeletal muscle is actually an endocrine organ. It’s this organ of longevity. Hmm. And it’s an interesting is. And when you contract it, it secretes Myo kinds. And without getting too technical, broadly, the concept of Myo kinds is a protein secreted from skeletal muscle, exercising, and contracting skeletal muscle that goes throughout the rest of the body. That affects immunity, it affects brain health, it affects the way in which we use nutrients. So it’s not just about the actual exercise, but it’s about this tissue, skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ, which is wild, that is interesting. And we really have to change our endpoints to look at skeletal muscle, as opposed to looking at endpoints of obesity.
Mark Divine 10:54
Right? So if this premise is true, then what is the like, ideal makeup? Or, you know, formulation of skeleton, right? Is there a certain way to train it? Or to fuel it? I guess we’re gonna get into all that. Yeah, I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:08
mean, I think that you do a pretty exceptional job. You know, as people that have been following you for a very long time. They know that hard physical training is really important. And that is something very important that you must do when you’re young. And especially as you become more mature, as you become more sage like, because that tissue changes,
Mark Divine 11:25
I’m definitely becoming more everything over 50. I think that was a nice way of saying as you’re getting older.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:33
Thank you. Welcome. So this concept that muscle tissue changes as you age for first, if we take a step back, there are really two ways to drive skeletal muscle. And I think that those are obvious to people that would be resistance exercise, which you know, very well, and this is interesting for you. And you and I have talked about this quite a bit is also dietary protein, right, and there has to be a balance. So either you have to be training hard enough to account for that muscle stimulation, or you have to really increase your dietary protein intake. And what’s interesting is that as we age, the ability to sense nutrients goes down. The muscle ability goes down that sensing component, so actually having robust amounts of protein at one time is most beneficial.
Mark Divine 12:21
So there’s many different ways to train or move muscle.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 12:26
Thank you. trician is a little bit different.
Mark Divine 12:28
Right? Let’s come back nutrition. Yeah, it’s a whole category that I want to talk about. Let’s stick with movement for a moment. So overcoming resistance, we typically think of that as weight training, but what if, like my father in law, you know, he was a world class tennis player. There wasn’t a whole lot of overcoming resistance with his upper body muscles. You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, his arm, he was swinging the tennis racket back and forth, and, and lots of scurrying around the tennis court. But he had cardiovascular effect. And you know, his muscles were active. Yeah. And he got Parkinson’s.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 12:58
Yeah, Parkinson’s is interesting. There’s a few things that people think as it relates to Parkinson’s. And actually, I did my fellowship in geriatrics and nutritional science. I don’t know, I think you knew that. Yeah. And Parkinson’s, there is also a connection between Parkinson’s and pesticide and environmental exposure. So interesting. And I think that, you know, we’ve talked before leaving on a golf course, or if there’s any exposures, those kinds of things actually play a role in neurological disease.
Mark Divine 13:27
Interesting. Well, is there a role that muscular development plays could have
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 13:31
played in consensus? I think that that is a very interesting idea. I’m not sure as it relates to Parkinson’s disease, because there’s neurologic cause of its neurological effect. versus say, Alzheimer’s, which is one of the kinds of Alzheimer’s there’s multiple different ways in which an individual can get Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s does have a metabolic component. It’s often thought of as type three diabetes of the brain, Oh, interesting. And when it’s thought of as type two diabetes of the brain, then skeletal muscle would play a role in managing blood glucose in managing fatty acids in really managing metabolism, then that’s where skeletal muscle plays a role. And that’s actually where these concepts were born from. I had an aha moment in my fellowship, where I was imaging a woman’s brain, and I was looking at the interface between body weight and obesity. And I imaged her brain and she had flattening of her brain, she had these changes that looked like an Alzheimer’s brain in her 50s. And she was one of those people that had always struggled with their weight. Not major, but maybe an extra 20 pounds. And it was at that moment, I realized we had been looking at the wrong tissue the whole time, wasn’t a fat problem, that if this woman had had healthy skeletal muscle, we could have prevented some of these metabolic derangements. And that’s actually where the concept of muscle centric medicine came from.
Mark Divine 14:57
On that point, what’s the intervention you just get her starting to do weight training or what do you do?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:01
You got to train people early, and you have to train them with enough volume that it matters. Right now people go and they’ll be on the treadmill, or they’ll do things that is very unit dimensional and might be mitochondria based on the split. Yeah, that’s very unit dimensional. But you do need to do some kind of resistance training. And if it can’t be heavy, there has to be volume, but it needs to be resistance based exercise. Yeah. And there’s no way around it. We’re domesticated right now.
Mark Divine 15:29
Yeah. But constantly varied, functional movement done, high intensity actually works, it works.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:33
And it works better than a lot of medications. And it works better than a lot of these potential interventions that people would say to do.
Mark Divine 15:42
You know, let’s go back to the 55 year old obese woman, I mean, what’s the internet? How do we get her to start doing? You’re not gonna go into a CrossFit gym? And now muscle ups?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:51
You know, yeah, I mean, the first thing you have to do is get her under metabolic control. And we didn’t a dietary intervention, and it was more of modified carbohydrates, modified protein and modified fat, it was calorie control.
Mark Divine 16:05
When the disease is expressed itself, we’re going to approach it from nutrition first, to get to the point where the body meter amazing, yeah, then we’ll bring the movement in, this becomes
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:14
really important where people have to do more initially, to protect their wellness, right? Because it’s much more difficult once someone has any kind of cognitive impairment, right. But if we can protect them, midlife, you know, these diseases of aging, while we think about them as diseases of aging, they actually start in your 30s. Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that begins in your 30s. Interesting, it just manifests overtly later on, but doesn’t start there. And if we can really get people to shift this from this concept of so focused on obesity to more muscle centric, and we can solve these problems.
Mark Divine 16:52
You said that wasn’t my scene that’s secreted on my oh kinds. My okay. Yeah, it was close. What’s the relationship between Myo kinds and growth hormones?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:01
Good question. Well, there are 1000s of Myo kinds. And this is actually a very new science, early 2000s. And Pettersen a woman named Pettersen actually has been leading the charge in this and she is in Copenhagen. Right now. She’s actually an immunologist. The mechanism by which the Myo kinds and growth hormone work are separate. So growth hormone will happen without muscular secretion. It’ll happen at night versus Myo kinds go to and target different organs, as opposed to interact directly with growth hormone, it would say, target the brain or target bone for improve bone turnover, or liver or pancreas.
Mark Divine 17:41
But isn’t it true that lifting heavy things or overcoming a lot of resistance stimulates growth hormone release?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:47
Well, it can definitely stimulate skeletal muscle. That’s a direct growth hormone release, we think about from sleep. And
Mark Divine 17:55
so more muscle needs to be recovered, the more growth hormone is going to be released. So you hope
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:00
you have I mean, typically, the recovery
Mark Divine 18:03
response that’s triggering the growth hormone is not necessarily the lifting of everything related.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:08
But yes, I think that the lifting really does contribute to these things. And I think that ultimately, it’s an interplay. Same with testosterone. This is all an interplay together, we notice Asteron, to me, an anabolic hormone,
Mark Divine 18:18
right. So let’s just assume that your whole body should be involved in movement. This is why you know, total body functioning admin is good. Doesn’t matter what level of resistance. So there’s a real difference between, you know, a CrossFitter, who’s doing snatches and deadlifts and whatnot. And let’s see a swimmer who’s just overcoming resistance to the water back and forth, back and forth back. But they’re using the whole body, especially if they’re using multiple strokes, I think
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:41
you bring up a good point, in my opinion, we should all be resistance training, even if you are utilizing swimming to overcome resistance, we have access to gyms, we have access to weights, and it should be like brushing your teeth. But the volume of
Mark Divine 18:56
overcoming the resistance of picking your foot up and putting it down walking around the block is not I mean,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:00
listen, for some untrained individual perhaps that’s considered explosive. Right?
Mark Divine 19:06
You know, that might be the place to start for the intervention intervention approach,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:10
right? You know, thinking about perceived effort is important. People should be working towards failure. And that is typically not what I see. I certainly don’t see that in my clinic. People are kind of doing the same thing and doing what they’ve always done almost a
Mark Divine 19:25
cultural backlash against that. There’s 100% of cultural backlash. You see, I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe it’s the sickness industry wanting to keep people sick. They produce these articles, and they’ve got these journalists on their payroll and they putting out this counter narrative that, you know, extreme fitness are working too hard is bad for you or can lead to heart problems and all this stuff
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:48
and listen to this dream training can Okay, but we’re talking about extreme.
Mark Divine 19:52
Well, extreme training for me. Normal training for me is extreme for somebody else. So it’s all relative.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:57
Yes. Let’s take that up a notch. Yes, I do always think, you know, when I think of you doing your very high volume workouts, some part of me cringes, like, oh, gosh, how does he How can he do all that? It’s amazing. But when I think about extreme is the 100 miles, you know, when people are just really doing
Mark Divine 20:15
gardens would be an extreme, that extreme extreme capital he extreme? Yes.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 20:19
But I think that the majority of individuals are not doing that kind of training, right. And so the narrative of we should cut back or we should do last is very harmful. It really softens our society unnecessarily.
Mark Divine 20:33
What do you think of the slope zone type training? I think there’s been curious about that, like, just super slow, concentric and eccentric movement is very different than the explosive. Yeah, kind of metabolic pump that you get from a crossfitter and Orangetheory.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 20:48
I think everything is helpful, because it’s movement. But it doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to really move the needle for an individual. I know some people use eccentric movements to help improve benchpress or really help improve form and also strength but as a overall way to train you in a unit dimensional way to train it’s probably not ideal.
Mark Divine 21:11
Yeah, I was also suggests that yoga and pilates kind of go in that category of nice for flexibility, but it’s not going to do much for the physio muscular skeletal longevity. I agree. And I’ve seen a lot of Yogi’s shrivel up into these little sticks, and then they get injured and and don’t do so. Well. Yeah. And I think that was kind of the teaching was not brought to the West in its integrated form.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:35
Hmm, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that before, but they were also doing other things.
Mark Divine 21:41
They were doing a lot of other things. Yeah, yeah. Martial arts and yoga have a common history. A lot of you know, there were Yogi’s, back in India, who were weightlifters Indian club dolls came out of that. Oh, yeah. We have some of those. Right. And so they weren’t just doing the stretch forever. You know?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:56
Isn’t that interesting how when things are taken so far out of context to what their roots were, it totally changes everything.
Mark Divine 22:03
Right. I think the yogi’s separated athleticism and the process of yoga, which was mental development. And I think it was actually that came from the YMCA network in maybe the Netherlands, somewhere over in the in Europe, where they kind of merged gymnastics with Asana, to create what we now is known as yoga in the West, that actually wasn’t the way it was, in practice, do an individual poses that were kind of suitable for a particular person, particular age, particular injury, particular time of year. And then you would practice a few poses. And that was all to get yourself into the meditative seat and work with the mind. Anyways, that’s a little tangent.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:40
Do you remember that? I actually went through your yoga training Kokoro yoga. Yeah, that was awesome. That was
Mark Divine 22:48
nonstop, integrative yoga.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:51
That was awesome. We
Mark Divine 22:51
don’t do that anymore. I know, we kind of ran out of time. only so much time. Yeah, to bring that back. Oh, can’t
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:58
be there. If you bring it back. I’ll be there. We’ll bring Shane tail.
Mark Divine 23:02
Yeah, that’d be good for him.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:03
He definitely needs yoga. You know, I really think a lot about what you said, When you watch a lot of the yogi’s and individuals kind of shrink. And that is what people often think of as sarcopenia, which is a loss of muscle strength, mass function. And that is really preventable. And I think that we should spend more time focusing on that, than we do on obesity or being overweight, because that really impacts the trajectory of how people age, right angry. And simple.
Mark Divine 23:38
Common lexicon is okay, so if you have a high metabolism, you’re gonna burn a lot of math. And so linking it to your theory, having a high or a healthy metabolism is probably the result of having a healthy skeletal muscular system.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:51
I believe that to be true. And I also believe that where muscle really plays a role is number one at baseline, it allows you to have more flexibility in your nutrition, whatever that is, whether it’s proteins, carbs, fats, however you decide to eat, and also the amount of calories that you eat. Your muscle really allows you to have that kind of flexibility. And I want to clarify that by saying when you train, that’s where you really contribute to your metabolism, right? Is really through training. Right? So yes, I would agree with you.
Mark Divine 24:26
So we’ve talked a little bit about kind of the general prescription for movement is a lot of variety, overcoming resistance and total body as opposed to mana structural and very, very light resistance, you know, like our jogger. So that’s the general prescription and then from there, you’d want to take it more to the personalized level. Is there a general prescription for the nutrition part? I do believe that everyone should work
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 24:50
well, I think that there’s a great starting place and that there is bio individuality which we can all agree upon. Some people do better on a higher protein diet, and other people feel better on a more plant based diet. And I think number one, you have to listen to your body. And then the second part of that is there are some core fundamental science foundational principles that we can all start with. And one of the things that we know for sure is that the body requires high quality protein to account for not just muscle mass, but also turnover, especially turnover. As we age, the liver goes through regeneration, the, you know, intestines, the body’s constantly turning over tenants turnover, although much, much lower, slower pace. And the way I think about a nutrition prescription is anchoring it in high quality protein. Now, you said, and there are some interesting scientific studies coming out now, that actually and I say this, because I have a sense of your kind of dietary habits, that people that are, what are you
Mark Divine 26:00
watching? Over my shoulder? years later? Is there a diet?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:05
You know, instead of the nanny cam, we actually have the diet cam? Sandy, what is it? Yeah, you’re in trouble. And those individuals that feel best on a more vegetarian, lower protein animal based diet, their gut microbiome looks more like a ruminants. And those are what a ruminants like, you know, like a cow. So Mara, kind of looks like a cow.
Mark Divine 26:27
Thank you
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:28
very much. But anyway,
Mark Divine 26:31
so first person to call now but a sacred in the Hindu and Indian traditions. And I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:37
bring this up because the bugs can actually they scavenge for nitrogen, and they can actually produce some essential amino acids, right, which is groundbreaking,
Mark Divine 26:46
previous biome bugs are producing amino acids. We don’t
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:49
know that to be for sure, true. But I can tell you from what I’m beginning to see in the literature that those individuals that have a more vegan vegetarian diet, while we would think they would be much more protein deficient, there’s some evidence that their gut microbiome, they can actually the bugs actually can scavenge and generate essential amino acids.
Mark Divine 27:10
You just I mean, that’s interesting that that explains why cows have so much look so strong that so much meat and then just eat grass. Isn’t that interesting? What’s fascinating, producing their own amino,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 27:19
but I don’t know how that translates for humans. And if that is an optimal way to approach nutrition,
Mark Divine 27:26
this is probably not in your wheelhouse. But it seems to me that like diaper changing, yes, it is, well. Throw that out there. No, I was gonna go with just the adaptability of the human being so that if all we had was a, you know, available was just shrubbery, we probably be like a cow, we’d probably have the biome, we’d be producing tons of protein, we’d be running around the jungle, and doing just fine. But maybe over time, as our food became less diverse, and more seasonal, and we have this notion that Oh, wow, I got a cow over here. If I eat the cow, then I’ll have that density of protein. And so then our bodies adapted to
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:02
that. I think that there may possibly be some truth to what you’re saying.
Mark Divine 28:08
I love throwing out these wild theories that can’t be proven. Safe.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:13
But if you think about it, the the gut microbiome does change. And it is very diverse, and human beings can survive on all kinds of nutritional plans. It doesn’t mean though, that is optimal.
Mark Divine 28:24
Right? You know, like, if you’re a breatharian, you’re probably not doing a lot of weight training.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:29
I did try that once.
Mark Divine 28:32
I think that it takes a certain type of refinement.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:36
Yes, I would agree. You know, as we age, I bring it back to aging, because that’s something that we all do. Hopefully, God willing, we all do age and high quality protein is really why do
Mark Divine 28:48
you say that? Like I prefer not to age just I mean, because it’s
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:53
you know, it’s an honor to be able to, you know, the,
Mark Divine 28:56
the minds gonna get wiser and wiser just like the body stay where it’s at.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:00
Okay, fair enough. I mean, listen, I look great for 57. If
Mark Divine 29:06
you don’t mind saying that. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:08
I’m just kidding. Not really. 57. So one of the things is that we
Mark Divine 29:14
look amazing, Mark. We’re gonna have those conversations someday, right. You know, there are people I know in their 70s and 80s. Or we look like they’re 40. Yeah. And so that’s part of the whole longevity is like quality of aging is all
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:25
about the quality of aging. And I think that when we talk about longevity, it’s not we have to define are we looking at the last six months of life are we saying what longevity is increasing the length of time from six weeks to six months? Yeah, no, that’s and look at it but it could be one right I agree with you is really about how an individual goes about their life. And what does that actually look like? Dr.
Mark Divine 29:47
Sinclair calls it lifespan. Yes. That’s a great way to look how span so your lifespan is your health span, right. So how long can you think that’s very aligned? I’m revealing myself as a yogi at heart which I Yogi’s believe As well, there are there are many examples of, you know, yogi’s who are in their hundreds and their stretchy bendy, like over the head doing everything every day. Yeah, you know, there’s very little degradation in the physical structure. It’s like if you, you know, the metaphor that I use, which you probably enjoy, maybe you use this too is like, if you buy a Mustang in 1963, and you just drive it and keep driving it and keep driving in, what’s it going to look like in 2021? At minus 58 years old? It’s going to beat up and rusty Yes. But if you take that Mustang, and you and you address every day, you do something change this part change that part polishes, polish that, what’s it gonna look like, it’s gonna look like a brand new Mustang, I agree human bodies, just like
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 30:41
that. And then I would throw something else at you. And these are your own words, kind of guess is that the human body thrives off of challenge, that’s true, the human spirit,
Mark Divine 30:54
you say that the Mustang is sitting in the garage and won’t be as, right the engine won’t be, it’s gonna atrophy. Right? If it doesn’t get out there and get put to the test on the road,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:03
there is likely some balance, there has to be a balance between movement and rest and pushing hard and resting. But I still believe in high quality protein. And I think that it’s really interesting as we age, and we really figure out what is important for longevity? Which people will argue, you know, do we consider more of a plant based diet for longevity? And I would counter and I would say, Absolutely not. I would say if we are talking about skeletal muscle tissue that has to be healthy, and we are preventing about sarcopenia, that there’s probably an interface between both
Mark Divine 31:41
Israel way to get the same or similar high quality protein with a vegetarian or vegan diet
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:46
with a lot of supplementation. It can be done with a lot of stuff. Do you
Mark Divine 31:50
think there’ll be a bio engineered way to do that?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:52
I do. And I think it’s going to be very concerning. Interesting.
Mark Divine 31:56
Why do you say that?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:57
I think that at the core narrative, some people are very against animal cruelty and against eating animals. Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right? I think we have to be very careful that are we talking about health? So are we talking about health issues? Or are we talking about ethical issues with animal cultural,
Mark Divine 32:18
moral and ethical? Well, what about like lab? Grown meat?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:23
Yeah, I think that’s very scary.
Mark Divine 32:24
And I think if you’re not getting because you’re not getting the quality or what’s missing,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:28
I mean, just the concept that we would grow something how is that? And this could be naive, but just from a very basic level, I think that we weren’t designed to eat that, even if it looks like meat, or is I mean, I just,
Mark Divine 32:45
you know, you could have someone come back and say, well, maybe we weren’t designed to eat animals, either. But then
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:49
how would we, if that were true, then how come our biological processes often thrive and require these
Mark Divine 32:56
adapted to do that maybe, and eventually adaptive, it’d be true, that could be true to the Garden of Eden body. And who knows, it’s, it’s all speculative. Because these things take probably hundreds of 1000s of years, which I guess would be alive for you, which we will be alive for Yeah, or at least, even if the body doesn’t sustain for that long, I would love to learn the trick where I can remember, my past lifetimes when I come back next time, just so I can, you know, I don’t have to go back to SEAL training, I’ll just know all that stuff. I would
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:26
love for Shane to remember where he put his shoes. So I started
Mark Divine 33:31
working on remembering chains work. And that’s a whole different subject. And this is fascinating. So but let’s forget about the futuristic stuff and come back to the present. So what’s someone going to do if they really, really want to be clean, and whole food ish and vegetarian, but like me, I wanted, I tried for nine months until I you know, looked at my arm. And I saw I tried to,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:53
I was like, looks really good. I have had many of these conversations with you. So I I know, I think, and I haven’t talked so much publicly about this, I’m going to share something that I haven’t really shared before. I think that there’s a way to do cyclical protein guiding interest, and I’m going to explain to you what that means. There are many people like you that wish they could for whatever reason, be more vegetarian based, whether they feel better on it, I would argue a way to do this would be for three weeks out of the month to eat a protein optimized diet, whatever that is for you. You know, for you, you eat twice a day or so you know, not eating all day long. But we we optimize those two meals for high quality protein. And what I mean by high quality protein is if it had to be fish, I’d be okay. But it would be more, we would get 50 grams of protein at least per meal. You have a high training volume so you can manage and keep your muscle healthy. We do this for three weeks out of the month. And then for one week first There’s no further and then one week out of a month, you do more of a myth finding restriction, which is a vegan diet for a week, or you do it for five days. And there’s something to be said for autophagy. And I use that loosely and resetting the pathway. And it’s almost as if you do house cleaning. And maybe you don’t do that every month. Maybe you eat protein forward for two or three months, and then you do a week, which is more vegan vegetarian. Mm hmm. I think there is going to be, we’re going to find some benefit in that style of eating.
Mark Divine 35:31
Right? This is silly, but I just read an article the other day about some Millennials or maybe a Gen Z who are combining paleo and veganism. They’re calling a paganism, but that sounds like paganism. I know, it does seem kind of strange. But I’m thinking aren’t they come to completely philosophically different things? How? It seems kind of silly to combine? And why don’t you just call that a whole food diet?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 35:53
That’s a great idea. So millennials have a lot more flexibility. They could literally eat the Twinkie diet and still true that, right, right. But as we become more mature, then we have to be much more aware and conscious of what we’re eating. Even if the volume isn’t high, the nutrient density needs to be high.
Mark Divine 36:11
Right? Okay, so clearly not eating meat is out of your prescription.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:16
I think when individuals choose to not eat meat for health reasons, I think it’s a mistake.
Mark Divine 36:20
Yeah. Do you believe in mustard, you know, like, the Indian Ayurveda, will say that, depending upon your particular body type will really determine whether you, you know, you can be vegetarian, or whether you’re, you know, a meat eater, or some sort of hybrid. And so is it possible that some people
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:38
Yes, are built Yes, to be vegan. I do believe that there are some people, and I think it’s very few interesting. And I think that they have a unique microbiome that accounts for their ability, and we talked about you. And also this is so new. I mean, I have a very good friend, she’s an orthopedic surgeon, and she has begun. And she looks amazing, and does amazing. And there are certain people that do very amazing like that. It is not the mass majority, but it does exist. And that’s why what I think is the best of both worlds is we start with good foundational science, of high quality protein, great training, really shifting the focus from obesity to muscle centric, focusing on Myo kinds focusing on muscle as this endocrine organ, which it is laying out a high quality protein based nutrition plan. And then if an individual doesn’t feel well doesn’t resonate with it, then they can begin to adjust for their own biodiversity. And that’s actually the best of both worlds. So we start with the protein and also keeping calories under control those kinds of things. And, and then seeing where someone is
Mark Divine 37:45
going just like with the movement example, you take care of the general physical principles, strength, stamina, durability, and then you do the more sports specific application depending upon the individual’s Yeah, and gills and what their goals are.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 37:58
Yeah, absolutely. And then we also have to think about carbohydrates about, you know, people often think about carbohydrates in this 24 hour period. But I like to think about carbohydrates in a meal to meal basis. And that allows you so if you’re eating under 40 grams of carbs per meal, then you’re not doing the subsequent insulin spike. And I think being aware that a more vegan vegetarian diet is much higher in carbohydrates, and really kind of honing in on plant based proteins, which are largely don’t have the amino acids that we need. But if you were going to do that, then focusing on some of the plant based proteins, adding in some essential amino acids, and making sure that your carbohydrate intake is within a particular threshold, that’s a great place to start for someone who is more Yogi at heart, right?
Mark Divine 38:45
So you and I have chatted a little bit about the precursors to the amino acid. What are they called?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 38:54
Which precursors is a trick question? The amino acid the SUV, so there are the essential amino acids so that’s really what we’re eating for. Okay. And then the muscle secrete Myo kinds. Maybe we were talking about the Myo kinds.
Mark Divine 39:05
So what do we know about peptides? And how do they relate to health and longevity? Yeah, health, longevity and amino acids and protein because they’re a building block of protein. Right? So
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 39:14
what you’re thinking about, okay, so, peptide, yes, or amino acids. And when we think about peptides, when we are talking about usage of, say research grade peptides or peptides that we are going to inject or even a non peptide like substance. What we’re focusing on and this is something that we use in practice is to target a very specific need. I’ll give you an example. One of the peptides that I use a lot of is called BPC 157. And this is body protective compound it was first I don’t know if I should tell you this because all my patients are going to throw it in the garbage but it was first isolated from gastric juices. And I won’t even say they’re gastric juices or brats which now everybody’s throwing right Oh, so what we know about peptides Our peptides are different than drugs in which you know peptides have very specific usages and are not recognized by the body in the same way and are very specific for healing without a lot of the negative side effects so for example, BPC 157 is used a lot if you take it internally for GI issues. I use it a lot with Team guys that I take care of that have been over GI Joe issues, those GI Joe issues for any kind of gut health, secondary to parasite if they’re eating whatever they’re eating, you can also take an injectable, and then there’s something that’s not available right now through physicians called TB 500. I think was Ben Greenfield has spoken a lot about that that’s an injectable peptide used for healing for recovery or recovery. Yep, recovery and
Mark Divine 40:52
healing these approved by the FDA or not,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:55
they’re not TB 500 is not approved for FDA use BPC 157 is considered a peptide. So it’s an FDA gray area, which can be very tricky. Other ones like mk 677, which is considered a non peptide is something that acts on ghrelin, and it’s a growth hormone secretagogue. All this by saying is that it really helps people put on muscle, when used orally mk 677 is something that’s actually being studied in sarcopenia helps people put on muscle improve their appetite, causes
Mark Divine 41:31
about six words that I’ve never heard before.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:35
causes a lot of water retention. So if you are a team guy who likes to look jacked and tan, you will for sure have an adverse freakout moment when you put on 10 pounds of water because it’s happened really.
Mark Divine 41:47
I don’t know many team guys who like to look jacked and
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:50
oh no, except for all of them. They need to have good hair and testosterone. And I can joke about this because I am married to one and treat many you treat
Mark Divine 41:58
a lot of sales gonna go there you treat a lot of special ops. And one of the things that we’ve dialogued about speaking in recovery is TBI. Yeah, and the subtle effects of TBI when it’s unnoticed and untreated. And then that can affect things like the sleep apnea can affect your hormonal balance and all sorts of problems can start arising which then can have a cascading failure effect. Yeah. When you work with someone, I know you’re a big fan of blood testing. What are you looking for
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:24
for TBI? Actually, we don’t, I don’t actually look at blood Markers. There are some non traditional Markers for brain health, but nothing that would be considered validated at this moment. TBI is largely based on history and symptoms, especially with the team guys that have done a lot of jumps, a lot of blast exposures. Everybody, which is everybody, you just everybody in the job description it is and actually the safety regulation dangerous, cold wet, sign me up
Mark Divine 42:54
and you will get TBI should be in this.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:58
It is totally true. So typically, if an individual is I have a very low threshold for really approaching sleep apnea or having individuals with what I would guess TBI is get hyperbaric or trans magnetic stimulation. You asked how you did that? Yes, yes, I know your doctor. She’s very good. Yes, she was good. So I think it’s really important that if an individual has a history of doing things that are a little bit more aggressive, even fighting, right getting hit in the head, or falls or car accidents, but military special operations are a very unique group of individuals. And they also have a very unique group of health challenges that are really not highlighted. Everybody thinks about the rough and tumble, written to frogman which they all are right, the mud, you know, if you are a seal, you are probably a stud. With that comes very specific health concerns that you know, I mean, also there’s a cultural thing where if someone is getting headaches, or maybe they’re not sleeping well or incredibly tired, they just take another motor, exactly.
Mark Divine 44:09
Vitamin like Kennedy, vitamin F,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:12
but it’s true, right? And this is you’re also dealing with the cultural aspect, but you’re also dealing with a medical environment that isn’t conducive to thinking about the lifetime of an operator. Right? You know, you initially it’s a young man’s sport initially. So you do you have to think about TBI, which I think about with all the team guys, and that would also make me think they all need to get sleep apnea test.
Mark Divine 44:38
So do you start with a premise that they probably have
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:41
100% Oh, interesting. 100% And then I always call them
Mark Divine 44:45
Can you see TBI and a brain scan? You can
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:47
memorize them? Yeah, they use a lot of PET scans for that, but yes, you can have a full evaluation. And you should also see some brain improvement. One of the reasons why hyperbaric oxygen therapy which is that? Oxygen, it’s just oxygen and pressure. But it can really help with stem cell release with neurological, you know, somewhat regeneration things of that nature. Right. Really important stuff. And then the other important aspect. I know, I’m kind of doing a little bit of monologue here. But
Mark Divine 45:15
no, it’s interesting. I think it’s really valuable, because I don’t think this is limited just to Spec Ops. Anyone in the military? Anyone in first responder, anyone who played football or anything wrestling, any martial artists?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:29
Yes. And sleep apnea is related to insulin resistance. It’s related to cardiovascular disease. So basically, what happens in in sleep apnea is you go through periods where you are APNIC, where you have hypoxia, where you’re not breathing, you’re building up co2, and
Mark Divine 45:46
that’s a neurological thing. It’s not a physiological or it’s both.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:49
It’s both. It’s both and one begets another,
Mark Divine 45:52
the limbic system is what’s not working properly, right. And there’s neurological sense. So it’s then causing a physiological lapse,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:59
and or you have big strong neck muscles, or you have musculature that the way in which it sits on tracks. Yeah, it could be that. So typically, we think about obesity and sleep apnea. But I think about obesity and musculature. Mm hmm. I think about muscular guys, and individuals, whether men or women, I always screen for sleep apnea, anyone that says, you know, I’m just like, really tired, it must be my hormones, and you check their hormones, and their hormones are okay.
Mark Divine 46:29
Is there any research on like percentage of the population who has sleep apnea there,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:34
I actually was looking at some of the data this morning. I don’t know that number. But I will tell you that there are risk factors more than it’s way more than people think. And we see this explosion of using blue light blocking glasses and trying to hack your sleep and hack your energy. All of that’s valuable, but it’s not valuable if you’re not getting to the root cause. And people that you would never think have sleep apnea, such as, such as have sleep apnea, right. And I think that all physicians should be testing their patients for sleep apnea. Interesting, because it also protects the brain, right? When the long term effects you already mentioned, oh, man, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, people that cannot get their hypertension under control, which is actually a lot of team guys. There’s a lot of metal exposure, there’s a lot of just there’s all kinds of exposures. And again, this is not just for special operations, but anyone who has had environmental exposures or has a history of hypertension should also be tested for sleep apnea. Anyone who cannot lose weight should be tested for sleep apnea. Anyone who is starting to have a lot of anxiety and waking up very anxious, there is catecholamines that are released when you go through that non breathing moment. This is a stress response. Yes. And it’s very important. It’s very underrepresented. And it’s interesting. The more an individual does something to try to get a baseline, for example, if they’re really tired, and then they’re taking more caffeine to just feel normal
Mark Divine 48:00
or hardcore workout. Exactly. Seal responses, both Mark and the workout, and then more caffeine, right. And then another workout,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:08
of course, and then you’re really trying to overcome something that is at the root cause.
Mark Divine 48:12
Yeah, interesting. Let’s just stay with sleep apnea for another second. So the test for it is just simply to hook yourself up to this simple little device. Well, your tablet was, okay. So there’s other tests there’s going to
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:24
go into, I didn’t think you’re going to want to do that. But there is there are sleep tests that you can do at home. And it looks at kind of changes in arterial volume and oxygen and things of that nature are fairly accurate. Yeah, they are. That’s why I use them, of course, but they are fairly accurate. I will say one thing, or is a great product. I don’t use aura. People say why don’t I have sleep apnea, I saw my aura ring. That actually is an is not a test at the moment. It doesn’t pick it up,
Mark Divine 48:53
maybe they will in the future. Yeah,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:54
I think that they probably will. But at this moment, it’s not. I would hate for people to decline a sleep apnea test, because they feel that their aura ring is telling why I was
Mark Divine 49:03
using the aura ring. I don’t use it right now. But um, it didn’t, you know, said I have a 90 sleep score.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:09
I know we that’s why it took us a year to get your believe you.
Mark Divine 49:14
Okay, so testing is one thing. And then if you have anything mild or or worse than there’s a prescription, and most people do the the breathing device CPAP Yes. So shame. I didn’t want to do that. That’s right. And I’ve just saw some research that said there was some issues with that.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:30
Yes, the issue. Well, and also, by the way, Shane has sleep Afro cancer issue or something like that. The issue was that there’s material and it got recalled there was a material in the piping device. Yeah. Okay, but the majority of it is safe and that one was recalled. And you know, I think a good strategy is depending on if it’s mild, moderate or severe that you start with a mouthpiece, which they typically recommend, and then you read what I did, right and then you retest to see if you’re actually breathing better. And then good
Mark Divine 49:58
students don’t need to read
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:01
Okay, this is like, yes, of course. Of course. I’m Mark. I’m calling Sandy. The next thing is a CPAP machine. So Shane actually has pretty significant sleep apnea. And his, you know, he did a lot of jumping. And he also has some jaw issues, just the way in which the jaw muscular church sits, he has a bit of an underbite that actually affects his ability to breathe when he sleeps. So he uses a CPAP machine.
Mark Divine 50:24
What is the effect of just mouth breathing versus nostril breathing on sleep apnea? Yeah, most, when I’ve heard that 25% or so of the population breathe through their mouth, which is not great. No, it’s not great. And it has an effect on the development of the job. And so I wonder if that then also leads to problems.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:43
It is likely a feed forward mechanism. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is, if you have sleep apnea, and you tape your mouth, and your mouth breather, I think that there’s a risk to that because you don’t know if you’re going to retrain. Yeah, right.
Mark Divine 50:57
kind of risky. It is risky. You could literally pass out and sleep
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:01
you actually have more hypoxic episodes. apneic episodes. This is where mountain
Mark Divine 51:06
trend Do not breathe into the fall, it doesn’t immediately
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:10
fall back. And this is where mouth PT, there’s actually physical therapists that deal with the tongue in the mouth.
Mark Divine 51:15
And my wife, I think she’s one of those. Just kidding.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:18
Like, I don’t think so. Sandy’s gonna be real mad at us.
Mark Divine 51:24
You’re really mad.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:28
But I think that there’s some major benefits to doing. Maximal facial. PT. Interesting. I mean, I haven’t done it yet. So I can’t say,
Mark Divine 51:37
trying to imagine what exercise would be like. Can you imagine I had one of those little tutorial.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:43
I don’t think that that’s what
Mark Divine 51:44
they’re about 100 reps before your jaws are smoke.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:52
It’s really funny. So where’s Mark, he’s working out. And
Mark Divine 51:56
Sandy actually would tell the story. We’re talking about crazy stacked practice from Box breathing. And I’ve got my grippers and I’ve got my chew toy and I’m going. She’s like,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:07
eight to see that video. Yeah, I am definitely putting that one on YouTube. That one is going viral. Yeah, that’s really funny.
Mark Divine 52:16
So the other thing, and I know we’ve kind of gone along here, we can wrap up pretty soon, but just basic hormonal imbalance. Yeah. And so this is related to stress, build up to sleep, all sorts of
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:29
an aging and we live in a very stressful environment. Right. You know, my dad lives in Ecuador. I think you’ve met him maybe. Maybe you have keys really into plant medicine in Ecuador. And I drew his blood. You know, I’m nosy. I’m his daughter, and he should listen to me for all those reasons. And he had the testosterone of a mid 20 year old. Amazing, but I was going to say peyote, testosterone, San Pedro for sure. I’m just kidding. But he lives pretty much off the grid and walks. If it is going to take longer than four hours, he’ll take transportation. If it’s less than four hours, he’ll walk that’s so cool. Right? And he’s in the sun and he’s exercising and he eats very much simply and off the land and eats a variety. He also fasts even though I don’t know necessarily recommend that for his age, you know, he’s in his 70s. So I was going to say that testosterone declines as we age, and that’s in the literature, and that’s definitely what I’ve seen. And I also for the Westerner, but then I was just gonna say that I can’t discount. Of course, that’s an n of one but I cannot discount someone like my dad. Yeah, who is very vital, and his blood Markers are fantastic. But typically testosterone goes down. Men go through andropause. And women go through menopause. And could it be that? I mean, I’m sure there’s
Mark Divine 53:50
the men would go through menopause. That’s Oh, my God. Right. Woman a pause. That’s true.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 53:55
Mark, I think that you’re onto something here. Yeah, I see another book in your future. Staring down on the menopause.
Mark Divine 54:08
Anyhow, okay. So yeah, let’s just assume that in the western world because of our lifestyle, and the stress, that hormonal balance, and what does it mean things that testosterone is
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:20
for men for the decrease in testosterone? I think that now there’s less of a, you know, and also, like you said, actually, with head trauma, testosterone can decrease on hormones and things of that nature can decrease when an individual gets head trauma.
Mark Divine 54:34
Well, yeah, because the organ that’s basically saying to relax everything. Yes.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:38
It’s thyroid, everything. Yep. Interesting. I have a very low threshold to initiate treatment. I will tell you, one of the things guys always say is, well, I don’t want to go into Sastra because once I go on, it ought to be on it forever. And I say, Okay, well, I can appreciate that. But the flip side is if your testosterone is low, and let’s say you’ve done everything to try to Dress it, and it’s still low, the quality of life diminishes sex drive body fat fatigue, there are, you know, things that really diminish an individual’s quality of life, ability to maintain muscle. And I think that as a, I don’t wanna say as a society, but as a medical community, we should feel more comfortable being open to testosterone therapy, because there is a lot of data about it. And of course, you actually want to treat sleep apnea first, before you consider testosterone therapy. That’s, there’s there’s some because it can when you go through periods of hypoxia, your hemoglobin hematocrit, just the viscosity of the blood can increase
Mark Divine 55:42
another word, I do not know what it was no idea. So those
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:45
are just certain things that individuals should look for. But I do believe that we should change the narrative around testosterone therapy, it’s not something that is, you know, it’s a hormone that if it needs to be replaced,
Mark Divine 55:56
going back to your muscle theory, if we start putting on muscle mass through effective training, and through getting enough protein, does that naturally get our testosterone back into normal range?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:06
I think that’s a really good question. I think it’s multifactorial. So it would be foolish for me to say, just training and nutrition would be the one thing because we also have to think about sleep, right? So there’s a lot of guys, you know, the guys going through buds or guys going through ops where their testosterone drops, because they are overtraining regardless of how much they’re eating, which is just runs low. But could it have an impact? It could for sure. You’re training hard, you’re resting, you’re eating? Well, it could? Could it have a monumental impact? I think that that’s debatable. It’s debatable.
Mark Divine 56:43
Interesting. So what do you think accounted for your dad’s keeper? High level of testosterone? I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:49
think he’s very, how do I say this? I don’t want to say yoga, ask, he’s a very spiritual guy, he really feels everything is going to work out. So his level of stress is non existent. And you know, he meditates for four or five hours a day, the Lord, I know, I’m like, Dad, how boring is that? He’s like, you know, get it together, tells me to get it together.
Mark Divine 57:12
That sounds kind of nice. I’m not sure what your family would think about that. If you Well,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 57:16
my dad wasn’t always that way. He went to Wharton, actually, he graduated thirdness Class President, the captain of the wrestling team, all those things he’s very high achieving. And I think that that stress really affected his health and wellness. And he went to the other extreme, and for the last decade, he’s been living in Ecuador. And your original question is, why do you think he is so vital? And has the blood markers that balance? Yeah, because he’s completely living in a way that is really close to nature, and harmony. And he also will tell me that, you know, I couldn’t do that right now. Right. So I am, you know, building a very successful practice, which I love. And I have, and I have two very little children and a husband in medical school that that, for me to step out of society in that way, or for the majority of the people that we know, to step out of society wouldn’t be realistic.
Mark Divine 58:10
Yeah, the more realistic approach is to nudge society into that direction. Good luck, which is, yeah, but you know, again, if we scale consciousness, which we are that you’re working on, which we can do together, and we have the capacity to do that with technology, and internet and 5g, and, you know, lo and behold, all these things that the consumer giants are just salivating over, we can use to transform consciousness and to get people to think well, it is a good idea to live close to the Earth and be more unbalanced and, you know, eat less and to eat higher quality proteins and exercise by getting out of the car meaning walking to work or riding your bike and, and then these little communities will grow around that about how do we get our children back to the nature that we live closer to the earth. I even think psychedelics are part of that because people have that unity experience, and then suddenly, they’re like, oh, man, why have I been killing myself? I’m here. It’s not doing me any good. The great resignation is a good example of what’s happening, people are starting to question the old paradigms, not serving anymore, you know, yes, not serving us individually nor as a global population. So I agree, I think that we’ll be moving the right direction. I really appreciate the work that you’re doing I think is fascinating and extremely valuable. So and you have a book coming out once once that
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:24
manuscript will be do I turn that manuscript in in six months?
Mark Divine 59:29
Okay, so still while I’m still a while back on when we get blasted out there and um, but where can people learn more about your work?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:37
Yeah, they can go to my website, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, okay. They can find me on Instagram, too. If they go to my website, they can apply to be a patient more if they have a someone that already knows someone in the practice referral is best and Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and my youtube channel I’m growing and doing a lot of education on the ads view, and then newsletter which I VAT and I send Research things that are interesting or, for example, this podcast will be in my newsletter. Nice. And that’s where they can find me. All right, and that said your website? Yeah, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon or Instagram or YouTube also, I will put all this in the shades too. Thank you so much for having me.
Mark Divine 1:00:13
Yeah. Thanks, Gabriela. It’s great to see you. Great to chat and appreciate you. Who Yeah, who Yeah. Well, that was awesome. Thank you Gabriela. Dr. Gabrielle Lyons, I love talking to you. And I super appreciate everything you’ve always done for me. shownotes and transcripts will be on our site, Mark Divine calm, and there’ll be a video going up on our YouTube channel. I’m also on Twitter. If you want to find me at real Mark Divine on Instagram and Facebook. You can always hit me up on my LinkedIn account. If you want to suggest a guest or if you’ve just got feedback, or you want to send me a note, especially shout out to my awesome team, Jason Sanderson, Geoff Haskell, Michels Arctic, and Amy Berkowitz, who helped produce this amazing podcast helped me align up incredible guests like Dr. Lyon, and produce this show every week. I also love to get reviews, it really helps everyone find it. So please continue to review the show or review the show if you haven’t, and share it with your friends. It is critical in 2022, as we head into this year that we take care of ourselves, we up our game. And that just doesn’t mean getting fit again. It means cultivating our compassion and our courage, learn skills such as nonviolent communication, conflict resolution, learning how to build teams of individuals who thrive on creative energy, and positivity, and are eager to tackle some of the many problems that we face in the world. But all of it starts with ourselves must be the change we want to see in the world. Become a light for others. So thanks again, Gabriele. And thank you for being here for me in 2021. Really appreciate that. And I’m wishing everyone a very happy and healthy New Year, and an incredible start to 2022. Let this be a year filled with courage, compassion and purpose.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 0:03
Sometimes there is fat infiltration that happens within skeletal muscle, which makes mitochondria less which makes contractility less, which makes its ability to manage blood sugar less utilize substrates, so it all actually changes first in skeletal muscle, and then people become overweight and then you have issues with diabetes.
Mark Divine 0:28
Hey, welcome to the Mark Divine show. I’m Mark Divine, your host. In the show, we discover we dive in and discuss just what makes the world’s most inspirational, compassionate and resilient leaders so fearless. We talk in depth to people from all walks of life, martial arts grandmasters meditative monk CEOs, military leaders, Stoic philosophers, proud survivors and more. In each episode, we turn our guest experience into actionable insights that you can learn to follow and use to lead a life filled with compassion and courage. And this is the last episode of 2021. And what a year 2021 has been holy schmoly. Well, I mean, I was just recounting the other day, all the interesting things that have happened this year, a lot of challenges, of course, with a pandemic, and everyone experiencing that collectively. But it’s just been an incredible year and setting the stage for 2022, which is going to bring a lot of change and a lot of up leveling here. On our end of the things, we’re going to be launching a new website, and a new newsletter called divine inspiration. And we’re rebranding this show and up leveling the show. We’re changing the name from unbeatable mind to the Mark Divine show, all of that be happening in late January. So stay tuned. If you want to be on our email list. Please go to Mark Divine .com and sign up on our email list. Every week, I’ll be sending out inspirational information, insights, fun things that I’ve learned what’s on my mind, that type of thing. It’s going to be awesome, super stoked about all of that. And I really, really appreciate your continued support of the show and also of everything else we’re doing here. I’m excited to have this guest, Dr. Gabrielle Lyons on particularly because Dr. Gabriel Lyons is my personal concierge doctor. She does a lot of work with seals, special operators, and has a unique perspective and expertise which you’ll learn about on this show. She received her doctorate in osteopathic medicine from Arizona College of Osteopathic Medicine, and she’s board certified in family medicine. She got her undergraduate degree in Human Nutrition from the University of Illinois, where she studied vitamin and mineral metabolism, chronic disease prevention, and management and the physiological effect of diet composition. Well, dr. Lyons mission is to help people all across the world, optimize their health, their metabolism, control their blood sugar and mitigate disease using her groundbreaking muscle centric approach. You’re going to have to listen to the podcast to learn more about what that is. Nice to have you here, Gabrielle appreciate you being on the show. Your husband’s in med school, Shane, for folks to know that there’s a connection between us to Shane was the SEAL Fit athlete, mentee I guess you’re gone? Yep.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:07
He actually says that. That’s one of the reasons he made it through hell week was the training that he did with you.
Mark Divine 3:13
That doesn’t surprise me. Most people have some sort of connection. What I’ve heard is anecdotally a full 1/3 of those who graduate buds have participated in SEAL Fit training. That’s
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:24
amazing somehow like that. Well, he never lets us forget about winter Hell Week.
Mark Divine 3:30
So he was he was a seal for a number of years and then left and he’s going to Rutgers med school. Yeah. What’s it like to be a doctor married to a med student?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:38
It really is funny. Actually, we joke a lot about it. Because there’s something that comes with practice. So I’ve been practicing medicine for roughly 15 years. And there’s a certain combination of art, do you
Mark Divine 3:51
think you’d get good at it? If you’re practicing?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 3:53
I know terrible. But it’s really interesting when you’ve been in practice for so long. And then there’s a medical student that you’re actually living with. There’s all those medicals,
Mark Divine 4:03
and he wasn’t your student before you got no, he didn’t reach any boundaries,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:07
right? No, he was obviously not right. That would be really weird.
Mark Divine 4:11
So you’ve got 15 years of experience, and he’s a student getting taught whatever doctrine the med school believes in? Has there been any gap or disconnect between what you see him learning and what your experience is? In reality?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:24
Yeah, there’s actually quite a bit of discrepancies, especially as it relates to the nutrition information and also what can be done. The medicine framework is that things are not treatable, that the major illnesses you use, I don’t know antibiotics or chemotherapy, but that things are not necessarily prevented, as opposed to some of the basic things like diet and exercise and don’t smoke, but in my clinical practice, so
Mark Divine 4:52
they grossly underestimate or don’t even pay attention to the preventive factors.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 4:58
Or if they do, it’s increased be generic. I’ll give you an example. I take care of a lot of Hashimotos patients, and Hashimoto is an autoimmune disease of thyroid, which the majority of my patients go into remission. But he’s taught that it is a disease that just doesn’t remit that. Once you’re diagnosed with Hashimotos. That’s then you have it.
Mark Divine 5:19
Yeah. So not only is nutrition ignored and preventative, but it’s not given any Right. Any places.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 5:25
Yeah, it’s interesting as a recuperative or healing Yeah. And also the, you know, kind of the tie in with gut health and sleep. And it’s largely left out. That’s interesting, because my main practice is really about optimization. Yeah,
Mark Divine 5:39
this is a huge generalization. But it almost seems like though, Western medicine has been very effective for dealing with acute illnesses. It also seems to be designed to keep people sick. Yeah. And that’s why they called this the sickness industry instead of the early illness industry. So the wellness industry, which is, I guess, the question is, work that you’re doing, and others, you know, tons of people we’ve had on this podcast is trying to change that paradigm. But it doesn’t seem like there’s any movement from the mainstream medical establishment in that direction. From my perspective, I’m curious, is that accurate? Oh, there
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:14
are groups of colleagues that I believe really pushed the health and wellness forward. But as a staple, it would not be considered mainstream medicine at this point. But it’s moving that way.
Mark Divine 6:26
What’s it going to take for it to become mainstream, peer reviewed articles?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 6:33
Well, it’s interesting, because there are some, you know, for example, in my area, I talk a lot about nutrition. And there are many randomized control trials that support it. But I think there’s not necessarily an interface between nutrition and health care. Hmm. And, you know, in my perspective, if we define things as a medical need, so let’s say there’s an illness or a medical necessity, then that’s one thing. And then there should be an interface with nutrition, but it doesn’t necessarily have to come from the physician, if the physician isn’t very well trained. So right now, what you have is physicians that aren’t necessarily knowledgeable on certain other healing modalities. And instead of that being a part of it, they’re just not aware,
Mark Divine 7:15
right. I mean, a similar thing could be said for the field of psychotherapy or psychology. Absolutely. And so there’s this disconnect, right? Yeah, this ignorance that the mind the body are one. Yeah, they’re integrated. So the leafs you have the behaviors you have that are going to affect the physiology and then disease expression. Yep. So how would you characterize your expertise? Your specialty, Gabriele,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 7:39
I practice a kind of medicine called muscle centric medicine. And really, I am on a mission to change the paradigm about how we think about health and wellness. And specifically, what that means is right now, we’re very obesogenic focused. We’re very focused on obesity. We’re very fat phobic, and everything is addressing this problem of obesity.
Mark Divine 8:00
This pause there. So most of the mainstream diseases that come from or related to,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:06
they would have you think they see or yes, yeah, that is the belief. Interesting. But what if I told you actually at the root, cause it’s skeletal muscle, and that we’re not actually over fat, we’re under muscled, and muscle as the skeletal muscle in particular is the first organ that is actually affected, and then you become obese. So these diseases like Alzheimer’s, especially the metabolic component to Alzheimer’s, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, these are diseases of even obesity of skeletal muscle first, not diseases of extra adipose tissue or not disease of obesity, that’s subsequent, that’s secondary.
Mark Divine 8:44
So you’re saying that someone first loses their muscle, and then the fat
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 8:47
follows, or the defects are in skeletal muscle first defects. So their defects could be in the skull as well. Sometimes there is fat infiltration that happens within skeletal muscle, which makes mitochondria less which makes contractility less, which makes its ability to manage blood sugar less utilize substrates, so it all actually changes first in skeletal muscle. And then people become overweight, and then you have issues with diabetes. But the root cause is actually skeletal muscle. And because we exist in this paradigm of thinking that it is all about, if you are a hammer, everything is a nail and we’re constantly focused on obesity, we haven’t been very good at treating it. Decades later, we’re still dealing with the same issues, if not worse, and my argument is that we are approaching the wrong problem. The problem is not obesity. That’s a secondary issue of skeletal muscle.
Mark Divine 9:42
Interesting. So what’s different about the tissues or the cells? Yeah, muscle? This Yeah, so not there. And yeah, fat cells
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 9:51
or skeletal muscle is very robust. And obviously, you need it in terms of activity. And that’s the tradition of what people think about skull. Muscle muscle. They think about skeletal muscle. I mean, you train hard every day. And I do believe that that’s one of the keys to your longevity is your lifetime of training, right? But skeletal muscle is actually an endocrine organ. It’s this organ of longevity. Hmm. And it’s an interesting is. And when you contract it, it secretes Myo kinds. And without getting too technical, broadly, the concept of Myo kinds is a protein secreted from skeletal muscle, exercising, and contracting skeletal muscle that goes throughout the rest of the body. That affects immunity, it affects brain health, it affects the way in which we use nutrients. So it’s not just about the actual exercise, but it’s about this tissue, skeletal muscle as an endocrine organ, which is wild, that is interesting. And we really have to change our endpoints to look at skeletal muscle, as opposed to looking at endpoints of obesity.
Mark Divine 10:54
Right? So if this premise is true, then what is the like, ideal makeup? Or, you know, formulation of skeleton, right? Is there a certain way to train it? Or to fuel it? I guess we’re gonna get into all that. Yeah, I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:08
mean, I think that you do a pretty exceptional job. You know, as people that have been following you for a very long time. They know that hard physical training is really important. And that is something very important that you must do when you’re young. And especially as you become more mature, as you become more sage like, because that tissue changes,
Mark Divine 11:25
I’m definitely becoming more everything over 50. I think that was a nice way of saying as you’re getting older.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 11:33
Thank you. Welcome. So this concept that muscle tissue changes as you age for first, if we take a step back, there are really two ways to drive skeletal muscle. And I think that those are obvious to people that would be resistance exercise, which you know, very well, and this is interesting for you. And you and I have talked about this quite a bit is also dietary protein, right, and there has to be a balance. So either you have to be training hard enough to account for that muscle stimulation, or you have to really increase your dietary protein intake. And what’s interesting is that as we age, the ability to sense nutrients goes down. The muscle ability goes down that sensing component, so actually having robust amounts of protein at one time is most beneficial.
Mark Divine 12:21
So there’s many different ways to train or move muscle.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 12:26
Thank you. trician is a little bit different.
Mark Divine 12:28
Right? Let’s come back nutrition. Yeah, it’s a whole category that I want to talk about. Let’s stick with movement for a moment. So overcoming resistance, we typically think of that as weight training, but what if, like my father in law, you know, he was a world class tennis player. There wasn’t a whole lot of overcoming resistance with his upper body muscles. You know, I mean, yeah, I mean, his arm, he was swinging the tennis racket back and forth, and, and lots of scurrying around the tennis court. But he had cardiovascular effect. And you know, his muscles were active. Yeah. And he got Parkinson’s.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 12:58
Yeah, Parkinson’s is interesting. There’s a few things that people think as it relates to Parkinson’s. And actually, I did my fellowship in geriatrics and nutritional science. I don’t know, I think you knew that. Yeah. And Parkinson’s, there is also a connection between Parkinson’s and pesticide and environmental exposure. So interesting. And I think that, you know, we’ve talked before leaving on a golf course, or if there’s any exposures, those kinds of things actually play a role in neurological disease.
Mark Divine 13:27
Interesting. Well, is there a role that muscular development plays could have
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 13:31
played in consensus? I think that that is a very interesting idea. I’m not sure as it relates to Parkinson’s disease, because there’s neurologic cause of its neurological effect. versus say, Alzheimer’s, which is one of the kinds of Alzheimer’s there’s multiple different ways in which an individual can get Alzheimer’s. Alzheimer’s does have a metabolic component. It’s often thought of as type three diabetes of the brain, Oh, interesting. And when it’s thought of as type two diabetes of the brain, then skeletal muscle would play a role in managing blood glucose in managing fatty acids in really managing metabolism, then that’s where skeletal muscle plays a role. And that’s actually where these concepts were born from. I had an aha moment in my fellowship, where I was imaging a woman’s brain, and I was looking at the interface between body weight and obesity. And I imaged her brain and she had flattening of her brain, she had these changes that looked like an Alzheimer’s brain in her 50s. And she was one of those people that had always struggled with their weight. Not major, but maybe an extra 20 pounds. And it was at that moment, I realized we had been looking at the wrong tissue the whole time, wasn’t a fat problem, that if this woman had had healthy skeletal muscle, we could have prevented some of these metabolic derangements. And that’s actually where the concept of muscle centric medicine came from.
Mark Divine 14:57
On that point, what’s the intervention you just get her starting to do weight training or what do you do?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:01
You got to train people early, and you have to train them with enough volume that it matters. Right now people go and they’ll be on the treadmill, or they’ll do things that is very unit dimensional and might be mitochondria based on the split. Yeah, that’s very unit dimensional. But you do need to do some kind of resistance training. And if it can’t be heavy, there has to be volume, but it needs to be resistance based exercise. Yeah. And there’s no way around it. We’re domesticated right now.
Mark Divine 15:29
Yeah. But constantly varied, functional movement done, high intensity actually works, it works.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:33
And it works better than a lot of medications. And it works better than a lot of these potential interventions that people would say to do.
Mark Divine 15:42
You know, let’s go back to the 55 year old obese woman, I mean, what’s the internet? How do we get her to start doing? You’re not gonna go into a CrossFit gym? And now muscle ups?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 15:51
You know, yeah, I mean, the first thing you have to do is get her under metabolic control. And we didn’t a dietary intervention, and it was more of modified carbohydrates, modified protein and modified fat, it was calorie control.
Mark Divine 16:05
When the disease is expressed itself, we’re going to approach it from nutrition first, to get to the point where the body meter amazing, yeah, then we’ll bring the movement in, this becomes
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 16:14
really important where people have to do more initially, to protect their wellness, right? Because it’s much more difficult once someone has any kind of cognitive impairment, right. But if we can protect them, midlife, you know, these diseases of aging, while we think about them as diseases of aging, they actually start in your 30s. Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that begins in your 30s. Interesting, it just manifests overtly later on, but doesn’t start there. And if we can really get people to shift this from this concept of so focused on obesity to more muscle centric, and we can solve these problems.
Mark Divine 16:52
You said that wasn’t my scene that’s secreted on my oh kinds. My okay. Yeah, it was close. What’s the relationship between Myo kinds and growth hormones?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:01
Good question. Well, there are 1000s of Myo kinds. And this is actually a very new science, early 2000s. And Pettersen a woman named Pettersen actually has been leading the charge in this and she is in Copenhagen. Right now. She’s actually an immunologist. The mechanism by which the Myo kinds and growth hormone work are separate. So growth hormone will happen without muscular secretion. It’ll happen at night versus Myo kinds go to and target different organs, as opposed to interact directly with growth hormone, it would say, target the brain or target bone for improve bone turnover, or liver or pancreas.
Mark Divine 17:41
But isn’t it true that lifting heavy things or overcoming a lot of resistance stimulates growth hormone release?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 17:47
Well, it can definitely stimulate skeletal muscle. That’s a direct growth hormone release, we think about from sleep. And
Mark Divine 17:55
so more muscle needs to be recovered, the more growth hormone is going to be released. So you hope
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:00
you have I mean, typically, the recovery
Mark Divine 18:03
response that’s triggering the growth hormone is not necessarily the lifting of everything related.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:08
But yes, I think that the lifting really does contribute to these things. And I think that ultimately, it’s an interplay. Same with testosterone. This is all an interplay together, we notice Asteron, to me, an anabolic hormone,
Mark Divine 18:18
right. So let’s just assume that your whole body should be involved in movement. This is why you know, total body functioning admin is good. Doesn’t matter what level of resistance. So there’s a real difference between, you know, a CrossFitter, who’s doing snatches and deadlifts and whatnot. And let’s see a swimmer who’s just overcoming resistance to the water back and forth, back and forth back. But they’re using the whole body, especially if they’re using multiple strokes, I think
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 18:41
you bring up a good point, in my opinion, we should all be resistance training, even if you are utilizing swimming to overcome resistance, we have access to gyms, we have access to weights, and it should be like brushing your teeth. But the volume of
Mark Divine 18:56
overcoming the resistance of picking your foot up and putting it down walking around the block is not I mean,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:00
listen, for some untrained individual perhaps that’s considered explosive. Right?
Mark Divine 19:06
You know, that might be the place to start for the intervention intervention approach,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:10
right? You know, thinking about perceived effort is important. People should be working towards failure. And that is typically not what I see. I certainly don’t see that in my clinic. People are kind of doing the same thing and doing what they’ve always done almost a
Mark Divine 19:25
cultural backlash against that. There’s 100% of cultural backlash. You see, I don’t know where that comes from. Maybe it’s the sickness industry wanting to keep people sick. They produce these articles, and they’ve got these journalists on their payroll and they putting out this counter narrative that, you know, extreme fitness are working too hard is bad for you or can lead to heart problems and all this stuff
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:48
and listen to this dream training can Okay, but we’re talking about extreme.
Mark Divine 19:52
Well, extreme training for me. Normal training for me is extreme for somebody else. So it’s all relative.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 19:57
Yes. Let’s take that up a notch. Yes, I do always think, you know, when I think of you doing your very high volume workouts, some part of me cringes, like, oh, gosh, how does he How can he do all that? It’s amazing. But when I think about extreme is the 100 miles, you know, when people are just really doing
Mark Divine 20:15
gardens would be an extreme, that extreme extreme capital he extreme? Yes.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 20:19
But I think that the majority of individuals are not doing that kind of training, right. And so the narrative of we should cut back or we should do last is very harmful. It really softens our society unnecessarily.
Mark Divine 20:33
What do you think of the slope zone type training? I think there’s been curious about that, like, just super slow, concentric and eccentric movement is very different than the explosive. Yeah, kind of metabolic pump that you get from a crossfitter and Orangetheory.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 20:48
I think everything is helpful, because it’s movement. But it doesn’t mean that’s what’s going to really move the needle for an individual. I know some people use eccentric movements to help improve benchpress or really help improve form and also strength but as a overall way to train you in a unit dimensional way to train it’s probably not ideal.
Mark Divine 21:11
Yeah, I was also suggests that yoga and pilates kind of go in that category of nice for flexibility, but it’s not going to do much for the physio muscular skeletal longevity. I agree. And I’ve seen a lot of Yogi’s shrivel up into these little sticks, and then they get injured and and don’t do so. Well. Yeah. And I think that was kind of the teaching was not brought to the West in its integrated form.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:35
Hmm, that’s interesting. I hadn’t thought about that before, but they were also doing other things.
Mark Divine 21:41
They were doing a lot of other things. Yeah, yeah. Martial arts and yoga have a common history. A lot of you know, there were Yogi’s, back in India, who were weightlifters Indian club dolls came out of that. Oh, yeah. We have some of those. Right. And so they weren’t just doing the stretch forever. You know?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 21:56
Isn’t that interesting how when things are taken so far out of context to what their roots were, it totally changes everything.
Mark Divine 22:03
Right. I think the yogi’s separated athleticism and the process of yoga, which was mental development. And I think it was actually that came from the YMCA network in maybe the Netherlands, somewhere over in the in Europe, where they kind of merged gymnastics with Asana, to create what we now is known as yoga in the West, that actually wasn’t the way it was, in practice, do an individual poses that were kind of suitable for a particular person, particular age, particular injury, particular time of year. And then you would practice a few poses. And that was all to get yourself into the meditative seat and work with the mind. Anyways, that’s a little tangent.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:40
Do you remember that? I actually went through your yoga training Kokoro yoga. Yeah, that was awesome. That was
Mark Divine 22:48
nonstop, integrative yoga.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:51
That was awesome. We
Mark Divine 22:51
don’t do that anymore. I know, we kind of ran out of time. only so much time. Yeah, to bring that back. Oh, can’t
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 22:58
be there. If you bring it back. I’ll be there. We’ll bring Shane tail.
Mark Divine 23:02
Yeah, that’d be good for him.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:03
He definitely needs yoga. You know, I really think a lot about what you said, When you watch a lot of the yogi’s and individuals kind of shrink. And that is what people often think of as sarcopenia, which is a loss of muscle strength, mass function. And that is really preventable. And I think that we should spend more time focusing on that, than we do on obesity or being overweight, because that really impacts the trajectory of how people age, right angry. And simple.
Mark Divine 23:38
Common lexicon is okay, so if you have a high metabolism, you’re gonna burn a lot of math. And so linking it to your theory, having a high or a healthy metabolism is probably the result of having a healthy skeletal muscular system.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 23:51
I believe that to be true. And I also believe that where muscle really plays a role is number one at baseline, it allows you to have more flexibility in your nutrition, whatever that is, whether it’s proteins, carbs, fats, however you decide to eat, and also the amount of calories that you eat. Your muscle really allows you to have that kind of flexibility. And I want to clarify that by saying when you train, that’s where you really contribute to your metabolism, right? Is really through training. Right? So yes, I would agree with you.
Mark Divine 24:26
So we’ve talked a little bit about kind of the general prescription for movement is a lot of variety, overcoming resistance and total body as opposed to mana structural and very, very light resistance, you know, like our jogger. So that’s the general prescription and then from there, you’d want to take it more to the personalized level. Is there a general prescription for the nutrition part? I do believe that everyone should work
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 24:50
well, I think that there’s a great starting place and that there is bio individuality which we can all agree upon. Some people do better on a higher protein diet, and other people feel better on a more plant based diet. And I think number one, you have to listen to your body. And then the second part of that is there are some core fundamental science foundational principles that we can all start with. And one of the things that we know for sure is that the body requires high quality protein to account for not just muscle mass, but also turnover, especially turnover. As we age, the liver goes through regeneration, the, you know, intestines, the body’s constantly turning over tenants turnover, although much, much lower, slower pace. And the way I think about a nutrition prescription is anchoring it in high quality protein. Now, you said, and there are some interesting scientific studies coming out now, that actually and I say this, because I have a sense of your kind of dietary habits, that people that are, what are you
Mark Divine 26:00
watching? Over my shoulder? years later? Is there a diet?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:05
You know, instead of the nanny cam, we actually have the diet cam? Sandy, what is it? Yeah, you’re in trouble. And those individuals that feel best on a more vegetarian, lower protein animal based diet, their gut microbiome looks more like a ruminants. And those are what a ruminants like, you know, like a cow. So Mara, kind of looks like a cow.
Mark Divine 26:27
Thank you
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:28
very much. But anyway,
Mark Divine 26:31
so first person to call now but a sacred in the Hindu and Indian traditions. And I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:37
bring this up because the bugs can actually they scavenge for nitrogen, and they can actually produce some essential amino acids, right, which is groundbreaking,
Mark Divine 26:46
previous biome bugs are producing amino acids. We don’t
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 26:49
know that to be for sure, true. But I can tell you from what I’m beginning to see in the literature that those individuals that have a more vegan vegetarian diet, while we would think they would be much more protein deficient, there’s some evidence that their gut microbiome, they can actually the bugs actually can scavenge and generate essential amino acids.
Mark Divine 27:10
You just I mean, that’s interesting that that explains why cows have so much look so strong that so much meat and then just eat grass. Isn’t that interesting? What’s fascinating, producing their own amino,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 27:19
but I don’t know how that translates for humans. And if that is an optimal way to approach nutrition,
Mark Divine 27:26
this is probably not in your wheelhouse. But it seems to me that like diaper changing, yes, it is, well. Throw that out there. No, I was gonna go with just the adaptability of the human being so that if all we had was a, you know, available was just shrubbery, we probably be like a cow, we’d probably have the biome, we’d be producing tons of protein, we’d be running around the jungle, and doing just fine. But maybe over time, as our food became less diverse, and more seasonal, and we have this notion that Oh, wow, I got a cow over here. If I eat the cow, then I’ll have that density of protein. And so then our bodies adapted to
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:02
that. I think that there may possibly be some truth to what you’re saying.
Mark Divine 28:08
I love throwing out these wild theories that can’t be proven. Safe.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:13
But if you think about it, the the gut microbiome does change. And it is very diverse, and human beings can survive on all kinds of nutritional plans. It doesn’t mean though, that is optimal.
Mark Divine 28:24
Right? You know, like, if you’re a breatharian, you’re probably not doing a lot of weight training.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:29
I did try that once.
Mark Divine 28:32
I think that it takes a certain type of refinement.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:36
Yes, I would agree. You know, as we age, I bring it back to aging, because that’s something that we all do. Hopefully, God willing, we all do age and high quality protein is really why do
Mark Divine 28:48
you say that? Like I prefer not to age just I mean, because it’s
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 28:53
you know, it’s an honor to be able to, you know, the,
Mark Divine 28:56
the minds gonna get wiser and wiser just like the body stay where it’s at.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:00
Okay, fair enough. I mean, listen, I look great for 57. If
Mark Divine 29:06
you don’t mind saying that. Yeah, that’s awesome.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:08
I’m just kidding. Not really. 57. So one of the things is that we
Mark Divine 29:14
look amazing, Mark. We’re gonna have those conversations someday, right. You know, there are people I know in their 70s and 80s. Or we look like they’re 40. Yeah. And so that’s part of the whole longevity is like quality of aging is all
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 29:25
about the quality of aging. And I think that when we talk about longevity, it’s not we have to define are we looking at the last six months of life are we saying what longevity is increasing the length of time from six weeks to six months? Yeah, no, that’s and look at it but it could be one right I agree with you is really about how an individual goes about their life. And what does that actually look like? Dr.
Mark Divine 29:47
Sinclair calls it lifespan. Yes. That’s a great way to look how span so your lifespan is your health span, right. So how long can you think that’s very aligned? I’m revealing myself as a yogi at heart which I Yogi’s believe As well, there are there are many examples of, you know, yogi’s who are in their hundreds and their stretchy bendy, like over the head doing everything every day. Yeah, you know, there’s very little degradation in the physical structure. It’s like if you, you know, the metaphor that I use, which you probably enjoy, maybe you use this too is like, if you buy a Mustang in 1963, and you just drive it and keep driving it and keep driving in, what’s it going to look like in 2021? At minus 58 years old? It’s going to beat up and rusty Yes. But if you take that Mustang, and you and you address every day, you do something change this part change that part polishes, polish that, what’s it gonna look like, it’s gonna look like a brand new Mustang, I agree human bodies, just like
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 30:41
that. And then I would throw something else at you. And these are your own words, kind of guess is that the human body thrives off of challenge, that’s true, the human spirit,
Mark Divine 30:54
you say that the Mustang is sitting in the garage and won’t be as, right the engine won’t be, it’s gonna atrophy. Right? If it doesn’t get out there and get put to the test on the road,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:03
there is likely some balance, there has to be a balance between movement and rest and pushing hard and resting. But I still believe in high quality protein. And I think that it’s really interesting as we age, and we really figure out what is important for longevity? Which people will argue, you know, do we consider more of a plant based diet for longevity? And I would counter and I would say, Absolutely not. I would say if we are talking about skeletal muscle tissue that has to be healthy, and we are preventing about sarcopenia, that there’s probably an interface between both
Mark Divine 31:41
Israel way to get the same or similar high quality protein with a vegetarian or vegan diet
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:46
with a lot of supplementation. It can be done with a lot of stuff. Do you
Mark Divine 31:50
think there’ll be a bio engineered way to do that?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:52
I do. And I think it’s going to be very concerning. Interesting.
Mark Divine 31:56
Why do you say that?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 31:57
I think that at the core narrative, some people are very against animal cruelty and against eating animals. Right. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Right? I think we have to be very careful that are we talking about health? So are we talking about health issues? Or are we talking about ethical issues with animal cultural,
Mark Divine 32:18
moral and ethical? Well, what about like lab? Grown meat?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:23
Yeah, I think that’s very scary.
Mark Divine 32:24
And I think if you’re not getting because you’re not getting the quality or what’s missing,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:28
I mean, just the concept that we would grow something how is that? And this could be naive, but just from a very basic level, I think that we weren’t designed to eat that, even if it looks like meat, or is I mean, I just,
Mark Divine 32:45
you know, you could have someone come back and say, well, maybe we weren’t designed to eat animals, either. But then
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 32:49
how would we, if that were true, then how come our biological processes often thrive and require these
Mark Divine 32:56
adapted to do that maybe, and eventually adaptive, it’d be true, that could be true to the Garden of Eden body. And who knows, it’s, it’s all speculative. Because these things take probably hundreds of 1000s of years, which I guess would be alive for you, which we will be alive for Yeah, or at least, even if the body doesn’t sustain for that long, I would love to learn the trick where I can remember, my past lifetimes when I come back next time, just so I can, you know, I don’t have to go back to SEAL training, I’ll just know all that stuff. I would
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:26
love for Shane to remember where he put his shoes. So I started
Mark Divine 33:31
working on remembering chains work. And that’s a whole different subject. And this is fascinating. So but let’s forget about the futuristic stuff and come back to the present. So what’s someone going to do if they really, really want to be clean, and whole food ish and vegetarian, but like me, I wanted, I tried for nine months until I you know, looked at my arm. And I saw I tried to,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 33:53
I was like, looks really good. I have had many of these conversations with you. So I I know, I think, and I haven’t talked so much publicly about this, I’m going to share something that I haven’t really shared before. I think that there’s a way to do cyclical protein guiding interest, and I’m going to explain to you what that means. There are many people like you that wish they could for whatever reason, be more vegetarian based, whether they feel better on it, I would argue a way to do this would be for three weeks out of the month to eat a protein optimized diet, whatever that is for you. You know, for you, you eat twice a day or so you know, not eating all day long. But we we optimize those two meals for high quality protein. And what I mean by high quality protein is if it had to be fish, I’d be okay. But it would be more, we would get 50 grams of protein at least per meal. You have a high training volume so you can manage and keep your muscle healthy. We do this for three weeks out of the month. And then for one week first There’s no further and then one week out of a month, you do more of a myth finding restriction, which is a vegan diet for a week, or you do it for five days. And there’s something to be said for autophagy. And I use that loosely and resetting the pathway. And it’s almost as if you do house cleaning. And maybe you don’t do that every month. Maybe you eat protein forward for two or three months, and then you do a week, which is more vegan vegetarian. Mm hmm. I think there is going to be, we’re going to find some benefit in that style of eating.
Mark Divine 35:31
Right? This is silly, but I just read an article the other day about some Millennials or maybe a Gen Z who are combining paleo and veganism. They’re calling a paganism, but that sounds like paganism. I know, it does seem kind of strange. But I’m thinking aren’t they come to completely philosophically different things? How? It seems kind of silly to combine? And why don’t you just call that a whole food diet?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 35:53
That’s a great idea. So millennials have a lot more flexibility. They could literally eat the Twinkie diet and still true that, right, right. But as we become more mature, then we have to be much more aware and conscious of what we’re eating. Even if the volume isn’t high, the nutrient density needs to be high.
Mark Divine 36:11
Right? Okay, so clearly not eating meat is out of your prescription.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:16
I think when individuals choose to not eat meat for health reasons, I think it’s a mistake.
Mark Divine 36:20
Yeah. Do you believe in mustard, you know, like, the Indian Ayurveda, will say that, depending upon your particular body type will really determine whether you, you know, you can be vegetarian, or whether you’re, you know, a meat eater, or some sort of hybrid. And so is it possible that some people
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 36:38
Yes, are built Yes, to be vegan. I do believe that there are some people, and I think it’s very few interesting. And I think that they have a unique microbiome that accounts for their ability, and we talked about you. And also this is so new. I mean, I have a very good friend, she’s an orthopedic surgeon, and she has begun. And she looks amazing, and does amazing. And there are certain people that do very amazing like that. It is not the mass majority, but it does exist. And that’s why what I think is the best of both worlds is we start with good foundational science, of high quality protein, great training, really shifting the focus from obesity to muscle centric, focusing on Myo kinds focusing on muscle as this endocrine organ, which it is laying out a high quality protein based nutrition plan. And then if an individual doesn’t feel well doesn’t resonate with it, then they can begin to adjust for their own biodiversity. And that’s actually the best of both worlds. So we start with the protein and also keeping calories under control those kinds of things. And, and then seeing where someone is
Mark Divine 37:45
going just like with the movement example, you take care of the general physical principles, strength, stamina, durability, and then you do the more sports specific application depending upon the individual’s Yeah, and gills and what their goals are.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 37:58
Yeah, absolutely. And then we also have to think about carbohydrates about, you know, people often think about carbohydrates in this 24 hour period. But I like to think about carbohydrates in a meal to meal basis. And that allows you so if you’re eating under 40 grams of carbs per meal, then you’re not doing the subsequent insulin spike. And I think being aware that a more vegan vegetarian diet is much higher in carbohydrates, and really kind of honing in on plant based proteins, which are largely don’t have the amino acids that we need. But if you were going to do that, then focusing on some of the plant based proteins, adding in some essential amino acids, and making sure that your carbohydrate intake is within a particular threshold, that’s a great place to start for someone who is more Yogi at heart, right?
Mark Divine 38:45
So you and I have chatted a little bit about the precursors to the amino acid. What are they called?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 38:54
Which precursors is a trick question? The amino acid the SUV, so there are the essential amino acids so that’s really what we’re eating for. Okay. And then the muscle secrete Myo kinds. Maybe we were talking about the Myo kinds.
Mark Divine 39:05
So what do we know about peptides? And how do they relate to health and longevity? Yeah, health, longevity and amino acids and protein because they’re a building block of protein. Right? So
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 39:14
what you’re thinking about, okay, so, peptide, yes, or amino acids. And when we think about peptides, when we are talking about usage of, say research grade peptides or peptides that we are going to inject or even a non peptide like substance. What we’re focusing on and this is something that we use in practice is to target a very specific need. I’ll give you an example. One of the peptides that I use a lot of is called BPC 157. And this is body protective compound it was first I don’t know if I should tell you this because all my patients are going to throw it in the garbage but it was first isolated from gastric juices. And I won’t even say they’re gastric juices or brats which now everybody’s throwing right Oh, so what we know about peptides Our peptides are different than drugs in which you know peptides have very specific usages and are not recognized by the body in the same way and are very specific for healing without a lot of the negative side effects so for example, BPC 157 is used a lot if you take it internally for GI issues. I use it a lot with Team guys that I take care of that have been over GI Joe issues, those GI Joe issues for any kind of gut health, secondary to parasite if they’re eating whatever they’re eating, you can also take an injectable, and then there’s something that’s not available right now through physicians called TB 500. I think was Ben Greenfield has spoken a lot about that that’s an injectable peptide used for healing for recovery or recovery. Yep, recovery and
Mark Divine 40:52
healing these approved by the FDA or not,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 40:55
they’re not TB 500 is not approved for FDA use BPC 157 is considered a peptide. So it’s an FDA gray area, which can be very tricky. Other ones like mk 677, which is considered a non peptide is something that acts on ghrelin, and it’s a growth hormone secretagogue. All this by saying is that it really helps people put on muscle, when used orally mk 677 is something that’s actually being studied in sarcopenia helps people put on muscle improve their appetite, causes
Mark Divine 41:31
about six words that I’ve never heard before.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:35
causes a lot of water retention. So if you are a team guy who likes to look jacked and tan, you will for sure have an adverse freakout moment when you put on 10 pounds of water because it’s happened really.
Mark Divine 41:47
I don’t know many team guys who like to look jacked and
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 41:50
oh no, except for all of them. They need to have good hair and testosterone. And I can joke about this because I am married to one and treat many you treat
Mark Divine 41:58
a lot of sales gonna go there you treat a lot of special ops. And one of the things that we’ve dialogued about speaking in recovery is TBI. Yeah, and the subtle effects of TBI when it’s unnoticed and untreated. And then that can affect things like the sleep apnea can affect your hormonal balance and all sorts of problems can start arising which then can have a cascading failure effect. Yeah. When you work with someone, I know you’re a big fan of blood testing. What are you looking for
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:24
for TBI? Actually, we don’t, I don’t actually look at blood Markers. There are some non traditional Markers for brain health, but nothing that would be considered validated at this moment. TBI is largely based on history and symptoms, especially with the team guys that have done a lot of jumps, a lot of blast exposures. Everybody, which is everybody, you just everybody in the job description it is and actually the safety regulation dangerous, cold wet, sign me up
Mark Divine 42:54
and you will get TBI should be in this.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 42:58
It is totally true. So typically, if an individual is I have a very low threshold for really approaching sleep apnea or having individuals with what I would guess TBI is get hyperbaric or trans magnetic stimulation. You asked how you did that? Yes, yes, I know your doctor. She’s very good. Yes, she was good. So I think it’s really important that if an individual has a history of doing things that are a little bit more aggressive, even fighting, right getting hit in the head, or falls or car accidents, but military special operations are a very unique group of individuals. And they also have a very unique group of health challenges that are really not highlighted. Everybody thinks about the rough and tumble, written to frogman which they all are right, the mud, you know, if you are a seal, you are probably a stud. With that comes very specific health concerns that you know, I mean, also there’s a cultural thing where if someone is getting headaches, or maybe they’re not sleeping well or incredibly tired, they just take another motor, exactly.
Mark Divine 44:09
Vitamin like Kennedy, vitamin F,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:12
but it’s true, right? And this is you’re also dealing with the cultural aspect, but you’re also dealing with a medical environment that isn’t conducive to thinking about the lifetime of an operator. Right? You know, you initially it’s a young man’s sport initially. So you do you have to think about TBI, which I think about with all the team guys, and that would also make me think they all need to get sleep apnea test.
Mark Divine 44:38
So do you start with a premise that they probably have
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:41
100% Oh, interesting. 100% And then I always call them
Mark Divine 44:45
Can you see TBI and a brain scan? You can
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 44:47
memorize them? Yeah, they use a lot of PET scans for that, but yes, you can have a full evaluation. And you should also see some brain improvement. One of the reasons why hyperbaric oxygen therapy which is that? Oxygen, it’s just oxygen and pressure. But it can really help with stem cell release with neurological, you know, somewhat regeneration things of that nature. Right. Really important stuff. And then the other important aspect. I know, I’m kind of doing a little bit of monologue here. But
Mark Divine 45:15
no, it’s interesting. I think it’s really valuable, because I don’t think this is limited just to Spec Ops. Anyone in the military? Anyone in first responder, anyone who played football or anything wrestling, any martial artists?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:29
Yes. And sleep apnea is related to insulin resistance. It’s related to cardiovascular disease. So basically, what happens in in sleep apnea is you go through periods where you are APNIC, where you have hypoxia, where you’re not breathing, you’re building up co2, and
Mark Divine 45:46
that’s a neurological thing. It’s not a physiological or it’s both.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:49
It’s both. It’s both and one begets another,
Mark Divine 45:52
the limbic system is what’s not working properly, right. And there’s neurological sense. So it’s then causing a physiological lapse,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 45:59
and or you have big strong neck muscles, or you have musculature that the way in which it sits on tracks. Yeah, it could be that. So typically, we think about obesity and sleep apnea. But I think about obesity and musculature. Mm hmm. I think about muscular guys, and individuals, whether men or women, I always screen for sleep apnea, anyone that says, you know, I’m just like, really tired, it must be my hormones, and you check their hormones, and their hormones are okay.
Mark Divine 46:29
Is there any research on like percentage of the population who has sleep apnea there,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 46:34
I actually was looking at some of the data this morning. I don’t know that number. But I will tell you that there are risk factors more than it’s way more than people think. And we see this explosion of using blue light blocking glasses and trying to hack your sleep and hack your energy. All of that’s valuable, but it’s not valuable if you’re not getting to the root cause. And people that you would never think have sleep apnea, such as, such as have sleep apnea, right. And I think that all physicians should be testing their patients for sleep apnea. Interesting, because it also protects the brain, right? When the long term effects you already mentioned, oh, man, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, people that cannot get their hypertension under control, which is actually a lot of team guys. There’s a lot of metal exposure, there’s a lot of just there’s all kinds of exposures. And again, this is not just for special operations, but anyone who has had environmental exposures or has a history of hypertension should also be tested for sleep apnea. Anyone who cannot lose weight should be tested for sleep apnea. Anyone who is starting to have a lot of anxiety and waking up very anxious, there is catecholamines that are released when you go through that non breathing moment. This is a stress response. Yes. And it’s very important. It’s very underrepresented. And it’s interesting. The more an individual does something to try to get a baseline, for example, if they’re really tired, and then they’re taking more caffeine to just feel normal
Mark Divine 48:00
or hardcore workout. Exactly. Seal responses, both Mark and the workout, and then more caffeine, right. And then another workout,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:08
of course, and then you’re really trying to overcome something that is at the root cause.
Mark Divine 48:12
Yeah, interesting. Let’s just stay with sleep apnea for another second. So the test for it is just simply to hook yourself up to this simple little device. Well, your tablet was, okay. So there’s other tests there’s going to
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:24
go into, I didn’t think you’re going to want to do that. But there is there are sleep tests that you can do at home. And it looks at kind of changes in arterial volume and oxygen and things of that nature are fairly accurate. Yeah, they are. That’s why I use them, of course, but they are fairly accurate. I will say one thing, or is a great product. I don’t use aura. People say why don’t I have sleep apnea, I saw my aura ring. That actually is an is not a test at the moment. It doesn’t pick it up,
Mark Divine 48:53
maybe they will in the future. Yeah,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 48:54
I think that they probably will. But at this moment, it’s not. I would hate for people to decline a sleep apnea test, because they feel that their aura ring is telling why I was
Mark Divine 49:03
using the aura ring. I don’t use it right now. But um, it didn’t, you know, said I have a 90 sleep score.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:09
I know we that’s why it took us a year to get your believe you.
Mark Divine 49:14
Okay, so testing is one thing. And then if you have anything mild or or worse than there’s a prescription, and most people do the the breathing device CPAP Yes. So shame. I didn’t want to do that. That’s right. And I’ve just saw some research that said there was some issues with that.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 49:30
Yes, the issue. Well, and also, by the way, Shane has sleep Afro cancer issue or something like that. The issue was that there’s material and it got recalled there was a material in the piping device. Yeah. Okay, but the majority of it is safe and that one was recalled. And you know, I think a good strategy is depending on if it’s mild, moderate or severe that you start with a mouthpiece, which they typically recommend, and then you read what I did, right and then you retest to see if you’re actually breathing better. And then good
Mark Divine 49:58
students don’t need to read
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:01
Okay, this is like, yes, of course. Of course. I’m Mark. I’m calling Sandy. The next thing is a CPAP machine. So Shane actually has pretty significant sleep apnea. And his, you know, he did a lot of jumping. And he also has some jaw issues, just the way in which the jaw muscular church sits, he has a bit of an underbite that actually affects his ability to breathe when he sleeps. So he uses a CPAP machine.
Mark Divine 50:24
What is the effect of just mouth breathing versus nostril breathing on sleep apnea? Yeah, most, when I’ve heard that 25% or so of the population breathe through their mouth, which is not great. No, it’s not great. And it has an effect on the development of the job. And so I wonder if that then also leads to problems.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 50:43
It is likely a feed forward mechanism. Yeah, yeah. But the problem is, if you have sleep apnea, and you tape your mouth, and your mouth breather, I think that there’s a risk to that because you don’t know if you’re going to retrain. Yeah, right.
Mark Divine 50:57
kind of risky. It is risky. You could literally pass out and sleep
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:01
you actually have more hypoxic episodes. apneic episodes. This is where mountain
Mark Divine 51:06
trend Do not breathe into the fall, it doesn’t immediately
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:10
fall back. And this is where mouth PT, there’s actually physical therapists that deal with the tongue in the mouth.
Mark Divine 51:15
And my wife, I think she’s one of those. Just kidding.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:18
Like, I don’t think so. Sandy’s gonna be real mad at us.
Mark Divine 51:24
You’re really mad.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:28
But I think that there’s some major benefits to doing. Maximal facial. PT. Interesting. I mean, I haven’t done it yet. So I can’t say,
Mark Divine 51:37
trying to imagine what exercise would be like. Can you imagine I had one of those little tutorial.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:43
I don’t think that that’s what
Mark Divine 51:44
they’re about 100 reps before your jaws are smoke.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 51:52
It’s really funny. So where’s Mark, he’s working out. And
Mark Divine 51:56
Sandy actually would tell the story. We’re talking about crazy stacked practice from Box breathing. And I’ve got my grippers and I’ve got my chew toy and I’m going. She’s like,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:07
eight to see that video. Yeah, I am definitely putting that one on YouTube. That one is going viral. Yeah, that’s really funny.
Mark Divine 52:16
So the other thing, and I know we’ve kind of gone along here, we can wrap up pretty soon, but just basic hormonal imbalance. Yeah. And so this is related to stress, build up to sleep, all sorts of
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 52:29
an aging and we live in a very stressful environment. Right. You know, my dad lives in Ecuador. I think you’ve met him maybe. Maybe you have keys really into plant medicine in Ecuador. And I drew his blood. You know, I’m nosy. I’m his daughter, and he should listen to me for all those reasons. And he had the testosterone of a mid 20 year old. Amazing, but I was going to say peyote, testosterone, San Pedro for sure. I’m just kidding. But he lives pretty much off the grid and walks. If it is going to take longer than four hours, he’ll take transportation. If it’s less than four hours, he’ll walk that’s so cool. Right? And he’s in the sun and he’s exercising and he eats very much simply and off the land and eats a variety. He also fasts even though I don’t know necessarily recommend that for his age, you know, he’s in his 70s. So I was going to say that testosterone declines as we age, and that’s in the literature, and that’s definitely what I’ve seen. And I also for the Westerner, but then I was just gonna say that I can’t discount. Of course, that’s an n of one but I cannot discount someone like my dad. Yeah, who is very vital, and his blood Markers are fantastic. But typically testosterone goes down. Men go through andropause. And women go through menopause. And could it be that? I mean, I’m sure there’s
Mark Divine 53:50
the men would go through menopause. That’s Oh, my God. Right. Woman a pause. That’s true.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 53:55
Mark, I think that you’re onto something here. Yeah, I see another book in your future. Staring down on the menopause.
Mark Divine 54:08
Anyhow, okay. So yeah, let’s just assume that in the western world because of our lifestyle, and the stress, that hormonal balance, and what does it mean things that testosterone is
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:20
for men for the decrease in testosterone? I think that now there’s less of a, you know, and also, like you said, actually, with head trauma, testosterone can decrease on hormones and things of that nature can decrease when an individual gets head trauma.
Mark Divine 54:34
Well, yeah, because the organ that’s basically saying to relax everything. Yes.
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 54:38
It’s thyroid, everything. Yep. Interesting. I have a very low threshold to initiate treatment. I will tell you, one of the things guys always say is, well, I don’t want to go into Sastra because once I go on, it ought to be on it forever. And I say, Okay, well, I can appreciate that. But the flip side is if your testosterone is low, and let’s say you’ve done everything to try to Dress it, and it’s still low, the quality of life diminishes sex drive body fat fatigue, there are, you know, things that really diminish an individual’s quality of life, ability to maintain muscle. And I think that as a, I don’t wanna say as a society, but as a medical community, we should feel more comfortable being open to testosterone therapy, because there is a lot of data about it. And of course, you actually want to treat sleep apnea first, before you consider testosterone therapy. That’s, there’s there’s some because it can when you go through periods of hypoxia, your hemoglobin hematocrit, just the viscosity of the blood can increase
Mark Divine 55:42
another word, I do not know what it was no idea. So those
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 55:45
are just certain things that individuals should look for. But I do believe that we should change the narrative around testosterone therapy, it’s not something that is, you know, it’s a hormone that if it needs to be replaced,
Mark Divine 55:56
going back to your muscle theory, if we start putting on muscle mass through effective training, and through getting enough protein, does that naturally get our testosterone back into normal range?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:06
I think that’s a really good question. I think it’s multifactorial. So it would be foolish for me to say, just training and nutrition would be the one thing because we also have to think about sleep, right? So there’s a lot of guys, you know, the guys going through buds or guys going through ops where their testosterone drops, because they are overtraining regardless of how much they’re eating, which is just runs low. But could it have an impact? It could for sure. You’re training hard, you’re resting, you’re eating? Well, it could? Could it have a monumental impact? I think that that’s debatable. It’s debatable.
Mark Divine 56:43
Interesting. So what do you think accounted for your dad’s keeper? High level of testosterone? I
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 56:49
think he’s very, how do I say this? I don’t want to say yoga, ask, he’s a very spiritual guy, he really feels everything is going to work out. So his level of stress is non existent. And you know, he meditates for four or five hours a day, the Lord, I know, I’m like, Dad, how boring is that? He’s like, you know, get it together, tells me to get it together.
Mark Divine 57:12
That sounds kind of nice. I’m not sure what your family would think about that. If you Well,
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 57:16
my dad wasn’t always that way. He went to Wharton, actually, he graduated thirdness Class President, the captain of the wrestling team, all those things he’s very high achieving. And I think that that stress really affected his health and wellness. And he went to the other extreme, and for the last decade, he’s been living in Ecuador. And your original question is, why do you think he is so vital? And has the blood markers that balance? Yeah, because he’s completely living in a way that is really close to nature, and harmony. And he also will tell me that, you know, I couldn’t do that right now. Right. So I am, you know, building a very successful practice, which I love. And I have, and I have two very little children and a husband in medical school that that, for me to step out of society in that way, or for the majority of the people that we know, to step out of society wouldn’t be realistic.
Mark Divine 58:10
Yeah, the more realistic approach is to nudge society into that direction. Good luck, which is, yeah, but you know, again, if we scale consciousness, which we are that you’re working on, which we can do together, and we have the capacity to do that with technology, and internet and 5g, and, you know, lo and behold, all these things that the consumer giants are just salivating over, we can use to transform consciousness and to get people to think well, it is a good idea to live close to the Earth and be more unbalanced and, you know, eat less and to eat higher quality proteins and exercise by getting out of the car meaning walking to work or riding your bike and, and then these little communities will grow around that about how do we get our children back to the nature that we live closer to the earth. I even think psychedelics are part of that because people have that unity experience, and then suddenly, they’re like, oh, man, why have I been killing myself? I’m here. It’s not doing me any good. The great resignation is a good example of what’s happening, people are starting to question the old paradigms, not serving anymore, you know, yes, not serving us individually nor as a global population. So I agree, I think that we’ll be moving the right direction. I really appreciate the work that you’re doing I think is fascinating and extremely valuable. So and you have a book coming out once once that
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:24
manuscript will be do I turn that manuscript in in six months?
Mark Divine 59:29
Okay, so still while I’m still a while back on when we get blasted out there and um, but where can people learn more about your work?
Dr. Gabrielle Lyon 59:37
Yeah, they can go to my website, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, okay. They can find me on Instagram, too. If they go to my website, they can apply to be a patient more if they have a someone that already knows someone in the practice referral is best and Instagram Dr. Gabrielle Lyon and my youtube channel I’m growing and doing a lot of education on the ads view, and then newsletter which I VAT and I send Research things that are interesting or, for example, this podcast will be in my newsletter. Nice. And that’s where they can find me. All right, and that said your website? Yeah, Dr. Gabrielle Lyon or Instagram or YouTube also, I will put all this in the shades too. Thank you so much for having me.
Mark Divine 1:00:13
Yeah. Thanks, Gabriela. It’s great to see you. Great to chat and appreciate you. Who Yeah, who Yeah. Well, that was awesome. Thank you Gabriela. Dr. Gabrielle Lyons, I love talking to you. And I super appreciate everything you’ve always done for me. shownotes and transcripts will be on our site, Mark Divine calm, and there’ll be a video going up on our YouTube channel. I’m also on Twitter. If you want to find me at real Mark Divine on Instagram and Facebook. You can always hit me up on my LinkedIn account. If you want to suggest a guest or if you’ve just got feedback, or you want to send me a note, especially shout out to my awesome team, Jason Sanderson, Geoff Haskell, Michels Arctic, and Amy Berkowitz, who helped produce this amazing podcast helped me align up incredible guests like Dr. Lyon, and produce this show every week. I also love to get reviews, it really helps everyone find it. So please continue to review the show or review the show if you haven’t, and share it with your friends. It is critical in 2022, as we head into this year that we take care of ourselves, we up our game. And that just doesn’t mean getting fit again. It means cultivating our compassion and our courage, learn skills such as nonviolent communication, conflict resolution, learning how to build teams of individuals who thrive on creative energy, and positivity, and are eager to tackle some of the many problems that we face in the world. But all of it starts with ourselves must be the change we want to see in the world. Become a light for others. So thanks again, Gabriele. And thank you for being here for me in 2021. Really appreciate that. And I’m wishing everyone a very happy and healthy New Year, and an incredible start to 2022. Let this be a year filled with courage, compassion and purpose.
