Live Long and Strong: What Dr. Colbert Discovered

0:00 Hello everyone, I'm Stephen Strang and welcome to this special edition of the Strang Report podcast. Today is my privilege to be able to interview one of our best authors, Dr. Don Colbert. We've published his books, I think for over 20 years. I don't know how many books, I think I probably read them all and his new book, Live Long and Strong, I think is his best one yet and we're gonna hear about it today. And if you take this to heart, It can actually literally change your life if you can stay in front of some of the numbers. So let me first start by welcoming you. Thank you for coming into our studio. Well, thank you. It's great being here. And I was fascinated that you list 12 things that if you watch the numbers, the kind of numbers that you get when you get your blood work done, that it helps you stay in front. So can you kind of elaborate on that? Right. Well, again, I do many more blood tests than just 12, but these are 12 key numbers because a lot of these numbers I'm checking are actual silent killers if you don't identify and reverse them, such as high blood pressure. We know that's a silent killer, but most doctors are still following the old rules of high blood pressure being greater than 140 over 90. When it changed in 2017, anything greater than 130 systolic and over 80 diastolic is high blood pressure. Yet so many people come to see me and they say, oh, my pressure's just

1:30 a little high, or it's normal, they'll say. And their pressure is 140 over 90. And I said, no, that's high blood pressure. And anything over 130... over 80 is considered high now, but that's a silent killer. And just like hemoglobin A1C, it tells me what your sugar's been over the last three months. It's like your sugar report card. And do you know that 49 .6 % of Americans have either diabetes or pre -diabetes? It's epidemic. And it's like a house with termites. It starts to slowly eat away your blood vessels and cause plaque to accumulate in your blood vessels. It's a terrible disease. And it creates inflammation. It creates dementia. It's one of the leading causes of dementia. So these are silent, deadly killers, as well as belly fat and obesity. Ideally, our belly fat, your waist circumference around your navel should be half your height. So many people are like men, so many men have a waist measurement around the umbilicus or belly button of 42 and that would be 84 inches and in order to, you know, it should be They should be seven foot tall if they had a waist circumference of 42 inches. So again, once we lower that belly fat and that waist measurement, it's amazing how blood pressure comes down, blood sugar comes down, inflammatory markers like CRP, HSCRP and homocysteine comes down, and cholesterol comes

3:02 down, triglycerides come down. Almost every marker comes down as you lose belly fat, the most toxic fat in the body. And so there's other markers I do. Like I also checked, I said the inflammatory markers, HSCRP, the homocysteine. I checked the filters, especially the kidneys and the liver. And you know that approximately one quarter of Americans have fatty liver. It's the new most common cause of liver failure is fatty liver. And we have an epidemic because of our sugar epidemic. And then also we have the testosterone, the PSA, the thyroid, but most doctors never check the active thyroid hormone, the free T3.

3:44 And the last is vitamin D, the 25 -OH -D3 level, which I believe is the most important vitamin in the body, and we need to optimize our level to about 50 to 80 is the key. So those are your 12 numbers, and it's real simple. But again, I also check all the different hormones. I check the CBC, I check the complete lipid panel, I check the chemistries, and I'll check many times IGF -1, checking growth hormone levels. So there's many other tests I do, but these are 12 key numbers that will identify those silent killers. And then we can make simple recommendations that are natural and dietary mainly, and exercise natural things we can do to reverse them. It's simple. I liked how practical this book was because a lot of the words you're throwing around are words that are not familiar to most of us. Or we hear them but don't really know what it means.

4:39 But you go through it chapter by chapter. You can see how I underline mine. And you even have blanks in here where you say what it should be and you can write in. And I've actually gone back and checked some of my... blood work that I've done in the past. I did just kind of see where I stand and I encourage people to do this. This is the kind of book that you don't want to read and give away. Right. You want to keep it. You want to keep it. Well, I've got to tell you a story. A patient came in with a spouse and she was going to see her primary care doctor. Well, he had the Alzheimer's gene. And so I told him what to do. We checked his homocysteine. It was really high. I said, we got to lower your homocysteine. We did it naturally with a few key supplements. And then the wife says, well, can I have that done with my primary care doctor?

5:26 I said, sure, just ask him to run a homocysteine level. And so when she came back the next time with her husband, I said, well, did you get your homocysteine level checked? And he looked at me and he says, I don't know what that is. That's not important. And I said, that's extremely important. That's what her doctor said. That's what her doctor said. I said, that's extremely important because if you don't get that homocysteine down below 10, hers was like when she finally eventually had checked, it was like 15 or 16. And that pushes your brain toward Alzheimer's. It causes beta amyloid to accumulate in your brain, in your hippocampus, your short -term memory center, and your prefrontal cortex, your long -term memory center. And also causes plaque buildup in all the arteries in your body, but especially in your cerebral arteries. And also eats away your bones. Yet most doctors, because they haven't heard of it, they don't ever check for it. But it's a powerful inflammatory marker that if you don't get that down to normal, you're asking for dementia and all kinds of health problems.

6:21 Now, it seems that these numbers are like on your car, the warning lights. Isn't that right? Some of the numbers are not right. We know that it might be a problem and you better do something about it before it becomes a huge problem. Exactly. That's why I check my patient's numbers every six months. For example, your HSCRP, most people have never heard of that. That's a high -sensitive C -reactive protein. That's your inflammatory marker. If you have that elevated, there's inflammation going on in your body. And you say, well, the big deal, a little inflammation won't hurt me. Well, if your inflammatory marker is above three, which probably 50 % of my patients are, then they're increasing their risk of heart attack, stroke, peripheral artery disease. type 2 diabetes and even cancer. So that's why we want to, when you have inflammation run amok, you're inviting disease in your body and so it's so important to identify these things and then to use natural means to lower them. Like one of the major reasons why we have elevated inflammatory marker, HSCRP, is belly fat. Belly fat makes that thing rise.

7:31 I didn't know that years ago. And I'd have patients come in with high CRPs. They'd have a lot of belly fat. And I'd run all these autoimmune tests, ANA titers, and things like that. But then I realized that when they lose the belly fat... that goes down to normal for most of them. What is it about belly fat that makes it happen? Belly fat is one of the most inflammatory fats in the whole body and it's a metabolic factory producing C -reactor protein, producing all these cytokines that are inflammatory mediators and the more belly fat you have the more CRP and CRP constricts the blood vessels and causes our blood pressure to rise. So it's a vicious cycle and so that's just one cause. of elevated CRP is belly fat.

8:17 Another cause is hidden infections. Like you could have a herpes infection, you know, like a fever blister. You could have a chronic sinus infection. You could have a tooth infection, gingivitis. And I found patients with high CRPs... and they don't have the belly fat, so I check for hidden infections. And lo and behold, I'll find a tooth infection, or I'll find a chronic sinus infection, or I'll find something else. I may have to check for herpes simplex one and two, and lo and behold, they've got that. And so you treat it, and many times that CRP will come down. So there's many causes of elevated CRP, so you have to kind of go through it and see what's the thing causing it, because you want to bring this to normal. If not, you're asking for a disease in the future. You want to identify it and then make lifestyle and dietary changes in order to bring it down. One of the best ways to bring it down are these new GLP -1 agonist meds that turn your appetite down.

9:17 And so you only eat one or two meals a day and the belly fat goes right away. And a lot of people need those, especially if they're morbidly obese or have class three obesity with BMI greater than 40. Why is it considered morbidly obese? Well, we used to say morbidly, I still say it, but actually the terminology has changed. It's now called class three obesity. There's three classes of obesity. There's class one where your BMI is 35. And then there's class two, where it's between 35 and 40. And then there's class three, when it's over 40 BMI. So that's the one where they're prone to develop all kinds of morbidity, like heart disease, arthritis. It wears out your joints when you have that kind of weight. And so, so many people now are morbidly obese that they're having to have knee replacements, hip replacements, disc replacements. and all kinds of orthopedic issues due to wearing their joints out. They've exceeded the weight limits for their frames, quite simply put. I was in Cambodia last month, and I noticed that the Cambodian people are almost all thin. When I was around Americans, even flying home, it dawned on me how many are really overweight. I guess I get used to seeing it, even though I'm not overweight myself. But it's mainly because of our sugar and our processed food and fried foods and just the standard American diet, which the standard American diet, we take in way too much salt, way too much fat, way too

10:48 much sugar, way too many carbs and way too much meat. And as a result, so many Americans are full of inflammation. They've signed up for inflammatory diseases and they're running to their doctor getting all these meds, but not getting to the root of the problem, which is inflammation due to their diet. That's the key thing. You know, in the book, you talk a lot about hormone balance, especially with testosterone and thyroid. Could you elaborate why they're so important? Well, the most important hormone for people over 60, men and women, is testosterone. And the reason being is because as people get older, they lose their strength, their vitality. and their energy and the two key hormones that boost energy and vitality are number one testosterone for men and women and just as many women I put on testosterone as men I'll use usually the creams for them because they women only need one tenth the amount of testosterone as a man. And then the other hormone is thyroid, because as we get older, our thyroid just, it's like our pilot light starts to go out and we start to get cold. I can recognize it when a person comes in my office, they have cold hands, they have cold feet. When I examine their feet, their toes are like icicles. They usually are just, they have dry skin, they have thyroid hair, they lose the outer part of their eyebrow. Their face is puffy, their eyelids are puffy, and they're constipated. They're cold, they're constipated and have no energy. That sounds fun, doesn't it? It's not fun. And they many times, here's a key sign or symptom they

12:20 give me. They say, I have to wear socks on my feet at night when I go to bed so I don't wake up shivering. I have to wear gloves on my hands. I said, those patients have sluggish thyroid. So I check a free T3 level. And that's their active thyroid hormone, but doctors rarely check it. They'll check their TSH or their T4 or their free T4, but they don't check their free T3. And I optimize that free T3 up to a level of about 3 .0 to 4 .0. If they're older, I have to optimize it to only like 3 .0 to 3 .5 because they're more prone to... cardiac palpitations, so we don't want to give them to them. So when we do that, it's like someone just turned up their pilot light, and they're having energy, vitality, warm hands, warm feet. Their eyebrows fill back out. They no longer have that thin, brittle, wispy thyroid hair that so many men and women get when their thyroid's low or sluggish.

13:21 And so meds can do that too. There's a lot of meds that can cause low thyroid like proton pump inhibitors, estrogen, lithium, amiodarone. So again, I talk about the different meds that'll cause that too. You know, this book is so practical. So if someone goes through it as I did and filled in, fill in the numbers. Right. there's an area that's maybe not been tested before or whatever. Is this the kind of thing you could take to your doctor? Oh, absolutely. And a lot of doctors won't know very much about some of these tests. And so you can help to educate them, and then they'll start running these tests on you. Like I say, oh, my patients, I check these numbers every six months along with other numbers, and I make sure they're in that optimal range so that we can identify if they're off and correct them so we can prevent or reverse so many diseases.

14:13 It's real important. These are the key things, the key numbers that we need to know and monitor regularly so we can prevent a lot of these degenerative inflammatory diseases. So a lot of people don't do that. They get the disease. Most people don't. And then they have to take a whole bunch of medicine trying to fix it. Exactly. When we can identify these things early and change some dietary habits, extra you know start exercising clean up their diet get rid of the inflammatory foods and Take a few key supplements and their body will reset and then of course the exercise really important We got to move or else you're going to eventually develop disease this body was meant for movement I noticed that you have a the appendix you have what to stock in your fridge and write your pantry and you also have a List of the supplements right people need to think How do people decide which ones or do they just take one of each? Well, no, what I do is I have a, and that's what I'm working on now. I'm actually redoing the seven pillars of health and that's what I was working on this weekend of the supplement chapter. There's about 10 key supplements we need. And I'm going to get into that when we revise the seven pillars of health that's coming out next year. So we're not going to sell today. Two of the most important are vitamin D3 and also vitamin K2. and then a good multivitamin. But then there's others.

15:34 There's omega -3 fats, which are really important. There's also fiber. Do you know that about 50 % of people don't get enough fiber? And that's why we have so many colorectal issues going on in this country. So I discuss those 10 key nutrients that Americans need on a daily basis in my new book. And magnesium is one that's important. Magnesium is one I talk about, yes. Because you don't get enough magnesium in your multivitamin. The average man needs 420 milligrams of magnesium and the woman needs 320 milligrams of magnesium. But don't start on that. You have to slowly work up to it or you have to take foods high in magnesium like seeds and nuts and avocados. Those are high magnesium foods or else you'll get loose stools.

16:19 But yes, magnesium is real important, but there's like 10 different forms of magnesium. There's magnesium malate that gives you energy. There's magnesium torate that helps with muscle spasms and muscle cramps. There's magnesium glycinate that helps you sleep. There's magnesium threonate that helps your brain and helps your, it restores the neurons in the brain and also helps you sleep. So we have all these different kinds of magnesium. So it's not just the magnesium comprehensive one, but you need the right kind for what problem you're facing. When you boil it all down, what are two or three things that will change people's health more than anything else? Probably the most important, number one, is changing their diet. We are killing ourselves with our forks and knives and spoons, eating ourselves to death.

17:07 We're not drinking near enough water. The most important nutrient, more important than any vitamin, is good, clean, filtered water, like reverse osmosis, and we need at least two quarts a day. Water, but not at night, or you're gonna be up all night. And then the others start moving. Those are the three most important things we should do. And if we do that and then incorporate these 12 key tests and monitor them, the body starts to heal. Now, if you can't control your appetite, the Bible says in Proverbs, put a knife to your throat. What I tell people is just take a GLP -1 agonist. Take tear zepatide or take Mount Jero or some aglutide or ozempic or one of those. GLP -1 agonists. Now we have new ones coming out that are in phase three trials that turn off three appetite hormones. So there's no excuse. You will have no appetite. And so you only need to eat one or two meals a day.

17:58 But just if you do these meds. Please make sure you take in enough protein. A lot of people are taking these meds. They're not taking enough protein. They're losing their hair. They're losing muscle mass. Your muscle mass is your metabolic currency. Don't sacrifice muscle mass. Take in enough protein, be it freeform amino acids, be it protein mixes, like you can use... anything from pea protein, you can use whey protein, egg protein, whatever that doesn't upset your tummy, or just enough chicken, turkey, fish, and healthy sources of protein, not fatty steaks, and not processed meats, which actually invite disease in your body, we didn't even get time to talk about, but I tell which proteins to take also.

18:43 That's good. You also connect physical health and spiritual and emotional wellness. How do you see faith, mindset, and lifestyle choices working together to influence long -term health? Well, again, most people are led by the flesh and not led by the spirit. When we're led by the flesh, we do what the flesh wants. The flesh wants to eat sugar, and the flesh wants to eat fried foods and French fries and foods that invite disease into the body. When you're led by the Spirit, Jesus came to give us life and to give us life more abundantly, but that's the zoet life, the life of God. So when we start following spiritual principles, which are just simply you know, walk into the love walk, which is the key to everything, because God is love, and he that walks in love, he that abides in love, abides in God, and God in him, for 1 John 4 16. So when we do that, we start... crucify our flesh like Jesus did his and give the body what it needs and not what it craves. And then we're able to live long healthy lives, train our kids to do the same and prevent most diseases. So we become living epistles and people look at us and say, what are you doing? The reason why you're so healthy and you get to share with them not only what you're doing, but also the gospel. which is the best. You mentioned this earlier about vitamin D, but isn't that the one that you get when you're outside? But what happens after age 60, we lose the ability to make sufficient amount

20:13 of vitamin D from sunshine. So most of us need to take a supplement. and usually at least, now most vitamin Ds and vitamins only 400 units, that's just a trickle. Most patients need at least 2 ,000 units a day, that's what I take. I keep my vitamin D, I check the levels on every one because when our body once runs best, when that vitamin D3 level, is 50 to 80 nanograms per deciliter. And so when it's down in the 20s, that's in the toilet. There's no vitamin D. Vitamin D regulates your immune system. Vitamin D builds strong bones, strong teeth, muscle. It helps the brain. It actually increases neurogenesis of brain cells because vitamin D receptors are concentrated in the hippocampus, the short -term memory center, and in the prefrontal cortex, the long -term memory center. And it also helps produce nerve growth factor, which repairs neurons in the brain and throughout the body. So people don't realize how important vitamin D is. But I would say vitamin D3 is the most important nutrient. Right behind it is vitamin K2. And vitamin K2 is... Vitamin K, but it helps to get rid of calcium in the arteries strange thing happens when most people go through menopause or andropause or when you You know start women get the hot flashes nice sweats men get the grumpy old man syndrome, but get irritable from low testosterone But what happens then is we start convert we start forming plaque and calcified

21:45 plaque in our arteries So that's what happens to most everyone after 50. So when you take vitamin K to it gets rid of that calcium in the arteries, prevents calcium formation in the arteries. So a lot of women are taking a lot of calcium pills, but not taking K2, so they're calcifying their arteries. So what I do is I do coronary artery calcium scores, which is a noninvasive test that checks for calcium in your arteries, and I can tell if they're calcifying their arteries, but every one of my patients goes on vitamin K2. at least 200 micrograms twice a day. And that's one of the key things we use to help prevent calcium in your arteries. Because once they're calcified up, they're going to have to do bypass grafts or stints, but sometimes they can't even stint the arteries. They're so calcified, see?

22:31 You know, this is so easy for you, you just... say this so easily, but probably a lot of the viewers are like me. It's just hard to retain all this. That's a lot. That's why you put it in a book. And make it simple. And make it real easy. It is. It's very easy to read. And of course, there's an appendix and so forth, and people can look things up if they need to, because you have to. kind of take control of your own health. Right. Not just do what other people tell you to do. Exactly. And not just do what your flesh tells you. So many people are led by the flesh and not led by the spirit. And so they're just whatever whim they come to. They're hungry. They go shopping to the grocery store when they're hungry. And they're ending up buying donuts and cakes and pies and cookies and white bread and all inflammatory foods and fighting disease into their bodies. So we have to start with just simple things and explain what to do. It's real easy.

23:24 So I hope people will want to buy this book. It's probably easiest on Amazon, although it's widely available in bookstores as well. And live long and strong. Someone said, everyone wants to live a long time, but nobody wants to get old. Well, just like Moses, when you read Deuteronomy, it says, Moses was 120 years old, yet his eyesight wasn't dim nor his natural strength abated. He was strong. He isn't 120, he was strong. And God has empowered us with the right nutrition, with the right hormonal support, with testosterone, peptides, good night's sleep. you know, exercise of course, then we can also live long and strong.

24:07 It's easy. I made it very simple so everyone can understand it and incorporate these key principles. And as we wrap up this short podcast, I want to give you the last word. Is there anything else you think the viewers need to know? Well, the main thing people are thinking, there's so much information there. It's too hard. No, these are simple tests that even your doctor can do. If you just write these tests down and just ask your doctor to do these tests, and then once you get the results, if your numbers are off, don't freak out. They're easy to fix. Just follow these simple keys that I have in the book that tell you how to reverse these numbers. And once you do, you're going to feel much better. Your mind is going to be sharper and you're going to live long and you're going to live strong.

24:49 Well, thank you, Dr. Colbert, and thank you to my viewers for tuning in to The String Report today. This is a book you really need, and like I said, you need to take control of your own health. None of us can become experts like Dr. Colbert. He spent his life studying all of this, but we can learn more that we know right now and reading good books like this, books that you can actually understand. is it a very important step. So thank you for watching. Tune in again for another episode of The String Report on the Charisma Podcast Network. God bless you.