
April 10, 2019
Dr. Peter Attia: Incident Report with ZDoggMD
Check out the ZDoggMD Episode Page & Show Notes
Key Takeaways
- Doctors and researchers spend most of their time learning how to treat illnesses rather than prevent them
- “Prevention, proactivity, and looking at root causes is not something we do in American medicine” – Zubin
- There are 3 parts of healthcare: Cost, Access,
and Quality- You can’t change one without affecting the others
- Zubin and Peter both practice meditation and have seen great results
- Do vaccines work? – Yes!
- Both Zubin and Peter recommend them
- Both Zubin and Peter recommend them
- Almost any diet is better than the SAD (standard American diet)
- “You couldn’t come up with a better way to kill someone than throwing them on that diet” – Peter
Intro
- Zubin Damania (@zdoggmd) aka ZDoggMD, is a UCSF/Stanford trained internal medicine physician and founder of Turntable Health, an innovative primary care clinic
- Peter Attia (@PeterAttiaMD) is the founder of Attia Medical, a medical practice focusing on the applied science of longevity, he earned his M.D. from Stanford University
- He is the host of The Peter Attia Drive podcast – check out some of the Podcast Notes
Books Mentioned
- Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
- The Mind Illuminated by John Yates
- The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle
- Waking Up by Sam Harris
- Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman
- Nudge by Richard Thaler
- The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis
- Switch by Chip & Dan Heath
Background
- Peter and Zubin met at Stanford during medical school
- What they don’t miss about med school – people lacking humor, non-realistic training, and power hierarchies
- “It really is about kissing the ring of the authority figure so one day you will be the ring that’s kissed” – Zubin
- During the first 2 years of med school students are “fed a bunch of information – 50% of which is wrong, but they don’t tell us which 50%”
- Hierarchies in the medical field are important, but there should be room for subordinates/med students to question authority figures in order to make sure the right decision is made
- Peter and Zubin both found themselves in situations where they were confident in how a patient should be treated, but they ended up listening to their superior instead, who had a different answer as he/she was the authority figure
- Doctors and researchers spend most of their time learning how to treat illnesses, not prevent them
- “Prevention, proactivity, and looking at root causes is not something we do in American medicine” – Zubin
Finding Your Passion –
- Zubin has enjoyed the connection he had with patients, but over time he saw that hospitals were becoming more like businesses
- They focus on patient volume/throughput and revenue over building deep relationships with patients
- He was also burned out, couldn’t leave his work at home and had a young child during this time – he became depressed and unhappy with his job
- Around this time, Zubin met Tony Hsieh, and Tony convinced him to try something new that would make him happy
- Zubin made a few parody videos and put them on YouTube as an experiment
- It wasn’t until Zubin had a transformative drug experience with a guide, that he learned his ego was attached to the identity and prestige of being a doctor – once he realized that he put his ego to rest and started making more videos
- Peter also left standard medicine – he loved operating on people but couldn’t stand the system
- Terrifying side note -There is a bell curve to surgeons, Peter wouldn’t let 20% of surgeons operate on his cat
The Benefits of Meditation
- Zubin and Peter both practice meditation and have seen great results from it
- A good book on the topic – Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman
- Peter says he feels “infinitely less aggressive, infinitely more empathetic”
- A good book on the topic – Altered Traits by Daniel Goleman
- Zubin says meditation has allowed him to become more mindful and less reflexive in various situations
Thoughts on Free Will
- Picture someone riding an elephant – the rider is a person’s rational side while the elephant is a person’s emotional side
- People have to be rational and control their emotions (the elephant) or they will simply act on emotions alone and likely not get the ideal outcome
- The elephant = a person’s unconscious
- People have to be rational and control their emotions (the elephant) or they will simply act on emotions alone and likely not get the ideal outcome
- Does free will exist?
- Peter says he’s in the middle
- Zubin believes there are “sub-minds” (unconscious minds) inside people that feed input which are combined with a person’s conscious input
- Much like the elephant and the rider – a person’s actions are a combination of their unconscious and conscious thoughts
What drives Peter?
- Finding out the appropriate dose of caloric restriction/fasting and frequency and the molecules that mimic such phenomena (like rapamycin)
- Several animal studies have shown that caloric restriction increases longevity
- The question is exactly how many calories should people eat, at what time should they eat, and for how long should people fast?
- Several animal studies have shown that caloric restriction increases longevity
- Extending quantity of life and quality (how to be 100-years-old, but with the body and mind of a 50-year-old)
The Health Care System
- There are 3 parts of healthcare – Cost, Access, and Quality
- You don’t get to move one without changing the others – if costs are brought down it may result in more access but lower quality of care
- Ex. – Canada has low costs and high quality, but low access (it may take months to get an MRI scan for an injury)
- You don’t get to move one without changing the others – if costs are brought down it may result in more access but lower quality of care
- “Medical cost is the leading cause of personal bankruptcy” – Peter
- Zubin would like to see more medical officials get rewarded for helping patients prevent illnesses, and have doctors and hospitals compete for quality of care
- Read The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis to learn more about how the government operates and what it does and doesn’t do well
- Peter read the book in a day and a half and says it was a great read
Additional Notes
- Zubin explains a theory from Dr. Donald Hoffman that states species who see reality for what it is, go extinct (see his TED talk)
- Do vaccines work? Yes! – Both Zubin and Peter recommend them
- Almost any diet is better than the SAD (standard American diet)
- “You couldn’t come up with a better way to kill someone than that diet”
- Keto, paleo and vegan diets are all better than the SAD diet
- “You couldn’t come up with a better way to kill someone than that diet”
These notes were edited by RoRoPa Editing Services