Solidarity HealthShare’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. John Oertle joined The BS Show to discuss the important distinction of chronological age versus biological age. Read the transcript or listen to the interview below.
Bob Sansevere (00:00):
We are joined by Dr. John Oertle, the co-founder and chief medical officer for Solidarity Healthshare at solidarityhealthshare.org. Doctor, when I was in my late forties, I had my first colonoscopy and was told I had the colon of a 21-year-old. So our topic today is chronological age versus biological age, and I’m based on that. The biological age of my colon is much younger than my chronological age. I wish every body part was like that, but I don’t know that they were being completely honest, but I was in great shape, which was good to know. And also, I want to mention my wife, Mary, is joining us too. This is a topic chronological age versus biological age that is very interesting to her as well.
Dr. John Oertle (00:47):
Well, welcome. I’m grateful to be on the show today, and Mary, great to have you on as well.
Mary Sansevere (00:52):
Well, I’m here to learn and I’m all about the feeling young, staying young, staying active. So tell us everything you got.
Dr. John Oertle (01:01):
Well, yeah, it’s really interesting because Bob, I mean as your gastroenterologist was alluding to, is that we do see that we don’t age in the same fashion. Everybody doesn’t age in the same speed. And so this has really now become more of a science and a data science on our own biology. So what a lot of longevity specialists have been looking at now is how do we actually bring in calculations to be able to have calculators, not looking at just chronological ages, how old you are, it’s a timeline of there’s 12 months in a year and as we age, this is your time in which you live on this planet. Biological age is, we’re developing calculations based upon our information that our body gives us. And some of these can be our metabolic health, inflammation, immune system hormone, mals, mitochondrial and cellular health. And also some of this as far as how our genes are being communicating to the rest of our cells within the body.
(02:07):
And so individuals have really been, scientists have been looking at this from how do we actually measure this and give an idea of what is our biological age so we can then start to improve it. One, when we know what our biological ages are, aging faster, we can see it kind of in our own, even just the skin people that have graying hair or speed of wrinkles. But what if we could catch this before you started to age and started to see it on the outside? And this is really, if you start to see and identify what’s causing your quickening of your aging, then you can start to be able to do things to be able to reverse this. And this is what’s become so incredible that you can have your biological age calculator of 15 years faster aging. You can start to see that reversing where you actually become younger than your current chronological age. And that becomes very empowering to patients.
Bob Sansevere (03:04):
Well, because many people have their regular doctor that they, I mean, can you call ’em up? Hey, I want to know what my biological age is. Can it be done at a doctor’s office or where do you go to find out?
Dr. John Oertle (03:14):
So this is currently being done with more longevity practitioners or functional health doctors. So this is not something that is typically covered by Medicare. It is not something that is typically covered by your traditional insurance. And as a result of that, you’re seeing that again, the mainstream primary care doctors don’t, they may not even know about it because this is not something that they’re having coverage for. So when you start to see longevity experts and doctors that are specializing in this, this is the tip of the spear when it comes to how do we practice preventative medicine and how do we actually make the impacts of our health that people that are in the know. And so finding that longevity specialist or the anti-aging specialist or a functional medicine doctor that specializes in this is really important.
Bob Sansevere (04:01):
Well, does solidarity have doctors like that you, I know you’re based out of Arizona. Do you have ’em there? Do you have any in Minnesota? Where would you go?
Dr. John Oertle (04:10):
We do. We actually have have a nationwide community of doctors that are doing this. We also have telehealth specialists as well that do this upon being able to actually evaluate where do we actually get this kind of testing or who’s doing it and where do you go? So solidarity is a health share that shares into medical expenses. And we’ve shared to functional health providers, we’ve got providers across the country that are having expertise and knowledge in how to be able to look at this and then how to be able to make these diet, lifestyle, functional medicine changes to be able to start reversing that aging.
Bob Sansevere (04:46):
Well, a quick quiz, you and I talked last time, we chatted off the air a little bit about peptides and I mentioned Mary one you recommended and she said, well, I’ve already started taking that. And are peptides something that helped with aging or is that something completely different that just addresses, well, I mean like she had rheumatoid arthritis or has had it that addresses that, but it doesn’t, that’s not something, A peptide is not going to reverse aging or is it?
Dr. John Oertle (05:10):
No, sometimes it does because, so what you’re looking at when I say a peptide, we were talking about this off air, but peptides are natural substances. They’re short chain, amino acids. Again, what does this mean? These are molecules that are being produced by the body naturally. When you give it in a specific reason and a specific purpose, they can actually improve the health. So with something like BP 1 57, it’s a peptide that comes actually that’s produced from the GI tract. But what this actually seems to do is that it actually reduces down inflammation and then it also helps to speed healing. And so not everybody needs it. You need to talk to your doctor or go to your functional medicine doctor to be able to know all these different peptide options. But what’s really beautiful is that this is very different than going on, say for instance, methotrexate or rituximab.
(06:05):
These are rheumatoid arthritis medications or steroids that suppress or go against the actual health of the body and what a lot of these peptides or even nutrients or being able to exercise and having these hallmarks of how do you reverse disease and aging? It’s going with the intelligence of the body instead of against it. And that’s really what I think is so important. It’s just not another pill for every ill. So I don’t want to think about it as far as, well, I’ve got this condition and I need to go on BPC 1 57. It’s really not that. It’s really looking at how do you have a practitioner that really looks at the data and is able to actually help support the body to be able to work with the body instead of being against it.
Bob Sansevere (06:49):
And going back to the biological verse, chronological obviously, I mean one of the examples you used in a piece you wrote for Solidarity was, or a 52-year-old could have the heart of a 35-year-old or the heart of a 65-year-old, their cardiovascular profile. But I mean, if somebody smoking two to three packs a day and drinking, well, cut out the drinking and cut out the smoking from a layman term, I would say that might help you stop aging too. But it’s not that simple though. There’s a lot more to it. Correct.
Dr. John Oertle (07:20):
Well, it is common sense. You certainly mean these are things that our grandmothers were recommending even back in the past. We want to be able to get out and exercise. We need sunlight. We need to be able to have the ability of not drinking over drinking or smoking. So all of those things do increase aging, but we also want to be able to be defining where if you have these calculations and how do you know and what are those attributes that are maybe increasing inflammation, then we need to be able to start removing that. And you can have dramatic differences, 15 years plus or minus as far as your aging. So this is also where even looking at it can lead to discoveries. I was also just considering about the rheumatoid arthritis or autoimmune so many times. I like to answer the question of where did this come from? What is the reason? And many times if there’s a chemical or maybe an overeating sugars or there’s a dysbiosis in the gut, which means that there’s an imbalance in the gut or even that there’s an infection. Lyme is a common masquerader. Lyme disease, which is a bug that is received from ticks and it’s a chronic infection that exists and that can many times be present with autoimmune conditions, specifically leading to what is rheumatoid arthritis.
Bob Sansevere (08:42):
Which Mary has had-
Dr. John Oertle (08:43):
So is comprehensive complex approach that you want to be able to look at root causes and work with the body to be able to bring healing.
Bob Sansevere (08:50):
And she’s had Lyme disease and I mean mine was caught. I mean the circle started because we were living on a property that we just loaded with ticks and hers went a little farther than mine did. But I mean, maybe that could be the rheumatoid arthritis issue. The key though for people is, well, lemme go back to Solidarity HealthShare, solidarityhealthshare.org. Great alternative to traditional healthcare. And this is one of the things with this biological versus chronological, you’re going to get a lot of more information by talking to someone at Solidarity. I asked the question earlier than your own doctor, so it’s absolutely worth looking into and asking those questions about that solidarityhealthshare.org. And Dr. Oertle is the co-founder and chief medical officer so he knows a thing or several thousand about these things. So check that out. And if you go to solidarity healthshare.org, you can find that piece you wrote about chronological versus biological. Correct?
Dr. John Oertle (09:42):
That’s correct.
Bob Sansevere (09:42):
So that’s the thing to do.
Dr. John Oertle (09:43):
Yep. Solidarityhealthshare.org.
Bob Sansevere (09:45):
Doctor, thank you so much. Mary, thank you. We’re going to take a quick break and The BS Show will be right back.