Extend Podcast with Darshan Shah, MD

What if the fatigue, brain fog, low energy, and other symptoms we associate with getting older actually begin much deeper—at the level of our cells?

I've followed Dr. Will Cole's work for years, and his approach to gut health and functional medicine played an important role in my own health journey. Now he's taking that conversation one step further with his new book, Heal Your Cells, exploring what's happening inside our cel...

What if medicine could do more than manage disease—and actually help the body repair itself?

Regenerative medicine is moving quickly, but the world of stem cells, PRP, exosomes, and cellular therapies can be incredibly confusing. In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Wiggers to separate what we can do today from what may be coming next.

We start with the basics: what stem cells actually are, how PRP and orthobiologics wor...

What if your eyesight is 20/20—but your vision still isn't working the way it should?

Dr. Bryce Appelbaum specializes in functional vision and the connection between the eyes and the brain. In this conversation, he explains why seeing clearly is only one piece of vision—and how the brain's ability to process what we see can influence reading, focus, coordination, balance, motion sickness, athletic performance, and every...

What happens when optimizing your health starts taking over your life?

Ben Greenfield has spent decades at the forefront of biohacking, fitness, human performance, and longevity—testing the technologies, tracking the biomarkers, competing at an elite level, and pushing his body to its limits. But after years of relentless self-optimization, he realized something important: living longer means very little if the pursuit of lon...

What if the fatigue, brain fog, inflammation, or unexplained symptoms you're experiencing aren't starting inside your body—but in the environment around you?

Dr. Jill Carnahan knows this story from both sides of the exam room. At just 25, while still in medical school, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Months after aggressive chemotherapy, she was diagnosed with Crohn's disease. Her search for answers ultimately transform...

Walk into any supplement aisle—or scroll through social media—and you'll find thousands of products promising better energy, performance, brain health, and longevity. But which supplements actually work? And how do you know what's really inside them?

My guest is Jeff Byers, a former NFL athlete and the co-founder of Momentous, a performance nutrition company built around rigorous standards for supplement quality, sourci...

What if the reason you're still sick isn't because there's no answer—but because no one has looked deeply enough for the root cause?

My guest, Dr. Mark Hyman, is one of the world's leading voices in functional medicine, a bestselling author, physician, and founder of The UltraWellness Center. After navigating serious health challenges himself, he built his career around a different approach to chronic illness: stop simply nam...

What if ADHD isn't just an attention problem—but also a problem of emotional regulation?

My guest, Dr. Sasha Hamdani, is a board-certified psychiatrist, ADHD specialist, author, and someone who has lived with ADHD herself. She brings a unique perspective to a part of ADHD that often gets overlooked: emotional sensitivity.

We explore why some people feel emotions faster, more deeply, and for longer—and what's actually ha...

What if your risk of Alzheimer's isn't predetermined by your genes—but influenced by the metabolic health of your brain?

My guest, Dr. David Perlmutter, is a board-certified neurologist, six-time New York Times bestselling author, and one of the world's leading voices on brain health and neurodegenerative disease. His latest work reveals a fascinating shift in how we understand Alzheimer's and Parkinson's: the role of the bra...

What if the biggest mistake we're making with gut health is treating the microbiome like a list of bacteria instead of a living ecosystem?

Your gut is home to trillions of microorganisms that influence inflammation, metabolism, immune function, hormones, brain health, and longevity. But modern life—from ultra-processed foods and antibiotics to pesticides, chronic stress, and inadequate fiber—may be systematically stripp...

What if one of the most important markers for your heart, brain, and longevity is something most people have never measured? AND roughly 90% of Americans aren't in the optimal range for? 

In this episode, I sit down with Dr. William Harris, one of the world's leading experts on Omega-3 fatty acids and the co-inventor of the Omega-3 Index, a test he helped develop more than 20 years ago. Dr. Harris has spent decades researching...

What if aging isn't something you simply accept - but something you can measure, predict, and even reverse? 

Most of us are told our lab work is "normal," yet chronic disease often develops silently for years before symptoms appear. Dr. Florence Comite, one of the world's leading pioneers in precision medicine, is explaining why conventional medicine often misses the earliest signs of diesease- and how personalized data can co...

We're living in a culture that celebrates being busy. More coffee. More hours. More hustle. But what if those things are actually making you less productive? 

The truth is, many high performers are stuck in a cycle of chasing energy instead of creating it. We rely on caffeine to wake up, push through stress, and squeeze more into each day - only to end up burned out, distracted, and wondering why success still feels exhausting...

Hashimotos isn't just a thyroid disease-it may actually begin in the gut. 

If you've been told your thyroid labs are "normal" but you still struggle with fatigue, bloating, constipation, IBS, or autoimmune symptoms, this episode could change the way you think about your health. 

I sit down with Dr. Izabella Wentz, PharmD-better known as the Thyroid Pharmacist and one of the world's leading experts on Hashimoto's disease -...

A leader's unresolved pain rarely stays contained within that leader. It can show up as control, aggression, emotional distance, relentless pressure, or a workplace where people are treated as resources rather than human beings. The organization may still perform, but the cost is often carried by employees, families, customers, and the leader's own health.

In this episode of Extend, I sit down with Raj Sis...

I have operated on patients whose bodies had been sending them warning signals for years before a crisis ever put them in front of me. Stress alone causes or worsens more than 80 percent of the illness I see, and most of it traces back to one skill almost nobody was ever taught: how to actually listen to their own body.

We dive deeper into this in the Extend Podcast with Dr. Neha Sangwan. We also chat abou...

Millions of people wear a CPAP machine every night, the standard breathing device prescribed for sleep apnea. They trust the number on the screen to tell them their sleep apnea is under control. I've had patients tell me they stopped using theirs because it felt pointless, and it turns out that feeling was often correct.

We dive deeper into this in this episode of Extend with Dr. Sahil Chopra and Sagar Cho...

For most people, an ADHD diagnosis, an anxiety diagnosis, or a depression diagnosis is made entirely from a symptom checklist. No one looks at the brain producing those symptoms.

In this episode, I sit down with Rachel and Angie, co-founders of BrainCode Centers, to talk about quantitative EEG brain mapping and neurofeedback, and why measuring the brain's actual electrical activity changes the picture so o...

A lot of people do not need to be convinced that the stairs are better than the escalator, walking is better than sitting all day, and reaching for the phone every quiet second is probably not helping their focus. The harder question is why the easier option still wins so often, even when someone cares about their health. This episode starts there, with the strange gap between what we know is good for us and what moder...