https://gut.alessifunctionalhealth.com/main-page
(0:00) Health decisions at 50 & podcast introduction (0:38) The onset of gut issues (1:24) Six R gut healing framework & free webinar (2:07) Patient story: Diane's journey at Ascend Functional Health (5:18) Thriving in your 50s, 60s, and beyond (6:41) Redefining the destination for midlife health (8:11) Primary drivers of functional decline (10:19) Longevity biomarkers that matter (17:17) Advanced tools for optimization (24:15) Advanced tools for optimization: Patient journey & expectations (25:14) Personalized health assessment & goal setting (26:06) Sequencing and prioritizing root causes (27:22) Case study: Diane's optimization phase (28:28) Importance of the 48-62 age window for longevity (29:55) Impact of optimizing during perimenopause & early menopause (30:42) Opportunity cost & the decision to change (31:01) Sponsor: Ascend Functional Health Discovery Call (32:03) Encouragement for existing patients to optimize further (32:49) Episode closing & call to action00:00:00
50 is not the beginning of decline.
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50 is the moment when the decisions you make determine which trajectory you're on for the
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rest of your life.
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The women I work with who commit to this in their fifties are extraordinary in their
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sixties.
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Not because they cheated biology, but because they worked with it.
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They worked with what their body needed at exactly the right time.
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Now, the window is open.
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The question is whether you want to walk through it, whether it matters to you.
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Welcome to Health Decoded, your number one source for real health information with your
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host, doctor Alessi and Matt Tack.
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Most people don't wake up one day and say, today, I'm gonna have gut issues.
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It starts quietly.
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Bloating becomes normal.
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Fatigue gets blamed on stress, brain fog, skin issues, food reactions.
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These are just part of life.
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Right?
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Until one day you realize you don't feel like you anymore.
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And here's the truth most people never hear.
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Gut issues are not random, and they're rarely solved with probiotics and acids or elimination
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diets alone.
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That's why I created our six r gut healing framework, a proven step by step system
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designed to uncover why your gut is inflamed and what it actually needs to heal based on the
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exact system I used to heal my gut.
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In my free on demand webinar, you'll learn why gut symptoms persist even when labs look
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normal, the six phases required for real gut repair, how testing, nutrition, and targeted
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protocols work together, and why most people fail, not because they didn't try, but because
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they never had a real plan.
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If you're tired of guessing, googling, and spinning your wheels, this webinar is your next
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step.
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Visit the link in the show notes to watch the six r gut webinar now.
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And as a listener of the Health Decoded podcast, you'll receive an exclusive offer at
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the end only available through this webinar.
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Your gut isn't broken.
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It just needs a plan.
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Hey, welcome back.
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I wanna start this final episode of this mini series with a different kind of patient story
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than what we've heard in the last few.
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Now this isn't a story about someone who was sick.
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This is not a story about someone who had been failed by the system.
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This is really more a story about what's possible on the other side.
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Now for just sake of not using names, I'll call this patient Diane.
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She came to Ascend three years ago back when we were Alessi Functional Health.
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She was 54 years old.
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She wasn't in crisis.
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She was, by what she would have described, managing fine, running her consulting firm,
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staying active, eating well.
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But she had started to notice what she would call or what most would call like a ceiling.
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She was bumping up against a limit.
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She couldn't quite push through energy that was good, not great, focus that was reliable, but
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no real sharpness or get to it ness.
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Her body responded to training, but not the way it once had.
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She was very much maintaining.
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She felt like she had almost a capacity that she was not able to access.
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She came to us not because something was wrong, came because she wanted to know what did it
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actually look like to be healthy at 54.
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She wasn't quite sure.
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And what she had gotten from her primary care docs and other friends, family, you know, it
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didn't fit what she was wanting.
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So, did a complete workup.
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We found the limitations.
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Insulin resistance was impacting her cellular energy.
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She had a cortisol curve that was compressed, meaning she wasn't getting that morning boost,
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which should drive your clarity, your motivation.
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For a female, she had testosterone actually at the low end of the reference.
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Technically would have been normal to any other doc who's just looking at green and red.
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But, can impact her level of activity and the demands she had as a professional as well.
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And she had a gut that was functional but wasn't optimized.
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And so, she wasn't getting the most out of her system.
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And so, we did was pretty cool.
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Put together a protocol for her over six months.
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We addressed each of those pieces in a specific sequence.
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We focused on metabolic optimization, cortisol rhythm support through targeted things like
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adaptogens and lifestyle restructuring, bio identical testosterone, which you should never
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be too good for, right?
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These are bio identical hormones that if your body is not producing them, you can use as
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supplementary to get back to a state of normal or even optimal actually.
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And then, we also focused on gut healing and microbiome enrichment.
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At six months, I remember her telling me something and it was something that I think
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about actually a lot and when meet other patients like her, she said, I don't feel like
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I did at 40.
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I feel more like I did at 30, but smarter.
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And it wasn't just luck.
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It wasn't just her genetics.
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That's actually what happens when you stop accepting a ceiling and you start removing
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what's really creating the limits in the first place.
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That's what we're going talk about in this episode.
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I'm going to break down some major things.
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What thriving actually should look like, not as a concept, but clinically as a reality.
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Reversing your bio identical age.
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Reversing your age from the inside and what it takes to actually get there.
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Now, welcome to episode four, the final episode of this mini series I put together.
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I'm Doctor.
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Alessi.
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I'm the founder and clinic director at Ascend Functional Health.
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Over the past three weeks, we've covered a lot of ground with this type of topic and the
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reason I broke it up is because there's a lot of pieces that go into thriving or optimizing
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one's health and really focusing on that.
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We talked about the difference between not being sick and actually performing at your
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potential.
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We talked about the economics of healthcare and the opportunity cost of not taking action.
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We broke down clinically why the most common approaches to health optimization produce
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partial or temporary results.
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And if you followed along for all four episodes, you now have a fundamentally
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different framework for thinking about your health than what most people are operating
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from.
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And so today, I want to close the loop.
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I want to wrap everything up and talk about what the destination actually looks like.
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What does it mean?
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Specifically, biologically, and practically to thrive in your 50s, 60s, and beyond.
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What are we actually building toward?
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And what is the path from here?
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What does it look like?
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And so let's get into it.
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And so First, we need to redefine the destination.
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Before we talk about how to get somewhere, we need to agree where we're going.
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Because I think most people have a fundamentally impoverished picture of what
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health in their 50s and 60s can actually look like.
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The cultural narrative around midlife, particularly for women is one of like a
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grateful acceptance.
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You're slowing down, your body's changing, you're going to hold more weight, you're going
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to feel more puffy.
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This is the beginning of the aging arc.
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You just manage what you can, accept what you can't and adjust your expectations accordingly
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I guess.
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And I'll just straight up reject that narrative because that's what it is, it's a narrative.
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Not because aging isn't real, it is, time's gonna keep passing.
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Biological aging involves real processes, right?
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Our telomeres, they shorten, mitochondrial decline, we have shifts in hormones, that's
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just gonna happen, changes in our cellular repair capacity.
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These aren't myths, but there is an enormous difference between the biological rate of
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aging, which is partly genetic, partly environmental, and the rate of functional
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decline, which is largely driven by factors that we can identify and address.
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And so, the research on longevity and health span, the years of life spent in good health
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that is, not just living, it's unambiguous on this.
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The primary drivers of functional decline in midlife are not just time based.
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They are chronic inflammation, hormone dysregulation, metabolic dysfunction, dysbiotic
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gut systems and one that should come as no shock, sedentary behavior.
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And so, single one of those factors is actually measurable and even better modifiable.
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So, what does thriving actually look like?
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Well, let's get into it.
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Let's create that picture now.
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It looks like waking up in the morning feeling rested and alert without needing an alarm or a
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cup of coffee to become a functional human being.
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It looks like a body composition that reflects your effort where you can see the muscles on
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your body.
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Your muscle mass is maintained and actually increasing.
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Fat doesn't accumulate despite a normal diet.
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It looks like cognitive sharpness that holds throughout the day.
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Not crashing in the afternoon, not brain foggy, not struggling to remember things or pull out
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words.
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It looks like a stable mood, a baseline emotional experience that is generally good
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rather than flat or having to force effort.
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It looks like a libido that is present and normal, joints that move without pain or
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stiffness, metabolic biomarkers that are not just normal but optimal, insulin sensitive,
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inflammatory markers low, lipid profiles that are balanced, that reflect operating biology.
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And now, this isn't just a fantasy, it's definitely not normal nowadays, but this is
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what the patients that I work with who are committed to comprehensive optimization, this
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is what they look like at twelve, eighteen, twenty four months of work.
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And so that ceiling that Diane had described, it can come off, Right?
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And that is the destination is to open it to the sky's the limit metaphor.
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And so, let's talk about some of those longevity biomarkers that actually matter.
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And let's get into it because what we actually measure when we're measuring for optimizing
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longevity and performance, it's not just looking for the absence of disease.
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There are things that we can structurally focus on.
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And so number one, fasting insulin and what we call an HOMA IR score.
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This is a measure of insulin resistance.
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Insulin resistance is arguably the single most important driver of accelerated aging and
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chronic disease.
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And it's almost never measured in standard workups.
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Most physicians will measure your fasting glucose, but glucose stays normal until insulin
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resistance is pretty advanced because the body can compensate by flooding the system with
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insulin.
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By the time your glucose is elevated, your insulin which has often been elevated for
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years, fasting insulin and the HOMAIR index which is by the way a calculation of insulin
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resistance from your fasting glucose insulin together.
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So it's an algorithmic score.
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It gives us an earlier and more accurate picture.
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The number of times that I've seen someone come in, we run blood work and they've got a jacked
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through the ceiling HOMA IR score, but standard glucose and insulin are like normal or maybe
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like high normal, would have been just dismissed by any other doc.
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I catch that and I say, Okay, your body's trending toward an insulin resistant state.
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How do we get ahead of this now?
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What things can we change to prevent that?
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And so, Many patients with normal glucose are going to be running at a 15 or a 20, but
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ideally we want to be below an eight for our fasting insulin.
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Now, the next two markers, and these go basically hand in hand with the ones we just
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talked about, is inflammatory markers and particularly HSCRP.
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HSCRP is high sensitivity C reactive protein.
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It measures systemic inflammation.
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That's basically inflammation throughout the body.
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And so elevated inflammation is the common thread running through cardiovascular disease,
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neurodegeneration, things like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cognitive decline, autoimmunity
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and accelerated cellular aging.
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And an optimal HSCRP is below point five.
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We see this in the tens sometimes on patients and I'm like how are you even functioning at
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this point?
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We also look at things like homocysteine which is an amino acid that when it's elevated
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indicates an impaired methylation is independent risk factor for cardiovascular
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disease and cognitive decline in particular.
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Some patients we're gonna look at like an IL-six and other cytokines to get more of a
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granular inflammatory picture.
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The next thing we look at, full thyroid and hormone panels.
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We've covered this in the last few episodes, but just in context of longevity, thyroid
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hormone is one of the master regulators of your metabolism, of your cellular energy production
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and your cognitive function.
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So having optimal free T3, not just normal but optimal, is associated with better body
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composition, better cardiovascular function and significantly better cognitive performance as
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we age.
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Similarly, optimizing estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, especially in post menopausal
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women, is not just about symptom relief.
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Estrogen is neuroprotective and cardioprotective.
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Testosterone is critical for maintaining muscle mass and bone density, cognitive function.
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It's not just for vanity.
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These are longevity focused interventions with substantial research actually supporting the
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role in health span.
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The next thing that we gotta see is muscle mass and particularly using like a DEXA scan to
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screen for that.
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Muscle mass is recognized as one of the most powerful longevity biomarkers that we have.
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Lean muscle mass can predict all cause mortality more reliably than many traditional
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risk factors.
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It's the primary driver of insulin sensitivity.
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The more muscle you have, the more your body can utilize and uptake sugar.
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It determines your metabolic rate.
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It protects your bone density.
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It reduces fracture risk and fall risk.
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And it's the reservoir of amino acids which your body uses for immune function, tissue
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repair.
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And so we use a DEXA scan, which we actually do in house at Ascend, to give us a precise
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picture of your lean mass, your fat mass, your visceral fat, which is around your organs, the
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most metabolically dangerous fat, and bone density.
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Together, these tell us a great deal about your metabolic trajectory.
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Then, the last two things we're gonna get into.
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Gut microbiome health and nutrients.
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The microbiome, as I've talked about extensively, not only in this series but in
00:14:40
this podcast in general because it's just such a focus of ours, it's not just a digestive
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thing, it's a longevity issue.
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Microbiome diversity declines with age and is strongly associated with increased
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inflammation, immune dysfunction, cognitive decline.
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They show that the centenarian populations, that's these populations where they have the
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most amount of people who live to age 100 and beyond with good health, they consistently show
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unusually diverse and robust microbiomes.
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And this isn't a coincidence.
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Optimizing gut health isn't just about digestion, it's a longevity strategy.
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And the people in these populations are often eating diverse.
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They're getting food from different places and they're having these more robust diets.
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They're not just eating the same thing over and over again to have more of a diverse
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microbiome.
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The next thing, nutrient status.
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Magnesium, vitamin D, zinc, B vitamins, omega three fatty acids.
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These are the raw materials that run the enzymatic processes, the mitochondrial energy
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production, the cellular repair on how your body and how well your biology functions.
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Most people are deficient in multiple of these and they have no idea because they've never
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measured them and it doesn't get measured on a standard panel.
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And so, they're taking a bunch of vitamins, they don't know which ones they actually need,
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are they getting enough, do they have genetic predispositions or SMPs that are preventing
00:16:05
them from utilizing said vitamins.
00:16:08
And so, being able to know these things because optimizing your nutrient status is, you know,
00:16:13
it's not the sexy thing, right?
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But it's profoundly impactful on your longevity as well.
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Now, let's get into beyond that, some of the more precise tools that we can use for
00:16:26
optimization.
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And I wanna spend some time on this because these are like more of the therapeutic tools
00:16:30
that we use when someone gets to that optimization phase.
00:16:34
And just really quickly to backtrack if you've not been around for long enough or heard how we
00:16:40
kind of operate or our approach to things, there's phases of how you do stuff.
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You wouldn't just go start fixing the alignment of your car without checking if the tires or
00:16:49
the wheels or the gears, right?
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Everything has to go in sequence.
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And so, we always focus on number one is the repair phase.
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What things do we need to fix?
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Does the gut need to be repaired?
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Is there inflammation?
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Do we need to replace a microbiome that's unhealthy?
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Then, we get into more of a corrective phase, right?
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Where we start filling the gaps, fixing the nutrient deficiencies, correcting the
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inflammatory breakdowns, repairing cellular energy, mitochondrial function.
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Then the fun part is the optimization phase.
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And now when someone gets into that optimization phase is where we can really use
00:17:21
some cool things to pull levers and really make some big impactful changes.
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Although when someone's sick and they go through repair and corrective phase, they're
00:17:30
gonna feel night and day different.
00:17:31
That's majorly impactful as well.
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This is more of like the fun stuff that people want to get to.
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But again, you have to get there, you have to earn it, you have to get there in the right
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time.
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And so, I want to spend some time on this because there's a lot of confusion, I think,
00:17:45
and misinformation around some of these things.
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And I think it's important to give you clear and honest picture just again from more of a
00:17:52
functional perspective.
00:17:54
So, number one, bio identical hormone replacement.
00:17:57
Know, people call it HRT, we call it HOT because we're not just trying to replace what's
00:18:03
missing, we're trying to optimize the hormones themselves.
00:18:06
And so, know, myself, I'll be a bit transparent here.
00:18:10
You know, I'm only 34 but two years ago, I was dealing with the brain fogginess, I think a bit
00:18:16
of the burnout as an entrepreneur and father and all these things.
00:18:20
Upon running my testosterone, noticed it was about mid six hundred's, which wouldn't be low.
00:18:26
It's not low.
00:18:27
Is it optimal?
00:18:28
No.
00:18:28
And so, I decided for myself that it made sense to utilize TRT or TOT and not just replace the
00:18:38
deficient hormone because it wasn't, but optimize it to a level where my body is
00:18:42
operating at a high level.
00:18:44
I have energy throughout the entire day.
00:18:45
I sleep amazing, I recover amazing, my brain is sharp, all these things.
00:18:50
And so, doing that in a specific and safe way made sense for me.
00:18:55
And so, know HRT uses hormones that are molecularly identical to the one that your body
00:19:01
produces.
00:19:02
As opposed to synthetic hormones which structurally they're different and they can
00:19:06
actually carry a different risk profile.
00:19:08
So, the decades of fear around hormone therapy have primarily been driven by the Women's
00:19:14
Health Initiative study which used synthetic conjugated estrogen and synthetic progestins
00:19:21
which are not bio identical hormones.
00:19:23
And so, was elevated risks that haven't been replicated with bio identical protocols,
00:19:29
especially when they're administered appropriately.
00:19:31
And so, using correctly, meaning at physiologic dose with appropriate monitoring, frequent
00:19:38
blood work, starts within a reasonable window of like a menopause onset.
00:19:43
So bio identical estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, these are among the most powerful
00:19:49
longevity tools that we have available.
00:19:51
They're gonna protect bone.
00:19:53
They protect your cardiovascular system.
00:19:55
They're neuroprotective.
00:19:56
They maintain muscle.
00:19:57
They build muscle.
00:19:59
They dramatically improve quality of life.
00:20:02
And we always monitor patients who are on HOT with regular labs, adjusting them based on
00:20:07
data, building lifestyle and fundamental protocols around that, right?
00:20:12
Because you're not going to out supplement or out hormone a crappy lifestyle.
00:20:16
And so, it's very much not a set it and forget it prescription, it's a precision intervention.
00:20:22
And unfortunately, what we see is most docs are gonna put you on a hormone and say come back in
00:20:27
six months to a year.
00:20:29
There's way too much set it and forget it mentality there that makes people worse often.
00:20:34
Maybe they took too much, maybe too little, right?
00:20:36
The next thing I want to talk about are peptides.
00:20:39
These are by far one of the more popular things that are going around nowadays.
00:20:43
Everyone's asking about peptides, what are peptides?
00:20:45
How do I get them?
00:20:46
Peptides are short chains of amino acids, which work as signaling molecules that the body uses
00:20:52
to regulate specific biological processes.
00:20:56
As we age, the production of many of these signaling molecules declines.
00:21:00
So, peptide therapy uses targeted peptides to restore or enhance specific functions.
00:21:08
One of the most popular, BPC-one hundred fifty seven, it's one of the most studied.
00:21:12
It accelerates tissue repair, reduces inflammation, profound for gut healing, and
00:21:19
then paired with TB five hundred to promote systemic healing and recovery.
00:21:24
Another one that I love is CJC twelve ninety five paired with Ipamorelin.
00:21:29
These work together to support natural growth hormone pulsation which is great for improving
00:21:34
sleep, body composition, recovery, cellular repair without the risks of using like an
00:21:41
exogenous growth hormone administration because the peptide goes in and it actually turns on
00:21:47
the cellular signals to tell your body to produce more growth hormone on its own versus
00:21:53
giving it exogenous growth hormone which can actually suppress your natural production.
00:21:57
Growth hormone naturally declines as we age as well and so this is a great support for
00:22:01
longevity.
00:22:02
And then GHK copper supports collagen synthesis.
00:22:05
It's been shown to have anti inflammatory and tissue regenerative effects, great for skin
00:22:11
health, gut health, joint health, all of it.
00:22:15
And these aren't experimental, it's not like some new found thing.
00:22:19
Peptides have been around forever and they're used by some of the most sophisticated
00:22:23
longevity and sports medicine clinicians in the world.
00:22:26
They're precision tools though and they have a specific purpose.
00:22:29
And so they have to be used with a comprehensive protocol.
00:22:32
It's not some standalone intervention, don't just try it, right?
00:22:36
Just give it a shot which a lot of people do and the truth is if your body is not
00:22:41
metabolically healthy, if your body is inflamed, if you have poor gut health or
00:22:48
function, you're not going to get much out of a peptide, you might as well save your money and
00:22:52
just focus on the fundamentals at that point.
00:22:55
Now, the next piece is metabolic and mitochondrial support.
00:22:59
And the mitochondria is by far one of the most important things that we can focus on for
00:23:03
longevity.
00:23:04
It's the energy producing organelles that are inside your cells and these are central to
00:23:08
aging.
00:23:09
Mitochondrial efficiency naturally declines with age, driving fatigue, cognitive decline,
00:23:15
metabolic slowdown that we associate with just getting older.
00:23:19
But targeted support is available.
00:23:21
You can use specific nutrients, things like CoQ10, NAD, precursors of NAD like NMN or NR,
00:23:30
alpha lipoic acid, in some cases even like a low dose rapamycin or even metformin has been
00:23:36
used in longevity context.
00:23:38
Now again, these are not things you just experiment with or try and I'm not recommending
00:23:42
that.
00:23:42
Obviously, I'm a doctor and I've been doing this for a long time.
00:23:45
I recommend working with a professional who understands these types of things because they
00:23:50
can meaningfully support mitochondrial function and cellular energy production as well.
00:23:55
Then, nutrition and lifestyle.
00:23:58
I think I want to be clear that these tools that we just touched on are not a substitute
00:24:04
for the fundamentals.
00:24:05
They amplify them.
00:24:06
Sleep, resistance training, stress physiology management, time restricted eating may be
00:24:12
calibrated to your individual metabolic status.
00:24:15
These are non negotiables for any serious longevity protocol.
00:24:19
Then, the advanced therapeutics work best when the foundation is built.
00:24:24
And so, what does this actually look like as a patient?
00:24:28
I just said a bunch of cool science y stuff, but as a patient, what is that journey?
00:24:32
What could you expect?
00:24:33
And so, me give you a clear picture of what that looks like, especially I can't talk
00:24:38
towards other clinics or other doctors, what we do at Ascend and how we've helped so many
00:24:42
people.
00:24:43
From the initial consultation to optimization, because there's some ambiguity of what
00:24:49
functional medicine can make people uncertain, right, about what they're actually signing up
00:24:53
for.
00:24:54
And so, always a comprehensive intake and consultation.
00:24:58
Deep, deep dive into your health history, medications, not just what's been diagnosed but
00:25:03
what you've experienced, what you've tried, what's worked, what hasn't worked.
00:25:07
Setting some concrete goals, not just I want to feel better but where do you want to be in your
00:25:12
health in two years, five years, ten years.
00:25:14
You want to be able to run and jump and play with your grandkids, right?
00:25:18
These are fantastic goals.
00:25:20
We then build a complete comprehensive laboratory picture.
00:25:25
Depending on your history, your presentation, this will include comprehensive panels like
00:25:29
I've described.
00:25:30
Full thyroid, complete hormones, metabolic, gut, microbiome assessment, micronutrient
00:25:35
status, inflammatory markers.
00:25:38
We're not guessing at your biology, we're mapping it.
00:25:41
From that map, we build a protocol that's specific to you.
00:25:45
Not just some generic supplement stack, Not just some hey, try this, take all this stuff.
00:25:50
And it's not even a diet from a template, it's all personalized to your goals.
00:25:55
And so, it's sequenced and we prioritize the root causes in the right order because we're
00:26:02
not gonna just start putting somebody on hormones or peptides if their gut's a mess.
00:26:06
We're not gonna start even addressing someone's gut if their metabolism and liver aren't
00:26:11
working, right?
00:26:12
We have to do things appropriately.
00:26:13
And so, we follow-up regularly with people, monthly.
00:26:17
We actually check-in weekly with patients.
00:26:21
We utilize specific technology to be able to kind of get feedback on a weekly basis.
00:26:26
Then we retest things regularly.
00:26:28
We adjust, we track, not just how you feel, although that matters, the subjective piece
00:26:33
matters, you want to feel better, but how are your biomarkers shifting and moving?
00:26:37
Are they trending toward optimal?
00:26:39
Are we getting the outcomes we planned for?
00:26:41
And this tells us how your body is actually able to respond to the procedure, the protocols
00:26:46
I should say.
00:26:48
Data driven medicine is really what we're all about.
00:26:51
Most patients who commit to the process are going to feel meaningfully different within the
00:26:56
first sixty days, if not the ninety days.
00:26:58
Significant biomarker improvement usually shows at month four to six and then that optimization
00:27:05
phase where we're building future rather than repairing things.
00:27:09
It usually becomes a primary mode of care somewhere in the six to twelve month range,
00:27:14
depending on where someone starts of course.
00:27:16
Now, Diane, who we talked about at the start, she's now what we would call in the
00:27:21
optimization phase.
00:27:22
She's an optimization patient.
00:27:23
She comes in quarterly, gets labs done.
00:27:26
Actually, I think she probably comes in every six months and we check-in.
00:27:30
Her protocol evolves as her biology evolves.
00:27:34
She's going, she's a hard charger.
00:27:36
If she's going through a harder season, she knows already.
00:27:38
We've taught her how to tweak things, how focus on stress management.
00:27:43
And she actually is making the meaningful changes, not relying on us.
00:27:47
We're here to help, but she has been educated through this process that she's now aware of
00:27:52
what things make her feel different, better, worse, all of it.
00:27:56
It's fantastic to see.
00:27:58
And so, this is really the arc, know?
00:27:59
Number one, assess it.
00:28:01
Number two, address the root cause, optimize and then maintain.
00:28:05
And so, you know, that's why the next decade is the highest leverage decade because you can
00:28:13
accept that, hey, I'm just gonna get older, things are gonna break down and eventually I'm
00:28:18
not gonna be able to enjoy my health and my life.
00:28:22
Or, you can take a decision and decide what the next ten to twenty to thirty years are going to
00:28:28
look like.
00:28:28
Because the decade between '48 and 62 in my clinical experience and the research
00:28:34
literature, that's the highest leverage window for longevity intervention.
00:28:39
Obviously, now is better than later.
00:28:43
It's always better to start now no matter what age you are.
00:28:46
I know that being 34 years old that now is where I make the decisions for how my future
00:28:50
looks.
00:28:51
But if you've missed that, right?
00:28:52
It's not too late to start, you make a decision now.
00:28:56
Here's why.
00:28:56
Because this is the window when hormonal shifts, perimenopause, menopause, they're going
00:29:02
to start.
00:29:02
And those shifts, if not addressed, will set the metabolic and inflammatory trajectory for
00:29:07
the next decades to follow.
00:29:09
The insulin resistance that develops in this window, the muscle mass that's lost, the bone
00:29:13
density that declines, those climbing inflammatory markers, they don't just affect
00:29:18
how you feel now or at 55, they're going to determine your health at 70 and 80.
00:29:24
This is also the window that intervention is most effective, right?
00:29:28
The body's adaptive capacity is still robust right now.
00:29:32
These systems we're trying to optimize are still responsive, so the compounding is still
00:29:37
working in your favor if you act now.
00:29:39
The research on women who optimize during perimenopause and early menopause versus those
00:29:45
who don't is actually not subtle.
00:29:46
The optimizers have dramatically lower rates of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, dementia,
00:29:53
metabolic disease in their later decades.
00:29:55
Not marginally lower, dramatically lower.
00:29:58
50 is not the beginning of decline.
00:30:01
50 is the moment when the decisions you make determine which trajectory you're on for the
00:30:06
rest of your life.
00:30:07
The women I work with who commit to this in their fifties are extraordinary in their
00:30:11
sixties.
00:30:11
Not because they cheated biology or they hacked it or did something, but because they worked
00:30:16
with it.
00:30:17
They worked with what their body needed at exactly the right time.
00:30:21
Now, the window's open.
00:30:23
The question is whether you want to walk through it, whether it matters to you.
00:30:27
And that is always the piece that I cannot help someone with, right?
00:30:32
What we find is that the term opportunity cost, which we talked about in episode two, people
00:30:38
often don't take something seriously or take action on something, any type of thing.
00:30:42
Whether buying a car, buying a house, right?
00:30:44
Changing their health unless the cost of change is less than the cost of not changing, right?
00:30:52
And so, we've covered a lot of ground in these four episodes.
00:30:55
I want to thank you for staying with me.
00:30:57
Hopefully, this was helpful for you and impactful.
00:31:01
This is the conversation I want most people to be having, not about managing your illness, but
00:31:05
about building something exceptional for the future.
00:31:08
If you're a new listener and you've just found this and you're thinking about what a first
00:31:12
step could look like, I'd invite you to try to schedule a discovery call with us.
00:31:17
We'll sit down, it's completely free, we'll hear where you are, what you've tried, maybe
00:31:21
what you're looking for.
00:31:23
If you have any labs, we can look at those, if you don't, we can get you some.
00:31:26
And if it's a fit, if Ascend is the right environment for you and where you want to go,
00:31:31
we could talk about what it looks like to work together.
00:31:33
No pressure, no obligation, just a conversation.
00:31:37
And the link to book is always in our show notes.
00:31:39
If you're an existing patient, you've already been on a protocol with us and you're feeling
00:31:43
good or you're one of our physical medicine patients, want you to think about what the next
00:31:47
level looks like.
00:31:48
Not just I want to feel better but how do I optimize.
00:31:52
Many of the optimization tools I discussed today, the advanced hormones, the peptide
00:31:56
protocols, the longevity focused testing, they're available to you if we haven't already
00:32:01
incorporated them.
00:32:03
This up, bring up this episode at your next appointment, let's talk about it.
00:32:06
Where you are, what building looks like from here, because health is not a destination that
00:32:11
you arrive at and then just coast.
00:32:13
It's a system you maintain, improve and build for the rest of your life.
00:32:17
The patients I'm most proud of to work with are not the ones actually who came in sick and got
00:32:22
better, although I love that, those transformations.
00:32:25
The ones I love are the the the ones who came in already, you know, functional, but decided
00:32:29
that that was not enough.
00:32:31
And that's who Ascend is for.
00:32:32
That's how we go from here to Ascend to a higher level of of health.
00:32:36
And so, again, I'm doctor Alessi.
00:32:39
Well, thank you again.
00:32:40
This is Health Decoded.
00:32:41
Thanks for listening.
00:32:43
And I will see you on our next episode with a lot more to come.
00:32:47
Thank
00:32:49
you for tuning in to Health Decoded, where we break down the truth about all things health
00:32:53
and empower you to take charge of your well-being.
00:32:57
If you found value in today's episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with
00:33:02
someone who needs to hear this.
00:33:04
For more resources, personalized support, or to have your questions answered live on the show,
00:33:09
visit Ascend Functional Health and head to the contact page to connect with us directly.
00:33:14
Until next time, stay curious, stay empowered, and remember, your health is in your hands.