 This is your host Guillermo Salatier, Director of International Services for HSI. And today on Perspective on Energy, joining us is our guest and my friend, Dr. Rudy Eberlein. And he is a specialist in functional medicine and also the founder of Medical Health Institute. So Rudy, welcome to the show. And- Great, thank you Guillermo. I've been so looking forward to this. So excited to be here. Me too, me too. And you know, today one of the things I want to talk about is, and something you specialize in, Rudy, is optimize health, optimize hormonal balance and how that affects improved performance. And I thought, you know, in my particular industry, right, we have a lot of issues with error and we're trying to work really hard towards error prevention. And there was an interesting nexus here with the intersection of your science and our science and how that can definitely improve the workforce right in that regard. So tell me more about your practice and what you're doing and what you get into this. Definitely. So I'm going to kind of start from the beginning how I got into this functional medicine practice. So I was traditionally trained, I know first our audience is a non-clinical audience. So I have to really kind of be with my terms. So let me know if there's something I need to elaborate on. So I got my clinical training in internal medicine. I worked in an acute hospital in Miami for 10 years where I was what they call the hospitalist. I was admitting patients to the hospital with acute diseases. So Western medicine with really good at treating disease were not good at preventing disease. So I was lucky I was able to go from the acute medicine and I started a weight loss clinic and hormone clinic. We are really focused on root cause analysis, why are people so sick and what can I do to help them with better nutrition and hormone balance. And I've been getting amazing results with my patients and this is a new branch of medicine called functional medicine where we look deeper into what's happening with our patients and we're not just here to treat disease, we're here to prevent disease and help our patients live an optimized life. Okay, thank you for that. That's actually Lisa's to our next question, right? So tell me more about the specifics when it comes to like hormone balancing, thyroid health and the therapies associated with that and how that improves performance and moves. Definitely, and you know, we've had a lot of talks about this GMO and I know in your industry, what you told me is that most errors that happen happen because of human error. So how do we prevent human error? So when you think about it, how is our healthcare system built? We'll build that we go and see our primary care doctor we go maybe once a year, we do some basic labs and most of the times you get pretty good you're doing pretty well, maybe your cholesterol is high try to lose some weight, see you next year, right? So a lot of times patients are like, but doc, I'm not the same, I don't feel great. Traditional medicine doesn't have a great answer into helping patients thrive into living an optimized life. So that's where I'm gonna go into first the definition of hormones. So the human body is a very complex, complex system. So the way our bodies tell our organs what to do is by secreting what we call hormones. Hormones are chemical messengers that are secreted by our glands, different glands and I'll go over a few of them and go into specific tissues and stimulate them into action. Let me give you a few example of hormones. For example, insulin, one of the most important hormones in our body secreted by our pancreas and helps with regulation of our blood sugar. Thyroid hormones, secreted by the thyroid gland regulates our body temperature and metabolism. Testosterone, one of the main hormones for both males and females for reproduction and overall growth and wellbeing. So the way that complex interaction of target organ and hormone plays, it is very, very well controlled and it is really an exact science. So the way our hormones work, even a deviation of 0.1% will have dire consequences in the organism. So now what has been happening in our toxic world, unfortunately, is that the production of all the plastics, the pesticides and particularly in your industry, all the chlorinated biphenyls, BCBs, all of those toxins are what they call endocrine disruptors. What they do, they mimic a lot of our natural hormones and they come and we have it on a tightly regulated hormonal system. So just think about it. If you're at your house, you have your thermostat that is put to one temperature and then you come in, you mess up with the thermostat. Everything goes haywire. And we have to remember, our hormones dictate who we are. Our hormones dictate our mood, our behavior, our personality, our focus, our vitality and our overall health. Our hormones are our weakest link. So hormonal health is one of the most important things for not just human beings, for any animal species. So depending on your hormones, it will depend on your survival and all your ability to reproduce. Okay. So I'm sorry. So if I can tell you, so what led me to this is many times I would see patients who went to their primary doc, got their basic understanding, basic blood tests and they tell them they're fine. But the patient tells me, doc, I don't feel well. I'm not functioning well. I have brain fog. I'm tired. I'm not the same person. I'm tired. My energy level is down. And this is not just happening to 50 and 60 year old men. It's happening at 40 and 30. And the research is very strong about this is that the EDCs are causing such havoc on our hormonal health that we see men in their 30s, 40s and 50s not being their best, whether this is at home, at work or anywhere. So they are not optimized. So when I thought about our conversation, when you think about human error, what can lead to human error? It's poor biological optimization. Organism is not at its best. You cannot function at its best. So if you have employees who are responsible for very important tasks in the energy industry or any industry that matter, and you have a low thyroid, you have low testosterone, you have low blood sugar, any of those things, the person will not be able to maximize their role are not gonna be as effective as they should be. And actually there's a very easy way to identify that problem and correct it. So my model, once we started talking was biological optimization for performance to reduce human error. At peak performance, no matter your age, if you have good hormonal health, you're gonna decrease human error. It's important. So let's talk more about this optimization and maybe some examples. Because I myself am your patient. So we would definitely dive into that because for me it was a great story to share, I think. Definitely. And I think you've given me permission to talk about you and your health status here. And we're not gonna go into detail, but remember you came to me where you had problems with your thyroid, which again, you have no family history of thyroid. PCBs that's very prominent in your industry has been shown to affect thyroid significantly. So I don't know if you develop thyroid disease because at some point during your work you were exposed to PCB, but you ended up with thyroid insufficiency. And your wife will tell you, once your thyroid is not the right way, you are not the same person. So imagine at work. So what was able to balance your hormonal, your thyroid and you felt much better, like to go even deeper. And this is what a lot of doctors are not really aware of right now. Testosterone replacement, testosterone therapy, testosterone for both men and women, but specifically more for men, is the most important to help you with your focus, to help you with your drive, to help you with your ability to deal with stress and with complex tasks. So when you have a younger men who develop low testosterone or insufficient testosterone, their work is definitely gonna suffer. So again, your example, you came to me once your thyroid levels were normalized, you still want it at your best. You check your hormones, you see that your testosterone levels weren't optimized. And the big misconception that people tend to have about testosterone is that first, only older men need it. Second, if it's a young men who need it, it's either for muscles or for better sex. It is way beyond this. Testosterone is really important for brain function. So brain fog that we develop, low testosterone is associated with it. Low energy, needing a nap in the afternoon, not being able to keep up low motivation, those are all symptoms of low testosterone. Dragging in the mornings too, dragging, dragging badly in the mornings that's another symptom that I myself from knowing what experience. So. And now I'm sure we're talking about this. There's a lot of people saying, so maybe it's not normal that I feel like this. So for me, I say age is only a number. Your hormonal health determines your functional status. I have patients who are 60, 70 and thriving once their hormones are there. So, and again, talking specifically about your industry, that PCB, the PCB has been even, it's defined as a persistent organic pollutant. So although it's been banned, I take maybe 20 years ago. 20 years, it's still out there. You can't get rid of it. So there's been contaminated sites that if you're still in that area, it's gonna get to you. And what's important, they've been mostly because of its carcinogenic potential. Right. About cancer. They never talked really about PCB as an endocrine disruptor. Yes, when we talk cancer, it's 20 years, 30 years down the road. It's a small percentage of patients. Most people say, ah, cancer will not happen to me. But when your hormonal health happens to you. It's more insidious. It's more insidious, but also life changing, life altering. And that also happens over a longer period of time. So the effects of that, of course, it's a good portion of your lifetime, like career, career, your personal life. And a lot of other things are affected by this particular. So EDC, it's endocrine disruptor. Endocrine disrupting chemicals or endocrine disruptors. And that includes all kinds of different chemicals like plasticizers, BPA, phthalates, pesticides like Atrazine, glyphosate, anything. So the way we get in contact with EDCs, we either breed them, they are in dust particles all around us. We put it on our skin, all of the skin care products have a lot of this. We eat them, all the plastics in our food, all the antibiotics that we raise, all cattle that we put on our vegetables. All this has an effect on our health. And that effect on our health decreases optimization. And to speak particularly about your industry, decreasing biological optimization leads to human error. Human error. So I've been mostly in the space of personal wellness. So if I've always been, how do I optimize my patient's life for them to feel better physically, mentally and emotionally? But what we've been talking about Guillermo has such a bigger crowd because I'm thinking that corporate wellness needs to start paying attention to this. Absolutely. One thing we talked about is the aging workforce. We have a lot of amazing brains, amazing people that might, maybe when they get to their 50, 55, early 60s, if their thyroid's are not balanced, if their testosterone level's not balanced, they may not feel that they can still perform at their highest level. Absolutely. So when they're like this, you know what? Early retirement is a better option. I have a patient who's a perfect example. He was a CEO of a company. He was in his late fifties and he told me he couldn't keep up with the young guys coming up anymore. Once we did his hormonal evaluation, we saw his testosterone level was low. Once we put him into our program and again, our program, it's not just testosterone. We optimize nutrition. We talk about exercise. We even talk about mindset. We talk about sleep. And as the last resort, we optimize hormones. But once we put all this together, this 28 year old CEO was like, I feel like I'm 30 again. He put all of his high executives into our program and his sales tripled. And now he said, I don't want to retire. I'm at the peak of my life. So in your industry that I know there's a lot of early age retirement. Yes. Again, if you can do this financially, you can, great. But people should not retire because they feel like they cannot keep up with the work. If not happens, this is what corporate wellness needs to take a look at this. And when I say corporate wellness, we talked about that similarity. Corporate wellness will understand that. How do you determine if you need something like this? So you're a project manager, Guillermo. And I bring a project to you. What are you gonna do? First thing, quality assessment. We need numbers, but not just basic numbers. You need the whole gamut of your hormonal health. Unfortunately, you've got your typical annual primary care visit you don't get. So corporate wellness, it should include all of the vitamins and hormones that are necessary for biological optimization. Once you do that assessment and you see there's any deficiencies anywhere as the project manager of your own health, what do you do? Quality improvement, why? So you have to find the right provider, put you on the right program and you do CQI, continuous quality improvement and quality assessment. By doing this, you can really ensure that your employees, any individual has that biological optimization where they can really feel their best. By feeling their best, you'll have a better employee, better returns, less human error. Absolutely. And that is the human error to a certain point, right? But it is far more reaching, right? Because one of the things we're experiencing is one aspect is industrial hygiene, which is part of that is it involves the human aspect of it as well. The other one is, you know, which of course is error prevention, error reduction, but another aspect that we're looking at and I am in the training business, right? So we're noticing that these senior leadership employees are just, they may not have the energy to help pass on knowledge. So now not only are they retiring, but they just don't have the time, energy are bound with to also train this new workforce. So this whole talent drain is what we're calling it, right? Is greatly impacted by this early retirement situation where, you know what, we're all very blessed to have really good retirement plans in this industry, but at the same time, you know, we could do something to just kind of extend that career longevity a little longer. They feel great, they're not gonna want to retire. And that's one of the things beyond that is also training the next generation of whether they're industry professionals or even other industries. So that's one thing that's important, right? And so what is your take on that? You're completely right, but where it starts, the individual has to be optimistic. He has to feel his best. I'm 52, I embody my philosophy. I feel like I'm 35, mentally, physically. I have more motivation, I have more ambition, I have zest for life. So one of the big symptoms of low testosterone as we get older, midlife crisis. What is midlife crisis? You feel blah, you feel like life is just, you know, nothing really interests you. A lot of guys will tell you this, they don't get pleasure into things anymore. A lot of guys work has become what they want to do, but they don't get pleasure in it anymore because first, they can't perform as well. Second, they don't have the mental capacity, brain fog. And third, a lot of times the mood goes down, depression. Mal depression is a huge symptom of hormonal imbalance. That's for men and women. Once you balance the hormone, like I was saying, hormones determine our mood and our behavior. So once your hormones are balanced, it's one patient said it to me and I love the way they said it. They said, I wasn't depressed, but it's almost like I was living in a world where all the lights were dimmed. Wow. Once my hormones were balanced, it's like everything got put on high. Everything seems bright, everything is shiny. I wake up with a pep in my step, I have zest for life. When you have this, you don't want to just go play golf. You want to pass on information. You want to travel, you want to enjoy life. And that's what I want for all my patients and that's what every individual deserves. We deserve to be happy. We deserve to really live a full life. It should not be that at a certain age, there's an expiration date and you should just go sit down somewhere, watch the sunset and go away. So hormonal health balance, hormonal balance equals personal optimization, equals better results every week at home, at the gym, at work, and in the corporate world. Of course. So speaking of corporate world, it's the next point. How do we, how do we get this industry and other industries, whether it's manufacturing or it's really a supply store in the industry with an aging workforce, right? How do we get, I mean, the only way to prove it is this improves your bottom line all the time. I mean, that's one of the finances. So one thing I've learned as a physician is, yes, health is important, but for corporate bottom line is the most important. But better healthy employees equals a better bottom line, no questions. So I had another guy who was a realtor and he came to me, he was only 40 years old and he had this testosterone at the lower level of limit with all the symptoms of low T and he was telling me, he's like, doc, I have all this work, but sometimes I just want to go home, close my door, watch TV and just not be bothered. Once I optimize your hormone, he fixed his nutrition. Same thing. He told me last year, he tripled, he wanted to million plus into sale. This is amazing. And, you know, yes, money is important, but why was he able to do this? Because he was a better person. So one of my model, one of my, I love to say that, feel your best so you can be your best. When you don't feel good, when you have kind of low mood, you know, you feel low energy, you have aches and pains, all of those symptoms of symptoms are aging or symptoms of hormonal insufficiency, you can get your best. So, and being your best as an individual translate into being your best as a corporate entity. So the main thing that corporate entity needs to do is having awareness about this. The basic primary care evaluation should not be enough. One other example, firefighters association. Also, that's a industry that's very, very highly exposed to toxins. And IAFF, International Association of Firefighters endorses testosterone replacement because they've noticed that 25% of their workforce is on some kind of testosterone replacement. Why? And that's independent of age. And 25% those are the people that admitted that they were on testosterone. Right, right. Not more who do it in the black market because there's a lot of stigma associated with it. So the IAFF put out a statement to say, if you have those symptoms, make sure you get your numbers checked, including your testosterone level. And if flow, make sure you replace it. Of course, the important thing, you need to find the right provider who has the right experience who really understands this because I'm going to tell you, a lot of my patients would have gone to an endocrinologist or urologist should be very conservative. I'm going to give you the example. Normal testosterone level is 300 to 1200. So it's a number. Endocrinology cannot be defined by numbers. So I have patients who come to me, they'll maybe 350, 380. Their doctor is telling me, it's good. That's good enough. What I say, that's a C minus if I were to give you a paper grade. I want A plus for all of my patients, regardless of your age, hormonal status dictates your functional status. So once I put my patients from the lower limit, maybe 350, 380 to the upper limit of normal, maybe 800 to 1,000, they thrive. They're completely different people. So this is where you see, yes, we focus on the person, the individual that makes him a better member of his family, a better member of this community and a better worker. Right, of course. So on this note, right, where it comes to find the right provider, I think one of the challenges that a patient's going to face or even in a corporate wellness setting will be insurance. So that may be something that ends up being out of pocket for now, but there is a push to have this somewhere normalized to the point that the insurance will be covering it, given the fact that it's going to impact the bottom line. Would you tell us more about that? Definitely. So insurance will cover your testosterone if you're less than 300 repeatedly. And unfortunately, once you show that you get high, they may deny coverage. So insurance is still kind of iffy. But if you have good insurance, it's going to be covered great. But unfortunately, majority of functional medicine evaluation may not be covered by insurance. But I'm going to tell you, it used to be only for rich people to go into hormonal treatment. The prices have decreased significantly. And what you may pay in upfront cost, you will save it on the back office. Because you will have a happier, healthier workforce that is going to be much more productive. So again, me, I'm more on the personal level where I say to people, health is our biggest asset. And health has become a luxury. You can no longer just rely just on your insurance. You need to invest in yourself. You need to really dig deep, go into anything. Leverage technology, leverage all the new knowledge that we have to really feel your best, be at your best and be optimized. And we need education. Education is a thing. So the next action plan really, as far as what we could do, I mean, besides finding the right provider, for example, if one of our viewers, for example, is interested in pursuing this, they can of course do maybe an online consult with you or maybe get a referral for a specialist in their particular area. So what would you recommend they do? So the first thing is, everybody needs to really do a good self-assessment. How are you doing in life? How are you feeling? How's your energy level? How's your cognition? How's your mental focus? How's your enjoyment of life? Rate yourself from one to 10. And you can go online and you look at low testosterone questionnaire and they have all of those questions. And if you see that you're not, you're scoring maybe a five or a four in many of those areas. The second thing is talk to your primary care provider. Have them run the test. If you see that they're not really into that type of medicine, start doing your research. Our website, www.medicalhealthinstitute has a lot of information. We even have one, how to vet your physician to see if he can really understand functional medicine. And if you cannot find one in your area, you can always go. I recommend the Institute of Functional Medicine, IFM. There's also another company, another company, an organization. American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. And there are list physicians that are proficient in functional medicine. So our clinic is booming. Now we've been lucky because of COVID. We can do telehealth consultation. So I do telehealth consultation in most states. I think it's here to stay. But you know, I'm only one. There's a lot of providers who can do this, but make sure you find the right person. This is something that you have to really see. Is this person really looking to make me be my best? Or are they just helping me not be sick? That is not good enough. Right, and that is an important point because in my previous employer, I was in a rather large corporate setting. It was, and they had a really nice wellness center. They even had a dental clinic. So ideally it was really to keep you in the office, but they also provide you the benefit of having that convenience there, right? So they were usually at the forefront of engaging in employee wellness. And I think as more and more corporate, larger corporate settings have that service available, it's more likely that we're gonna see this type of care being more accepted, normalized, or even thought-after, right? And available also because now exactly what we see, some people may feel that they have this and they don't know who to turn to. They go to their regular doctors. They get bounced from one doctor to the other and they're like, ah, I forget it. So really, this is really something that my mission, I'm trying to do a lot of podcasts. I'm writing a book on this subject. My mission is to empower each and every individual, men and women, to take a look at yourself. And if you don't feel that you're at your best, what can you do to do better? First of course, you optimize your nutrition. Second, you start moving more. Right, actually. You make sure you sleep enough. Right. You work on your mindset and then make sure your hormones are well balanced and find the right person who's gonna be in your corner who really knows, understands this. Again, I embody my philosophy. I don't just talk about it. I walk. Right, you live it. You live it. That's really important for me. So I want all of my patients. I'm building a tribe and you're part of my tribe. I am. We're gonna be 80 years old. We're gonna be thriving, working, doing whatever we want. If we want to retire, we will. But not because our mental capacity is so long ago then. Absolutely. And I can definitely tell you that the investment really, really pays off. Because for me, it really, really has personally, but professionally and in many other ways. So if I haven't said it before, I'm very grateful for all the help and advice and guidance you're giving me on this journey because it really has made an enormous difference in my life. So once again, thank you. Thank you. And I'm gonna tell you, that's my passion. I still do my regular internal medicine, but my passion is to bring awareness to the subject and really open it up to more conversation. I want more universities, more insurance to cover this. The more we talk about it, the more we shine the light over it, the more we empower patients to just say, you know what, if you're a physician, tell you you're fine and you don't feel like you're fine, keep doing your research. Keep talking to people, interview different doctors, listen to different podcasts, educate yourself, empower yourself. You deserve to feel your best as an individual and as a corporate entity, you wanna have an optimized worker because that's gonna be better for your bottom line. Absolutely, absolutely. Well, and you know what, that I couldn't agree with you more and I look forward to having you again on the show by the way, because this is definitely a topic that we can expand further on, especially when it comes to workforce safety and industrial hygiene, for sure. And definitely in this industry, in the energy industry and many others. Well, I think it's all the time we have for today, but man, we really covered everything without the cover, amazing. So definitely once again, thank you for being in the show and thank you for being my guest. It's always great to have people like yourself here. It's even better when we're also friends. So it becomes a lot of fun. So Rudy, talk to you again soon and we'll have you on the show again. And look forward to hearing more about this particular branch of medicine that you're definitely really good at. All right, thank you. I appreciate it. And Aloha, I love Hawaii. I went to Hawaii and I had an amazing time. What an amazing place. So this was an honor for me, me and you. We know we connect so well. We're gonna really try to keep bringing information about this. Thank you so much, Rudy. And thank you again, thank to Hawaii for giving us the value to do this. Thank you so much for watching Think Tech Hawaii. If you like what we do, please like us and click the subscribe button on YouTube and the follow button on Vimeo. You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn and donate to us at thinktechhawaii.com. Mahalo.