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In today’s episode, we have the privilege of sitting down with 
Dr. Tracy Gapin, a distinguished health optimization expert and the founder of the Gapin Institute. Dr. Gapin has transitioned from his role as a board-certified urologist to become a leading figure revolutionizing modern healthcare through precision medicine and performance-driven health. His groundbreaking work focuses on utilizing a data-driven, proactive approach to healthcare that uncovers hidden health risks before they become critical issues.
Throughout this enlightening episode, Dr. Gapin delves into the current shortcomings of traditional medicine, which often relies on a reactive approach, leaving individuals stuck in a cycle of treating symptoms rather than optimizing health. He shares his journey of transformation from traditional healthcare to embracing precision medicine techniques, where individualized data is at the forefront of enhancing health outcomes.
Dr. Gapin and Dave engage in a compelling discussion on a variety of health-related topics that are crucial for not just maintaining but enhancing one’s quality of life. They discuss the significance of understanding the true impact of hormones, inflammation, and gut health, and how these factors influence overall well-being and longevity.
In This Episode
- The limitations of traditional reactive medicine versus the proactive nature of precision health.
- The holistic approach to optimizing health through understanding hormones, inflammation, and gut health.
- Identifying and addressing blind spots that can affect performance and lifespan.
- Actionable strategies for enhancing energy, clarity, and resilience.
Welcome to the Wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy podcast, where we help entrepreneurs like you exponentially build wealth through passive income to live a life of freedom and prosperity. Are you tired of paying too much in taxes, gambling your future on the stock market, and want to learn about hidden strategies for making your money work for you? And now your host, Dave Wolcott, serial entrepreneur and author of the best-selling book, the Holistic Wealth Strategy.
How’s it going, everyone? And welcome back to another episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets of the Ultra Wealthy. Today’s episode is one of the most important conversations we’ve ever had on the show, because no matter how much wealth you build, none of it matters if you don’t have your health.
I’m joined by Dr. Tracy Gapin, a board-certified urologist turned health optimization expert and founder of the Gapin Institute, where he leads a cutting-edge movement in precision medicine and performance-driven health.
Dr. Gapin isn’t just changing how we think about longevity and vitality—he’s completely redefining modern healthcare.
Today, we talk about why traditional medicine is broken and often keeps us stuck in reaction mode. What precision health actually means and how it’s a data-driven, proactive approach that helps you uncover hidden health risks before they become problems. The truth about hormones, inflammation, gut health, and how they affect everything from your focus to your cardiovascular system. And why most healthy people, including athletes and high achievers, still have blind spots that are quietly sabotaging their performance and lifespan.
And finally, how to optimize your energy, clarity, and resilience so you can show up fully for your business, family, and legacy. This conversation is packed with personal stories, science-backed insights, and actionable strategies that will change the way you think about your health forever. If you care about longevity, vitality, and living life at your peak, then this episode is for you. And now onto the episode.
Dr. Gapin, welcome to the show.
Oh, thanks so much, Dave. Glad to be with you today.
Yeah, no, really fantastic to have you on the show and grateful for your time. And you know, I just think this is just one of the most important topics out there that so many people really overlook. You know, they think they might have proper health care in place. Maybe, they’re eating right, maybe they’re in shape, and they think, you know, things are just going okay. They go to the doctor, you know, when they need to. But you have an entirely different approach. To healthcare and what healthcare really means to you, and you know, vitality, longevity, and really living, you know, an optimized, you know, life.
So really looking forward to the discussion today and also having you break down, you know, what really is precision health as you define it. So why don’t we start with, you know, we’ve had you as a guest on the show, so some of the folks, we’ve already kind of talked about your background, so I really want to jump into the meat of things today. So, but let’s just start with helping people understand the differences between traditional healthcare and what you’re doing with precision health care.
Yeah. Thanks so much, and first of all, I just want to honor you for a moment. I love everything you’re doing around, you know, the holistic wealth-building space. And you’re really a pioneer in this space. And there’s so much alignment with what you’re doing. What I’m doing, looking at the human being as this very, you know, complex organism with a lot of moving parts. And you can’t just look at wealth, single aspect.
And the same thing applies to your health, and they align together because you’re building all this wealth with Dave. But if you’re not healthy enough to enjoy it, what’s the point? And you look at guys like Paul Allen, who was worth $30 billion. 30 with a B at one point. Billion dollars, and he died at age 56, I think it was with lymphoma. And so you have all this money in the world, but if you can’t actually enjoy quality of life, what’s it all for? And so this is why I like to emphasize that your health can be your greatest asset or your worst liability. And this is really where traditional health care is failing, where I, you know, I experienced this myself.
I went through over 25 years as a board-certified urologist, running a medical practice. We are all focused on treating disease, treating symptoms, getting you back to this crummy baseline, and I’ll see you next time. And it’s very reactive, it’s very passive. And you know, I woke up one day and I’m this men’s health expert in air quotes, if you’re listening, thinking that I knew it all and that I had it all together until one day I wake up and I’m 30 pounds overweight and I feel like shit and I can’t sleep and I’m stressed out and I’m tired all day and I can’t focus. And it was all my own fault because I was neglecting my own health, so focused on my career, so focused on making money, so focused on taking care of my patients, on business. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs fall into that trap where we don’t pay attention until it’s too late. And our reactive health care system really sets you up for that because that’s all they do.
Yeah, absolutely, and I’ve been going down this journey since, actually, for about 15 years now, and it’s been really interesting. And as you said, one of the things that, you know, it’s so in sync, I think, or really parallel track, right, with our holistic wealth strategy. But part of one of the things that we talk about, especially inside of our BFO, is that you are the CEO of your own wealth, and so I think about that as the same with health care. You have to be the CEO of your own health care.
Because yes, you can act, you know, you can ask specialists for certain advice around certain things. But, you know, after 15 years of doing this and actually working with you and your team, it’s been just amazing to see the level of expertise, the level of questioning the diagnostics, how you’re actually measuring things has been just light years ahead of anything else I’ve ever done.
However, I’ve also taken ownership myself and becoming knowledgeable in, you know, how I’m feeling, what’s working, what’s not working, and also the latest trends in everything with, you know, regenerative technologies. All of these things that are available so that I can be educated and actually ask, you know, my team the right questions.
You are the CEO of your own wealth. And I think about the same with healthcare-you have to be the CEO of your own healthcare.
Yeah, you’re exactly right, and we’re entering this, this era of what I call data-driven health. And, you know, precision medicine, precision health is all about using personalized data to really drive key decisions. I know this aligns so much with what you do in the health space as well, but we need to understand from all the noise out there, what’s signal and what’s noise, and what do we need to pay attention to, and how do we interpret all that data? You know, Apple is trying to come out and claim that they’re going to be the doctor of the future, and they’re building this massive health platform. But I believe that data is worthless unless you really understand the context and the nuance of how do I apply it, how do I actually use it? Otherwise, it’s just, it’s putting the cart before the horse, sometimes is looking at the wrong information. It’s listening to the wrong people. Influencers are trying to sell you stuff when it may not be right for you. And so I think it’s important to, yes, take advantage of the technology and all these cutting-edge tools that are out there.
But like the sexy stuff like the peptides and the PEMF and the cryo and the sauna and the red light and the plasma phoresis and all these amazing treatments that are coming around and gaining popularity, they’re awesome, but they are the icing on the cake and there’s nuance that needs to be understood there. And so I love taking a data-driven approach, but you have to know what to do with that data as well.
Yeah. So let’s break down again. I think there’s a lot a big misunderstanding out in the community out there about, you know, what is functional medicine? What is precision medicine? How is your approach different from what, you know, 99% of, you know, health care is, all about?
Yeah, so, so traditional medicine, you know, allopathic traditional medicine is all about pharmaceuticals. Make no mistake about it. I went through it for 25-plus years, and I know that we are brainwashed at a very early age. That is all about pharmaceuticals, diagnosis, drug, diagnosis, drug and repeat. And that’s really what traditional healthcare is based around. You have high blood pressure, so I’m going to give you a medication for that. You have side effects in that blood pressure medication, I’m going to give you more medications. You have high cholesterol, here’s your statin, thyroid, here’s your Synthroid.
You know, it’s over and over again. Functional medicine is very different. Functional medicine is understanding what’s the root cause of that. So if I have issues with, let’s say, autoimmune disease, Lyme disease, if I have issues with infertility, if I have any major symptoms, problems, what’s the underlying root cause that’s driving that, and how can I affect that? And so it’s rooted in nutrition and gut health and sleep and stress mitigation, mindset, work, fitness, all of these key aspects of lifestyle. It’s awesome. I love functional medicine. However, that’s not all we do. Because functional medicine, still at the foundation, fundamental level, is still treating problems, still treating what’s the root cause of your problem.
Now we’re moving toward a different approach. We now incorporate regenerative treatment. So regenerative medicine, now the third discipline, if you will, we’re talking about really just simply means how do I help my body heal itself without using pharmaceuticals, without using Drugs, sometimes not even supplementation. How can I help my body heal itself? This is where things like PRP, which is platelet-rich plasma, your own blood products, your own cells, helping your body heal itself by concentrating it. Where we can use peptides, which are a form of regenerative therapy, where we can take signals that your body already makes, concentrate them, and apply them in certain areas of your body to achieve again, that outcome. We’re looking for helping your body heal itself. So that’s regenerative medicine. So you have traditional, you have functional, you have regenerative.
Precision medicine is really all about putting all that together, you know, integrating lifestyle medicine as well. You know, how do I eat, what’s right for me, how do I know what I should be eating and when and how often, et cetera, how many macros, how do I improve my sleep? What’s the best workout program for me? How do I improve the way I handle stress? How do I help my body clear toxins? Not to treat a symptom or a problem, but to optimize myself so that I can function at that highest level. And you know, as an entrepreneur, one of the most common things I see, and you and I talked about this off camera, is that most of us think we’re fine. Most leaders, high performers, and CEOs get there because we’re powerful, driven, confident leaders who almost have this invincibility around us, and we think we’re fine. I’m okay. Stress doesn’t affect me. No way stress affects that next guy. I’m fine.
No way does stress impact me. No way do I need good quality sleep. I’ll get by with four and a half, five hours if I need to, here and there. Because I’m a high performer. I gotta, I gotta travel, I gotta do this, I gotta build my business, I gotta scale, I gotta exit. But what most high performers don’t realize is there’s a lot of red flags and ticking time bombs underneath the surface. And so, come back to answer your question full circle, precision medicine is all about optimizing your body to function at the highest level. Finding those blind spots in your health that you don’t even realize are there so that you can be your absolute best in business, in life, as a parent, as a role model, as a leader.
Yeah, no, that’s such a great way to define it. I mean, it’s such a comprehensive approach, and it’s really a proactive approach. Right where you’re looking under the hood today, even though that you feel fine, you’re looking under the hood today to saying, hey, even if something, you know, like, I feel okay, there could be something that could be lurking, right, and could rear its head in maybe seven years. And in fact, you know, someone, you know, near and dear to us in our community actually identified one of those blind spots that literally could have been a showstopper. So, you know, it’s just so powerful to do that, right? Being, you know, proactive about that. And I can share with the audience, you know, some of my own experience, experiences with this, you know, and at one point, you know, probably five years ago, I started, and I did one of the CIMT scans, which I highly recommend, right? But it’s again, one of those things. It’s not even covered by insurance. You have to ask for it, you have to go to a special place for it.
But basically it’s like an ultrasound of your arteries, right? And I’ve been doing endurance training, cycling, Iron Man-like events all my life. And I would think I would have no issues with cholesterol or my arteries, but sure enough, I’ve got one artery that’s been like 50% blockage, right? So that’s, and now I’ve been addressing that. And you know, Dr. Gavin’s team hasn’t necessarily put me on all those medicines, as you say, which is great. We’re treating it also in a kind of a holistic way, right, with, you know, natural medicines, lifestyle, diet, like all of these kinds of things. So, so that was, that was lurking, I had absolutely no, you know, idea about. Right.
And the other one, you know, recently was cholesterol, right? And you know, I kind of have a history of this in my family. I mean, I eat nothing. I eat literally nothing bad. It’s just so boring how I eat. And people would just say, you know, look at the cholesterol. And a typical doctor would say, you know, hey, I’m going to put you on a statistic, right? But you guys have taken it further and done a cholesterol balance test, right, to actually understand where it is coming from. And we found out that I’m an overabsorber of cholesterol, which is really the issue.
So now we’re putting together a mitigation kind of protocol to do that. But I would have never identified this. No traditional doctor would have even asked me about this. They would have just looked at my initial panels. And this is another thing I’d like to point out to people is, you know, the diagnostics are huge. I mean, you literally do hundreds of blood panels, like hundreds. And also there’s these other really advanced tests, like the Dutch test, for instance, on understanding at the molecular level the breakdown of your cortisol and your hormones. How is that changing during the night, during the day, during certain activities? Are you stressed, like, what’s going on? And then with that data, you can create this custom driven approach to actually solve what you need versus going on Instagram and saying, hey, you know, this biohacker out there said, you know, I need, like I’ve got mitochondrial dysfunction and I need to, you know, let me just take that new supplement.
Right. And it maybe it’s actually not doing anything good. I mean, I get into constant, you know, discussions with people about that. People want to just take a one-size-fits-all approach, but it’s so customized. And when you actually have the data right, then you can create that plan that’s very prescriptive for yourself, right?
Precision health is about using personalized data to drive key decisions-not influencer advice or one-size-fits-all supplements
Absolutely. Yeah. And I love that you point out some of the great tests that we use. And, you know, I think it’s important to take a step away from traditional health care, which is so focused on checking your LDL, HDL, and total cholesterol. And based on that, the way we help you is we give you a statin. That’s really what it comes down to. And yes, they’re gonna tell you, you know, eat more vegetables, exercise, and lose weight. And I got all that basic standard knee-jerk, you know, answer from my primary when I was sick 12 years ago.
But in fact, we know that, number one, heart disease is the most common cause of mortality. So if we’re talking about longevity, how do we optimize our health and prevent major catastrophic catastrophes or, you know, disasters from occurring? It’s eliminating or reducing the risk of heart disease. That’s not just lipids. So many people think it’s all about just cholesterol. Your hormones drive that blood sugar regulation drives that not just for diabetics, but for everybody. And inflammation, which most people don’t recognize, is happening in their bodies without them even realizing it. So I’ll give you a great story that I think drives home the similar point that you shared with us. So Sean, Sean’s a physician’s assistant, actually, who looks amazing.
Like, he is ripped. And he is in great shape. He’s in the gym every day. He is disciplined. He’s eaten, perfect diet. He’s got everything dialed in just right. He looks amazing. And, we thought he was fairly healthy.
Well, he did a VO2 Max test. It’s a fitness test we do where you wear a mask, and you’re on. Either we use a bison, a stationary bicycle, or you could do it on a treadmill. And it measures your fitness levels, and it’s a great marker of cardiopulmonary health, as well as it’s a marker for longevity. Well, his was much lower than we would have expected for his age and his apparent or supposed good health. And so based on that, we did some cardiovascular imaging similar to what you talked about with the carotid ultrasound. He did a calcium score, which is a scan of your heart that looks for calcified, which is hard plaque, which is meaning it’s already kind of late in the game, has already been there for a while. It’s a slow process to develop hard plaque.
Now, a calcium score in a young man, he was 36 at the time, should be zero, no plaque yet. You’re young, you’re healthy. He was not zero. He was 212 crazy for a young guy who looked as healthy as he did. We did an AI-driven clearly heart scan, which now looks at the actual blood vessels themselves. You could see the actual caliber, the lumina of the blood vessels of the heart. And he had significant blockage or narrowing of his aorta, the main blood vessel that goes to the front of your heart. Here he is, a young, healthy guy at age 36 who looks like he’s in the best shape of his life.
How the hell is that possible that he has major cardiovascular disease already? The answer was inflammation, not lipids, not hormones. For him, blood sugar was, actually could be better, believe despite eating perfectly. So this is why it’s not all about diet and exercise for him. He had massive inflammation in his gut, and it was actually from overtraining. So he, by overtraining in the gym, you think you’re doing something good, which is, you know, too much of a good thing can be harmful. It was stressing his body, it was raising his cortisol levels, which is our stress hormone, which broke down his gut wall, which led to massive systemic inflammation. He had no idea it was happening right underneath the surface. Everything he was doing right was being sabotaged by this underlying inflammation that was driving heart disease as well, without him even realizing it.
And so this is why I talk about blind spots, that you have to pay attention at a very young age and find out what’s happening under the surface.
It’s such a great example of that, right, because on the surface, right, everything looks fine. And again, if you’re taking, if you’re just working on that traditional approach, you would never think anything is wrong. Right. But by getting some of these comprehensive diagnostics, right? This is how you’re able to figure it out. And I always kind of, you know, describe, you know, your team and what you guys are doing is almost like forensic detectives, right? Because it’s so unique. Right. You know, the answer isn’t always, you know, right on the surface, right? You’ve got something that’s happening, like downstream, you know, that could be being triggered by, okay, the. Maybe the typical things, right? But then there’s also these whole other host of things that could be happening, right? And you guys are really experts at kind of figuring that out on, you know, what are the different drivers? And maybe let’s take some other diagnostics because it could be that.
And then let’s come up with the, you know, the actual treatment for it that’s going to fix it. And, oh, by the way, the treatment for that, you know, is very, you know, holistic, right? It’s with, you know, supplements and proper things that you can do versus just getting on some kind of drug.
Right.
That’s going to make you know, create other issues for you.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah. So, you know, I think that I just can’t drive that point home enough for people, which is the blind spots. And again, I’ve had them, which is why I wanted to share kind of the stories personally for me, you know, and I keep finding them, actually. And the way I look at it, though, is those are opportunities, right? Those are opportunities that I can fix that blind spot that could cause something pretty significant. But on the other hand, like, I always think about, hey, what if I can actually 10x my energy and bring that energy and vitality into the work I’m doing, the impact I’m having, my family, my relationships, and all of those kinds of things. Because frankly, you know, I mean, I’m 55 now and, you know, most people that I talk to, they like to use the age as an excuse. It gets thrown around all the time. And people even younger than me, well, I’m getting older because I can’t do what I used to do, right?
It’s just so easy to use that excuse. And I think that’s exactly what it is. It’s an excuse. Yeah, I can. I can do. I can do a lot of things. I’m still hitting PRs on the bike and doing different things. It’s how I want to kind of focus my.
And I’ve changed my goals, right, because I’ve learned that, like, actually health and fitness are not necessarily synonymous. Right. They can be two different things. And I was really compromising my health because I was focusing on fitness so much. But now I have new goals around, you know, health and what that can do. But if I can really increase my energy, you know, through, you know, focused effort on this, you know, that’s going to have massive gains to other people. Whereas, you know, other people. I mean, I talk to my brother all the time, and he’s just, he’s always in the gap, like frustrated that his running keeps, keeps getting slower.
You know, his times are slower, this and that, but yet he’s not really focusing on any of this core. The core problems really of his health, which I know he’s got, you know, several.
Yeah, exactly. And, so many high performers just kind of accept that gradual, subtle decay in energy and focus and drive, performance in body composition, in every aspect of our life, and just chalk it up to, oh, that’s just the aging process. Oh, now that I’m 40, now that I’m 50, it’s just kind of. No, it’s a preconceived false construct. They’re limiting beliefs, thinking that that’s just how it’s supposed to be. At the same time, we’re compensating, we’re overcoming those limitations and those changes with cortisol, with drugs, pharmaceuticals, trying to use peptides to overcome it, instead of really identifying the underlying issues that you can fix now before it’s too late, before you are. You know, I always talk about Bob Harper, the trainer from The Biggest Loser, who had a heart attack at age 51.
He thought he was doing great. If he had done the testing that he should have done, he could have found those problems before it was almost a major disaster for him. And so I really emphasize that leaders out there just get tested. And I look at, you know, four main areas. I look at number one, cardiovascular health. And it’s not the nonsense blood labs that your doctor is doing. They’re much more important, valuable predictors of health than those hormones. And your doctor’s missing the key ones every time is inflammation, and it’s blood sugar regulation or control, called metabolic health.
These are four drivers of performance today and longevity long term. And I think everyone needs to get tested and identify what are those potential ticking time bombs lurking under the surface.
Yeah. So let me unpack that for the listeners a little bit more, because I think you’re being really humble when you describe that right, so it sounds kind of simple, right? You just outlined, you know, the four biggest, you know, problem areas that we all have. But what I think is, what’s really unique, again, about you guys is this comprehensive set of diagnostics that you’re doing. So you’re talking about cardiovascular health, and again, you’re looking at all kinds of different things from gut health to inflammation to, you know, the carotid arteries. Right. The clear scan. Right. I mean, understanding all these things, your cholesterol, your lipids.
Right. All of these different panels. And then, from a data-driven approach, how that they all connect, which means you can really get to the source of some of the issues. Right. And in my experience, working with even other functional medicine doctors or obviously traditional healthcare, they’re only testing a very, very small subset. So if you guys are out there listening right now and you’re thinking that, hey, I’m okay, right? I went in, I just. My cholesterol is fine, my A1C is fine, my blood sugar, you know, I’m doing fine, my heart is fine, you may not necessarily be getting a comprehensive view of everything that’s actually happening. And that’s what’s really, you know, unique about this approach.
And then the other thing that I think is unique about it is, and let’s, I mean, this was such a big learning point for me. I mean, let’s talk about hormones. Right? And so here’s a really simple one: is the majority of doctors out there measuring total testosterone?
Yeah.
They’re not measuring free testosterone, which is one of the big predetermining factors. Right. Of how your hormones are actually doing. So go and check your last blood panel test and understand, like, you know, what is your free testosterone? Because in this toxic world that we’re living in, if you’re over the age of 40, I mean, pretty much everyone should probably be supplementing. Right. At some level. You know, I’d be as bold as to say that. Right.
But we’re, you know, we just live in a different environment. But the main thing is you have to get checked. And that’s a great example of something like you guys checked and even found, you know, a blind spot in me, because again, all my endurance training actually kept eroding my testosterone, and then it’s making everything else work really hard. But the way that you tested it and in the ranges that you believe are optimum were different than other providers were looking at.
Yeah, great point. And I’ll, I’ll emphasize for the listener that that testosterone is typically thought of as always all about, you know, sex and erectile function and libido, and building muscle for bodybuilders. But no, it’s actually really important for cognitive function, focus and mental acuity and memory and concentration and mood and energy, and drive to last throughout the day. It’s important for bone health, for metabolism and energy production, and for blood sugar control. It’s actually an anti-inflammatory; it helps reduce inflammation, it helps lower lipid numbers, and it helps with longevity. We know that men with low testosterone actually have a higher risk of cardiovascular events and early mortality. So, without question, low testosterone is much more than just sex and muscle. It’s really about your health span and your lifespan.
That being said, we know from three longitudinal studies, long-term, 20 to 30-year trials done, one hit what was here in the US, and two were done in Europe, and all three showed the same thing. And that is exactly what you just mentioned, that testosterone levels are plummeting worldwide to the tune of almost 50% lower than what they were 20, 30 years ago. And it’s getting worse every year. So if you, what that means is not that as you get older your T levels drop. We’ve known that, that’s, that’s common knowledge. But what’s really critical here is that a 50 year old guy today has a level that’s about half of what a 50 year old guy had 20, 30 years ago. That’s the difference. And that translates to again cognitive function, focus, drive, energy, mood, metabolism, bone health, muscle health, burning fat, and cardiovascular health.
And so that’s why it’s so important. Two big problems I have with the way traditional doctors look at testosterone, number one is they’re looking at total, so total testosterone is all the testosterone molecules floating in the bloodstream. However, we know that most testosterone, like literally 98% or so of your testosterone, is not even available for your body to use. So it’s bound to proteins in the blood, like sex hormone binding globulin, which is SHBG, or albumin, and other proteins as well, that will bind to testosterone. And once it’s bounded to this big fluffy protein molecule, testosterone can no longer get into a cell, which means it can’t bind to the androgen receptor, which means it can’t go to the nucleus of the cell, which means it can’t affect DNA transcription and protein synthesis, means nothing happens, it has no effect. So the only testosterone we really care about, that we want to be looking at is the free testosterone, which is actually available to freaking do its job. And so number one, doctors will look at the wrong blood Test, they’re looking at total when they should be looking at free. That’s my first problem.
But the bigger problem is the ranges. So this is. It’s kind of comical. When you go to a doctor, they’re going to order your total testosterone, and let’s say it’s 302. I’m going to make up a number, but it’s actually a realistic number that we see every day. A guy has a total testosterone of 302, and you look at the right side of your lab slip, and if you notice on the right side of the last step, it doesn’t say optimal level, ideal doesn’t say where you should be. It says reference range or reference interval. Reference interval.
What does that mean? That is the average. It’s simply the average. And for testosterone, they look at, they use a 2017 study that looked at the average of the male population for testosterone, and they took this ridiculous wide range where they looked at the median and then two standard deviations above and below, you know, statistically, like a bell curve. And this wide, ridiculous range of like literally 264 to 916 is this stupid reference interval that we have been led to believe is normal. Optimal, where, you know, it’s bullshit. It’s just the average statistical reference, the average reference interval that doctors use. So therefore, what happens is that a guy with a total of 302 is told by his doctor, “No, you’re in this range of 264 to 916, you’re normal, you don’t qualify for testosterone replacement, you don’t need testosterone, you’re fine, go home.” And that guy is now, unfortunately, at higher risk of cardiovascular disease, higher risk of blood sugar problems, higher risk of inflammation, and cognitive decline.
It goes on and on and on because he’s led to believe by this doctor, who doesn’t know any better, that he’s fine. And that’s really the massive problem we’re seeing around testosterone.
Yeah. So well said. That was such an eye-opener for me. So I appreciate you sharing that.
Yeah.
One of the things that’s coming to mind, and I know a lot of the audience out there also, you know, they have, have young adult children and, you know, obviously we want to share this wisdom with them. So what do you recommend for people, like if they have kids, is there, you know, should they be getting involved in this type of, you know, proactive type of medicine, health early on? Is there a certain time that you recommend it? Is there a certain set of panels? Or how can they start, you know, kids start getting involved.
Yeah, the earlier the better, for sure. And when we look at testosterone, especially in men, we know that it’s not just hormone levels that are dropping, but we actually see a similar drop in fertility as well. And we’re seeing that fertility rates are about half what they were 20 years ago as well. It parallels almost exactly the curves that you see with testosterone. Why, why the hell are these levels plummeting so much? And the biggest culprit, without question, is toxins, endocrine disruptors in our environment. And so one of the biggest things I would really emphasize for everyone out there is you gotta start mitigating, limiting, eliminating, avoiding exposure to these chemicals, these toxins that are all around us. For the sake of your own health, for your kid’s health as well. And we’re also seeing, unfortunately, that this stuff is leaving marks on our DNA.
It’s called epigenetics. And these marks on our DNA are being transferred to our children as well. And so that’s why we’re starting to see an exponential increase in this problem. And so it’s so important for your kids to avoid exposure to these chemicals. So what do I mean? Plastic water bottles, for example, you know, plastic water bottles, plastic Gatorade Powerade sports bottles, they’re made with with BPA. Even BPS is just as bad. Phthalates and other chemicals. And studies have shown that microplastics are detectable in men’s testicles, in biopsies of the testicle, and in sperm.
We’re seeing microplastics is crazy. So start by eliminating plastic. Start by filtering your water. Believe it or not, our public water supply is poisoned with chemicals with water from toxins that are herbicides that are sprayed on our crops. I tell you what else is in our drinking water is women’s birth control. It’s scary, but massive levels of synthetic estrogen from women’s birth control can’t be filtered by our water treatment plants at a local level. And so it’s scary that most men are actually, believe it or not, on the pill. And this estrogen is like, it’s like a glue that will bind to androgen receptors.
You know how testosterone does its job, and it blocks testosterone from working, and it turns off testosterone production, and it’s killing us. So filter your water. Reverse osmosis, carbon block. You got to be filtering your water. I have a stainless steel water container. Wherever I go, you’ve got to be drinking. Filtered water is a big problem. Food, make sure you’re eating organic grass-fed animals.
If you eat animals, organic fruits, and Vegetables, for sure. It’s worth the extra money. Make sure you’re washing your fruit even sometimes, or spraying chemicals on the fruit to keep them from going bad. Plastic food containers are a big deal as well. So storage containers like to go food, or sometimes you’ll get like food that you can have delivered to your door, and they just heat up in the container that it comes in. Those are plastics that are leaching into your food. They may be great foods, but if you’re warming them up or heating them in these plastics, you’re killing yourself slowly every day. Finally, personal care products.
I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to look at the chemicals, toxins, poisons that are in your laundry detergent, your deodorant, your soap, your shampoo, your sunscreen. Simply look at the ingredients, and you can get an app on your phone. Environmental Working Group makes a great app. It’s free. It’s called Healthy Living. Yucca Yuka is another great app that you can use. And with these apps, when you go to the drugstore, you can literally scan the barcode. It’ll tell you what’s in these products.
You’ll be shocked to see all the harmful chemicals that you’re putting all over your body. And it’s, it’s just, you know, people think, oh, it’s no big deal, it’s just a little bit, but it adds up every single day, a little bit at a time. It has the incremental effect that has a cumulative exponential effect over time.
Yeah, Dr. Gap, and tell us about your peak launch program. What does that entail?
Yeah, so four components of, of really what we do. It starts with diagnostic testing. And you touched on a lot of testing that we do. We do blood testing, we do saliva testing, we do stool, we do urine, we do almost anything you can imagine. We do genetic testing, microbiome testing. We look at all kinds of functional tests to really understand, first of all, what’s working and what’s not working. Get an assessment of what do we need to focus on. The second part is concierge medical.
So I believe in data-driven medicine, where we look at precision tests to guide our medical approach. And that means dialing in hormones, targeted supplementation. How can we use peptides as that icing on the cake, so to speak, to augment our response in a very personalized, data-driven manner? And so on, personalized medical care. The third part is probably the most important, and that is the functional medicine train coaches. Now I have functional medicine trained coaches who are certified to look at your functional testing, your microbiome, your food sensitivity, heavy metals, organic acids, all these other fancy tests that we can do, your genetics as well, to guide very clear decisions on things like. The most common question I get is, “Dave, what do I eat? What do I eat? What do I not eat, and how much? When I hear about fasting, I hear about keto, I hear about macro ratios, all this stuff, it’s complicated.” And so our coaches work one-on-one with my clients to dial that in.
And most high performers immediately thought, “No, I’m fine, I eat healthy, I eat great.” But based on your functional testing, foods that may be great for you. Things like one guy were bananas, and coffee was like kryptonite for him because of some gut issues that he didn’t even realize. So this is where dialing in the lifestyle component is so incredibly important and sometimes more powerful than all the hormones or peptides that I can prescribe. The lifestyle piece is fundamental. And then, finally, the last part is data. And I like to say, know your numbers, and how do you know that what you’re doing is actually working or not, is tracking it. And so we track blood sugar, we track.
You can actually measure stress, we track stress, we track body composition, we track sleep. All these other metrics that we can track data points to really understand that you’re on the right track and seeing results. And so, peak launch is putting all these pieces together. It’s about data, it’s about precise medical care, it’s health coaching, and using the complex diagnostics to really make sure that we’re addressing your blind spots.
Yeah, awesome. It’s such a comprehensive approach. And, you know, I just really get fired up about this topic, and I think, and I’ll put it out there again publicly, is that I want to be Dr. Gapen’s actual number one referring partner. I’ve made a commitment to do that because that’s how important this is to me. We talk a lot in our community and our mastermind, and all of the folks that we have, our investors and folks that, that, you know, you are your greatest asset.
Right. So investing in yourself is just, you know, that is the number one thing you need to do before you start, you know, investing and working on your financial capital, and all those things, all those things will come. But you have got to start with that foundation. Right. And the foundation of having, you know, really rock solid health, you know, is just so critical. And think about how many people are relying on you in your life right now. Now. Right.
I mean, it is just so important. So I couldn’t just emphasize that enough. I’m really grateful for you sharing your wisdom. And it is a really unique approach. Kind of like we have a unique approach with wealth. Right. It’s like, you know, all of these, you know, kind of higher-end strategies we’re doing are, are not out there for the common public. Right.
And it’s the same thing with health. Right. All, all of the, you know, you go on social media or anywhere, and it’s just the typical sick care approach, or maybe there’s some flash around biohacking. But you’ve got to start really foundationally looking at these core things, kind of as we talked about, and really understanding what’s happening in the hood. Right. Is so key.
Yeah, absolutely.
If you were to leave the audience with just one piece of advice about how they could really get their whole wealth program or their health and wealth going, what would that be?
Yeah, get tested. So my brother-in-law, John, I’ve told this story a few times, he was a larger-than-life guy. Everyone loved him. He was in the best shape of his life, too. Looked amazing. We thought he was incredibly healthy. And he was, you know, one of the most disciplined guys I’ve ever met. And the age of 49, one morning, getting ready for bed, we were getting ready for work.
Excuse me. My brother-in-law, John, dropped dead. And what he would always tell me at the time, I kind of blew it off. Yeah, yeah. John, you’re always so positive, inspirational. I didn’t really pay attention to his words as much then as I should have. One thing he would always say to me, Dave, he said, Tracy, you don’t get today back. Make it count.
You don’t get today back. I’m like, holy. Now, in hindsight, holy cow. Like, how insightful was that? And I believe it all comes down to your health. Health. Because one day you’re here, the next day you’re not. And you know, who knows if his, if his passing was preventable, but that’s really become part of my mission. And you know, and I, my big why is my kids, my kids are everything to me.
And I think most of the guys listening can probably relate to that. And so everything I do is how can I stay as healthy as I can so that I can show up and be the leader, not just for my business and my team and the community, but for my kids as well. So get tested.
Such a powerful takeaway. Really appreciate that if people want to learn more about what you’re doing at the Gap Institute. What is the best place for them to reach out and learn more or connect?
Sure. Check out gapin institute.com, that’s G A P I N Institute, and if you go to gapininstitute.com forward/launch. I have a number of gifts there for you. A copy of my best-selling book Mail 2.0, copy my ultimate peptide Guide. I have a High Performance Health Handbook and a bunch of other great gifts for you. Again, go to gapininstitute.com/launch awesome.
We’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes if you guys are driving. And thanks again for your time, Dr. Gapen. Really appreciate it. Tons of wisdom in here today. I’m constantly learning and growing, and really appreciate what you and your team have done for me, our community, and others. So thanks again.
You’re amazing. Thank you, Dave.
All right, thanks again, guys. We’ll talk to you next week.
Thanks for listening to this episode of Wealth Strategy Secrets. If you’d like to get a free copy of the book, go to holistic.
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