Man's Search for Medicine
By Brandon Smith and Zach Pope
Man's Search for MedicineJan 05, 2020
#007: Sarah Beaulieu - Embracing Discomfort in the #MeToo Workplace
Today’s episode is with Sarah Beaulieu. Sarah is a nationally-sought after speaker and author who trains workplaces and advises leaders on skills-based sexual harassment prevention and response. Her work and expertise has been featured in the Harvard Business Review, Fox News, AskMen.com, and the Huffington post, to name a few. She’s been a featured speaker at TEDxBeacon Street and the Business Innovation Factory Summit. She has trained a wide variety of organizations ranging from start-ups to large corporations to fraternities to members of the Junior League.
Sarah graduated from Brown University, majoring in women’s studies and religious studies and then went on to receive an M.B.A. at Boston College. She served for five years on the board of the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center, one of the nation’s oldest rape crisis centers, where she started as a medical advocate and survivor speaker.
In 2013, Beaulieu founded The Enliven Project, a campaign to generate a culture change in sexual violence and lift survivors to their full potential. The graphic she created and released through The Enliven Project called “Truth About False Accusation,” generated international discussion and debate, and has been re-blogged over 800,000 times.
In 2017, Sarah founded The Uncomfortable Conversation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to normalizing conversations about sexual violence, especially for young men. The Uncomfortable Conversation has produced over 100 YouTube videos illustrating how men can support survivors, navigate consent, and address troubling ideas or behaviors among peers.
Sarah’s book, which will be released early next year, called Breaking the Silence Habit: A Practical Guide to Uncomfortable Conversations in the #MeToo Workplace, offers employees and managers a path forward to learn and teach the skills required for safe and respectful workplaces for people of all genders.
In this conversation, Sarah and I discuss these practical steps for creating the ideal workplace environment. She shared with me a bit about the journey that has shaped her passion for generating this change. We discussed her perspective on “false accusations,” and why sexual assault training doesn’t work for many organizations. We take a stab at addressing the true root causes of sexual violence and mistreatment in our discussion about power and privilege. We talked about the difference between “skills and rules” and why that’s so important to delineate. We also chat a bit about our experiences at our CrossFit gym, which is where Sarah and I originally met. I learned so, so much from this conversation and I have no doubt, regardless of the experiences and knowledge you may or may not have on this subject, you will learn something valuable as well. To learn more about Sarah’s work or consulting, you can find her at sarahbeaulieu.me and you can pre-order her book on amazon, which will be released in February.
If you’re a survivor and need to take action, Sarah has referenced the National sexual assault hotline 1-800-656-4673 or rainn.org as a resource that may be a helpful next step.
#006: Jud Brewer, MD, PhD - Why Curiosity is the Cure to Craving
Today’s episode is with Dr. Judson Brewer. Dr. Brewer is a MD, PhD psychiatrist who has established himself as a world-recognized expert in the field of habit change and the science of awareness and curiosity.
After completing his undergraduate degree at Princeton, he went on to complete his medical training and doctoral research at WashU in St. Louis. He continued on to Yale for his psychiatry residency and chief residency, and he’s now an associate professor of psychiatry at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University. He is also the Director of Research and Innovation at the renowned Mindfulness Center at Brown University, and he’s a research affiliate at MIT here in Boston.
During his productive research career, Dr. Brewer has studied the underlying neural mechanisms of mindfulness using fMRI and EEG neurofeedback. He’s incredibly well-published, with numerous peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. His TED talk has had a massive impact, with almost 15 million views now here at the end of 2019. He’s been featured in Time magazine (in the top 100 new health discoveries of 2013), Forbes, BBC, NPR, Al Jazeera, Businessweek, and 60 Minutes. He is the author of The Craving Mind, which explains why we get hooked on everything from substances to love to social media, to thinking itself - and how we can break habits that don’t serve us.
In 2012, he founded MindSciences to provide greater access to the benefits of mindfulness-based interventions for anxiety, disordered eating, and smoking. The apps he’s released, Unwinding anxiety, eat right now, and craving to quit, combine mindfulness and motivation science to reshape habits that we desire to change. These apps are not just for research, they’re available to the public. If you’re interested in changing your eating habits or your relationship with anxiety, Dr. Brewer has offered listeners 50% off the Eat Right Now and Unwinding Anxiety app, using the promo code “ZPUA” for Unwinding Anxiety and “ZPERN” for Eat Right Now. You can find out more about these apps and get access to a ton of other free resources including free healthcare provider training at www.drjud.com. If you’re interested in following his work, you can also find him on twitter @judbrewer.
In this episode, we discuss the neuroscience behind habit formation and why it’s so hard to change, as well as his research showing how simple awareness training is actually more effective for smoking cessation than the standard-of-care. We also talked about how we should maybe ditch the word “mindfulness” altogether and the role of psychedelics in habit change and well-being.
#005: Anshul Gupta, MD - The Functional Medicine Model
What happens when patients develop symptoms that don't fit into the illness scripts that physicians learn? The Functional Medicine model provides a lens to explore the foundational lifestyle factors that address multifactorial medical problems. Brandon interviews Dr. Gupta at Cleveland Clinic to discuss the model of Functional Medicine, "typical" patients, his current clinical interest, and favorite supplement.
#004: Joe Kvedar, MD - Telehealth, Timing, and the Innovator's Dilemma
“Humility leads to curiosity, curiosity leads to learning.” - Joe Kvedar, MD
In this episode, we discussed the future of technology in healthcare, behavioral economics, navigating the status quo in medicine, finding solutions by looking to other industries, and much more.
Dr. Joe Kvedar is a global leader and expert in the field of digital health and a board-certified dermatologist and professor of dermatology at Harvard Medical School.
After finishing his residency and fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital, he was an early implementer of teledermatology, and he quickly became involved in the telehealth movement.
In 1995, he helped created Partners Connected Health, and through his leadership as director and vice president, he has spent over two decades paving the way for leveraging personal health tech, managing chronic conditions, and improving patient engagement and clinical outcomes. He's authored over 100 publications and is on the Editorial Board of the Nature Journal Digital Medicine.
He’s just been re-elected as the president of the American Telemedicine Association, is co-chair of the American Medical Association's Digital Medicine Payment Advisory Group, and a consultant and advisor for multiple societies and med tech companies.
Dr. Kvedar has spoken at multiple TEDx events, and he’s author of the cHealth blog and host of the Well/Connected podcast. He’s also written two books: The Internet of Healthy Things, and most recently The New Mobile Age: How Technology Will Extend the Healthspan and Optimize the Lifespan.
#003: George Schatz, MD - "How has technology changed what it means to become an effective physician?"
Brandon sits down with Dr. George Schatz, MD to discuss how advances in technology have changed the game for physicians and how that aid changed what it means to be an effective physician now and in the future. Dr. Schatz is at Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine and you can find more about him on his website georgeschatz.com.
#002: "What's the point of intermittent fasting?"
Brandon and Zach share their experiences with intermittent fasting and discuss the physiology and potential as medical therapy.
Subjective:
0:58 - Catching up on clinical rotations and recent events
11:08 - Intermittent fasting definitions, terminology, and background
16:45 - Brandon and Zach’s personal fasting habits,
24:22 - What’s the “80/20” for eating and nutrition?
27:00 - The history of fasting across cultures
29:20 - What was the result of a 382-day fast?
Objective:
32:25 - Overview of fasting physiology: glucose regulation, ketone production, epinephrine, HGH
39:02 - Calorie-restriction v. intermittent fasting
42:45 - What breaks a fast?
44:55 - Autophagy and mTOR in fasting
Assessment/Plan:
49:40 - Risks and adverse side effects: hypoglycemia, orthorexia, refeeding syndrome
54:50 - Conclusion, future directions
People, Books, Podcasts Mentioned:
FoundMyFitness Podcast - Rhonda Patrick, Ph.D.
“Wired to Eat” Robb Wolf
Dr. Valter Longo, Ph.D.
Dr. Jason Fung, M.D.
Dr. Peter Attia, M.D.
#001: "Should I be taking a probiotic?"
Zach and Brandon discuss the evidence for and against using probiotics as treatment for medical diseases and the mechanisms that may confer health benefits to individuals without disease.
Subjective:
0:45 - Brandon’s experience at the Metabolic Health Summit
10:19 - Introduction to probiotics
21:38 - Zach and Brandon’s probiotic protocol for themselves
24:25 - Introduction to the microbiome
Objective:
32:25 - Probiotics as treatment and prevention for type II diabetes and obesity
45:08 - Treating digestive diseases with probiotics
55:20 - Using probiotics to treat and prevent allergic rhinitis and eczema
57:08 - Probiotics and depression
1:01:06 - Short-chain fatty acid (SCFA) effects on inflammation and innate immunity
1:18:00 - SCFAs and the gut-brain axis
1:24:34 - Insulin and satiety regulation through SCFAs
1:30:45 - Mitigating antibiotic side effects
1:32:30 - What to look for: strains, dosage, viability, timing
1:40:10 - Safety concerns and side effects
Assessment/Plan:
1:43:50 - Conclusion, using probiotics for treatment and healthy individuals