June 17, 2025 • 52 mins
In this episode, Matt Tack and Dr. Alfred Alessi chat with Dr. Dan Cooper about aging and ballistic capacity. They explore Health Decoded, the Alessi Total Care Program, and Dr. Cooper's journey with RadHealth. Topics include functional medicine, neurology, and America's health crisis, focusing on sun exposure and vitamin D. They critique symptom suppression, discuss autoimmune diseases, lifestyle factors, genetic testing, and emphasize patient self-management and fetal health. The episode examines food regulations, societal control, and redefines health metrics. Dr. Cooper shares insights on aging, tendon health, and more, concluding with RadHealth podcast details and health advice.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
With aging, sprinting is one of those
(00:02):
things if you don't keep it up, if
you don't keep, you know, ballistic capacity upin your tendons, tendons will get fragile and
and you won't be able to.
And then your your chances of ruptures go up.
And then you ever notice when you look atsomebody moving around and somebody looks old
versus somebody who looks youthful?
Yeah.
It's it's more about like their bounce and
Welcome to Health Decode, your number onesource for real health information with your
(00:26):
host, doctor Alessi and Matt Tack.
Hey, Health Decoded listeners.
Doctor Alessi here.
Let me ask you a serious question.
Are you tired of waiting until something goeswrong to finally see a doctor?
At Alessi Functional Health, we take adifferent approach, the right approach.
(00:46):
We believe true health care isn't about chasingsymptoms.
It's about preventing them in the first place.
That's why we created the Alessi Total CareProgram.
This is a functional medicine based membershipthat gives you proactive, personalized care
year round.
You'll get access to comprehensive blood workand functional testing, custom doctor grade
(01:09):
nutraceuticals, deep discounts on labs,protocols, and follow ups, as well as twenty
four seven direct access to your doctor, notjust a ten minute checkup that ends with
another prescription.
And here's the best part.
As a Health Decoded listener, you'll get yourfirst three months completely free when you
(01:29):
sign up for an annual membership.
That's on top of hundreds in savings alreadybuilt into the program.
This is your chance to take responsibility foryour health and join a movement that's
redefining what primary care should look like.
Head on over to alessifunctionalhealth.com,click on our services tab, and go to Total
Care.
Learn more about this program and claim yourexclusive podcast listener offer.
(01:54):
Your health is your greatest asset.
Let's protect it proactively.
Welcome back to another episode of healthdecoded, the show where we cut through the
noise and decode what it actually takes to livebetter, longer.
The goal is to empower you with knowledge andpractical tools to take back control of your
health from a system designed to keep you sick.
(02:16):
And today, I've got an incredible guest joiningme, doctor Dan Cooper, the founder of RadHealth
and the host of the RadHealth podcast.
Dan and I are on the same mission and thatmission is to change the narrative of modern
medicine.
We're not here for band aids we're here forblueprints and today we're talking about all
things proactive health.
(02:36):
Why is this country so sick who's profitingfrom us being so sick and really how real
healing begins from within.
Little fun story Dan was actually one of myprofessors in chiropractic school so this guy
is full of knowledge and full of great insightand I'm really excited to have you on the show
Dan thanks for joining us.
Thanks appreciate you have me.
(02:56):
Yes Sir well why don't we start with this maybetell a little bit about your story kind of what
led you in your life to get into health andalternative health.
And become a chiropractor and that kind ofthing.
You know, my story is maybe not as direct as alot of other people's with chiropractics.
It seems like a lot of chiropractors have a Igot hurt and I went to Cairo and I had this
(03:20):
great, wonderful story.
And so I took the professional path.
Mine, I was really just a competitive kid.
I always wanted an edge.
And I always had a very strong synergistic ideaabout where we exist in the world and natural
systems and stuff like that.
And I always even when I was a little kid, it'sweird.
I remember being very young and not vibing withthe allopathic model of pharmaceuticals.
(03:45):
So I was like, man, I don't know how I knewthese things, but I'm thinking like, man,
they're altering a single pathway inphysiology.
I probably didn't know those but it doesn'tseem like it's accounting for how things work
together.
And so there's always my way of being morenatural systems kind of guy.
But I grew up in normal Western medicinehouseholds, so I didn't know what else to do.
(04:09):
It was kind of tough actually from thatstandpoint where I didn't know of alternatives
as a profession.
I knew I should be a doctor of some kind, butif I don't like the model the doctors work
under, what do I do?
When I was around 25, I had found out aboutchiropractic and I learned, I don't even know
(04:30):
if it was Google at that time.
I'm 45 now, so whatever that was twenty yearsago.
And I found out about the scope of practice forchiropractic.
I thought, oh, damn, they could do pretty muchall the stuff that I wanna do.
They can't do the things that I don't wanna do.
This perfect.
And that was kind of my find out aboutchiropractic story.
(04:51):
But where I've gone with chiropractic sincethen, I've had a pretty heavy emphasis on
functional medicine and functional neurology inmost of my time as being at chiro.
Functional medicine was really, had a loved onewho had diabetes, so I went to a functional
medicine course, and I thought, this reallyresonates with me.
(05:13):
Finding just better testing, more completetesting, looking for patterns within the
testing to determine how a system isfunctioning and then use natural means to
correct it.
This sounds awesome.
And so I really resonated with functionalmedicine and I really thought like this is the
way that healthcare needs to go.
Mainstream healthcare should be a functionalmedicine mainstream, not the allopathic
(05:36):
mainstream in my thoughts.
Emergency medicine is one thing, but for healthgeneration, I think it's the way to go.
And the
neurology stuff came from was in the army foreight years and when I was in Iraq, I had a
bunch of blast injuries.
And then when I got home, it's funny, I gotblast injuries, none of which actually knocked
(05:58):
me out.
They were like mild traumatic brain injurylevel concussive blasts.
I didn't actually get knocked out, but comehome and I got in a freaking ATV accident and
woke up in the hospital.
So series of blast injuries, then a gnarly ATVaccident in Cairo school actually.
And I thought, man, there's a lot of deficitsthat are extremely noticeable and I don't like
(06:20):
this.
So I pursued functional neurology as soon as Icould keep a thought in my head for more than
five minutes.
Yeah.
The recovery was, you know, it's tough afterTBI.
And, yeah, so I jumped into Kerik's functionalneurology program and loved it.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I did a couple of those courses as wellwith Carrick Institute really good man.
(06:43):
While I was in school as well.
And yeah, you know, the functional neurologypiece is so cool because it's like you can
reset the connections right between the brainand the muscle or the brain and the systems.
It's just a matter of like how are you gettingthe interference out of the way and that's
ultimately what we do with chiropractic withfunctional medicine, the body I always tell
every patient I'm like your body is meant toheal its healing right now as we're talking.
(07:06):
How do we get it out of its own way?
How do we remove the interference, right?
The junk, which is a lot of times like toxins,you know, exposure to chemicals, mold, whatever
is built up that's preventing your body fromdoing its job.
And that's where functional medicine comes intoplay ultimately.
So you know, you're a professor for a while aswell.
And now you're kind of shifting gears, I think,into back into practice, right?
(07:28):
And you've got your podcast rolling and stuff.
So that's awesome, man.
That's exciting.
And I know you said your story, but there was aconnection there to like a loved one, right?
Had some kind of an illness or disease and youfelt some passion from that.
Doctor.
Right.
Yeah, that's the it was my mom actually.
She was type two diabetic.
Didn't know it.
(07:49):
You could tell.
But
there was never a diagnosis.
And I've noticed that with patients too alongthe way that without something objective, it's
been harder to convince somebody to dosomething.
And when you have objective results in theirface and says, This is what you have because of
(08:09):
these numbers, a lot of people jump on boardbetter.
So that's one the things that actually I'veappreciated from the functional medicine side
of things is that there's lot of testing.
And when you have the testing, there'sobjective results that kind of convince people,
Damn, I do need to do something about this.
And that's been helpful.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's everything we do in our clinic aswell as we test, don't guess.
(08:30):
It's like how many times I see somebody come inthere like, yeah, just started taking this
supplement.
I'm like, yeah, what made you want to somebodytold me it was good for me.
It's like, maybe, right?
Maybe, like maybe you're filling some gaps.
Maybe you don't need it, right?
But if you don't test, you ultimately don'tknow.
So, the body's meant again, there's equilibriumthat's meant to be had and there are
deficiencies that I think are just sopredominant with like vitamin D, magnesium
(08:53):
that's based on again, like environmentalfactors, right?
We're not like genetically low on these things.
It's the environment we live in is full oftoxic burden and it's just taken us out.
So, you know, that's a good segue, I think,into kind of the first thing I would really
want to get into is like, why, in your opinion,do you think America is so sick?
Or why is this country at an all time high inchronic disease, obesity and all these things?
(09:17):
I think it's very multifaceted.
I don't want to hit the low hanging fruitfirst.
I think the sedentary nature of our populationis so destructive.
That's where every technology that comes out,it seems like it is to make our life easier.
(09:37):
Well, easier means lazier and less healthy.
So I think the sedentary nature of ourlifestyle is one of the main factors.
Obviously, the the low hanging fruit that I wasavoiding first is the food system.
The food system is so bereft with a toxic shitstorm that is it's tough it's tough to deal
with, you know?
And, it's not even just the food system, butmean, you want to get into like, we're getting
(10:00):
Bill Gates wants to block out the sun byspraying chemicals in the sky and turns out
they've been doing it for six to five yearsanyway for weather modification.
And so we're exposed to so many things in ourenvironment.
I don't remember what the status or the numberfor how many new chemicals are allowed into our
environment, whether it's water supply, foodsupply, whatever, every year.
(10:24):
And it's already a staggering number to startwith.
So we're really you're fighting an uphillbattle, especially if you're not aware and
you're just kinda rolling with the way normalgoes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I I think that's you know, it's like thecat's out of the bag now.
Right?
Nobody thinks that our country is, like,thriving.
We're we know that we're all super unhealthy,and there's Yeah.
(10:46):
Right?
Like, the outlier are the guys like us who,like, you take your shirt off at the beach and
you have a six pack.
People are like, woah.
Look at that guy.
It's like, dude, we all used to look like that,right?
Like, should all look like Yeah, exactly.
It's unfortunate.
And so, you know, again, like the rise of allthese chronic conditions, autoimmunity, things
that like in the past, dude, even you go backfifty years were not were non existent, right?
(11:08):
Like, those were rare conditions, and now theyare like the comp they're the norm, right?
So prevalent.
Of norm, yeah.
And so, I mean, without getting super like woowoo conspiracy because I could, we could
probably go there but you know I I do thinkthere's a bit of an agenda right if not a lot
of an agenda and some of it can be seen in likethe.
(11:29):
The basic thing and I talk about this all thetime like the breakfast is the most important
meal of the day that entire thing came out oflike a Kellogg's marketing ploy to get people
to eat their cereal right because this sugarycereal is supposed to somehow be your most
important meal of the day.
People used to not eat breakfast like breakfastwas just like you know you go until you got
hungry with midday you'd have a nice likehearty meal, right?
(11:50):
So again, just the
standard was an intermittent fast.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Or even like before that, like our ancestorswould go days without eating until they killed
something and ate it.
And so it's like, and
then they gorge for a while and then theybitten for a while.
That metabolic flexibility piece that comesfrom that feast and famine component.
Don't know if you know Doctor.
Dan Pompa talks about that all the time, right?
The feast and famine and it's I kind of live inthat realm and like there's days where I'll
(12:14):
like be more active and I'm like man, I'mhungry.
I'm going eat a little bit more today andthere's days where I'm just doing mental tasks
and I actually rather not eat because thatfrees up some capacity for me to have more
Yeah, clarity.
Exactly, man.
So, you know yeah.
You have something to say?
I did.
Yeah.
You mentioned, you kinda passed by vitamin dquickly, and I, not that I think you should
(12:37):
have stopped at it, but I just did I just shota a podcast recently about and this is kinda
dive into the fear mongering that goes alongwith just the normal advice that's given.
And to be afraid of the sun is one of thosethings.
And so I did a podcast, and I've I've, youknow, threw a little cute quip in there about,
you know, make America shirtless again.
(12:57):
That's awesome.
Because I'm that dude.
I'm like that weird dude.
It's like around the neighborhood with no shirton.
And it's only weird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because people don't do it, but it should beweird.
And I'm not I'm doing it creepy.
I'm just, you know, I'm trying to create somevitamin D in my skin, you know?
That's right.
And from the fear standpoint, we're always toldthat the sun's going to kill us and you're
going get skin cancer.
(13:18):
But it's one of those things that there's justa natural, available stimulus that reduces our
chances of a host of other cancers.
And the only increase in cancer risk for skinis if you get burned and typically burned
repetitively.
So if you mitigate your exposure such that youdon't get burned, then it's actually a health
(13:40):
benefiting exposure to be in the sun.
So advice to just I've heard this before too.
Somebody will, hey, do you have your SPF ontoday?
Like, that's it's like, do you have your sockson?
I'm like,
do you have your SPF?
Jesus Christ.
No, I don't have my SPF on.
Going go specifically not have it on, get ahealthful glow and produce vitamin D and be
(14:03):
healthier for it.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so good.
And again, man, it's like the fear, right?
The fear component.
And who stands to profit behind that?
Probably sunscreen companies, right?
They sell a ton of this Sure.
Like you had alluded to earlier, look at thesunscreen companies, the companies, who are the
companies?
And you have the pharmaceutical companies whoalso own at least the big food companies.
(14:26):
That's right.
And so they've got this cute little revolvingdoor of make them sick or get a drug to patch
the sick.
And oh, you got six side effects that go alongwith this drug.
Cool.
We have more drugs for that too.
And it's just a money stipend out of thepopulation.
It is a fantastic business model, right?
Like future forever customer.
(14:48):
Right?
Like, they need your product because you gotthem sick on your other products.
Right?
So it's Yeah.
It's man.
Yeah.
Convince them that they need your product.
Yeah.
Your product, you convince them that they thatthey need your product.
And I mean, you can take it a level deeper andsay that it's indoctrinated very young, into
our kids.
It's like, kinda just like, what they tell you.
Go to get your wellness checkup and like, dude,my kids are four and they are like the
(15:11):
healthiest little guys you ever seen in yourlife.
Zero shots, zero.
They've had antibiotics once in their life whenit was like they had a RSV virus, right?
And I got that point that antibiotics doesn'tdo anything anyway, but nothing bro.
Like they don't take medicine like they take, Igive them honey and ginger and garlic when they
have a little sniffle.
Do they knock it out like that?
(15:31):
Also and I think their mom puts a little bitmore on them with sunscreen.
I don't put sunscreen on them.
Just limit the exposure.
I'm like, Hey, take your shirt off like we'regoing to run around in the park for
fifteen-twenty minutes.
You build up that base where your body cantolerate it, right?
And so it's like, even if they get a little redthe next day they're good.
And I'm the same way and I actually likethrowing this in here when we have the
(15:53):
conversation about the sun and vitamin D andsunburn.
There's a couple hacks, and people don't knowthis when you wear sunglasses, and maybe you've
heard this maybe you haven't.
When you wear sunglasses, it's actuallyblocking your optic nerve from taking in that
like those UV rays, you're more likely to getburned.
I don't wear sunglasses because then my eyesare actually pulling in those UV rays, right?
(16:14):
They're accepting that, and my body knows tonow produce the melanin to tan rather than
burn.
And then another cool little hack is there's anantioxidant called astaxanthin.
If you take astaxanthin, it actually helps youtan better as well.
So I do those two things.
Astaxanthin is just a great antioxidant forlike daily anyway.
It like for free radical cleanup and all thatkind of stuff.
(16:36):
But those two things dude, I'm out in the sunevery single day shirt off, run around like and
I don't get sunburned.
That's interesting because I had kind offorgotten about AskAnthony in that context, but
I have in the past taken it when I knew that Icouldn't limit my exposure as much as I wanted
to.
I was like, damn, I'm going to be out doingthis and I want something.
(16:56):
So I actually took that.
And also, you can find shade.
You can create shade.
There's a closed door.
Closure shade, right?
It had a Right.
And if you have to throw on something that youwant to put on your skin because whatever, you
can't put on the clothes, you're in the water,whatever it is.
They have mineral sunblocks that are reflectiveinstead of the chemical sunscreens that are
carcinogenic.
So you have other options.
(17:16):
Yeah.
The stuff that sits on the skin rather thansoaks into the skin.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the probably why people, you know, theydon't like it as much because you kinda look
all like pasty white and but they have somethat are tinted now.
So it's not as as Right.
Yeah.
I mean, my yeah.
I agree with you.
My biggest thing is like, I'll I'll just limitthe time.
Right?
Like, I'll plan.
Like, it's yeah.
If you're gonna be out at the beach all daylong, bring an umbrella, go sit under the
(17:39):
umbrella every now and then and get like alittle break, you know?
It's that prolonged hours and hours and hourswhere, yeah, you're either going to get burnt
or something is going to obviously occur there.
I did find a bunch of research on frequency ofexposure as well when I was rabbit holing like
I do on things.
Regular intermittent or not regular moderateexposure is better than regular or intermittent
(18:04):
moderate exposure.
So it's like that don't it's that building abase kind of concept.
You get a little you get that erythemal dose,your body builds to it.
Right.
Another little dose, your body builds to it,versus you get here, your body builds to it, it
starts to drop again, then you get whackedagain with you know, a higher intensity of sun.
So it's, that regular keep the make Americashow this again.
(18:28):
That concept is actually the healthier way togo than admit and exposure.
Yeah.
And it I mean, it's the same with a lot ofthings.
You don't just go into the gym and startsquatting 500 pounds you have to build up to
that
day.
Yeah
you got to get in there and get some reps getsome fund fundamental stability and then yes
you can start adding in that that naturaladaptation response will occur our body
(18:49):
functions in many ways with that same it's thesame with chiropractic care too, right?
First time someone gets like an adjustment,maybe they've never had one, their neck might
be kind of sore or pain, you know.
But then the body starts to pick it up and youstart to stabilize and obviously get results.
Yeah, you know, think that's the biggest thingis like, I think people, this just kind of
popped in my head.
(19:09):
People don't know what health looks likeanymore because there's even those people out
there that look jacked, look you know, andthey're spouting all this stuff.
Then like on their blood work are unhealthy,right?
Like if you were to run a panel on them, you'dlike dude, you're about to have a heart attack.
And I actually just knew a guy who was likethat and it's his coronary artery score was
like he was like 90% blockage and he's cut up.
(19:29):
He's a bit older, but he's like, you know, helooks like you'd be like man, this guy takes
care of himself.
The internal is more important to me than Iguess the external.
But the external tends to be almost like adisplay of of internal health too.
Right?
Right.
It's what you see.
And since you can't see the inside, people justaccept what they see on the outside.
Yeah.
(19:49):
Yeah.
That's right.
Well, let's do this, man.
Obviously, we kind of touched on this and thethe they the the they keeping us all in the
sick realm.
But it's like, you know, again, it's it's asystem designed to create what we call like
what you said like the revolving door ofpatients just coming in coming in, you've been
(20:10):
told to listen to the doc, but then the docspends two minutes with you and just says, Hey,
take this medicine.
Doesn't even really tell you what's going on.
They kind of just give you something to take,right?
Also, unfortunately, they might not knowbecause they haven't been given any sort of
what creates health.
Most of medical school is about how to suppressphysiology for various reasons, to suppress
(20:34):
symptoms or whatever the case may be.
Let's go there.
Keep going.
Generate health.
Do they have answers for them that they couldgive?
Unless they've done outside education, theyprobably don't.
Yeah.
And so, you know, a great example is you go toan MD or a Western Med doc with an autoimmune
condition, they put you on immune suppressingdrugs.
Doctor.
Right.
(20:54):
Now, let me rephrase that, right?
They, your immune system is already suppressedand attacking itself.
They want to suppress it more.
That's and then those people get out of thereand now they just are sick every day.
They're getting these minor infections thatlike are taking them out, right?
A little cold from their kid.
Work, but now they've shut off their immunesystem.
Exactly.
And so, it's like the opposite should be like,wait, how do we rebuild the immune system?
(21:17):
How do we fix the problem?
And that goes into like, what is the rootcause, right?
And we talk about that all the time.
I think even that phrase now is getting watereddown like root cause medicine.
But essentially, like the prime example I use,because I've seen this time and time and time
again, I mean, feel like I get a new patientfor this every week, some kind of autoimmune
thing, whether it's like an eczema or anarthritis or psoriasis, right?
(21:39):
Or even like a full blown like Hashimoto's, theroot cause of that, okay?
Like those things didn't just start, somethingtriggered that.
So then, you know, some docs might say, theroot cause was like a leaky gut or like some
kind of permeability in the gut.
But like what was the root cause of that?
Right?
You gotta keep going.
Yeah, what's your lifestyle?
Chronic stress?
Like you're so fried plus you're eating XYZlike fast food all the time.
(22:03):
That's a root cause lifestyle.
So, you know, lifestyle medicine.
Have you ever messed around with SNP testing?
I have done a little bit, but I can't say I'msuper deep into it.
So, some people might say that's a root causebecause that's so SNP just stands for a single
nucleotide polymorphism.
It just means a single, ATGC, the littlenucleotides on a gene, one is wrong.
(22:30):
And so you have a slightly altered action ofthat gene.
And so that's the susceptibility.
But really, it's not the root cause.
The susceptibility doesn't mean you have it.
It means it's easier for you to get it.
So it's still the lifestyle that is the rootcause of the problem even if there's a SNP
involved.
Yeah.
It just means if you know about that, you canaccount for it with whatever action it is that
(22:51):
would account for that.
Yeah.
I just wanted to mention that.
I didn't know if you're into the sniff testingor not.
Yeah.
No.
I've read some good stuff on it.
There's a cool book called dirty genes, doctorBen Great book because he wrote it in a way
that could take someone who's not a doctor likeus, who has no idea about genetics and genetic
code and they could understand it and itbasically yeah super super easy to read but he
(23:15):
explains like there's different types of snipsthat can lead to they can predispose you to
stuff it's not a 100% right so you have this,you get this, but it's like you might be more
predisposed to, right?
Maybe cardiac things if you have like an NO3snip, right?
Where your body's not producing that nitricoxide in the blood as much because nitric oxide
dilates blood vessels and all that, right?
(23:35):
And so, knowing those things is really cool andthere are some good tests you can do.
I'd say that's something I've dabbled in a bit.
However, we lean more on like the comprehensivetesting for hormones and gut and that's a
little bit more of like what we deal with.
But it is something we help patients with thebiggest one I think I see is I do like to throw
in like an MTHFR test a lot.
(23:57):
If someone comes in with a lot of like chemicalsensitivities or they've been exposed to mold
and heavy metals and we're going to detox them.
I'm like I need to know how well your bodydetoxes so let's see what the NTHF looks like.
And then we're going to like support that alongthe process too.
Because that's a big one, and that's supercommon I have.
I have like a 75% allele to that.
(24:21):
My kid's mom has like the 25% so you knowthey're already set up to be like fifty percent
right ish like if that's like the way thatworks so.
So yeah, you know supporting that with themethylated vitamins.
But luckily, to easy to mitigate.
Doctor.
Very easy.
Yeah.
You just gotta know.
Doctor.
But again, there's the knowledge piece thatlike a lot of people don't know and then
they're they're Western Med docs is oh yeah,just go take a like a B vitamin, and it's folic
(24:42):
acid, which makes the methylating process worsebecause the folic acid doesn't bind properly
and blocks it rather than opening it, you know.
And so there's like all these, these justmissed things that they that's not understood.
So, again, this the whole concept of thispodcast, man, is to educate people so that they
can, they can make these decisions forthemselves and ultimately like have, I call it
(25:04):
the home doctor kit.
Give every patient like a kind of a guide onthis, like, hey, if you're doing functional
medicine or any kind of program with us, you'rein control, right?
You show up to your appointments, you make thedecision to do this.
I'm just going to guide you.
I'm like the wise old wizard.
You're the hero, right?
You're the guy who's attacking the monster.
I'm just a little dude like, Oh, no, don't gothat way.
So, you
know, but like the home doctor kid is like,Okay, like what is your blood work show you
(25:27):
that you should have?
And then like, are you taking your bloodpressure regularly?
Are you checking your pulse oxalate?
These kind of things that you can just have inyour home to make more educated decisions, you
know?
Mhmm.
Yeah.
So, you know, again, it's do you have do youwanna get a point on that?
Yeah.
Your kids being so healthy.
And I'm a 16 old right now.
I guess she's almost 17.
(25:48):
But for the last probably fifteen years, I'vehad a really strong interest in fetal
optimization.
So the things that you could do preconceptionthrough gestation to optimize the ceiling for
your kid's potential.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's so unthought of in thegeneral population that that ceiling is
(26:11):
inadvertently lowered.
They just don't have the capacity to hit apotential how high could it be.
It's not not as high as it could be because ofthings that they've done along the way.
And so I it's one of things that's kinda likein my my passion zone right now.
One, because I have the kid.
And Yeah.
He's freaking awesome.
Like, you're saying the kids are kicking ass.
(26:31):
Like, damn.
I'm so impressed all the time, especially whenI see around other kids that are her age or
even a little older.
I'm like, man, you're doing great, girl.
Yeah.
And again, that passion gets bred for I like,Dude, my kids are brilliant.
Like, and, you know, it's part of that I willattribute to like, we were super dialed in on
their like first foods.
Like, for like, probably the first year whenthey started eating solid food, it was like
(26:54):
eggs with a lot more egg yolk than white.
It was avocados, bone marrow, like we're givingthese little pastes that they would just like,
dude crush.
And so it's like their brains are filled withthese like healthy saturated fats that have
just built it up, you know.
And yeah, choline like the biggest source ofcholine is those egg yolks.
If but if you don't know, like you said before,if you don't know, then you can't do anything
about
it.
(27:14):
Well, people are giving them the little ricepuffs that's got nothing in it.
They're like, loves these rice puffs.
I'm like, that is cardboard.
But yeah, you know, so that's a great point.
And so I'll kind of share a little bit and Idon't I don't think I've ever even like told
this on the podcast, but my I'm not with my mykids mom, but she had a miscarriage prior to
the twins being born.
(27:35):
So, the way that that was handled really dude,it made me sick, the way it was handled by the
OB in the hospital system.
They said, Oh, like, because I knew a littlebit about like MTHFR and how that can lead to,
you know, neural tube defects and miscarriageor even predisposed.
And so, I asked the doc, was like, Hey, whatabout like running an MTHFR test?
(27:55):
Like, would you guys do that?
They were like, The answer was, We don'tnormally do that until there's been like a
couple, like two or three miscarriages.
And I was like, Okay, so you're saying that sheneeds to go through the most traumatic thing
she's ever experienced two more times beforeyou're going to even test like a $50 test?
Anyway, I took it into my hands.
Was like, let's run this test outside.
We ran it.
She did have that you know that mutation in thegene that she was not methylating B vitamins.
(28:20):
Fully detoxed.
We did like did we did a ton of detoxing thatwe got her on this almost like an abundant
methylated B vitamin.
Plus choline like the list of things that wewere doing was like this long, but it was she
was so optimized she was so healthy going intothat.
Then here I go I have these.
Mean amazing twin boys like the twin thing wasjust a coincidence like that's just a statistic
(28:43):
right but anyway, like, they they even thembeing born, like, like, eight weeks early, they
were still so healthy, bro.
Like, they the only reason they wouldn't let usleave the NICU was because they weren't four
pounds yet.
They were, like, under four pounds, the carseats only hold four pounds.
Like, they were like, these people are good togo.
They're tiny.
I was like, alright, like, you know, and sosince then, it's just been like, again, like,
(29:03):
they're they're showing that that health isfrom all the stuff that we did.
We were proactive about it.
We weren't.
And then the whole, like, formula system in thehospital too, they were like, well, they're
small, they need to be on this formula.
I looked at it, was like, oh, you mean thisbrown rice sugar?
They should be eating this.
Like, no, I'm cool.
We're not going to do that.
Where did you have them?
We were living in Colorado at the time.
(29:24):
Oh, okay.
So was in here in Tampa, they've they've got areally good milk bank system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we did some we had some donor colostrumand then, know, stuff like that that we were
able to supplement.
But we found a really good organic formula aswell that comes from Germany of all places.
Europe has way more restrictions.
(29:45):
And now this maybe shifts us back towards thatlike food conversation because look at like the
number of chemicals in the food in this countrythat are allowed that are banned in other
countries.
They don't even consider it, like like,something you would put in your body, like
petroleum.
It's in so many
like, just such a blatant slap in your face.
Like, this population is a bunch of idiots.
Yeah.
We can do whatever we want.
(30:07):
It's god.
It's frustrating.
It is, man.
It is.
And we saw, I think yeah.
Again, like, let's get a little conspiracyhere.
But we saw a big example of that with, theCOVID thing.
Right?
Is like, let's see what we can get away with.
Tell them all they need to wear masks and nowwear two masks.
And that's going to make you more safe.
Right?
And then watch each other eat each other alive.
That that was weird how, you know, neighborsare telling our neighbors and being it was it
(30:30):
got real weird.
Yeah.
It's like to create division within, right?
Within families and communities and stuff likethat.
Again
Implant of that mind virus as well as any othervirus with that.
That's right.
And ultimately, for a goal.
The goal is, you know, political and money andall that on the backside of that.
And maybe we'll maybe we'll cap Yeah.
(30:52):
Control for sure.
Right?
Like like, these people will do what we say.
So, you you know, let's let's segue a littlebit.
I'm loving this conversation, by the way.
You know, the whole model that you and I aretrying to create and trying to educate people
on is that like the what they call health careor like what the insurance company says your
(31:13):
health care, is really sick care.
They're managing a disease or they're managinghow sick you are.
But what are they doing for like health, right?
So like, this might be a cool question and itkind of just came to me.
But if you had to say like, what would yourmetrics of health be?
Right?
Like, we're both like functional docs and wewant to keep people as healthy as possible.
(31:35):
What things do you focus on as opposed to whatlike the sick care model would focus on?
So that's a good question to hit me on the spotwith with no prep.
But I will say, I think it would be easiestprobably for me to start with just physical
metrics.
And there would be capacity metrics.
(31:58):
So it would be VO2 max.
It would be as long as you're ambulatory, itwould be a, I mean, say a 400 meter sprint.
What is your time?
And you could even do some cardiovascularmeasures that are associated with it, like how
long does it take you to come down from theeffort and some measures like So I think some
(32:18):
capacity metrics like that would be reallyimportant.
I think markers, like blood markers know whatso what's coming to mind right now is things
like endogenous antioxidant systems and howwell they work.
(32:38):
And that doesn't And so some of that could bedietary oriented, it could be lifestyle
oriented.
So it's one that encompasses a lot of differentfactors that come into effect.
And when I say endogenous antioxidant systemsand why I care about them, you had mentioned
you're like that dude who is like, he's allshredded and he's got no blood flow.
(32:59):
90% of the antioxidant activity that occurs inyour body occurs via the endogenous antioxidant
systems, not the antioxidants that you eat.
So if I'm, you know, eating whatever I eat forvitamin C, I'm eating kiwis and stuff, and I'm
thinking I'm getting all these antioxidants, Imean, you are, but it only accounts for 10% of
the activity of antioxidant activity thathappens in your body.
So as long as your glutathione system, yoursuperoxide dismutase, your catalase, that is
(33:24):
all being recycled and functioning well, thenyou have a good antioxidant activity happening
in your body.
And if you don't, so much goes wrong.
Just glutathione from a single standpoint, it'syour master antioxidant, but it's also got its
own detox pathway in your liver.
So if your glutathione is not being producedwell or recycled well, you're having trouble.
(33:45):
Yeah.
And so I think I would look at stuff like thaton top of my performance metrics that I would
use for
I love the performance metrics and that you ledwith that because most people gosh, I wish I
had the stat in front of me.
It was like I wanted to throw up because it waslike a high number like seventy five percent of
(34:05):
people will never like run or sprint again,right?
And I'm like, Geez, man, I'm sprint training atleast three days a week.
But like, I think what you said was the VO2max, maybe I'd add on that like HRV, which is
that variability of like, how quickly does myheart spike and then come back down and then
maintain and particularly like overnight likesleep HRV is huge.
How are we recovering and recycling?
(34:26):
And then like REM sleep tracking.
And then like the biggest one for me, I thinkmost I think pretty much every chronic disease,
cancer, like all these things are metabolic innature.
I think they all have a metabolic back to it.
So like those factors, right?
Like what is the cholesterol plus inflammationkind of combo as well as like blood sugar
(34:48):
balance and we focus a lot on like being likemetabolically flexible, like oh, you ate a meal
two hours ago, and then you like are crashingnow, like you're not metabolically flexible.
Your body is not prepared to go a time withoutsugar coming into it.
So probably an insulin pathway is messed up.
(35:08):
The pancreas is probably struggling.
Yeah, I love the metabolic conversation.
That was my start into functional medicine thediabetes.
So I love it's funny when I say that.
I used to say it to students too.
Might have said it when I was in your classthat I love diabetes, but I don't like
diabetes.
I mean, I like it as a condition to treatbecause type two is totally lifestyle oriented.
(35:30):
It's like, this is just a get rid of it becauseyou want to and you do the right stuff.
It's not like something is wrong enough to needany other inputs other than your own choices.
It's awesome.
And the things we can do just behaviorally toincrease insulin sensitivity, to decrease blood
glucose in the moment, you're so empowered tocontrol that conditionget rid of completely
(35:56):
that condition, provided there's no end tissuedeath.
Right.
But it's a full reversal.
It can be a full reversal provided you haven'talready gone blind or lost a limb or whatever
the end stage is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not regrowing legs, but we help peoplereverse type two diabetes all the time and like
going from like again like what's the referencerange and what where do they draw the line on
(36:20):
that because you'll go into the doctor's officeand you'll be like a you know hemoglobin a1c of
like a 5.1 and they're like oh you're good.
It's like, No, dude, you're like about to likepop, know what I mean?
Yeah, you're right there.
And that's the whole functional reference rangeconversation.
I have a graph in my office and it's like,Okay, like if this is your reference range that
you get from your MD, this is the functionalreference range.
(36:41):
Want to be in this category because if you'rebordering here high, bordering low, you're not
necessarily healthy or optimal, right?
And so it's just a matter of time somethingspills over.
Having that as your target to be optimal.
I wish there were more of what people caredabout because that as long as that's your
target, then you always have something to worktoward, which gives you motivation to work in
(37:02):
the right direction.
Continually, a
lot of people, you see those patients all thetime, they start feeling better.
They that's enough.
I'm done.
Yeah.
I'm done.
But they're not actually healed yet.
And, you know, the same thing is with people'sgoals.
So, like, why I I can do my daily tasks, but mydaily tasks are so non stressful or non
(37:24):
intensive that just because you can do yourdaily test, doesn't mean you're healthy.
Yeah.
So having an optimized focus in people's mindswould be a great societal shift to throw into
play.
Yeah.
And it's unfortunate because, again, peoplearen't kind of talked to like that.
They're like, yeah, you're good.
Just keep going doing your thing and when itbecomes a problem, come back and we'll get you
(37:46):
some more meds.
It's like, know, like most people don't make adecision like a major health decision till it's
something's gone wrong.
I mean, that's the nature of like what we seein the chiropractic side of our business as
well is that like, it's not until a herniateddisc that they come in.
It's like, if you would have got ahead of thislike three years ago, like we wouldn't even be
having this conversation, you know, you couldhave prevented all of this.
(38:06):
So prevention again, right?
What is it?
An ounce of prevention is where the pound ofcure or whatever they say like, it's
you mentioned you sprint three times a week.
And I'm I'm glad to hear that.
One of the things so one of things I'm intonow, 45 and I've got a kid.
Just kind of like the crew I roll with now iskind of like dead folk.
And
yeah, yeah.
(38:27):
With aging, sprinting is one of
those things if you don't keep it up, if
you don't keep ballistic capacity up in yourtendons, tendons will get fragile and you won't
be able to.
And then your chances of ruptures go up.
Oh, yeah.
And then you ever notice when you look atsomebody moving around and somebody looks old
versus somebody who looks youthful?
Yeah.
It's it's more about, like, their bounce andfluidity and control than it is their hair
(38:53):
color and, you know, like, they gray?
Are they not?
You know, it's it's more are they alive?
And
Right.
And, you know, peppy looking.
And Tennant Health has a lot to do with that.
So sprinting, it's that's one of things.
Whether you keep it in three times a week forthe rest of your life or whatever, make sure it
doesn't go lower than one time a week, youknow?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, man, I I still play men's lacrosse at ahigh level, right?
(39:15):
I'm playing a pretty competitive level.
I had taken some time off when I moved and andgot into starting my business and all this
stuff, and I hadn't played for probably likefive or six years after college.
Then I was like, I want to get back into it.
First, like, or like, second time back I likeended up like pulling my hamstring and it was
like, okay, that's a little wake up like I'mnot just going to go from like, what I was
(39:36):
doing more so like lifting and stuff likebodybuilding ish to like back to this.
So then now I've been training more functionalagain and 100% what you just said like that
bounce like I feel that bounce again.
I'm actually like probably faster and more likedynamic than I was even in college.
And I'm doing a lot of other things.
Have more knowledge as to how to do that right?
Right.
College, I can't say I was like the healthiest.
(39:57):
Was like, you know, doing the basic collegestuff, like eating crap because I was poor.
But, you know, now I'm able to like get aheadof these things.
And so, yeah, man, again, if you don't use it,you lose it.
And that's good to see.
I mean, how old are you now?
I'm 33.
Okay.
So not that old, but it is worth noting that atany age, can improve I'll just stick on tenant
(40:19):
health, but you can improve any health marker,but tenant health included.
So maybe when you're if you start at 90, you'renot gonna get to your 17 year old self, but
your 90 year old self your 91 year old self canbe better than your 90 year old self.
Yeah.
So we always have this healing capacity thatcan always happen so that it's always
worthwhile to try and do better.
Yeah, and that's that's awesome because thatjust made me think of like the concept of like
(40:41):
biological age versus like calendar age, right?
Calendar ages, we're just counting days andyears, right?
Biological age is like internally and likesystems wise and on a cellular level, like what
is my age showing?
And so, I'm probably like biologically like inmy 20s, just because I'm on all, you know, I'm
doing all the right things.
Move my body every single day, I push my bodyto a high level where then it has to recover.
(41:05):
Sleep like, I mean, I sleep like a bear deed,like I'm optimized my sleep.
My room is like the sleep like chamber.
I got the cooling bed mattress.
I got all this stuff.
So, it's like, it's, you know, that because tome, that's so vital.
Can't do my job perform if I'm not recovered.
And so, you know, it makes me more able to,like, help other people too, which is
(41:27):
ultimately the goal.
Yeah.
And, you know, recovery is the essential piece.
If you're talking about fitness, you're talkingabout mental tasking.
You're talking about anything where you'reexpending an energy toward a goal, that's all a
request.
Like fitness, like doing a workout is arequest.
The recovery is your body answering with theadaptation.
(41:48):
And same thing with neurological rehab when I'mdoing concussion stuff.
If you're doing concussion rehab, you're taxingneurons.
So there needs to be a recovery period for themto then adapt and accept the stimulus you just
put into it and create a capacity to deal withthat.
So not having a good recovery game or thinkingthat's a superfluous, you know, unnecessary
(42:10):
piece of of the pie is a bad idea.
So Yeah.
That's a good thing to impress on people,especially when they're getting into fitness.
They're like, you know, okay, I'm I'm doingthis thing and that's all I need to do.
But you got to do the backside to recover andactually grow from it.
Yeah.
And it's also the concept of like volume too,right?
Like most people start working out and theytend to do too much or a lot of people will do
(42:34):
that.
And I used to do that.
I'd be training like six days a week lifting,lifting, lifting, doing all this stuff.
I'm like, why am I like not getting as good ofresults and I'm sore all the time?
So then you drop down to like a three day aweek like split, maybe throw in some.
Justin Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you feel great.
And your body's actually healing more andyou're going get better results from less.
And so that's like efficient, right?
(42:56):
Yeah, I love that concept.
Like volume is so important.
And being an exercise science major inundergraduate, I definitely, like, had an idea
of what that looks like.
You know?
It's a that's free individual too.
You have to be in tune with yourself enough toor use metrics.
So either in tune yourself enough to know, am Irecovered or am I not?
(43:16):
But that's where a lot of these wearables comein.
And like
I had a think I used Polar's watch with allbiometrics on it.
Don't worry, I left it on airplane mode.
But Yeah.
Right.
You know, once I I I wanted to know how I wassleeping.
I wanted to know some of these metrics for fordata purposes.
(43:37):
But then I was able to understand how I felt atdifferent points.
And so then I didn't need the watch anymore forthe data because I I could actually intuitively
know what my numbers were just how I Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
And, I I wear the Garmin, and I love it becauseit tracks HR V and I do wear it at night and so
again like the Wi Fi at night probably not a100% the best but like I do so many other good
(44:00):
things that I'm almost like it's worth it to meto know that kind of stuff because I will tell
when I'm overreaching or if I'm overtrainingbecause my HRV will start dropping and I'm
like, like, like this is off, like what's goingon?
Oh, I actually do kind of feel shitty rightnow.
Should take a little mental note of that and,know, try to dial it back this week, do like
maybe like a deload week where I'm not doing asmuch intensity, but maybe more like aerobic,
(44:24):
right?
Some jogs or runs or even walks, right, withthe kids or something.
So just knowing how to like fluctuate thatdepending.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You may find that you're like, I didn't changemy workouts at all.
It's weird.
But then you notice you were stressed for thelast couple of days.
Yeah, definitely.
Emotionally stressed and then it trashed yourHRV.
So it kind of proves to you that other factorsin your life besides just the workouts affect
(44:48):
these things just as much.
Yeah, that's right.
And we kind of talk about like these sixpillars where it's like fuel, movement, sleep,
mind, body, or mind, spirit, and work.
Right?
And like those six things and it's like takingmental inventory, right?
And the super simple like scorecard we use islike rank yourself one to 10 on each of those,
right?
And then where you may be doing the worst whereyou need to improve that, right?
(45:09):
It's like dude, I'm dialed on my workouts anddialed my sleep.
Nutrition is good, but man, like mentally likeI'm pretty burnt right now with work.
Let me kind of like maybe take pause or likechange the pace a little bit there.
So that I can find more of like thatequilibrium and everywhere else.
And against objective right scorecards man likewe write that's everything is test don't guess
(45:30):
so.
And that's awesome let's real quick before wecan wrap up here and we're going for a while
but I love the conversation.
We're both in this functional medicine spaceand so again it's all about like what we call
real health care this is health care not a thesick care disease care model.
And so, when you work with patients and you'redoing, like, what you starting with?
(45:54):
Are you starting with more of the let's runsome comprehensive blood work?
Are you getting a symptom checklist?
Like how do you start that?
So mind you, I am just coming off of eightyears of teaching.
So my and I did practice most of that time onthe side, but it was just small volume.
So my and actually, funny enough, it wasprobably half functional medicine.
(46:16):
So still small volume, though.
But what I would do is I would do a simplequestionnaire.
So I'm actually doing a questionnaire thatidentifies systems first so I know where the
highest priority testing goes.
Mainly, it's for efficiency and for cost.
A lot of you just test everything all at once.
It can be pretty expensive.
(46:36):
And so I want to dial into biggest bang for thebuck first, and that's generally how I go with
it.
Nice.
Yeah, everything you just said is exactly whatwe do.
I always tell patients that I'm like, hey,depending on what you want to look for and what
your budget is, like we can look for, you know,best bang for your buck.
We run like a comprehensive panel that it'sprobably somewhere around like $5.04, $500 or
(46:57):
I'm like, we can look for everything and you'reprobably looking at like couple grand.
It's like, what's your like, what's yourstarting point?
And then what do we need versus what do whatwould be nice?
And I kind of like give them that option to I'mlike, Hey, I need to see this gut panel.
You have had diarrhea for the last ten years,or I need to see, right?
Like, need to see these things like you can'tfall asleep, but then you're tired all day.
(47:19):
I got to see your cortisol.
Like, you know, the non negotiables and thenobviously the like, Okay, it'd be nice to see
an extra panel here.
But yeah, man, we created a pretty cool and youand I can, we should link up outside of this
and chat We created a cool like functionalmedicine primary care program within our office
too, to help kind of get people away from thatmodel, which is like, man, if had a dollar for
(47:42):
every patient that came in and was like, Man,yeah, I went to my doc and you know, they did
blood work.
I'm not really sure.
Like, they didn't tell you anything?
It's like, Man, like, what is going on here?
I'd actually love to jam on that because that Imean, like I mentioned from the get go with my
impression of functional medicines, I want thatto be what primary care is.
So, I'd love to
help promote
that for you and then check out what you gotgoing on.
(48:02):
Yeah for sure and again man it's like theconcept is like using the functional medicine
the lifestyle medicine which is very much like.
Taking inventory on someone's life like hey youneed to be going to bed before 2AM in the
morning you got kids and like you'rechronically stressed right like that kind of
stuff plays into it.
But then ultimately, I want to get you soeducated that like you run blood work for
(48:22):
yourself.
You read your own blood work and then you canlike ultimately like work on things right and
know what that looks like like I teach everypatient how to read their blood work, how to
look at an X-ray and say, Hey, like what'sgoing on here?
And they're like, Oh yeah, that disc is prettycompressed.
Whereas like most people have never seen anX-ray of their spine.
It's like
So it's actual appropriate patient educationduring your review of findings.
(48:43):
That's spectacular.
Crazy.
Right?
So crazy.
Who would do such a thing?
Who would say?
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Well, we're definitely gonna gonna connect onsome things and, hopefully, more conversations
too, man.
This is really good.
Maybe get even a little bit more nitty gritty.
But before we wrap up, tell people where theycan maybe learn more about you like online
(49:04):
podcast and kind of, you know, follow along.
Alright.
So, the podcast is it's new.
It's launching this week actually.
So the podcast is called RadHealth, r a d, andI'll get a whole video on what that rip what
that actually means.
RadHealth podcast.
It's spit out to every, you know, podcast host,so you can find it anywhere.
(49:25):
Cool.
Or on YouTube.
Doctor Dan Cooper is my YouTube page, and I'vegot the video versions of them up there.
The only other social media I actually use, Imight branch out.
I freaking hate social media, but, I may havesomeone else branch out for me and use some
other social medias.
But, currently, it is doctor Dan Cooper on theold Instagram.
There you go.
Awesome.
(49:45):
D r
d Cooper
too.
Not not doctor spelled out.
Cool.
And this episode is probably gonna launch,like, a little bit later, like, maybe, like,
four or five weeks because we got a few on thedocket.
So listeners, you know, you'll probably have afew episodes of Doc's podcast to go listen to
by then.
So that'll be good to go check them out.
But
Yeah.
Entire week, so hopefully, they'll have abunch.
Yeah.
Awesome, man.
That's really good.
Well, man, I really appreciate you coming on.
(50:07):
Is there anything else you wanna leave us withor any kind of last last things, insight words?
Debt advice?
I'm not really I mean, just to you know, yeah.
To look at your life is something that you haveactual control over.
(50:28):
Life is not happening to you.
Life is something that you create, and yourexperience in life is what you create.
And so take ownership of that and put in thework.
And sometimes that's internal work, but, onceyou find out a path, chase that path like it's
like it's a lion running after you because thenyou will have the life that you want faster
than later.
That's phenomenal, man.
(50:49):
I love that.
Take that take those words to heart, everyone.
And, again, if you enjoy the show, please like,smash that subscribe button, and share this
with someone who needs to hear it.
That's the only way we grow this message.
If you have any questions, you can send them toask at AlessiFX Health dot com.
Go to AlessiFXHealth.com, learn about ourfunctional medicine program, Alessi Total Care,
(51:10):
as well as our chiropractic programs, how wehelp people stop living in the sick care model
and start taking control of their health.
And as always, remember that your health is inyour hands.
Thank you for tuning in to Health Decoded,where we break down the truth about all things
health and empower you to take charge of yourwell-being.
If you found value in today's episode, pleasesubscribe, leave a review, and share it with
(51:35):
someone who needs to hear this.
For more resources and personalized support,visit us at alessifunctionalhealth.com and sign
up for our newsletter.
To hear your questions answered live on theshow, send them to askalessifxhealth dot com.
That's askalessifxhealth dot com.
(51:55):
Until next time, stay curious, stay empowered,and remember, your health is in your hands.
With aging, sprinting is one of those
(00:02):
things if you don't keep it up, if
you don't keep, you know, ballistic capacity upin your tendons, tendons will get fragile and
and you won't be able to.
And then your your chances of ruptures go up.
And then you ever notice when you look atsomebody moving around and somebody looks old
versus somebody who looks youthful?
Yeah.
It's it's more about like their bounce and
Welcome to Health Decode, your number onesource for real health information with your
(00:26):
host, doctor Alessi and Matt Tack.
Hey, Health Decoded listeners.
Doctor Alessi here.
Let me ask you a serious question.
Are you tired of waiting until something goeswrong to finally see a doctor?
At Alessi Functional Health, we take adifferent approach, the right approach.
(00:46):
We believe true health care isn't about chasingsymptoms.
It's about preventing them in the first place.
That's why we created the Alessi Total CareProgram.
This is a functional medicine based membershipthat gives you proactive, personalized care
year round.
You'll get access to comprehensive blood workand functional testing, custom doctor grade
(01:09):
nutraceuticals, deep discounts on labs,protocols, and follow ups, as well as twenty
four seven direct access to your doctor, notjust a ten minute checkup that ends with
another prescription.
And here's the best part.
As a Health Decoded listener, you'll get yourfirst three months completely free when you
(01:29):
sign up for an annual membership.
That's on top of hundreds in savings alreadybuilt into the program.
This is your chance to take responsibility foryour health and join a movement that's
redefining what primary care should look like.
Head on over to alessifunctionalhealth.com,click on our services tab, and go to Total
Care.
Learn more about this program and claim yourexclusive podcast listener offer.
(01:54):
Your health is your greatest asset.
Let's protect it proactively.
Welcome back to another episode of healthdecoded, the show where we cut through the
noise and decode what it actually takes to livebetter, longer.
The goal is to empower you with knowledge andpractical tools to take back control of your
health from a system designed to keep you sick.
(02:16):
And today, I've got an incredible guest joiningme, doctor Dan Cooper, the founder of RadHealth
and the host of the RadHealth podcast.
Dan and I are on the same mission and thatmission is to change the narrative of modern
medicine.
We're not here for band aids we're here forblueprints and today we're talking about all
things proactive health.
(02:36):
Why is this country so sick who's profitingfrom us being so sick and really how real
healing begins from within.
Little fun story Dan was actually one of myprofessors in chiropractic school so this guy
is full of knowledge and full of great insightand I'm really excited to have you on the show
Dan thanks for joining us.
Thanks appreciate you have me.
(02:56):
Yes Sir well why don't we start with this maybetell a little bit about your story kind of what
led you in your life to get into health andalternative health.
And become a chiropractor and that kind ofthing.
You know, my story is maybe not as direct as alot of other people's with chiropractics.
It seems like a lot of chiropractors have a Igot hurt and I went to Cairo and I had this
(03:20):
great, wonderful story.
And so I took the professional path.
Mine, I was really just a competitive kid.
I always wanted an edge.
And I always had a very strong synergistic ideaabout where we exist in the world and natural
systems and stuff like that.
And I always even when I was a little kid, it'sweird.
I remember being very young and not vibing withthe allopathic model of pharmaceuticals.
(03:45):
So I was like, man, I don't know how I knewthese things, but I'm thinking like, man,
they're altering a single pathway inphysiology.
I probably didn't know those but it doesn'tseem like it's accounting for how things work
together.
And so there's always my way of being morenatural systems kind of guy.
But I grew up in normal Western medicinehouseholds, so I didn't know what else to do.
(04:09):
It was kind of tough actually from thatstandpoint where I didn't know of alternatives
as a profession.
I knew I should be a doctor of some kind, butif I don't like the model the doctors work
under, what do I do?
When I was around 25, I had found out aboutchiropractic and I learned, I don't even know
(04:30):
if it was Google at that time.
I'm 45 now, so whatever that was twenty yearsago.
And I found out about the scope of practice forchiropractic.
I thought, oh, damn, they could do pretty muchall the stuff that I wanna do.
They can't do the things that I don't wanna do.
This perfect.
And that was kind of my find out aboutchiropractic story.
(04:51):
But where I've gone with chiropractic sincethen, I've had a pretty heavy emphasis on
functional medicine and functional neurology inmost of my time as being at chiro.
Functional medicine was really, had a loved onewho had diabetes, so I went to a functional
medicine course, and I thought, this reallyresonates with me.
(05:13):
Finding just better testing, more completetesting, looking for patterns within the
testing to determine how a system isfunctioning and then use natural means to
correct it.
This sounds awesome.
And so I really resonated with functionalmedicine and I really thought like this is the
way that healthcare needs to go.
Mainstream healthcare should be a functionalmedicine mainstream, not the allopathic
(05:36):
mainstream in my thoughts.
Emergency medicine is one thing, but for healthgeneration, I think it's the way to go.
And the
neurology stuff came from was in the army foreight years and when I was in Iraq, I had a
bunch of blast injuries.
And then when I got home, it's funny, I gotblast injuries, none of which actually knocked
(05:58):
me out.
They were like mild traumatic brain injurylevel concussive blasts.
I didn't actually get knocked out, but comehome and I got in a freaking ATV accident and
woke up in the hospital.
So series of blast injuries, then a gnarly ATVaccident in Cairo school actually.
And I thought, man, there's a lot of deficitsthat are extremely noticeable and I don't like
(06:20):
this.
So I pursued functional neurology as soon as Icould keep a thought in my head for more than
five minutes.
Yeah.
The recovery was, you know, it's tough afterTBI.
And, yeah, so I jumped into Kerik's functionalneurology program and loved it.
That's awesome.
Yeah, I did a couple of those courses as wellwith Carrick Institute really good man.
(06:43):
While I was in school as well.
And yeah, you know, the functional neurologypiece is so cool because it's like you can
reset the connections right between the brainand the muscle or the brain and the systems.
It's just a matter of like how are you gettingthe interference out of the way and that's
ultimately what we do with chiropractic withfunctional medicine, the body I always tell
every patient I'm like your body is meant toheal its healing right now as we're talking.
(07:06):
How do we get it out of its own way?
How do we remove the interference, right?
The junk, which is a lot of times like toxins,you know, exposure to chemicals, mold, whatever
is built up that's preventing your body fromdoing its job.
And that's where functional medicine comes intoplay ultimately.
So you know, you're a professor for a while aswell.
And now you're kind of shifting gears, I think,into back into practice, right?
(07:28):
And you've got your podcast rolling and stuff.
So that's awesome, man.
That's exciting.
And I know you said your story, but there was aconnection there to like a loved one, right?
Had some kind of an illness or disease and youfelt some passion from that.
Doctor.
Right.
Yeah, that's the it was my mom actually.
She was type two diabetic.
Didn't know it.
(07:49):
You could tell.
But
there was never a diagnosis.
And I've noticed that with patients too alongthe way that without something objective, it's
been harder to convince somebody to dosomething.
And when you have objective results in theirface and says, This is what you have because of
(08:09):
these numbers, a lot of people jump on boardbetter.
So that's one the things that actually I'veappreciated from the functional medicine side
of things is that there's lot of testing.
And when you have the testing, there'sobjective results that kind of convince people,
Damn, I do need to do something about this.
And that's been helpful.
Yeah, exactly.
And that's everything we do in our clinic aswell as we test, don't guess.
(08:30):
It's like how many times I see somebody come inthere like, yeah, just started taking this
supplement.
I'm like, yeah, what made you want to somebodytold me it was good for me.
It's like, maybe, right?
Maybe, like maybe you're filling some gaps.
Maybe you don't need it, right?
But if you don't test, you ultimately don'tknow.
So, the body's meant again, there's equilibriumthat's meant to be had and there are
deficiencies that I think are just sopredominant with like vitamin D, magnesium
(08:53):
that's based on again, like environmentalfactors, right?
We're not like genetically low on these things.
It's the environment we live in is full oftoxic burden and it's just taken us out.
So, you know, that's a good segue, I think,into kind of the first thing I would really
want to get into is like, why, in your opinion,do you think America is so sick?
Or why is this country at an all time high inchronic disease, obesity and all these things?
(09:17):
I think it's very multifaceted.
I don't want to hit the low hanging fruitfirst.
I think the sedentary nature of our populationis so destructive.
That's where every technology that comes out,it seems like it is to make our life easier.
(09:37):
Well, easier means lazier and less healthy.
So I think the sedentary nature of ourlifestyle is one of the main factors.
Obviously, the the low hanging fruit that I wasavoiding first is the food system.
The food system is so bereft with a toxic shitstorm that is it's tough it's tough to deal
with, you know?
And, it's not even just the food system, butmean, you want to get into like, we're getting
(10:00):
Bill Gates wants to block out the sun byspraying chemicals in the sky and turns out
they've been doing it for six to five yearsanyway for weather modification.
And so we're exposed to so many things in ourenvironment.
I don't remember what the status or the numberfor how many new chemicals are allowed into our
environment, whether it's water supply, foodsupply, whatever, every year.
(10:24):
And it's already a staggering number to startwith.
So we're really you're fighting an uphillbattle, especially if you're not aware and
you're just kinda rolling with the way normalgoes.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I I think that's you know, it's like thecat's out of the bag now.
Right?
Nobody thinks that our country is, like,thriving.
We're we know that we're all super unhealthy,and there's Yeah.
(10:46):
Right?
Like, the outlier are the guys like us who,like, you take your shirt off at the beach and
you have a six pack.
People are like, woah.
Look at that guy.
It's like, dude, we all used to look like that,right?
Like, should all look like Yeah, exactly.
It's unfortunate.
And so, you know, again, like the rise of allthese chronic conditions, autoimmunity, things
that like in the past, dude, even you go backfifty years were not were non existent, right?
(11:08):
Like, those were rare conditions, and now theyare like the comp they're the norm, right?
So prevalent.
Of norm, yeah.
And so, I mean, without getting super like woowoo conspiracy because I could, we could
probably go there but you know I I do thinkthere's a bit of an agenda right if not a lot
of an agenda and some of it can be seen in likethe.
(11:29):
The basic thing and I talk about this all thetime like the breakfast is the most important
meal of the day that entire thing came out oflike a Kellogg's marketing ploy to get people
to eat their cereal right because this sugarycereal is supposed to somehow be your most
important meal of the day.
People used to not eat breakfast like breakfastwas just like you know you go until you got
hungry with midday you'd have a nice likehearty meal, right?
(11:50):
So again, just the
standard was an intermittent fast.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Or even like before that, like our ancestorswould go days without eating until they killed
something and ate it.
And so it's like, and
then they gorge for a while and then theybitten for a while.
That metabolic flexibility piece that comesfrom that feast and famine component.
Don't know if you know Doctor.
Dan Pompa talks about that all the time, right?
The feast and famine and it's I kind of live inthat realm and like there's days where I'll
(12:14):
like be more active and I'm like man, I'mhungry.
I'm going eat a little bit more today andthere's days where I'm just doing mental tasks
and I actually rather not eat because thatfrees up some capacity for me to have more
Yeah, clarity.
Exactly, man.
So, you know yeah.
You have something to say?
I did.
Yeah.
You mentioned, you kinda passed by vitamin dquickly, and I, not that I think you should
(12:37):
have stopped at it, but I just did I just shota a podcast recently about and this is kinda
dive into the fear mongering that goes alongwith just the normal advice that's given.
And to be afraid of the sun is one of thosethings.
And so I did a podcast, and I've I've, youknow, threw a little cute quip in there about,
you know, make America shirtless again.
(12:57):
That's awesome.
Because I'm that dude.
I'm like that weird dude.
It's like around the neighborhood with no shirton.
And it's only weird.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Because people don't do it, but it should beweird.
And I'm not I'm doing it creepy.
I'm just, you know, I'm trying to create somevitamin D in my skin, you know?
That's right.
And from the fear standpoint, we're always toldthat the sun's going to kill us and you're
going get skin cancer.
(13:18):
But it's one of those things that there's justa natural, available stimulus that reduces our
chances of a host of other cancers.
And the only increase in cancer risk for skinis if you get burned and typically burned
repetitively.
So if you mitigate your exposure such that youdon't get burned, then it's actually a health
(13:40):
benefiting exposure to be in the sun.
So advice to just I've heard this before too.
Somebody will, hey, do you have your SPF ontoday?
Like, that's it's like, do you have your sockson?
I'm like,
do you have your SPF?
Jesus Christ.
No, I don't have my SPF on.
Going go specifically not have it on, get ahealthful glow and produce vitamin D and be
(14:03):
healthier for it.
Thanks for asking.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's so good.
And again, man, it's like the fear, right?
The fear component.
And who stands to profit behind that?
Probably sunscreen companies, right?
They sell a ton of this Sure.
Like you had alluded to earlier, look at thesunscreen companies, the companies, who are the
companies?
And you have the pharmaceutical companies whoalso own at least the big food companies.
(14:26):
That's right.
And so they've got this cute little revolvingdoor of make them sick or get a drug to patch
the sick.
And oh, you got six side effects that go alongwith this drug.
Cool.
We have more drugs for that too.
And it's just a money stipend out of thepopulation.
It is a fantastic business model, right?
Like future forever customer.
(14:48):
Right?
Like, they need your product because you gotthem sick on your other products.
Right?
So it's Yeah.
It's man.
Yeah.
Convince them that they need your product.
Yeah.
Your product, you convince them that they thatthey need your product.
And I mean, you can take it a level deeper andsay that it's indoctrinated very young, into
our kids.
It's like, kinda just like, what they tell you.
Go to get your wellness checkup and like, dude,my kids are four and they are like the
(15:11):
healthiest little guys you ever seen in yourlife.
Zero shots, zero.
They've had antibiotics once in their life whenit was like they had a RSV virus, right?
And I got that point that antibiotics doesn'tdo anything anyway, but nothing bro.
Like they don't take medicine like they take, Igive them honey and ginger and garlic when they
have a little sniffle.
Do they knock it out like that?
(15:31):
Also and I think their mom puts a little bitmore on them with sunscreen.
I don't put sunscreen on them.
Just limit the exposure.
I'm like, Hey, take your shirt off like we'regoing to run around in the park for
fifteen-twenty minutes.
You build up that base where your body cantolerate it, right?
And so it's like, even if they get a little redthe next day they're good.
And I'm the same way and I actually likethrowing this in here when we have the
(15:53):
conversation about the sun and vitamin D andsunburn.
There's a couple hacks, and people don't knowthis when you wear sunglasses, and maybe you've
heard this maybe you haven't.
When you wear sunglasses, it's actuallyblocking your optic nerve from taking in that
like those UV rays, you're more likely to getburned.
I don't wear sunglasses because then my eyesare actually pulling in those UV rays, right?
(16:14):
They're accepting that, and my body knows tonow produce the melanin to tan rather than
burn.
And then another cool little hack is there's anantioxidant called astaxanthin.
If you take astaxanthin, it actually helps youtan better as well.
So I do those two things.
Astaxanthin is just a great antioxidant forlike daily anyway.
It like for free radical cleanup and all thatkind of stuff.
(16:36):
But those two things dude, I'm out in the sunevery single day shirt off, run around like and
I don't get sunburned.
That's interesting because I had kind offorgotten about AskAnthony in that context, but
I have in the past taken it when I knew that Icouldn't limit my exposure as much as I wanted
to.
I was like, damn, I'm going to be out doingthis and I want something.
(16:56):
So I actually took that.
And also, you can find shade.
You can create shade.
There's a closed door.
Closure shade, right?
It had a Right.
And if you have to throw on something that youwant to put on your skin because whatever, you
can't put on the clothes, you're in the water,whatever it is.
They have mineral sunblocks that are reflectiveinstead of the chemical sunscreens that are
carcinogenic.
So you have other options.
(17:16):
Yeah.
The stuff that sits on the skin rather thansoaks into the skin.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's the probably why people, you know, theydon't like it as much because you kinda look
all like pasty white and but they have somethat are tinted now.
So it's not as as Right.
Yeah.
I mean, my yeah.
I agree with you.
My biggest thing is like, I'll I'll just limitthe time.
Right?
Like, I'll plan.
Like, it's yeah.
If you're gonna be out at the beach all daylong, bring an umbrella, go sit under the
(17:39):
umbrella every now and then and get like alittle break, you know?
It's that prolonged hours and hours and hourswhere, yeah, you're either going to get burnt
or something is going to obviously occur there.
I did find a bunch of research on frequency ofexposure as well when I was rabbit holing like
I do on things.
Regular intermittent or not regular moderateexposure is better than regular or intermittent
(18:04):
moderate exposure.
So it's like that don't it's that building abase kind of concept.
You get a little you get that erythemal dose,your body builds to it.
Right.
Another little dose, your body builds to it,versus you get here, your body builds to it, it
starts to drop again, then you get whackedagain with you know, a higher intensity of sun.
So it's, that regular keep the make Americashow this again.
(18:28):
That concept is actually the healthier way togo than admit and exposure.
Yeah.
And it I mean, it's the same with a lot ofthings.
You don't just go into the gym and startsquatting 500 pounds you have to build up to
that
day.
Yeah
you got to get in there and get some reps getsome fund fundamental stability and then yes
you can start adding in that that naturaladaptation response will occur our body
(18:49):
functions in many ways with that same it's thesame with chiropractic care too, right?
First time someone gets like an adjustment,maybe they've never had one, their neck might
be kind of sore or pain, you know.
But then the body starts to pick it up and youstart to stabilize and obviously get results.
Yeah, you know, think that's the biggest thingis like, I think people, this just kind of
popped in my head.
(19:09):
People don't know what health looks likeanymore because there's even those people out
there that look jacked, look you know, andthey're spouting all this stuff.
Then like on their blood work are unhealthy,right?
Like if you were to run a panel on them, you'dlike dude, you're about to have a heart attack.
And I actually just knew a guy who was likethat and it's his coronary artery score was
like he was like 90% blockage and he's cut up.
(19:29):
He's a bit older, but he's like, you know, helooks like you'd be like man, this guy takes
care of himself.
The internal is more important to me than Iguess the external.
But the external tends to be almost like adisplay of of internal health too.
Right?
Right.
It's what you see.
And since you can't see the inside, people justaccept what they see on the outside.
Yeah.
(19:49):
Yeah.
That's right.
Well, let's do this, man.
Obviously, we kind of touched on this and thethe they the the they keeping us all in the
sick realm.
But it's like, you know, again, it's it's asystem designed to create what we call like
what you said like the revolving door ofpatients just coming in coming in, you've been
(20:10):
told to listen to the doc, but then the docspends two minutes with you and just says, Hey,
take this medicine.
Doesn't even really tell you what's going on.
They kind of just give you something to take,right?
Also, unfortunately, they might not knowbecause they haven't been given any sort of
what creates health.
Most of medical school is about how to suppressphysiology for various reasons, to suppress
(20:34):
symptoms or whatever the case may be.
Let's go there.
Keep going.
Generate health.
Do they have answers for them that they couldgive?
Unless they've done outside education, theyprobably don't.
Yeah.
And so, you know, a great example is you go toan MD or a Western Med doc with an autoimmune
condition, they put you on immune suppressingdrugs.
Doctor.
Right.
(20:54):
Now, let me rephrase that, right?
They, your immune system is already suppressedand attacking itself.
They want to suppress it more.
That's and then those people get out of thereand now they just are sick every day.
They're getting these minor infections thatlike are taking them out, right?
A little cold from their kid.
Work, but now they've shut off their immunesystem.
Exactly.
And so, it's like the opposite should be like,wait, how do we rebuild the immune system?
(21:17):
How do we fix the problem?
And that goes into like, what is the rootcause, right?
And we talk about that all the time.
I think even that phrase now is getting watereddown like root cause medicine.
But essentially, like the prime example I use,because I've seen this time and time and time
again, I mean, feel like I get a new patientfor this every week, some kind of autoimmune
thing, whether it's like an eczema or anarthritis or psoriasis, right?
(21:39):
Or even like a full blown like Hashimoto's, theroot cause of that, okay?
Like those things didn't just start, somethingtriggered that.
So then, you know, some docs might say, theroot cause was like a leaky gut or like some
kind of permeability in the gut.
But like what was the root cause of that?
Right?
You gotta keep going.
Yeah, what's your lifestyle?
Chronic stress?
Like you're so fried plus you're eating XYZlike fast food all the time.
(22:03):
That's a root cause lifestyle.
So, you know, lifestyle medicine.
Have you ever messed around with SNP testing?
I have done a little bit, but I can't say I'msuper deep into it.
So, some people might say that's a root causebecause that's so SNP just stands for a single
nucleotide polymorphism.
It just means a single, ATGC, the littlenucleotides on a gene, one is wrong.
(22:30):
And so you have a slightly altered action ofthat gene.
And so that's the susceptibility.
But really, it's not the root cause.
The susceptibility doesn't mean you have it.
It means it's easier for you to get it.
So it's still the lifestyle that is the rootcause of the problem even if there's a SNP
involved.
Yeah.
It just means if you know about that, you canaccount for it with whatever action it is that
(22:51):
would account for that.
Yeah.
I just wanted to mention that.
I didn't know if you're into the sniff testingor not.
Yeah.
No.
I've read some good stuff on it.
There's a cool book called dirty genes, doctorBen Great book because he wrote it in a way
that could take someone who's not a doctor likeus, who has no idea about genetics and genetic
code and they could understand it and itbasically yeah super super easy to read but he
(23:15):
explains like there's different types of snipsthat can lead to they can predispose you to
stuff it's not a 100% right so you have this,you get this, but it's like you might be more
predisposed to, right?
Maybe cardiac things if you have like an NO3snip, right?
Where your body's not producing that nitricoxide in the blood as much because nitric oxide
dilates blood vessels and all that, right?
(23:35):
And so, knowing those things is really cool andthere are some good tests you can do.
I'd say that's something I've dabbled in a bit.
However, we lean more on like the comprehensivetesting for hormones and gut and that's a
little bit more of like what we deal with.
But it is something we help patients with thebiggest one I think I see is I do like to throw
in like an MTHFR test a lot.
(23:57):
If someone comes in with a lot of like chemicalsensitivities or they've been exposed to mold
and heavy metals and we're going to detox them.
I'm like I need to know how well your bodydetoxes so let's see what the NTHF looks like.
And then we're going to like support that alongthe process too.
Because that's a big one, and that's supercommon I have.
I have like a 75% allele to that.
(24:21):
My kid's mom has like the 25% so you knowthey're already set up to be like fifty percent
right ish like if that's like the way thatworks so.
So yeah, you know supporting that with themethylated vitamins.
But luckily, to easy to mitigate.
Doctor.
Very easy.
Yeah.
You just gotta know.
Doctor.
But again, there's the knowledge piece thatlike a lot of people don't know and then
they're they're Western Med docs is oh yeah,just go take a like a B vitamin, and it's folic
(24:42):
acid, which makes the methylating process worsebecause the folic acid doesn't bind properly
and blocks it rather than opening it, you know.
And so there's like all these, these justmissed things that they that's not understood.
So, again, this the whole concept of thispodcast, man, is to educate people so that they
can, they can make these decisions forthemselves and ultimately like have, I call it
(25:04):
the home doctor kit.
Give every patient like a kind of a guide onthis, like, hey, if you're doing functional
medicine or any kind of program with us, you'rein control, right?
You show up to your appointments, you make thedecision to do this.
I'm just going to guide you.
I'm like the wise old wizard.
You're the hero, right?
You're the guy who's attacking the monster.
I'm just a little dude like, Oh, no, don't gothat way.
So, you
know, but like the home doctor kid is like,Okay, like what is your blood work show you
(25:27):
that you should have?
And then like, are you taking your bloodpressure regularly?
Are you checking your pulse oxalate?
These kind of things that you can just have inyour home to make more educated decisions, you
know?
Mhmm.
Yeah.
So, you know, again, it's do you have do youwanna get a point on that?
Yeah.
Your kids being so healthy.
And I'm a 16 old right now.
I guess she's almost 17.
(25:48):
But for the last probably fifteen years, I'vehad a really strong interest in fetal
optimization.
So the things that you could do preconceptionthrough gestation to optimize the ceiling for
your kid's potential.
Yeah.
And I feel like it's so unthought of in thegeneral population that that ceiling is
(26:11):
inadvertently lowered.
They just don't have the capacity to hit apotential how high could it be.
It's not not as high as it could be because ofthings that they've done along the way.
And so I it's one of things that's kinda likein my my passion zone right now.
One, because I have the kid.
And Yeah.
He's freaking awesome.
Like, you're saying the kids are kicking ass.
(26:31):
Like, damn.
I'm so impressed all the time, especially whenI see around other kids that are her age or
even a little older.
I'm like, man, you're doing great, girl.
Yeah.
And again, that passion gets bred for I like,Dude, my kids are brilliant.
Like, and, you know, it's part of that I willattribute to like, we were super dialed in on
their like first foods.
Like, for like, probably the first year whenthey started eating solid food, it was like
(26:54):
eggs with a lot more egg yolk than white.
It was avocados, bone marrow, like we're givingthese little pastes that they would just like,
dude crush.
And so it's like their brains are filled withthese like healthy saturated fats that have
just built it up, you know.
And yeah, choline like the biggest source ofcholine is those egg yolks.
If but if you don't know, like you said before,if you don't know, then you can't do anything
about
it.
(27:14):
Well, people are giving them the little ricepuffs that's got nothing in it.
They're like, loves these rice puffs.
I'm like, that is cardboard.
But yeah, you know, so that's a great point.
And so I'll kind of share a little bit and Idon't I don't think I've ever even like told
this on the podcast, but my I'm not with my mykids mom, but she had a miscarriage prior to
the twins being born.
(27:35):
So, the way that that was handled really dude,it made me sick, the way it was handled by the
OB in the hospital system.
They said, Oh, like, because I knew a littlebit about like MTHFR and how that can lead to,
you know, neural tube defects and miscarriageor even predisposed.
And so, I asked the doc, was like, Hey, whatabout like running an MTHFR test?
(27:55):
Like, would you guys do that?
They were like, The answer was, We don'tnormally do that until there's been like a
couple, like two or three miscarriages.
And I was like, Okay, so you're saying that sheneeds to go through the most traumatic thing
she's ever experienced two more times beforeyou're going to even test like a $50 test?
Anyway, I took it into my hands.
Was like, let's run this test outside.
We ran it.
She did have that you know that mutation in thegene that she was not methylating B vitamins.
(28:20):
Fully detoxed.
We did like did we did a ton of detoxing thatwe got her on this almost like an abundant
methylated B vitamin.
Plus choline like the list of things that wewere doing was like this long, but it was she
was so optimized she was so healthy going intothat.
Then here I go I have these.
Mean amazing twin boys like the twin thing wasjust a coincidence like that's just a statistic
(28:43):
right but anyway, like, they they even thembeing born, like, like, eight weeks early, they
were still so healthy, bro.
Like, they the only reason they wouldn't let usleave the NICU was because they weren't four
pounds yet.
They were, like, under four pounds, the carseats only hold four pounds.
Like, they were like, these people are good togo.
They're tiny.
I was like, alright, like, you know, and sosince then, it's just been like, again, like,
(29:03):
they're they're showing that that health isfrom all the stuff that we did.
We were proactive about it.
We weren't.
And then the whole, like, formula system in thehospital too, they were like, well, they're
small, they need to be on this formula.
I looked at it, was like, oh, you mean thisbrown rice sugar?
They should be eating this.
Like, no, I'm cool.
We're not going to do that.
Where did you have them?
We were living in Colorado at the time.
(29:24):
Oh, okay.
So was in here in Tampa, they've they've got areally good milk bank system.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we did some we had some donor colostrumand then, know, stuff like that that we were
able to supplement.
But we found a really good organic formula aswell that comes from Germany of all places.
Europe has way more restrictions.
(29:45):
And now this maybe shifts us back towards thatlike food conversation because look at like the
number of chemicals in the food in this countrythat are allowed that are banned in other
countries.
They don't even consider it, like like,something you would put in your body, like
petroleum.
It's in so many
like, just such a blatant slap in your face.
Like, this population is a bunch of idiots.
Yeah.
We can do whatever we want.
(30:07):
It's god.
It's frustrating.
It is, man.
It is.
And we saw, I think yeah.
Again, like, let's get a little conspiracyhere.
But we saw a big example of that with, theCOVID thing.
Right?
Is like, let's see what we can get away with.
Tell them all they need to wear masks and nowwear two masks.
And that's going to make you more safe.
Right?
And then watch each other eat each other alive.
That that was weird how, you know, neighborsare telling our neighbors and being it was it
(30:30):
got real weird.
Yeah.
It's like to create division within, right?
Within families and communities and stuff likethat.
Again
Implant of that mind virus as well as any othervirus with that.
That's right.
And ultimately, for a goal.
The goal is, you know, political and money andall that on the backside of that.
And maybe we'll maybe we'll cap Yeah.
(30:52):
Control for sure.
Right?
Like like, these people will do what we say.
So, you you know, let's let's segue a littlebit.
I'm loving this conversation, by the way.
You know, the whole model that you and I aretrying to create and trying to educate people
on is that like the what they call health careor like what the insurance company says your
(31:13):
health care, is really sick care.
They're managing a disease or they're managinghow sick you are.
But what are they doing for like health, right?
So like, this might be a cool question and itkind of just came to me.
But if you had to say like, what would yourmetrics of health be?
Right?
Like, we're both like functional docs and wewant to keep people as healthy as possible.
(31:35):
What things do you focus on as opposed to whatlike the sick care model would focus on?
So that's a good question to hit me on the spotwith with no prep.
But I will say, I think it would be easiestprobably for me to start with just physical
metrics.
And there would be capacity metrics.
(31:58):
So it would be VO2 max.
It would be as long as you're ambulatory, itwould be a, I mean, say a 400 meter sprint.
What is your time?
And you could even do some cardiovascularmeasures that are associated with it, like how
long does it take you to come down from theeffort and some measures like So I think some
(32:18):
capacity metrics like that would be reallyimportant.
I think markers, like blood markers know whatso what's coming to mind right now is things
like endogenous antioxidant systems and howwell they work.
(32:38):
And that doesn't And so some of that could bedietary oriented, it could be lifestyle
oriented.
So it's one that encompasses a lot of differentfactors that come into effect.
And when I say endogenous antioxidant systemsand why I care about them, you had mentioned
you're like that dude who is like, he's allshredded and he's got no blood flow.
(32:59):
90% of the antioxidant activity that occurs inyour body occurs via the endogenous antioxidant
systems, not the antioxidants that you eat.
So if I'm, you know, eating whatever I eat forvitamin C, I'm eating kiwis and stuff, and I'm
thinking I'm getting all these antioxidants, Imean, you are, but it only accounts for 10% of
the activity of antioxidant activity thathappens in your body.
So as long as your glutathione system, yoursuperoxide dismutase, your catalase, that is
(33:24):
all being recycled and functioning well, thenyou have a good antioxidant activity happening
in your body.
And if you don't, so much goes wrong.
Just glutathione from a single standpoint, it'syour master antioxidant, but it's also got its
own detox pathway in your liver.
So if your glutathione is not being producedwell or recycled well, you're having trouble.
(33:45):
Yeah.
And so I think I would look at stuff like thaton top of my performance metrics that I would
use for
I love the performance metrics and that you ledwith that because most people gosh, I wish I
had the stat in front of me.
It was like I wanted to throw up because it waslike a high number like seventy five percent of
(34:05):
people will never like run or sprint again,right?
And I'm like, Geez, man, I'm sprint training atleast three days a week.
But like, I think what you said was the VO2max, maybe I'd add on that like HRV, which is
that variability of like, how quickly does myheart spike and then come back down and then
maintain and particularly like overnight likesleep HRV is huge.
How are we recovering and recycling?
(34:26):
And then like REM sleep tracking.
And then like the biggest one for me, I thinkmost I think pretty much every chronic disease,
cancer, like all these things are metabolic innature.
I think they all have a metabolic back to it.
So like those factors, right?
Like what is the cholesterol plus inflammationkind of combo as well as like blood sugar
(34:48):
balance and we focus a lot on like being likemetabolically flexible, like oh, you ate a meal
two hours ago, and then you like are crashingnow, like you're not metabolically flexible.
Your body is not prepared to go a time withoutsugar coming into it.
So probably an insulin pathway is messed up.
(35:08):
The pancreas is probably struggling.
Yeah, I love the metabolic conversation.
That was my start into functional medicine thediabetes.
So I love it's funny when I say that.
I used to say it to students too.
Might have said it when I was in your classthat I love diabetes, but I don't like
diabetes.
I mean, I like it as a condition to treatbecause type two is totally lifestyle oriented.
(35:30):
It's like, this is just a get rid of it becauseyou want to and you do the right stuff.
It's not like something is wrong enough to needany other inputs other than your own choices.
It's awesome.
And the things we can do just behaviorally toincrease insulin sensitivity, to decrease blood
glucose in the moment, you're so empowered tocontrol that conditionget rid of completely
(35:56):
that condition, provided there's no end tissuedeath.
Right.
But it's a full reversal.
It can be a full reversal provided you haven'talready gone blind or lost a limb or whatever
the end stage is.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're not regrowing legs, but we help peoplereverse type two diabetes all the time and like
going from like again like what's the referencerange and what where do they draw the line on
(36:20):
that because you'll go into the doctor's officeand you'll be like a you know hemoglobin a1c of
like a 5.1 and they're like oh you're good.
It's like, No, dude, you're like about to likepop, know what I mean?
Yeah, you're right there.
And that's the whole functional reference rangeconversation.
I have a graph in my office and it's like,Okay, like if this is your reference range that
you get from your MD, this is the functionalreference range.
(36:41):
Want to be in this category because if you'rebordering here high, bordering low, you're not
necessarily healthy or optimal, right?
And so it's just a matter of time somethingspills over.
Having that as your target to be optimal.
I wish there were more of what people caredabout because that as long as that's your
target, then you always have something to worktoward, which gives you motivation to work in
(37:02):
the right direction.
Continually, a
lot of people, you see those patients all thetime, they start feeling better.
They that's enough.
I'm done.
Yeah.
I'm done.
But they're not actually healed yet.
And, you know, the same thing is with people'sgoals.
So, like, why I I can do my daily tasks, but mydaily tasks are so non stressful or non
(37:24):
intensive that just because you can do yourdaily test, doesn't mean you're healthy.
Yeah.
So having an optimized focus in people's mindswould be a great societal shift to throw into
play.
Yeah.
And it's unfortunate because, again, peoplearen't kind of talked to like that.
They're like, yeah, you're good.
Just keep going doing your thing and when itbecomes a problem, come back and we'll get you
(37:46):
some more meds.
It's like, know, like most people don't make adecision like a major health decision till it's
something's gone wrong.
I mean, that's the nature of like what we seein the chiropractic side of our business as
well is that like, it's not until a herniateddisc that they come in.
It's like, if you would have got ahead of thislike three years ago, like we wouldn't even be
having this conversation, you know, you couldhave prevented all of this.
(38:06):
So prevention again, right?
What is it?
An ounce of prevention is where the pound ofcure or whatever they say like, it's
you mentioned you sprint three times a week.
And I'm I'm glad to hear that.
One of the things so one of things I'm intonow, 45 and I've got a kid.
Just kind of like the crew I roll with now iskind of like dead folk.
And
yeah, yeah.
(38:27):
With aging, sprinting is one of
those things if you don't keep it up, if
you don't keep ballistic capacity up in yourtendons, tendons will get fragile and you won't
be able to.
And then your chances of ruptures go up.
Oh, yeah.
And then you ever notice when you look atsomebody moving around and somebody looks old
versus somebody who looks youthful?
Yeah.
It's it's more about, like, their bounce andfluidity and control than it is their hair
(38:53):
color and, you know, like, they gray?
Are they not?
You know, it's it's more are they alive?
And
Right.
And, you know, peppy looking.
And Tennant Health has a lot to do with that.
So sprinting, it's that's one of things.
Whether you keep it in three times a week forthe rest of your life or whatever, make sure it
doesn't go lower than one time a week, youknow?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, man, I I still play men's lacrosse at ahigh level, right?
(39:15):
I'm playing a pretty competitive level.
I had taken some time off when I moved and andgot into starting my business and all this
stuff, and I hadn't played for probably likefive or six years after college.
Then I was like, I want to get back into it.
First, like, or like, second time back I likeended up like pulling my hamstring and it was
like, okay, that's a little wake up like I'mnot just going to go from like, what I was
(39:36):
doing more so like lifting and stuff likebodybuilding ish to like back to this.
So then now I've been training more functionalagain and 100% what you just said like that
bounce like I feel that bounce again.
I'm actually like probably faster and more likedynamic than I was even in college.
And I'm doing a lot of other things.
Have more knowledge as to how to do that right?
Right.
College, I can't say I was like the healthiest.
(39:57):
Was like, you know, doing the basic collegestuff, like eating crap because I was poor.
But, you know, now I'm able to like get aheadof these things.
And so, yeah, man, again, if you don't use it,you lose it.
And that's good to see.
I mean, how old are you now?
I'm 33.
Okay.
So not that old, but it is worth noting that atany age, can improve I'll just stick on tenant
(40:19):
health, but you can improve any health marker,but tenant health included.
So maybe when you're if you start at 90, you'renot gonna get to your 17 year old self, but
your 90 year old self your 91 year old self canbe better than your 90 year old self.
Yeah.
So we always have this healing capacity thatcan always happen so that it's always
worthwhile to try and do better.
Yeah, and that's that's awesome because thatjust made me think of like the concept of like
(40:41):
biological age versus like calendar age, right?
Calendar ages, we're just counting days andyears, right?
Biological age is like internally and likesystems wise and on a cellular level, like what
is my age showing?
And so, I'm probably like biologically like inmy 20s, just because I'm on all, you know, I'm
doing all the right things.
Move my body every single day, I push my bodyto a high level where then it has to recover.
(41:05):
Sleep like, I mean, I sleep like a bear deed,like I'm optimized my sleep.
My room is like the sleep like chamber.
I got the cooling bed mattress.
I got all this stuff.
So, it's like, it's, you know, that because tome, that's so vital.
Can't do my job perform if I'm not recovered.
And so, you know, it makes me more able to,like, help other people too, which is
(41:27):
ultimately the goal.
Yeah.
And, you know, recovery is the essential piece.
If you're talking about fitness, you're talkingabout mental tasking.
You're talking about anything where you'reexpending an energy toward a goal, that's all a
request.
Like fitness, like doing a workout is arequest.
The recovery is your body answering with theadaptation.
(41:48):
And same thing with neurological rehab when I'mdoing concussion stuff.
If you're doing concussion rehab, you're taxingneurons.
So there needs to be a recovery period for themto then adapt and accept the stimulus you just
put into it and create a capacity to deal withthat.
So not having a good recovery game or thinkingthat's a superfluous, you know, unnecessary
(42:10):
piece of of the pie is a bad idea.
So Yeah.
That's a good thing to impress on people,especially when they're getting into fitness.
They're like, you know, okay, I'm I'm doingthis thing and that's all I need to do.
But you got to do the backside to recover andactually grow from it.
Yeah.
And it's also the concept of like volume too,right?
Like most people start working out and theytend to do too much or a lot of people will do
(42:34):
that.
And I used to do that.
I'd be training like six days a week lifting,lifting, lifting, doing all this stuff.
I'm like, why am I like not getting as good ofresults and I'm sore all the time?
So then you drop down to like a three day aweek like split, maybe throw in some.
Justin Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, you feel great.
And your body's actually healing more andyou're going get better results from less.
And so that's like efficient, right?
(42:56):
Yeah, I love that concept.
Like volume is so important.
And being an exercise science major inundergraduate, I definitely, like, had an idea
of what that looks like.
You know?
It's a that's free individual too.
You have to be in tune with yourself enough toor use metrics.
So either in tune yourself enough to know, am Irecovered or am I not?
(43:16):
But that's where a lot of these wearables comein.
And like
I had a think I used Polar's watch with allbiometrics on it.
Don't worry, I left it on airplane mode.
But Yeah.
Right.
You know, once I I I wanted to know how I wassleeping.
I wanted to know some of these metrics for fordata purposes.
(43:37):
But then I was able to understand how I felt atdifferent points.
And so then I didn't need the watch anymore forthe data because I I could actually intuitively
know what my numbers were just how I Yeah.
Yeah.
That's awesome.
And, I I wear the Garmin, and I love it becauseit tracks HR V and I do wear it at night and so
again like the Wi Fi at night probably not a100% the best but like I do so many other good
(44:00):
things that I'm almost like it's worth it to meto know that kind of stuff because I will tell
when I'm overreaching or if I'm overtrainingbecause my HRV will start dropping and I'm
like, like, like this is off, like what's goingon?
Oh, I actually do kind of feel shitty rightnow.
Should take a little mental note of that and,know, try to dial it back this week, do like
maybe like a deload week where I'm not doing asmuch intensity, but maybe more like aerobic,
(44:24):
right?
Some jogs or runs or even walks, right, withthe kids or something.
So just knowing how to like fluctuate thatdepending.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You may find that you're like, I didn't changemy workouts at all.
It's weird.
But then you notice you were stressed for thelast couple of days.
Yeah, definitely.
Emotionally stressed and then it trashed yourHRV.
So it kind of proves to you that other factorsin your life besides just the workouts affect
(44:48):
these things just as much.
Yeah, that's right.
And we kind of talk about like these sixpillars where it's like fuel, movement, sleep,
mind, body, or mind, spirit, and work.
Right?
And like those six things and it's like takingmental inventory, right?
And the super simple like scorecard we use islike rank yourself one to 10 on each of those,
right?
And then where you may be doing the worst whereyou need to improve that, right?
(45:09):
It's like dude, I'm dialed on my workouts anddialed my sleep.
Nutrition is good, but man, like mentally likeI'm pretty burnt right now with work.
Let me kind of like maybe take pause or likechange the pace a little bit there.
So that I can find more of like thatequilibrium and everywhere else.
And against objective right scorecards man likewe write that's everything is test don't guess
(45:30):
so.
And that's awesome let's real quick before wecan wrap up here and we're going for a while
but I love the conversation.
We're both in this functional medicine spaceand so again it's all about like what we call
real health care this is health care not a thesick care disease care model.
And so, when you work with patients and you'redoing, like, what you starting with?
(45:54):
Are you starting with more of the let's runsome comprehensive blood work?
Are you getting a symptom checklist?
Like how do you start that?
So mind you, I am just coming off of eightyears of teaching.
So my and I did practice most of that time onthe side, but it was just small volume.
So my and actually, funny enough, it wasprobably half functional medicine.
(46:16):
So still small volume, though.
But what I would do is I would do a simplequestionnaire.
So I'm actually doing a questionnaire thatidentifies systems first so I know where the
highest priority testing goes.
Mainly, it's for efficiency and for cost.
A lot of you just test everything all at once.
It can be pretty expensive.
(46:36):
And so I want to dial into biggest bang for thebuck first, and that's generally how I go with
it.
Nice.
Yeah, everything you just said is exactly whatwe do.
I always tell patients that I'm like, hey,depending on what you want to look for and what
your budget is, like we can look for, you know,best bang for your buck.
We run like a comprehensive panel that it'sprobably somewhere around like $5.04, $500 or
(46:57):
I'm like, we can look for everything and you'reprobably looking at like couple grand.
It's like, what's your like, what's yourstarting point?
And then what do we need versus what do whatwould be nice?
And I kind of like give them that option to I'mlike, Hey, I need to see this gut panel.
You have had diarrhea for the last ten years,or I need to see, right?
Like, need to see these things like you can'tfall asleep, but then you're tired all day.
(47:19):
I got to see your cortisol.
Like, you know, the non negotiables and thenobviously the like, Okay, it'd be nice to see
an extra panel here.
But yeah, man, we created a pretty cool and youand I can, we should link up outside of this
and chat We created a cool like functionalmedicine primary care program within our office
too, to help kind of get people away from thatmodel, which is like, man, if had a dollar for
(47:42):
every patient that came in and was like, Man,yeah, I went to my doc and you know, they did
blood work.
I'm not really sure.
Like, they didn't tell you anything?
It's like, Man, like, what is going on here?
I'd actually love to jam on that because that Imean, like I mentioned from the get go with my
impression of functional medicines, I want thatto be what primary care is.
So, I'd love to
help promote
that for you and then check out what you gotgoing on.
(48:02):
Yeah for sure and again man it's like theconcept is like using the functional medicine
the lifestyle medicine which is very much like.
Taking inventory on someone's life like hey youneed to be going to bed before 2AM in the
morning you got kids and like you'rechronically stressed right like that kind of
stuff plays into it.
But then ultimately, I want to get you soeducated that like you run blood work for
(48:22):
yourself.
You read your own blood work and then you canlike ultimately like work on things right and
know what that looks like like I teach everypatient how to read their blood work, how to
look at an X-ray and say, Hey, like what'sgoing on here?
And they're like, Oh yeah, that disc is prettycompressed.
Whereas like most people have never seen anX-ray of their spine.
It's like
So it's actual appropriate patient educationduring your review of findings.
(48:43):
That's spectacular.
Crazy.
Right?
So crazy.
Who would do such a thing?
Who would say?
Yeah.
That's awesome.
Well, we're definitely gonna gonna connect onsome things and, hopefully, more conversations
too, man.
This is really good.
Maybe get even a little bit more nitty gritty.
But before we wrap up, tell people where theycan maybe learn more about you like online
(49:04):
podcast and kind of, you know, follow along.
Alright.
So, the podcast is it's new.
It's launching this week actually.
So the podcast is called RadHealth, r a d, andI'll get a whole video on what that rip what
that actually means.
RadHealth podcast.
It's spit out to every, you know, podcast host,so you can find it anywhere.
(49:25):
Cool.
Or on YouTube.
Doctor Dan Cooper is my YouTube page, and I'vegot the video versions of them up there.
The only other social media I actually use, Imight branch out.
I freaking hate social media, but, I may havesomeone else branch out for me and use some
other social medias.
But, currently, it is doctor Dan Cooper on theold Instagram.
There you go.
Awesome.
(49:45):
D r
d Cooper
too.
Not not doctor spelled out.
Cool.
And this episode is probably gonna launch,like, a little bit later, like, maybe, like,
four or five weeks because we got a few on thedocket.
So listeners, you know, you'll probably have afew episodes of Doc's podcast to go listen to
by then.
So that'll be good to go check them out.
But
Yeah.
Entire week, so hopefully, they'll have abunch.
Yeah.
Awesome, man.
That's really good.
Well, man, I really appreciate you coming on.
(50:07):
Is there anything else you wanna leave us withor any kind of last last things, insight words?
Debt advice?
I'm not really I mean, just to you know, yeah.
To look at your life is something that you haveactual control over.
(50:28):
Life is not happening to you.
Life is something that you create, and yourexperience in life is what you create.
And so take ownership of that and put in thework.
And sometimes that's internal work, but, onceyou find out a path, chase that path like it's
like it's a lion running after you because thenyou will have the life that you want faster
than later.
That's phenomenal, man.
(50:49):
I love that.
Take that take those words to heart, everyone.
And, again, if you enjoy the show, please like,smash that subscribe button, and share this
with someone who needs to hear it.
That's the only way we grow this message.
If you have any questions, you can send them toask at AlessiFX Health dot com.
Go to AlessiFXHealth.com, learn about ourfunctional medicine program, Alessi Total Care,
(51:10):
as well as our chiropractic programs, how wehelp people stop living in the sick care model
and start taking control of their health.
And as always, remember that your health is inyour hands.
Thank you for tuning in to Health Decoded,where we break down the truth about all things
health and empower you to take charge of yourwell-being.
If you found value in today's episode, pleasesubscribe, leave a review, and share it with
(51:35):
someone who needs to hear this.
For more resources and personalized support,visit us at alessifunctionalhealth.com and sign
up for our newsletter.
To hear your questions answered live on theshow, send them to askalessifxhealth dot com.
That's askalessifxhealth dot com.
(51:55):
Until next time, stay curious, stay empowered,and remember, your health is in your hands.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!