Your Optimum Health What is Optimum Health Episode 1
Your Optimum Health With Dr Edmun Chein.
Jeff Harrison: Welcome to another event. This is called Your Optimum Life with Dr. Chein. Dr. Chein, welcome. Tell us a little bit about yourself. You can just briefly tell us a little bit about yourself. I have a question today to ask you that I think our guests are going to want to know, but before we get started, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Dr. Chein: Basically, I was trained in rehabilitation medicine with a subspecialty in hormones. And subsequently, I just decided to go deal with hormones once I found out that hormones is the main factor to how we get old. How we age. And we can slow down rebirth biological age and prolong life expectancy, prolong lifespan, increase health span, just by optimizing hormones and nutrition. So now that becomes my specialty.
Jeff Harrison: Now many many years ago when you worked at USC medical school.
Dr. Chein: Yes
Jeff Harrison: You kind of asked that question differently when it came to aging. How did you structure that made you go down this path and said “Hey, I’m not just going to treat issues, I’m going to see if I can discover a way to really solve them.”
Dr. Chein: Right, basically I found out that, I felt anyway at that point that aging is a disease. Because ultimately leads to death. All disease leads to death. All conditions lead to death is called disease. So why don’t we call aging a disease. And so then if we call aging a disease, then we’ve got to slow it. And we’ve got to modify it so that we not only lengthen the lifespan but also increase or maintain physical function and mental function. So that became my main goal. My main focus.
Jeff Harrison: Now you did something that was to prove your point. And I don’t want to get too deep into this because there’s a lot of information here. But one of the things that we all need, like the very first time I met you, and you were telling me about your specialty and actually how you could trigger cells inside our body to reverse their aging. And you know, I had to be honest. I was a little suspicious. But the more you talk about it because it was all done on a scientific level, I became more and more a believer. Tell us what you had to do to prove your point when you did this with another doctor at the, what?
Dr. Chein: The medical college of Wisconsin.
Jeff Harrison: So tell us a little bit about that.
Dr. Chein: Okay basically we get the 2000 subject, 2000 human beings that we raising their hormones, thyroid, pituitary, adrenal, sex hormones to a 20 year old level. And basically at that time the rumor has it that the majority of the doctor’s position was that you’ll have side effects. It’ll cause cancer. It’ll do all kinds of things. So one we want to prove that does it or doesn’t it not reverse biological age. So we measure the biological age of our patients all throughout them by function. At that time the telomere test hadn’t come out yet.
Jeff Harrison: OK.
Dr. Chein: So, we only have one way of measuring biological function, biological age by function. And so we measure them, and then we put them on a two years of our hormone program, pushing the levels, adjusting them to a 20-year old level, and then measure their biological age again, and all of them have success in reversing their biological age younger. But not only that, in the process, they got rid of many many many age-related diseases, such as cholesterol, hypertension, you know, atherosclerosis, things that we didn’t have when we were 20 that we ended up having is called age-related diseases.
Jeff Harrison: Now when did, I’m just curious, why did you choose 20? And why didn’t you say, you know, 30? Why did you use 20?
Dr. Chein: Because 20 is the optimum age. We are biologically optimum and that’s why the Armed Services draft people in the 20’s. If you’re 30 and you apply for Marine they won’t take you! So there’s a reason they don’t take you, because you’re biologically not optimum. Physically not optimum. So that’s why we picked the 20-year old level as a target, as a goal, and see if we get people sicker or get people healthier, in the terms that we bring their hormones up to a 20-year old level, they all get healthier, stronger, younger.
Jeff Harrison: And as you say, those typical diseases that are related to aging, like you know, maybe my focus, my concentration, my hearing, then you said like, arterial sclerosis, arthritis,
Dr. Chein: Cholesterol.
Jeff Harrison: All those things.
Dr. Chein: Yeah.
Jeff Harrison: Either reduced or were eliminated?
Dr. Chein: Yes.
Jeff Harrison: Wow, that’s amazing. So, so that brings us really to today’s question. How would you define optimum health? Since that’s the name of the show, let’s start off there. How do you define optimum health?
Dr. Chein: I define optimum health as a person who has the mental and physical function and the health status of a 20-year old. That’s my definition.
Jeff Harrison: OK, so now let’s take that a step further. I think that’s a great thing, saying hey I want to wake up every day and feel like a 20-year old.
Dr. Chein: Yeah.
Jeff Harrison: Some of us we have to think back, “How did I feel when I was 20?”
Dr. Chein: Yeah.
Jeff Harrison: How do they go about doing that?
Dr. Chein: They go about doing that by first doing something that a lot of doctors don’t do. That is to check your hormone levels. You’ve got to check your pituitary hormones, your adrenal hormones, your sexual hormones, all of them decline with age. You have to check where you are. And in my book “Living to 120 and Beyond” I’ve done a study on all the gurus in history that are on diets. All kinds of diet, okay, and all the gurus in history exercise, all kinds of exercises. And none of them lived beyond 94.
Jeff Harrison: Hmm.
Dr. Chein: And, actually, most of them don’t have the quality when they reach 60 and 70. You know, and but once they’re doing exercise are better, they do better, but they suddenly drop off at the end. They don’t have the longevity to go with it. And that’s because they didn’t pay attention to hormones. They pay attention to nutrition, because they’re a nutrition guru, they pay attention to exercise, exercise guru like Jack LaLanne, okay Jack LaLanne ate well, exercise well, all his lifetime. Suddenly died at age 94. Over a flu. A flu that you and I get over easy. But he actually died from it because his immune system he didn’t take care of.
Jeff Harrison: Which are controlled by the hormones?
Dr. Chein: Hormones. Exactly. So he neglected hormones which is a huge area in my, in my specialty, I consider hormones number one, to maintain fitness, and functionality, next two is nutrition, and the third is exercise.
Jeff Harrison: Oh, really?
Dr. Chein: Yes.
Jeff Harrison: Okay. So if you have to do it in order it’s first of all get your hormones, and then nutrition, and then fitness. Interesting, Okay. Well you know it’s funny that you mention some of these people that you talk about in your book because, right now the average lifespan of a man is about 78 years old?
Dr. Chein: Exactly, by CDC.
Jeff Harrison: Now I understand that actually for the first time in a decade or two decades, it actually went down, it didn’t extend, and not by a lot, but it went down for the first time ever. And I don’t know if that’s because, and this is just speculation, I don’t know if that’s because of the amount of obesity, and the type of foods we eat, and the fact that they’re not, they’re not doing it as a whole, part of people not doing anything with their hormones except letting them decline, right?
Dr. Chein: Mm-hmm (affirmative)
Jeff Harrison: Thinking about these people in your book, I think about somebody like Jim Fixx, the runner, the long-distance runner, now here was somebody that looked like he was in premium health, but I think he died at what, age 54?
Dr. Chein: Yeah, exactly.
Jeff Harrison: And then you have Dr. Pritikin.
Dr. Chein: Yes.
Jeff Harrison: I mean, here’s a guy that says, “Hey, if you eat this way, you’re gonna live long.”
Dr. Chein: And he, himself, at 68.
Jeff Harrison: He didn’t even make it to the average.
Dr. Chein: No, he didn’t
Jeff Harrison: So if he’d have done nothing, he probably would have been better off, he could have lived to the average.
Dr. Chein: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Harrison: But he died at a young age.
Dr. Chein: And his principles still being followed today.
Jeff Harrison: Scary.
Dr. Chein: Yeah. So, basically, a big part is missing. The way people look at his lifespan, something’s missing, what’s missing? Hormones.
Jeff Harrison: So is there a way that, let’s say, the average listener or a viewer can say, “Hey, I wonder if because of some outward signs that maybe my hormones are low,” and then they would have them contact the office and say, “Can I get that baseline test, can I see where I’m at?” I mean, are there any outward signs that you might notice? That a person might notice if their hormone levels are low?
Dr. Chein: Any complaints that they have. Energy, stamina, not being able to do something even after rigorous training, like going to a gym and one who lifts weights, or treadmills and just can’t get it done! Or, things like cholesterol coming in, hypertension coming in, obesity coming in. All these things should suggest to a person hey, go check your hormones. And if they call my office and give us the name we’ll give them a prescription to do it anywhere they are with the LabCorp and XSLab, which has branches throughout the country.
Jeff Harrison: Okay.
Dr. Chein: So we help people without charging them one penny. Help people find out what their hormone levels are.
Jeff Harrison: Well something that I found that was very, very impressive, it wasn’t one of those things like, when I came in to see you, you didn’t say, “Well, Jeff, how’re you feeling?” You didn’t seem to care about, I don’t want to say “care”, but that was not the most important thing. You wanted to look at, hey, my results from my tests, because it was only on based on those test results that now any action was taken, is that right?
Dr. Chein: That’s right, because that’s the cause! Okay, for me to care about you, let’s say you come in, you say “I’ve decreased energy, decreased endurance, decreased stamina.” What’s the cause? A billion reasons can be the cause. So, actually, it would be inappropriate for me to say, “Oh, I think it’s this, or he needs that.” Including hormones, I can’t even say, that hormones is the cause or was the cause. But once I do the test, then I have data, I have scientific data to say, “No, your weakness, or loss of endurance and stamina is not from hormones, but, rather, from your leaky gut. From an infection, somewhere hidden that we don’t know, I can say that. Because, look at your CRP going up, your hormone-C going up, I can point to the test and tell you the reason why you’re not feeling good. And it may not even be hormones.
Jeff Harrison: So just because you’re specialty is hormones, when you run that test, if you find that that is not the specific reason, it doesn’t mean you’re going to say, “Hey, you have to go down to the doctor,” you’re going to continue to move them in the right direction to have them helped.
Dr. Chein: Yes, yes. I do that.
Jeff Harrison: Well, tell us how the people watching again, how do they get in touch with your office, if you’re watching on the world wide web, which of course I know that dates me, but how would someone get ahold of you. Because we’re in Palm Springs, California, and so tell us how they get ahold of you.
Dr. Chein: All they have to do is just email me at edmundchein@yahoo.com, or call the office 760-327-8939 and then say, “I want to check my hormones. Give me a prescription, give me a lab order, I am in Tennessee, I am in Florida, you know I’m in Alaska, or I’m in Hawaii.”
Jeff Harrison: Okay that brings up another question, let’s say for instance, this person is in Alaska, and they do the test,
Dr. Chein: Yes.
Jeff Harrison: They’re in Alaska. How do they see you?
Dr. Chein: Okay. Well, I even tell them, we have tele-medicine. Tele-medicine is authorized by statutes in California, so it’s legal for me to see him or her in Alaska without even coming to California, physically. Except certain conditions have to be met, you know. Like a little exam at your local doctor, and then that the disease or illness is not one that requires physical contact. Example, ophthalmology. You know I cannot practice ophthalmology through tele-medicine. How are you going to look at the eye? Or gynecology, how you going to look at the female parts, you know, impossible. Or cardiology, I can’t listen through the computer. But, laboratory, what our practice is in, hormones, is just numbers – it’s all numbers, and so it’s totally adequate enough to do through tele-medicine. So I can check a person’s hormones and nutritions through blood tests, and then set up a tele-medicine and make him a patient, make her or him a patient, and then treat.
Jeff Harrison: So for those of you watching thinking, “Geez,” and I’ve seen this before, but I’m watching thinking, “Yeah, that person is way out of my area.” Dr. Chein and we’re in his office you don’t see this in his and where he does his tele-medicine there’s a big TV screen behind the camera, of course you see this beautiful view back there, that’s for those people that are in Alaska, and maybe it’s snowing in Boston, this beautiful beach scene. I think, isn’t this your backyard? They see that. So you’re not restricted from getting optimum health, just because you’re not in the area.
Dr. Chein: Absolutely.
Jeff Harrison: Yeah, because it isn’t local.
Dr. Chein: Yeah, technology makes the world so small.
Jeff Harrison: Yeah, you also do this around the world, do you not?
Dr. Chein: Yes, yes. But tele-medicine is really helping a lot of people.
Jeff Harrison: So, with this, what our goal is, to share with you the viewers, to build on that, “Hey, what is optimum health?” Because you hear Dr. Chein say, a lot of times you might say, “Hey we know there’s two components, eating, diet and exercise.” We’ve heard that forever, right? Eat, diet and exercise. But if you’re missing that component, which really should be at the top of the stack, and that’s saying, “Hey, let’s get your hormone levels right.” And then you probably, and tell me, you’re the doctor, does that make the food that we eat, are we able to utilize it and synthesize it?
Dr. Chein: Absolutely. Absolutely.
Jeff Harrison: And our exercise is rewarding and beneficial?
Dr. Chein: Absolutely. Hormones control the intestinal tract. In terms of the absorption of nutrients and what to do with nutrients.
Jeff Harrison: Yeah. I’m going to challenge you all to go to Dr. Chein’s website, it’s drchein.com, or totalhormonegenetherapy.com, and you can look at some examples of patients when they first started, and then after a period of time, and you can see how their muscle structure has changed, as far as tightening the skin, their tonality is different, things that they might experience as they get their hormones right. I mean, we see the timelines go away in the skin, what some color back in their hair if they’ve lost that.
Dr. Chein: Yeah, they go back to the study that we did in 1999, published 2000 people, that was published with Dr. Terry, you can see a lot of different changes, improvements in all kinds of conditions, in that scientific report. And the percentage that were successful and the percentage that were not successful, you know, and we won’t go into why not successful today, but basically it’s environmental poisons and toxins. But, those that are successful, you can know the percentage.
Jeff Harrison: Yeah. That actually brings up, hey, when we come back next time, we are going to talk about, how does environmental conditions put optimum health in jeopardy.
Dr. Chein: Absolutely.
Jeff Harrison: And, even if you live in let’s say, not the most optimal background, you know, you’re not at a great place, what can you do to make sure, even if you’re in a high-pollutant area, or maybe the water’s not perfect, that you can do things to still maintain, or regain optimum health.
Dr. Chein: Yes.
Jeff Harrison: Well, Dr. Chein, thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Chein: Thank you.
Jeff Harrison: Thank you for joining us out there, this is called, “Your Optimal Health.” With Dr. Edmund Chein, he’s with Palm Springs Life Extension Institute, in Palm Springs, California, and again, one more time before we leave, that phone number that they can reach out and get ahold of you.
Dr. Chein: 760-327-8939.
Jeff Harrison: Fantastic. We’ll see you again next week.