In this live episode of The Evolution of Medicine Podcast, James Maskell speaks with Dr. Ryan Arnold at the Institute for Functional Medicine Annual Conference about how continuous glucose monitoring (CGM), metabolic health, and functional medicine are transforming preventive healthcare.
Dr. Arnold explains how his practice uses the Dexcom Stelo Continuous Glucose Monitor to help patients understand their individual glucose responses, allowing them to make personalized nutrition and lifestyle changes before chronic disease develops. He discusses how real-time glucose data provides far more actionable insights than traditional laboratory testing and has helped patients reverse insulin resistance and prediabetes.
The conversation also explores the growing connection between metabolic dysfunction and cognitive decline. Dr. Arnold shares why he considers brain health the ultimate goal of longevity medicine and discusses emerging research suggesting that personalized, root-cause interventions may help slow or even reverse certain forms of cognitive decline.
Beyond brain health, the discussion highlights the importance of maintaining muscle mass, reducing visceral fat, and using collaborative care models that combine technology, coaching, fitness, and functional medicine to improve long-term health outcomes.
About the Guest:
Dr. Ryan Arnold is a functional medicine physician and founder of CLAVA Health in Santa Barbara, California. His clinical practice focuses on longevity medicine, metabolic health, and the prevention and reversal of cognitive decline through personalized, root-cause care.
Dr. Arnold integrates continuous glucose monitoring, advanced laboratory testing, nutrition, hormone optimization, exercise, and lifestyle medicine to help patients prevent chronic disease before it develops. He is an early adopter of continuous glucose monitoring for non-diabetic patients and has developed innovative care models that combine functional medicine with technology and patient education.
He is also an active member of the TrueNeura Mastermind, collaborating with clinicians across the country to advance personalized approaches to brain health and cognitive decline.
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About the Host:
James Maskell is a healthcare entrepreneur and founder of The Evolution of Medicine. For over 20 years, he has worked to scale functional medicine through community-driven models, group visits, and practitioner infrastructure. His work focuses on moving medicine upstream – toward prevention, lifestyle intervention, and systems-based care.
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Transcript:
Honestly, breaking bounds of what was being told possible to me and taught to me in medical school, that at, that post-menopausal women at a certain age could not gain muscle mass, and that we’re measuring it and seeing it happen. And it’s like- Yeah … giving them hope, giving them safety to actually lift heavy weights and do it safely, and it’s amazing ’cause they get lean muscle and they’re feeling fantastic.
They’re like, “I’ve never felt better,” and they’re 75 or 80, and that’s a fantastic experience. I could see that they could build confidence there, then eventually make their way into sort of a normal gym, right? Yeah. Because there’s like a, it’s almost like training wheels- Correct … there. And, and they’ve gotten there with a place where they before had never even thought of it as something they were, they were in, you know, should be looking at.
Hello, and welcome to the Evolution of Medicine podcast. We are live here at the Institute for Functional Medicine’s annual international conference, and we are interviewing leaders from across the functional medicine space about what makes them tick and their journey to be here. And I’m here today with Dr.
Ryan Arnold. Uh, if you’ve been following the content, you know that Dr. Arnold, uh, is involved in a number of really cool things. He has an amazing practice called Klava Health in, uh, Santa Barbara area in California. But he also is involved in, uh, reversing cognitive decline, and, uh, we’re gonna jump into some topics.
We’re gonna talk about CGMs, we’re gonna talk about blood sugar, we’re gonna talk about the connection with brain health. So Ryan, great to see you. Awesome. Good to see you. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for having me here. So tell us a little bit about the journey that you had to bring you to AIC. So, um, I was invited by Dexcom because we’ve been implementing the use of the Stelo continuous glucose monitor in our practice for, for the last several year and a half as it got launched.
And we were one of the earlier implementers, and so they’re like, “Can you just tell your story and let us know, you know, at the, at the conference here, and the users here, how you’ve implemented that in your practice?” And for us it’s been a game-changing, you know, tool in the, in helping to personalize and giving precise advice for our patients in, in longevity and wellness and brain health.
So it’s been a very big center point of our focus. And I know that you were sort of early on in the idea that this isn’t just for diabetics. So what is the value outside of the diabetic population? In fact, that’s our main focus. Um, I think, you know, uh, Dexcom has a, a model, the G7, that is for dia- use in, in patients with diabetes, but this is really for the optimized n- patients that are looking to know more about themselves.
And so this, this is an over-the-counter device that kind of removes a lot of the challenges we’ve had with alerts and things that were kind of bothering people, and allows us to have the individual get a really personalized guide in knowing their risk factors for disease before it happens, not waiting for this, you know, to manage it, actually prevent it and reverse it.
And that’s an exciting space in, in the, in the field of metabolic health, which is one of the key drivers for chronic disease, but really with cognitive decline. Okay. And what do you see, uh, in the data that tells you that someone’s on the right track? Like, what would you see over time that makes you know that whatever you’re doing is working?
So interestingly, uh, we’ve got such a new insight for an individual that shows that the blood test that you might have when you’re fasted don’t give us any insight into truly where you are as a, as the health perspective. And so when we see patterns of good glucose disposal, um, in your marker, and we see a continuous sign that shows that you are really adaptive and responsive to the meal, it gives us so much more insight than just how has your average been over the last three months.
Yeah. And that, and also it’s actionable. So people make a decision that changes and they say, “Oh, this meal didn’t do well. My next meal I can do better.” And they can change that and make it personalized for them. And that, that has been remarkable because we’ve seen now, and I can say this, the reversal of a condition like pre-diabetes, like insulin resistance, measured by numbers that are stat- you know, the, the standards like A1C, but driven by the glucose monitor results What is the uptake in this kind of, uh, data gathering in the broader functional medicine community from the conversations that you have here, and, and, and is it…
Do you think it’s catching on? I do. I think that people are realizing that we can’t wait for labs every three to six months, and that really driving behavior changes requires this m- higher touchpoint. And this becomes like a coach in the pocket for some individuals, that they don’t need an individual, you know, uh, like, touchpoint of th- with a human, but they can get this insight and then gain guidance through coaches, through s- in- insights with me to interpret their findings and get us a better result there.
Um, we’ve seen, you know, really impressive things here, and particularly around this building and growing a, a body of evidence that’s showing that blood sugar dysregulation drives chronic disease and specifically brain decline, so that we’ve now know that this is a key marker for us to reverse that process.
Yeah, that’s really, really cool. Well, I wanna get into the, to the brain stuff because obviously you are the example that I always use to show practitioners, you know, you have a pretty broad longevity functional medicine practice, but you chose to add a brain program to that. What was it that was exciting to you and, and what made you think that this was something that was gonna be useful or interesting to your patients?
I think that for me, realizing that the ultimate play in longevity health is brain health, and when we s- and on the heels of these recent trials that are so encouraging from, uh, published stuff from Dr. Katt Toups and Bre- Dale Bredesen and, and Dr. Christine Burke, but and now in the new Avanthia trial, which is going to be published soon, the, the evidence is, is mounting that, that we can move this needle, and we can do it through these mechanisms that are precise or, or specific to that individual.
So it’s not a one-size-fits-all, but it helps identify who is at risk and which con- which condition. So this is one of those, those key conditions. This is why we see the ability to move it in someone who has the risk because the, the signal shows up, we address it, they fix it, and all of a sudden things are getting better across the board.
And that is such an exciting space as opposed to a, “Here’s the pill that fixes all your ills,” and it doesn’t work in half the people. They don’t know what to do. They’re frustrated with it. Yeah. You mentioned something last night when we were at dinner, and it was awesome to see, you know, you connecting with so many practitioners from the True Neuro Mastermind, um, you know, who you know through Zoom and, and collaborate with in that way.
But I was just, I, uh… You were saying something about the sort of the, the i- in your local area and the degree to which health systems and other, uh, other health organizations are meeting the needs of the local population. I’d love for you to share that because I just feel like, uh, I think what, what you’re talking about is happening everywhere, but it sounded like it was pretty pronounced where you are.
So I just wanna take a minute to talk about the incredible mission partners that we have here at The Evolution of Medicine that have made this possible. So first and foremost, I wanna thank Fullscript and Fullscript Journey.
So Fullscript’s been an amazing partner for 10 years. We only pick partners that can help us achieve our vision and help you achieve your practice vision. And Fullscript have been an incredible partner for a decade, but their new offering Journeys, this is why we called it The Evolution of Medicine Journeys, is allowing practitioners to combine the relationships that they have with the newest technology to sell direct-to-consumer lab testing, and use it as a funnel to bring into your practice, and it’s a game changer for the whole industry.
So go to goevomed.com/journeys, and you can get started on building the Journeys for your practice, an optimal way into your practice. We’re gonna have some conversations about it. This is a game changer. Next, Genova. Genova, um, have been fans of The Evolution of Medicine for a long time. We’re big fans of them, and they now have a lot more specialty testing.
They have a lot more tools, and it’s a key part of, uh, understanding the body ecologically. So go to goevomed.com/genova to find out more. Come on over here and I wanna show you about the other mission partners. You know, if you’ve been following us for a while, you know that these are organizations that we trust, that add a lot of value.
Freedom Practice Coaching. Um, I have been sup- supported by them since the beginning and, you know, so many of the issues that practitioners face in building a successful practice, scaling a successful practice, come down to having the right support with people who have been there and done that. Go to goevomed.com/fpc.
Um, BigBoost Marketing. Uh, Uli and his team are the best in the business when it comes to really understanding how to market your functional medicine practice. Go to goevomed.com/bigboost and see how they can help you. And then what you’re gonna be hearing a, a lot about is the formation of clinical networks.
And ultimately, TruNeura is our first effort at that, which is to build an integrated clinical network, combining independent practices from across the country into a network that can reverse cognitive decline. And if you go to goevomed.com/truneura, you can get a demo. You can see what it means to be part of an integrated clinical network. That’s mentorship, that’s software, and that’s making it easier for you to get incredible outcomes in a disease state where there are no other options. So thanks to our mission partners. Let’s get back to the content
Yes, I think it’s just a challenge that when you have a system that is very, you know, ensconced in a, in a, in a metric of making money and financial re- reimbursements by following the, the tried and true. Yeah. You have the FDA-approved drug that we know doesn’t work, and yet they’re still able to give it, and that for them, th- that, that then translates to the message to the patient given no hope.
So now you’re surrounded in a system where you become the lone voice to express to them that, like, there is hope and I can get you there, but you have to actually go against some of your colleagues that are saying, “There’s nothing to do. This is an inevitable process.” And so when you see that in your local area and you realize that, that you are kind of this, you know, salmon upstream, so to speak, or as Dr.
Burke refers to us, a little bit of a, a, of a, of a cowboy where you’re kicking back on the system. It’s exciting because it’s like you, you, you’re like, “I can do something different here.” But what we love about this group and, you know, meeting my colleagues that I’ve been working with now for, for months, you know, virtually, in person, you feel you have that tribe, and that tribe is connected, and so you’re like, “Am I crazy?”
Yeah. “Can I say this or…” No, I’m not crazy. Like, this is real. And, and time and time again, as Dr. Anna Seto said last night, like Dr. Burke reminds us, “This works, this works, this works,” and you see it, and you watch real cases turn around and you’re like, “Oh my gosh,” and it kinda gives you chills when you see that happening ’cause you’re like, “I’m not alone.
I’m not crazy.” No matter what I’m hearing from the, the, the, the fancy doctor in the fancy Ivy League studio who’s- Yeah … saying that this is useless, that we can actually move that needle. Well, I wanted to share like something that Dr. Sattar said last night that really stuck with me, is the Roger Bannister analogy for reversing cognitive decline.
And for those of you who may not know the story, Roger Bannister was a British runner and was the first guy to go underneath a four-minute mile, and that was a psychological blockage that the whole world thought was impossible. And then, you know, now you see 100 cases reversed, a, a precision medicine approach for cognitive decline, showing it to be reversible.
Uh, once Bannister did it, then many other people went through it because it was like a, a, a, a cognitive blockage more than anything. And I think, um, we’re starting to see, uh, the sort of momentum around the proof around the reversibility of, of cognitive decline. I’d love for you to compare and contrast conversations you have with other doctors and peers in the like metabolic type 2 diabetes space and the brain space.
Because I think in the metabolic space, it’s almost impossible to be blind to the fact that whether you’re talking about Virta Health at scale or employees, if you’re talking about in the National Health Service in the UK with Dr. Unwin, whether you’re talking about clinics like yours, it, it, it is… And it’s harder and harder to have the opinion that type 2 diabetes or insulin resistance isn’t reversible, right?
Right. Oh, it’s measurable. I mean, that, that’s one of the beautiful things is that, that you have this quicker turnaround. So that’s why they can get their hands on it and they can say, “Okay, my patient doesn’t need insulin anymore. They don’t need oral antibi- anti-diabetic drugs anymore. They’re doing it with lifestyle and food choices.”
So that’s a- an ability for them to see that. You know, there was a paper written by a physician that I don’t have to name, but, you know, initially when this came out said it’s, it’s inappropriate to use glucose monitors on non-patients without diabetes, and we have now proven that to be factually incorrect because we are literally having measurable reversal of conditions.
Now, as you’ll know, like in the system, if you have pre-diabetes, a condition in which, you know, your, your A1C is elevated but not to the, to the s- criteria-meeting diabetes, the, the, the management out there is variable. It might be a metformin prescription or nothing, and they’ll say, “Come to me when you have d- when you have disease and you’ve failed.”
Versus we can now reverse all that process through lifestyle and guided specific nutritional focus, and that turns that around. But then you compare that to brain health. Now, a process in which it takes several months to years to really reverse some of those longer-term kind of changes, but they are reversible.
But it has… You have to have the patience and have to have the system in place to support that, and that’s hard to do by yourself. It’s hard to do with just, uh, you know, a sing- it’s not a simple prescription or a simple supplement or a simple lifestyle. It’s all of these things- precise of that individual and that’s in a unique fingerprint for each individual, and that, that’s a hard thing to do.
So compare, compare and contrast the conversations you have with those two disease types now that you’re doing both of those works. I mean, I know they’re, they’re interoperable, but you’re having, I would imagine, conversations with other doctors who are treating the patients that you reversed their type 2 diabetes or their insulin resistance, and then you’re at the beginning of conversations, you know, speaking to your patient’s neurologist who’s like, “What are you doing over there?”
Right. What, what’s that like? And, and that, and that conversation, because we now have the, you know, a building evidence, evidence that we can show them, they’re starting to be open to it. And then kind of they went from being critical in the past to just being like passively accepting and nodding or not engaging.
So I’ve seen less, less aggressive pushback. I’ve seen more kind of like, okay, you know, I mean, no one’s gonna argue with m- with improving their metabolic health. We do get some eyebrow raises on hormone replacement at certain ages, and I still, you know, we, we, we, we, we sit in our foundation on that. But the conversations are starting to change, and they’re, and they, and they…
We are having some people that are frustrated still. They are… They know that their reimbursements are based on certain drugs, and I take their patient off that drug, that’s, that’s, that can be a contentious moment. I try to engage with them in those… I try to explain to them why these situations work, um, but, but it’s not, it’s not always easy, and I’ll tell you that, like, there are, there are, there are glimmers of hope of individuals that are kind of being more open to this process- Yeah
because they’re seeing that, like, that, that, that there’s a change there. But honestly, it’s, it, it is a, it… You know, you need to find someone that has some humility and some humbleness around their knowledge base and accepting that we might do things differently now- Yeah … and, and going forward. One of the things I really appreciated, a couple of weeks ago I had the chance to come and, you know, see what you’re up to there and meet some of your, you know, ecosystem that you’ve built around your practice, and we got to have a tour of Healthspan+, which maybe you could share a little bit about, like how you came across them, what they do, why you decided to have this be part of your ecosystem and, and why you think other practitioners should look for something like this in their area.
Yeah. I mean, the partnerships here are so crucial because if you try to be the, you know, the, the keeper of all of that, you know, guidance, like you’re overwhelmed and you can’t do that for, at scale. So when you have these partners that are, that, that share the mindset and helps you, then you can make, move, move amazing more mountains, right?
And so this group is an amazing group in Montecito. They have a training facility that helps safely with guided, uh, trainers and, and physical therapists that work with the patients who have low muscle mass. Low muscle mass, high visceral fat. Two factors we know are directly correlated to a dementia risk.
And so now we find this alliance because I was… They have a DEXA scan, body composition scan on site. I send my clients, my patients in there. They get this assessment, and then they’re training with them to, like, build l- lean muscle, to, to reduce visceral fat. These two predictors that we know can be beautifully correlated to brain health.
And, and honestly, the way they do that is through glucose monitoring, through glucose assessment. So that, so those are mechanisms that get us to that final goal. But we’ve seen- You know, honestly, breaking bounds of what was been told possible to me and taught to me in medical school, that at, that post-menopausal women at a certain age cannot gain muscle mass, and that we’re measuring it and seeing it happen.
Yeah. And it’s like giving them hope, giving them safety to, to actually lift heavy weights and do it safely, and it’s amazing ’cause they get lean muscle and they’re feeling fantastic, and they’re like, “I’ve never felt better,” and they’re 75 or 80, and that’s a fantastic, you know, kind of experience. I could say, I could see that they could build confidence there, and then eventually make their way into sort of a normal gym too- Absolutely
right? Because there’s like a, it’s almost like training wheels- Correct … there, right? And, and they’ve gotten there with a place where they before had never even thought of it as, as something that they, they were, they were in, you know, should be looking at. Doctors actually will tell… And I’ve had my, my patients been told by other primary physicians, “You’re too frail to lift weights because you have osteoporosis or osteopenia.”
Well, that’s the, the cure for the frailty- Yeah … is to lift the weights. Right. And so it’s just, and then we lean on a drug, which we know, and we can show with evidence that it doesn’t change. So now the drug fails, all they do is shrug their shoulders like, “That’s just getting old,” and we’re like, “We’re not accepting that.
We’re gonna, we’re gonna change that. We’re gonna change what aging looks like.” It’s networks, efficiency through muscles, right? Absolutely. Yeah. It’s one of the main network pieces of that, of that puzzle. Well, you’re a great user of the EvoMed ecosystem, so we’re gonna take a moment here and I’m gonna introduce you to the Eme- EvoMed ecosystem, then we’re gonna come back and talk about some of the tools that Dr.
Ronald’s using. Hold on tight. So I just did like a, a little intro there. I just did a thing where I went over the different presets. Oh, cool. Okay, so let’s first of all talk about your Fullscript Journeys. Yes. ‘Cause you were an early user to that. You know, this is, uh, Fullscript Journeys is one of the, uh, organizers of this, this group.
Let me start again. All right, let’s start by talking about Fullscript Journeys. You were one of the first to get it going and get it used in your practice. So, um, I guess maybe you could just share what was it about Fullscript Journeys that got you excited, and tell us a little bit about what you’ve created as- Oh
a front end for your practice. It’s been amazing. I mean, the… If anyone has gone through this with their practice, with the, the pain points of, of ordering the specialty tests and having to literally fill them out by hand and paper on different forms, I mean, that alone was this challenge. To then s- to then bring it all together, a place where you can order their supplements, track what they’re taking, order the specialty testing, and put it all into one space, and then actually add, you know, the constant verbiage that we would put on why we’re ordering a test and what it’s for and how to do it.
And then they, and they couple that in this system that is so in one, in one little universe. It allows me to hit buttons, quickly connected to my el- electronic health record, goes right to their r- right to the patient’s, uh, you know, email, and they, and they’re, and they’re filling their prescriptions. I don’t have to manage inventory for supplements anymore.
I don’t have to have my staff spend half an hour with a patient kind of filling out a form, um, wh- which we can’t track, by the way. I get updates on tracking. There’s so many aspects that are fantastic. And then also, they, within a h- I think I built it in 45 minutes, and it was up in an hour. I had my own space that was branded with my brand, my color scheme, and all of my labs that I order my panels on.
And I can send my patients to them and say, “Here’s what I recommend you have.” And then there’s a transparent cash price for them to say, “If I wanna go down this route, how much does it cost?” Yeah. And, and that, that is such an amazing experience for my patients because many of them are just stuck in this rut of the frustration of denial from insurance and getting charged away, big overage fee.
And so now there’s a transparency there that they know what I want, they know what they’re trying to get, and we can get the thing done quickly. So it’s been great. It’s a great way to build trust too. Tell us a little about how you came up with your six panels and, and why you chose six, and what those d- different panels do for you.
Well, and they’re now building, actually have more panels recently because that six started as, like, the key things on either hormonal balance, on a comprehensive, uh, cognitive be- you know, like, say, a cognitive program are kind of looking at the root causes of cognitive decline, just a panel for, let’s say, insulin resistance.
And so some of the key factors that we know people are tracking on a regular basis, where they just wanna say, “Hey, I made a change in the last three months. Let me check in on how I’m doing.” And it’s been a, a, a beautiful kind of, I think, assimilation for the e- the empowerment of the patient to have their own agency to say, “I want this on a monthly basis or a quarterly basis,” and not just driven by what I say to do.
So they have some power there, but they also know, “What is important to Dr. Arnold? Like, what does he care about in me? I’ve read about this study, but…” You know, and then they can ask, and they can ask to add a, a thing in there. So there’s a transparency there. But I built my panels to really hit the, the, the key points that I do a lot of.
So the hormone panels, the metabolic panels, the at-risk panels for, you know, nutrition deficiencies and those, and those, and those kind of things that kind of really help us drive those, what we think of as root cause dri- you know, processes. Awesome. And you’ve been such a great addition in the, the True Neuro Mastermind.
Obviously, last night you had a chance to meet in person, you know, some people that are on the other side of the country. And, you know, it’s only an hour a week, but what I felt last night is that there’s something about- Working together with a group of people, going over hard cases, learning from each other, that, uh, is, is cohesive, right?
For relationships and connection and trust. Tell me a little bit about your experience. Oh, TruNeura has been a game-changing thing for me. I mean, I came from an academic background. I did love the collegiality around that and did miss it in private practice. I, I loved my patients, I loved what I was doing, I loved that I had the power to do what I wanted.
But oh my gosh, the… It was fantastic for us to be able to really leverage colleagues and realize that they’re doing what I’m doing, and that, that we can then lean on each other, share cases, present those cases, learn from people like Dr. Burke, who’s been doing this now for many more years than we have, and experience with Dr.
Bredesen and, and Dr. Toups and all those, and those, those different trial, uh, perspectives, and her experience kind of as a mentor and a, and a, and a liege. And for us, the apprenticeship model is what medicine is based on, and that’s how we should be learning. You know, you need textbooks, you need, you need research, but you also need the care of individual humans ’cause they’re always unique and different there.
So to have that guidance there and to feel like you’re not alone, and then you can lean on colleagues and be like, “How do I get this test and this?” Or, “How do I get someone compliant with this?” I mean, it’s just, it’s not just the science, it’s the human factor- Yeah … of how do you comply with this? How do you, how do you convince the parent, the patient?
I mean, uh, Glenn Garland would, you know, I love some of his things he talks about with the kind of compelling the story of to why this is so important, time-sensitive for his patient. He’s a neurologist that has come over to this space for us, which is just like, for us, it’s like, it’s like, you know, the, you know, the, the, the rare pink elephant that we don’t see a lot of.
Yeah. And it’s just wonderful to have him a part of that. I’d love to get your thoughts on, like, you know, we, we connected, you trusted me to join part of this, but there was something inside of you that thought that, like, this was a journey. Like lear- you know, having brain health and learning about it was gonna be, you know, critical to, um, the, the forward progress of your journey, both your, your clinical abilities or otherwise.
What would you recommend to someone who has a practice, has maybe a focus that isn’t brain health? What can, what can learning about the brain bring to their clinical practice? Yeah, I think, I mean, you know, I think for me it started very personal. I’ve, I’ve, you know, watched the loss in my family, and I’m currently going through, uh, another one, and it’s heartbreaking.
And I think that when you’re on our part of the, our part of the, you know, aisle to know that we’re empowered to do things is exciting, but sometimes heartbreaking. But for someone who hasn’t built this in their practice and think it’s too complicated, I’ll tell you that, like, really it’s the, it’s… What I look of it as the foundation of functional medicine because everything that we’re doing there, from environmental toxin ex- you know, reversals, and metabolic health, and opt- and hormone optimization, and inflammation control, you know, these factors are what we do in, in functional medicine anyway, but the ultimate goal here is targeting the brain itself.
And if, if you think about the brain as the ultimate play, I always say that because if you have this perfect body but your brain fails, you’re no- i- you’re not there to even know it happened and enjoy it. And so when, when any individual patient, when you let them actually get honest with you, they will share with you that that’s their ultimate fear.
And, and, and they won’t share it, you know, to many people because they’ve been told there’s no hope, so why share this thing that they’re, that they’re worried about. Where for the practitioners out there that are like, “I don’t even know. I haven’t read Bredesen’s book. I don’t know those, I don’t know that protocol.
I haven’t d- I haven’t done that training,” like, that’s where the apprenticeship model of TruNeura and this group represents. I mean, to think that, like, you can bring a case To a group of people that are seasoned in this and give you guidance. I mean, where does that exist in private medicine, much less academics in the space that has the time to do this?
Yeah. We all dedicate this time and spend that time as a group committing to each other and supporting each other, but also learning every single time. And there’s never a week- Yeah … that we don’t learn something about this. It’s wild, but- One of the things that I’ve come to recognize, ’cause I’ve seen people do case collaborations on Zoom, and I’ve, I’ve seen people present cases, but I think when I’ve seen it, it’s typically two or three slides, PowerPoint slides, and you might be thinking to yourself, “Well, based on the pattern that I’m seeing there, I think it might be this or it might be that,” because I have my own pattern recognition and intuition from seeing all these kind of cases.
The cool thing that I see is that there’s no guesswork ’cause all the data’s right there. Mm. And I think that a complete set of data plus collaboration is so much richer because you don’t have to wonder, “Well, was there mold in the house?” You can see the mold test. Right. Right? You can actually see it so you don’t have to guess.
There may be some psychosocial things in there that you don’t quite know, but at the end of the day, that to me seems like something that if you’re doing it that way and then you’re using the system day to day, what I’ve started to see, the confidence that I’ve seen from practitioners that came in sort of like doing some functional medicine but not really sure to be confident to take on these really tough cases, has been amazing.
Yeah, I mean, the ability to actually have a bit of a game plan and say, “You have a terminal illness. I’m on terminal diagnosis, and here’s how we assess it. It’s comprehensive, and we don’t let you choose, ‘Oh, I don’t want that test,’ or, “I suggest this test,” but maybe like, “No, we know that these factors drive this disease.
We have to assess them all at once and figure this out for you, and then work slowly, incrementally to improve them.” That gives you the peace of mind to be like, “Okay, my colleagues have done this. They’ve advocated for it. It helps me, it helps me explain to the patient what to expect, but also now feel like there’s a systematic approach to get that fixed.”
And that’s, that’s a very, you know, very nice place to feel comfortable in that, in that also. Well, last question. You’re here at AIC. Uh, what have you enjoyed? What are you looking forward to, and what… Tell me a little bit about your experience at this conference. Um, I think honestly, just, just to meet some of my colleagues in person has been, you know, one of the biggest, uh, the biggest pluses.
Uh, something I’m really looking forward to, I think, is this interaction, these, and the, and these dynamics I’ve had with conversations with clinicians here about what I’m doing, what they’re doing. We’re sharing that, that, that sh- mental model sharing is, is exciting. Um, you know, I think you’re gonna speak later with Dr.
Kenji Shibuya, colleague of, a friend of ours that is now also a colleague from Japan, who is championing the idea of getting functional medicine to another country, and, and a country that we, in functional medicine, emulate. We, we think about, like, the culture and the, and the, and the, and the cuisine and the diet and the, and the lifestyle.
And the life expectancy. And the life expectancy. And, and so here we are, they’re coming to us to, to kind of collaborate, and we’re like, “But we’re looking to you for examples.” Yeah. So to me, those are exciting things, and I think that you and I were talking about, you know, kind of being at this event with him in the future, so talking about that and planning that is, I mean, to me, those are, that’s what this is about, these moments.
Yeah. It’s funny, in one of the sessions this morning, they talked about the sort of strange connection between, like, public health and individualized medicine, and it’s funny that, like, um, public health in America, sort of disastrous, right? Massive gaps between the rich and poor, in that way. Japan, not like that.
Highest life expectancy, so, you know, good, solid public health in that way. And yet- If, if you want to really understand about the cutting-edge understanding of networks efficiency, and network medicine, and, and reversing, uh, you know, uh, preexisting disease, this is the place to be. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
This is the place to be. And people are, you know, I’ve seen more people from all around the world here this year. Well, Dr. Ryan Arnold, thanks so much for tuning in. This has, uh, been the Evolution of Medicine podcast. We are live here at the Institution, uh, Institute of Functional Medicine’s annual conference.
Over the summer, we’re gonna be bringing you so many, uh, interviews of interesting people that we met here. None more interesting than Dr. Ryan Arnold. Doc, thanks so much. Thanks, James. Thank you. All right. Good to see you, James. Enjoy, and we’ll see you next week. So we are here asking practitioners about their practitioner journeys, and the reason why is because Journeys is a new product from Fullscript.
Journeys allows you to set up your own lab offerings as the top of the funnel. Give the patients what they want. They wanna know about themselves, and it’s the easiest way to bring them into your practice. We have all types of practices from across the country that are building their own unique lab panels for their own unique practices, selling them to their community, and acting as a great funnel into their practice.
This is a massive innovation. I think this will accelerate the evolution of medicine. You can go to goevomed.com/journeys to find out more. Set up your own journeys in half an hour, and transform the health of your community. Go get ’em. So that was the podcast. What an epic session. Thank you so much for tuning in to the Evolution of Medicine podcast.
We will be back again next week. Um, thanks so much for tuning in, and we’ll see you next time
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