In a burst of energy before she died, my mom urged us to take her to where she'd be buried.

Cupping my dad's face, she talked about how magical their life was together.

It was the most profound moment of my life, and it wouldn't have happened if we listened to her doctors.

Just 13 days before, in January 2021, my mom was apparently healthy.

She felt a pain in her stomach during her morning hike and got a scan. Stage 4 pancreatic cancer.

She called me and said she wouldn’t meet her future grandchildren. The family rushed to her side. My sister @DrCaseysKitchen and I learned three things over those next 13 days... Lessons that we think provide an explanation - and solutions - for the largest issue our country faces: the fact that we are getting sicker, fatter, more depressed, and more infertile at an increasing rate while bankrupting our country with healthcare costs.

The first was that the predominant incentive in medicine is to intervene after you get sick.

Right after my mom's unexpected cancer diagnosis, a medical team out of Stanford and Palo Alto Medical Foundation jumped to action, recommending a laundry list of surgeries and procedures—biopsies, blood transfusions, and a liver stent. In most cases, the patient would have agreed to these procedures, and the meeting would wrap up quickly.

These recommendations were coming from some of the most prestigious institutions in the world, after all.

But based on my sister's experience in medicine (Stanford MD and surgical residency), she started asking questions. We learned that these procedures had about a 33 percent chance of extending her life a few more months at most, a 33 percent chance of shortening her life span, and a 33 percent chance of not impacting her life span (yet keeping her away from the family). In all cases, the invasive route would mean that my mom would need to sit in a hospital room alone, because of Covid-19 protocols, and potentially longer if the surgery had complications, as they often do with immunocompromised cancer patients.

My mom made it clear to the oncologist that she was not afraid of her rapidly impending death, but she wanted to minimize unnecessary pain or nausea in her final days. Despite being clear, the system pushed the exact procedures that would yield pain and nausea and aggressively shamed our family for questioning the full-court press approach.

Thank God we had my sister - who had routinely seen doctors push unnecessary surgeries to terminally ill patients during her training - who had the wherewithal to push back.

In 99.9% of cases, my mom would have died alone in a hospital room and we would have missed the life-changing final days with her.

The second lesson was that my mom's cancer was not "random." Her oncologists said it was "bad luck." It wasn't.

In the decades leading up to my mom’s cancer diagnosis, she was informed her rising cholesterol, waistline, fasting glucose, and blood pressure levels were conditions that she could “manage” for life with a pill. But instead of isolated conditions, all of the symptoms my mom experienced leading to her death were warning signs of the same thing: dysregulation in how her cells were producing and using energy.

But through decades of symptoms, my mom—and most other adults in the modern world—are simply prescribed pills and not set on a path of curiosity about how these conditions are connected and how the root cause can be reversed.

The third lesson was that there is a better way than our current system, and it starts with understanding that the biggest lie in health care is that the root cause of why we’re getting sicker, heavier, more depressed, and more infertile is complicated.

Depression, anxiety, acne, infertility, insomnia, heart disease, erectile dysfunction, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s dementia, cancer, and most other conditions that torture and shorten our lives are actually rooted in the same thing.

And the ability to prevent and reverse these conditions—and feel incredible today—is under your control and simpler than you think.

After leaving traditional medicine and working with patients to understand their biomarkers and take simple root causes actions - my sister routinely saw quick reversals of formerly intractable conditions.

The siloing and medicalization of chronic disease in the past fifty years has been an abject failure. Today, we’ve siloed diseases and have a treatment for everything:
✅High cholesterol? See a cardiologist for a statin.
✅High fasting glucose? See an endocrinologist for metformin.
✅Depressed? See a psychiatrist for a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI).
✅Can’t sleep? See a sleep specialist for Ambien.
✅PCOS? See an ob-gyn for clomiphene.
✅Erectile dysfunction? See a urologist for Viagra.
✅Sinus infections? See an ENT for an antibiotic or surgery.

But what nobody talks about—what I think many doctors don’t even realize—is that the rates of most of these conditions are going up at the exact time we are spending trillions of dollars to “treat them.”

In the face of these unprecedented trends happening to our brains and bodies across our life span—which all have metabolic dysfunction as a root—we are told to “trust the science.” This obviously doesn’t make sense. We have been gaslighted to not ask questions over the past fifty years at the exact time chronic disease rates have exploded.

The truth: we should consider listening to the medical system if we have an acute issue like a life-threatening infection or broken bone. But when it comes to the chronic conditions that plague our lives, we should distrust almost every institution giving the advice. The answers are much more simple and under our control.
___

In the days following my mom's death, my sister and I affirmed to devote our lives to changing these broken health incentives. And Casey expressed a passion to write a book with lessons she's learned working inside and outside the medical system. I have helped her write this book over the past several years and it will be coming out in May.

A lot of issues will be discussed as we enter 2024, but the most important is that our human capital in America (particularly kids) is being decimated by preventable and reversible metabolic conditions. Thank you @bariweiss @TheFP for publishing an excerpt.
Here is the full excerpt in @TheFP

thefp.com/p/im-a-doctor-…

In 2010, opioid companies bribed the Dean of Stanford Med School millions of dollars.

In return, Dr. Philip Pizzo (a "pain specialist") chaired an NIH panel to recommend lenient standards.

He then used DEI language to protect opioid makers.

This is how the game is played: With negative opioid headlines entering the news around 2011, the NIH assembled a blue-ribbon panel to assess the issue.

The report was a full-throated endorsement of opioids - asserting that pain is a "disease" that impacts more people than diabetes and cancer.

More than 50% of psychologists are directly paid by antidepressant makers.

The US has "medicalized" our brains more than any other country - and we lead the world in depression and childhood suicide.

Here are 8 other facts that prove why the US psychiatry industry is a scandal:
1) Former Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Loren Mosher recently said:

“Psychiatry has been almost completely bought and paid for by the drug companies.”

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/P…

Doctors have the highest suicide rate of any profession.

It’s not bc they’re working hard.

The @nytimes argues they are suffering from mass “moral injury,” the same dynamic soldiers face when they’re pushed to commit war crimes.

When are more doctors going to speak out? The @nytimes points out the obvious:

that the incentives of medicine (which make money when interventions occur on sick patients and lose money when patients are healthy) systematically put doctors in moral binds.

Congress Is on track to renew a $200 billion bailout to Coke and other sugar companies.

If there is one policy we can all agree on, it is to stop government funding of diabetes water.

Here are key points from my op-ed with Rep. Andy Harris 👇

realclearpolicy.com/articles/2023/… According to a recent study, 184,000 worldwide deaths yearly could be attributable to obesity from sugar-added beverages alone.

nbcnews.com/better/diet-fi…

Yesterday, @MichelleObama announced she is partnering with a junk food company to sell sugar water to kids.

We must speak plainly: this is a cynical cash grab.

Kids don't need safer cigarettes. And they don't need safer sugar water.

They need leadership.

Here's the facts: Mrs. Obama partnered with Juggernaut Capital Partners, a private company that specializes in "celebrity-driven" junk food brands and pharmaceutical products.

The playbook is being used again:

@novonordisk is paying the NAACP to say opponents of lifetime obesity injections (Ozempic/Wegovy) for kids are racist.

I saw these tactics firsthand. They are evil and hurt children of color the most.

Here’s why: .@novonordisk wants to define obesity as a disease (not related to food) to ensure taxpayer funding.

This will ensure it is the most successful drug in history (80% of Americans are overweight)

They've paid think tanks, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the NAACP to help.

We're building an experienced, mission-driven team @TrueMedPayments -- and looking for one more senior software engineer.

We will wire $10,000 to whoever refers the person we hire.

We'd much rather give this $ to this community than recruiters.

Email team@truemed.com

More👇 The mission of TrueMed is to move healthcare incentives to promote metabolic habits like food, exercise and sleep.

We now have a sick-care system that profits off interventions once patients are sick.

I debated a Harvard Dr. about Ozempic on @bariweiss podcast.

Dr. Anekwe argued taxpayers should subsidize lifetime obesity injections for teens.

I put my heart + soul into arguing another direction.

Our kids' lives are at stake.

🎧open.spotify.com/episode/7oIOLd…

Several clips 👇 The biggest problem: children are being told that obesity is genetic and not a result of what they eat - and that Ozempic is the cure.

This is a lie.

Unless kids are encouraged to move and eat healthy food - they’ll get other diseases and live a worse life.

I’m very proud of this podcast with @APompliano - I think it’s one of the best overviews of what patients should know about food incentives - with some actionable tips.

Give it a listen on YouTube (link below).

https://twitter.com/apompliano/status/1625617989973291008

One topic covered:

Remember that study that said Lucky Charms were healthier than beef? Those ratings were supposed to be on children’s food labels

truemed.com co-founder @jwmares’s article on @micsolana’s substack led to a halt these efforts - which saved lives.

Semaglutide (obesity drug) could cost taxpayers more than $500 billion per year.

It would be significantly cheaper to buy every overweight American healthy food for life.

We are at a precipice moment.

Here's the math: (200,000,000 obese or overweight Americans)
✖️
(50% drug penetration)
✖️
($13,000 annual cost)
✖️
(41% of drug costs paid by government)
🟰
$533,000,000,000

This former @a16z and @jpmorgan exec is saying to “f” a “grifter” high school student (who is motivated by personal history to help cure cancer).

It shouldn’t take a high schooler to realize Coke wants something for this $. And that health groups shouldn’t accept it. Thanks @travelingenes for speaking out and thanks also to @Matt_Levine_1 for showing the delusion form “adults” she’s up against. Matt actually arguing that 2m of coke money to the American Doaberws Assocairikn is not notable because… the ADA take money from others…

Your tax dollars at work...

A recent @UMich government-funded stated that PB&J sandwiches on processed white bread INCREASE life expectancy...

And eggs + red meat DECREASE life expectancy...

It gets worse... The study says with a straight face that there are "no conflicts of interest."

It then notes the authors have been paid by "numerous members of the food industry," Unilever and Nutella (!)

Unilever is the maker of Skippy peanut butter.

There is a playbook that PR consultants use to help Big Food and pharma rig the system. I helped them implement it early in my career.

It’s the same playbook cigarette companies used in the 1980s.

Step 1: form a “third party” group. Step 2: label opponents as the “nanny state”

Today, PR companies say it’s “patriarchal” to take Coke out of food stamps or curb Medicare spending on drugs - even though those policies are the result of a rigged system.

Anyone who cares about the health and competitiveness of America should speak out against Ozempic approval for pre-teens NOW.

HALF of users experience severe gastrointestinal issues that require additional drugs.

95% of serotonin (regulates contentment) is produced in gut. By all accounts, the majority of patients who stop using Ozempic gain weight back.

This is what makes the immediate FDA approval for PRE-TEENS so disturbing.

It will create life-long dependency and carry obvious side effects (the drug's purpose is to alter metabolism).

Our children are being thrown under the bus by Big Food and a complicit government.

This is a @TuftsUniversity study funded by processed food and the NIH.

This is what we use to make nutrition policy.

This is unconscionable. Tufts and the NIH need to respond. "Cereals aren't inherently bad."

This is an actual quote from the lead author of the study - who is paid by processed food companies and the NIH.

Wrong. Highly processed grains and sugar going into children's bloodstreams every morning is very bad.

Here's how the rigged system works to poison kids:

Step 1: Coke has a transactional meeting with a Heritage fundraiser: "we want a study to say this.

Step 2: Fundraiser sits in on a meeting with Coke lobbyists and the "scholar." High-level concepts discussed.

👇

https://twitter.com/profstonge/status/1611111828733542401

Step 3: Fundraiser follows up with Coke saying they got assurance from scholar that analysis will be what they want it to say, and Heritage will do PR work after report is done.

Step 4: Coke wires money.

Step 5: "Scholars" like Peter get paid and say they worked for Heritage.

Conservative think tanks like the Heritage Foundation have blood on their hands.

They are paid by Coke to rig the food system.

They are paid by pharma to keep Americans addicted.

They are paid by oil to denigrate @elonmusk

Here's how it works: Heritage is at the center of the spoke of hundreds of inter-connected groups that essentially dictate the votes of Republican lawmakers.

Their towering HQ contains a 230-seat auditorium and housing for 100 interns.

But who is paying for this?

Early in my career, I consulted for Coke to ensure sugar taxes failed and soda was included in food stamp funding.

I say Coke's policies are evil because I saw inside the room.

The first step in playbook was paying the NAACP + other civil rights groups to call opponents racist Coke gave millions to the NAACP and the Hispanic Federation - both directly and through front groups like the American Beverage Association.

This picked up in 2011-2013 - when the Farm Bill and soda taxes were under consideration.

nutritioninsight.com/news/cspi-repo…

We have been gaslighted to think that it is illegitimate for us to ask medical questions.

At the same time, we are becoming more sick, overweight, depressed and infertile.

Patients should question things that don't make sense. They should be empowered, not fearful.

👇

https://twitter.com/theangelremiel/status/1609245282616713221

The medicalization of chronic conditions, which now make up 85% of healthcare costs, has been a disaster.

In the past 50 years:

40.2% (!) of Coca-Cola's U.S. revenue comes from SNAP benefits (food stamps)

What an evil use of taxpayer money.

Here's the math: $113 billion spent on SNAP benefits (2021)

ers.usda.gov/data-products/….