Increasing Health Span with Dr. Rand McClain

Dr. Rand McClain 0:39
Well, as I tell people, I got into this mainly from necessity, rather than, or they see desperation rather than inspiration, right, I had my own issues with different injuries and trying to be the best I could of sport. So it only made sense that once I learned oftentimes the hard way, you know, what can happen to you and what you can do to try and correct for it.

I was literally traveling down the road, I 10. And thought about my daughter who was on the way and said, Okay, Randy, you know, time to settle into something, some career that’s stable, and they enjoy and this was a, this is the first thing that came to mind, fortunately, and I stuck with it. And now, it’s what I do, I do regenerative and sports medicine, regenerative medicine is really about optimizing health, increasing what we call healthspan, which is a combination of both quality of life and longevity. And I have a great job. And I hope to do this until I can beat the guys record who’s apparently still practicing at age 99.

george grombacher 1:38
Okay, nice. I love it.

left with this is George G. And the time is right welcome today’s guest strong and powerful. Dr. Rand McLean. Rand, are you ready to do this?

Dr. Rand McClain 0:09
Yes, sir. Ready? He’s ready as I’ll ever be. Let’s do it. Right.

george grombacher 0:11
Let’s go. Dr. Rand went from being the youngest Senior Account Manager into Lloyd’s history to becoming a professional boxer to be accepted to medical school at the age of 37. to becoming a leader on regenerative in sports medicine, his newest book is cheating death, the new science of living longer and better. Ran excited to have you on tell us a little about your personal lives more about your work and why you do what you do.

So, one of the questions I had for you was what what is it that really drives you? I’m fascinated by people that excel in a certain area and then are able to change gears and to shift but you mentioned your daughter.

Dr. Rand McClain 1:56
Yeah, I mean, she was a big motivation, because I had to settle down and I really was blessed. So far still, and with a great life. To a lot in sport, I got into accounting, which County’s not bad, it’s just not my cup of tea. I’m sure a lot of people will think that way, just from stereotypes, but it’s a it’s a county, it’s changed a lot. But it’s still accounting wasn’t wasn’t for me. But yeah, I have to say that I was fascinated by the ability to control your health to a large degree with nutrition. Since I was younger, 11 years old, I, my parents had a very small gold library. Adelle Davis had a book that talked about controlling your health, or certainly helping it along, as it were, with nutrition. And I was fascinated by that as at an early age, I think that led to a lot of experimentation with eating what I read at the time, my mom used to make us eat wheat germ pancakes, and we weren’t allowed to have you know, anything, but maybe some jam, or maybe some honey if we were lucky on it. And so from kind of all angles, if you will, I got into nutrition, and that led to being able to do or trying to control other aspects of health, with other avenues. I went to Chinese medicine school, eventually. And just as fascinated about the different things we have at our fingertips. And then, of course, when I got into western medicine, you know, knowing all the things we have now, that really was the impetus for the book, is to get the word out all the things that are available to us that weren’t even a decade ago. So I guess the passion for the ability to control things, namely, our health, as well as the fascination with all the really cool things we have available to us is what’s motivated me to this point.

george grombacher 3:45
Fascinating. As you’re talking, I wrote down being healthy versus looking healthy. It seems like if you pay attention to the internet, it’s a lot of I don’t know if it’s fad diets, but it’s it’s how can I make myself physically look healthy and look like I’m in shape? What do you think of that versus actually being a healthy person?

Dr. Rand McClain 4:08
Well, fad diet are almost interchangeable, right? I mean, those are repetitive, right? redundant, I guess is the right word. And then of course, you know, you’re talking to a guy who lives out here in LA next to Hollyweird. It’s not how you feel, it’s how you look right? All that kind of stuff. Now, that’s the outside and you know, and anybody who you don’t have to be a doctor to look at somebody go, oh, boy, something’s wrong with that guy or girl, right? When you get up close and look. So I would argue that the two if you’re talking about True Health do come hand in hand. If you’re healthy on the inside, you’ll look at on the outside. There’s a lot of fakers out there that get the assistance of the camera and Hollywood and that kind of thing, but I think the two are really largely inseparable and that’s why you know, I get a lot of patients asking me Hey, ran what can I do to Enjoy these next five years, I’ll gladly trade my 20 years off the back end. Well, you don’t have to trade. And if you think about it, why would you if you’re in better shape if you’re healthier? Typically, you’re going to live longer anyway, right? So the two go hand in hand, not mutually exclusive. And that’s part of the thing. Part of what I want to get across in the book, too, is that you don’t have to make that trade. It’s funny to me how often people think that’s the case.

george grombacher 5:29
I appreciate that very much. So wheat germ. And I don’t know that I really understand what that is, but just being totally honest. But we used to, there’s probably a lot of folks that still really focus on that one thing that I know, we people used to take a spoonful of, like liver oil. And we don’t think that we do that much anymore. So how do you think about, for lack of a better term, ancient wisdom when it comes to nutrition, and then adding or accentuating that with all of the new innovations that that you’re focused on?

Dr. Rand McClain 6:04
Well, some of the ancient stuff is still around, we just don’t realize instead of taking the big spoonful of cod liver oil, we’re taking it into capsulated form gel caps. When it comes to wheat germ, we found that it’s not as simple there’s epitopes on certain grains that can cause allergic reactions or intolerance. So not everyone gravitates or cotton’s to wheat germ. But I would say that by and large, the things that grandma Great Grandma told you to do, you know, have lots of colors on your plate, mix it up, focus on the the green leaf ease as it were, and, you know, not too much in the way of sugar is probably still, that’s considered the ancient wisdom is probably still, in general, a good guideline from which to start, I always say, you know, one, one size does not fit all when it comes to diet and nutrition. There are some people you know, Dave Asprey is a big proponent of staying away from some of the grains are all the grains really. And that works really well for him. I know people that are less intermorphic, and more ectomorphic that without grains, and I would argue I’m one of them, you know, those simple carbohydrates I would waste away. So again, start with a path that includes if I had to generalize, you know, staying away from processed foods probably is always a good idea. Staying away from things that have too much sugar, added sugar, almost certainly, but too much sugar in general, whether it’s naturally occurring or not. And I always joke, you know, many a competitive race has been one using pure sugar. And that’s talking about those circumstances. But when you’re, you know, just living our typical day to day life, not racing necessarily on a bicycle, or, or on a track somewhere in stay away from sugar is probably a really good idea and moderating other things, the basics, you know, not too much alcohol. Those those general guidelines still work, not that you have to exclude sugar entirely or exclude alcohol entirely, but probably want to keep an eye on those and otherwise, just stay away from processed foods.

george grombacher 8:16
Appreciate. So, with with your work today, I would I’m fascinated by like, what what your process is, imagine you get an idea. And you think, okay, I wonder what kind of impact that will have on healthspan on longevity, and you go about testing it. But that’s just my guess.

Dr. Rand McClain 8:39
Well, I’m not a researcher. So I’m not doing a lot of hypotheticals. And then going back to the board testing, what I can do, though, is I can come up with some hypotheticals based upon observation and engaging the CPU, and then doing some research. One of the great things about going to school and with what we have available to us through the internet, is to be able to do what we call a dive or a deeper dive a deep dive into what’s been published. It is not something that a lot of people will have access to at the level that they might like. But you know, things like Google Scholar or PubMed are are great start. I would argue that you should school yourself if you can, in being able to really evaluate the quality of a study and there’s a physician out there Peter, a TIA, who does a great job of delineating the way to do that. It’s a great primer, actually, it’s more than a primer. There, you know, he and others have pointed out that physician, sorry, studies can be really flawed. And it gets into some mathematical and statistical considerations. But in terms of the process, yeah, observations, the way we start pretty much in medicine and from there we come up with with the hypotheticals The hypotheses and from there, you can try and judge what works and doesn’t work. But you know, that’s really what you what you’re referring to, I think, unless I’m not understanding the question is really the purview of the researchers out there. I’m not a researcher, although I am involved in some studies, with stem cells, I’m not what we call research, I’m more of what we call clinician.

george grombacher 10:21
Not. So somebody comes to you. And they say, Why? Why do folks come to you primarily, or some common reasons?

Dr. Rand McClain 10:31
Most people come in because they don’t feel right. And they’ve looked around as to why they don’t feel well, as friends, including Dr. Google on the internet. And some way or another, they come in, my focus is on health optimization, improving what I referred to earlier as healthspan. So people if they’ve been to or not, but a lot of them have been to their primary health care practitioner and not kind of good answer, like, hey, that’s normal. Hey, that’s just the way it is. Deal with it learn to live with that. If they’re not happy with that answer, they can oftentimes coming in, end up coming to me, or doctors like me, I’m not the only one in town, that’s for sure. But doctors who focus not on you know, sick people are reviving people who have you know, more than one morbidity, you know, the disease process going on. These are people that are saying, hey, you know, I have been successful, for example, in life so far. I’m 50 years old, I’d like to retire now or soon. I don’t feel what I don’t enjoy life like I did when I was 20. Can I do something about it? And don’t like the standard answer. Those are the patients I typically get

george grombacher 11:46
it what is the potential answer? If I’m 50? Can I feel as good as I did when I was 20? Yes,

Dr. Rand McClain 11:53
I found some people feel better than they ever have. Now, personally, I’m 60. So I can’t speak to it directly. What happens after this age, but I can speak to you know, the patients I’ve seen where, okay, somebody who’s 80 is not going to necessarily feel like they did when they were 20. But you know, the expression about you know, 60s, the new 40, and all kinds of stuff, there’s a lot of that that does apply. So at least as far as I’m concerned, it’s 60. And those patients I’ve seen, there’s still a lot you can do. And if it’s not in its entirety, there’s aspects of your life that may, that you may consider yourself better than you ever were before. And so that’s still on the table, at least at this age. Again, as you go further in life. You know, there’s certainly a lot better ways to spend it than the typical 7580 year old that’s just spiraling down into old age, feeling and feeling sicker and being sicker. We know that this occurs naturally. But as I like to joke, but seriously, you know, it’s natural to get sick and die one day. So who says we want to follow the norms and the natural ways to do it, we have some really, really great ways available to us to day two, as they say, turn back the hands of time, so that you don’t have to feel now again, if you don’t feel like you did when you were 20, you can certainly feel like you did when you’re 30 or 40. Again, and that beats for a lot of people, unfortunately, most people what typical 75 year olds feel like now

george grombacher 13:20
I’d be remiss not to ask, what are what are some of those ways? Well, that’s

Dr. Rand McClain 13:25
one of the reasons I wrote the book, because there’s so many ways now typically, sort of what they call a no brainer, and along with death and taxes with things are you going to head your way, one day, as you know, hormonal changes, the either the pituitary or the specific glands themselves that are activated by the pituitary are not functioning like they used to. So whether it’s a reduction in testosterone, or estrogen, or thyroid or growth hormone, these things, which affects your quality of life in a beneficial way, if they’re adequate, they diminish and you don’t feel as well we can adjust those either through coaxing them into working like they used to, or simply replacing them. There are ways to clean up what I call the cellular mess, where and I use the analogy, the cell has to produce a lot of things, proteins, and those proteins have to be folded in a special way, messengers to other cells close by or far away. At any rate, the function is not a burden necessarily, but there’s a process by which we have to clean up the mess of doing that function. And if we don’t do it regularly, and we don’t do it properly. We start dysfunctioning and there’s a process that’s an aid called a toffee G that has to be activated and doing things like smoking and drinking too much or even simpler, not getting enough sleep, not eating properly, not exercising all that can Throw off that process of what I call a toughy, to your repair. And just by correcting that by cleaning up the cellar or mess by activating autophagy, by getting out there and exercising again, you know, I’d say it’s never too late, right, you were probably going to ask me that never too late. By going back to getting enough sleep by going back to eating properly, we can initiate that process. Again, there are also supplements and other procedures that we can use on a daily basis that can help initiate that process so that we can actually go back in time a little bit by resetting the the information inside the cell, I call the recipe book or the DNA to use the right term. So that the, the cell functions properly again.

george grombacher 15:45
And I thank you, I absolutely was gonna, I’m curious if it’s ever too late.

Dr. Rand McClain 15:51
No, I mean, you know, when you have something like just to be specific about if you have, say, a torn muscle or a torn ligament or tendon, you’re not going to be able to inject stem cells into that area. And those are not going to grow back together. I joke, you can’t turn hamburger back into a cow, right? But I’m not talking about physical injuries like that I’m talking about in general at the cellular level, like I was just saying, making enough general repairs in a broad stroke, that the body as a whole functions better not specifically, you know, a torn tendon, which requires surgical repair, thank God, we have those tools, too. Those are tools for regeneration as well. Those aren’t do it yourselfer tools, that we have a lot of power to utilize and quite easily in a lot of cases and cheaply. But they all come together to promote that healthspan I keep referring to which is what everybody wants.

I don’t have anybody coming to me saying, hey,

I want the reverse. I want 20 In the back years, you know, I don’t care if I’m miserable. But you know, do anything you can ran even if it means quality of life, diminishment now, so I get an extra 20. It’s the opposite. And that’s what the book is focused on using all those tools available to us. And also given a peek as to what’s down the road, not just 1020 years down the road. But really a year from now your

george grombacher 17:19
life is a series of trade offs. And it’s possible that I do need to if I’m not currently in the habit of lifting weights or engaging in cardiovascular activity that I’ll need to start doing that. And people could perceive that as bad.

Dr. Rand McClain 17:38
Well, you said if you’re if you’re already doing it, or you’re not doing it,

george grombacher 17:41
if I’m not currently doing that, you and I’m saying okay, I do need to make some sacrifices today by doing some uncomfortable things that are different than I’m currently doing.

Dr. Rand McClain 17:52
Well, yeah, that goes into psychology of it. All right,

I would argue because, yeah, the way you look at it is important, but you can say, Look, I’m looking at the most positive outlook, I can get ran, but I still hate doing my cardio. Right? Well, okay, then we need some reframing. And that’s more of a psychological issue, but the science is there. And maybe for someone like you if that if that were you, you wouldn’t really cotton to the idea of, you know, running 13 miles a day, or getting in shape for, you know, a marathon or a triathlon of significant distance or any distance, right. But still, you know, if we can get you gardening, let’s say, something that requires some movement, you will still be way better off. And in some cases you are better off than someone who’s probably, maybe, if not probably overtraining, which isn’t good for you either. There’s this concept of hormesis where you know, too little of a good thing is not good for you, too much of a good thing is not good for you in that sweet spot is the right spot for you. And that goes into other details about you know, just this specific area of exercise we’re considering but typically something is better than nothing and then to what degree works best for you is subject to your individual preferences and genetics, etc.

george grombacher 19:15
Everything in moderation. Yeah,

Dr. Rand McClain 19:19
that’s one of those headlines mean oh, there’s a section every rule that’s a rule therefore, there’s an exception to that. Yeah, that’s sort of catch 22 is semantic steel. But yeah, I mean, Cormier says goes into that. Yeah, you know, to what degree do we go is important and, and the doses are there, sorry, the poisons in the dose and those kinds of expressions. But in this case, you know, the very definition of life includes movement. So I would say we got to talk in movement, even if it’s just parking further from the grocery store to get a walk into the store, everything counts.

george grombacher 19:54
Love it. Moran, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you and engage with You and where can they get their copy of cheating death, the new science of living longer and better?

Dr. Rand McClain 20:07
Well, the first one is easy. Or the last one, I should say that there’s a website called cheating that.com which makes it easy. Of course, the usual culprits Barnes and Noble and Amazon etc. Have a book on sale websites, we have one PSR Papa Sierra Romeo med.com. I like to keep good content on there for people who just want to dig into some of these therapies and what’s out there the latest and greatest. And of course, we also have Instagram and Twitter and Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, all of which we try and keep up to date so that there’s plenty of avenues. You can pick your favorite as to how you want to keep in touch and you know, see what the latest and greatest is

george grombacher 20:48
excellent. If you enjoyed as much as I did, so Dr. Rand your appreciation and share today, share with a friend who also appreciates good ideas. Pick up your copy of cheating death at cheating death.com or wherever you’d like to buy your books. Follow Dr. Rand on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and then go to P S R med.com. And keep up and educate yourself on some of these. Some of the things that you can be doing to not only live longer, but live better as well. Thanks again random user. And until next time, remember, do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai