Longevity Starts With Awareness: Hormesis, Psychedelics & the Future of Healthspan with Dr Sanjeev Goel

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👉 https://www.sanjeevgoel.com/ – his central hub with clinic info, bio, programs, and resources.

📚 𝗕𝗼𝗼𝗸𝘀 / 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝘂𝗯𝗹𝗶𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀

📘 𝑮𝒐𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑵𝒐𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆… 𝑮𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒘𝒉𝒆𝒓𝒆… (𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓 𝒕𝒉𝒐𝒖𝒈𝒉𝒕𝒔 𝒇𝒓𝒐𝒎 𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒅𝒆) – a reflective book by Dr Sanjeev Goel blending insights on purpose, mindset, and life direction

📗 𝑻𝒐𝒑 𝟏𝟎 𝑷𝒆𝒂𝒌 𝑯𝒖𝒎𝒂𝒏 𝑩𝒊𝒐 𝑯𝒂𝒄𝒌𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟓 – a new biohacking guide from Dr Goel detailing 10 proven strategies for physical and mental wellbeing (preview/early access available).

📌 𝗙𝗲𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲𝗱 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗴𝗿𝗮𝗺𝘀 & 𝗘𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘁𝘀

🏆 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗠𝗲𝗺𝗯𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 – exclusive monthly access to articles, videos & webinars on longevity and anti-aging.
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📱 𝗢𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗼𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹 𝗠𝗲𝗱𝗶𝗮 / 𝗖𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹𝘀

𝗬𝗼𝘂𝗧𝘂𝗯𝗲

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𝗗𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗷𝗲𝗲𝘃 𝗚𝗼𝗲𝗹 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝗹👉 https://www.youtube.com/c/SanjeevGoel

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📸 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝘀 𝗼𝗳𝗳𝗶𝗰𝗶𝗮𝗹
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𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻

🔗 𝗗𝗿 𝗦𝗮𝗻𝗷𝗲𝗲𝘃 𝗚𝗼𝗲𝗹 (𝗠𝗗) 𝗟𝗶𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱𝗜𝗻 – professional profile, news, and updates.
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🎧 𝗣𝗲𝗮𝗸 𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝗯𝘀 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 (multiple platforms) – listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube and more:
👉 https://peakhumanlabs.com/podcast/
👉 https://peakhumanlabs.podbean.com/

00:00 – Introduction & guest overview

01:57 – Why awareness is the first step to longevity

03:40 – Hormesis explained (exercise, fasting, stress)

06:45 – Cellular birth, death & autophagy

08:44 – Circadian rhythms and biological harmony

11:10 – Intermittent fasting & metabolic health

13:18 – Dr Goel’s personal journey into longevity medicine

15:52 – AI, wearables & biohacking tools

24:38 – Tech addiction, attention & mindfulness

28:31 – Psychedelics & mental health transformation

30:42 – Ego dissolution explained

36:27 – PTSD, MDMA & future therapies

37:03 – Peptides 101 (BPC-157, Tesamorelin)

42:49 – Attention as the biggest health challenge

44:01 – Final reflections & wrap-up

Longevity Starts With Awareness: Hormesis, Psychedelics & the Future of Healthspan with Dr Sanjeev Goel

Dr Ron Ehrlich (00:00)

Hello and welcome to Unstress Health. My name is Dr Ron Ehrlich. Well today we explore longevity, health span, palmesis, psychedelics, a whole range of things. My guest today is Dr. Sanjeev Goel. He is a Canadian physician, a longevity expert, and a precision medicine pioneer who has spent more than 25 years, or actually 30 years, helping people outlive their limits. What a great concept.

Known for blending cutting-edge science with mindfulness, practical lifestyle strategies, he’s the author of Going Nowhere, Getting Somewhere, and host of the Peak Human Labs podcast. Now, Sanjeev’s work spans longevity science, brain health, psychedelics, nutrition, AI-assisted health tools, and the breakthrough peptide BPC157. Now, today we explore how awareness intentional living, hormesis and emerging medical innovations like psychedelics, like peptides, we go into peptides 101, can help us live and build a longer, healthier and more purposeful life. I hope you enjoy this conversation I had with Dr. Sanjeev Goel. Welcome to the show, Sanjeev.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (01:21)

Thank you so much for having me.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (01:25)

So G, if you’ve written this book, Going Nowhere, Getting Somewhere and there’s so many issues that you cover in the book that we’re going to talk about today. But I read that you’ve said, and this is an interesting statement coming from medical practitioner in this modern world, the first step to longevity isn’t appeal, it’s awareness. Wow. mean, know, what $2.5 trillion in pharmaceutical industry might not agree with you, but what do you mean by that? And how is your own journey shaped that outlook?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (01:57)

Yeah, know, we’re, you know, trillions of dollars are being spent on longevity and they haven’t found an answer, which tells you it’s a very complex issue. Know, multiple pathways and, and, you know, hundreds of biochemical processes. So I first say that the first step is to understand, some basic, mechanisms, know, how the nature of, of life. And if we want to understand longevity, we can kind of biohack of those mechanisms.

Some of the things that I talk about is understanding the concept of hormesis. This idea that, you know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I like to talk about the cycle of birth and death that occurs in every one of ourselves and how we can really leverage that to maximize our longevity. And the third thing I talk about is being in harmony with our internal rhythms and the external environment. So those are my three big concepts of like, we don’t need to take a pill. We need to understand these basic concepts which are occurring at the cellular level that we can take advantage of.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (03:08)

Yes and you know I’ve often said if the only thing you know about health is your doctor’s phone number then you are in serious trouble but of course my listeners and I’m sure your readers and listeners for your podcast too are very much aware of the need for awareness for Mises. Interesting topic because people always think stress is bad and we talk about stress on our program. Talk to us a little bit about hormesis. Not all stress is bad, is it?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (03:40)

Yeah, and you know, so many things people can relate to like exercise is hormesis, fasting is hormesis. You know, when we do any type of thing that puts us outside our comfort zone, what that actually does is that your body has to adapt. And when your body adapts, can either die. I mean, it could not be able to adapt. And so it actually dies. The cells can die. But most times your body can become stronger.

And that’s what happens when you go to the gym and you work your muscles out. There’s some damage that occurs, but then your body responds with the stronger, bigger muscles. And so that concept is happening at a cellular level. When the cells get a stress, which is let’s say there’s less food around, when there’s less food around because your body’s fasting, the cells will respond by downgrading growth and getting rid of waste products, which we call autophagy, which means self-eating. So by getting rid of waste products, the cells can become more efficient with how they use energy and they’re not wasting so much. in effect, the cells can live longer because they’re not wasting so long. That’s exactly why caloric restriction and fasting have showed longevity benefits is because of this principle of hormesis.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (05:03)

Yeah, well, I mean, fasting is one and as you say, exercise is another. I know that I would argue that for a beginner, meditation is a form of hormesis too because you move out of your comfort zone.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (05:21)

It’s an exercise for the brain.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (05:22)

Yeah, mean cold therapy is another one that comes to mind.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (05:27)

Anything like that, any of these types of things where people are stretching their mind or body a little bit and cold, we know your body will initially feel uncomfortable, but your body will respond and will bring more blood flow to your tissues because in response, you will also result in decreased inflammation. Your body will learn to adapt, just like we see in people, the Northern Inuit people who live in Canada.

Because they’ve been exposed to cold weather, they have a reflex vasodilation of their blood flow so they don’t get frostbite. I mean, they just have developed that.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (06:10)

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s interesting, your second focus is on the cycle of birth and death which you’re focusing on cells because this is what we all face on a macro level in life. It comes as a bit of a shock when you realize that of course that you are going to die. But every day this cycle goes on on a cellular level. You mentioned autophagy, cell death is another one too, apoptosis and that’s. Talk to us a little bit more about that cycle of life, of birth and death on a cellular level because metabolic health, cellular health has become a major focus, hasn’t it?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (06:45)

Yeah, the basic unit of life appears to be the cell. We think that the cell is going through cycles of birth and death as are various tissues and organs. You cannot be constantly in growth phase. We can see that when people are taking, let’s say, for example, and this is how they can relate to their own life, is that if you’re constantly eating and not taking breaks of fasting without food,

it will eventually cause problems. Same with, let’s say, people taking growth hormone. You know, this is called the hormone of vitality and youthfulness, but you cannot keep taking growth hormone forever. It will cause what we call the stimulation of the mTOR pathway, which is the pathway that causes growth. It can actually lead to more damage. And so you need to balance that with what I was saying before, is that the cells need to get rid of waste, which happens during growth.

And then, you know, that’s just an, I think, a part, natural part of the cycle. And so we need to just embrace that in all parts of our life is that things are not always the same. We need to be willing to, to have to bring on the new, you have to get rid of the old. it’s, know, if one cell dies, new cell can come, but that can only happen that way.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (08:07)

Yeah. And the third area you’re talking about is harmony, being in harmony. And when I think about some and I mean, you know, there’s something that has happened since the beginning of time with the sun going up and down. And we’ve learned to live with that. In fact, arguably without it, we wouldn’t be living. That harmony has really been disrupted big time. And I’d argue that public health messages warning us about the sun, but not warning us about other forms of radiation, are really an interesting paradox for people trying to navigate and get awareness.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (08:44)

Yeah, you know, this idea that of being in equilibrium, there’s a constant pull and pull. Basically, that’s yin and yang, or what you want to call it, is that our body is always trying to find a steady. And it’s important that we have many internal rhythms happening at the cellular level, including our circadian rhythm, which you’ve mentioned. And each one of our organs has its own clock.

So if we eat in the morning, that begins the 24 hour clock of our eating system. And then we have a brain clock and we have a liver clock and we have a muscle clock. All of these things have different clocks. And if we want to be free of disease, we need to be in harmony with these rhythms, which are happening inside our body. And our inside bodies are a reflection of the outside world, like our circadian rhythms being in tune with the sun. And obviously the moon has certain effect on us as well. You they do talk about lunar cycles and what the impact is on our hormones and probably our sleep as well with the full moon. Then we probably have cycles that relate to seasonal cycles. You know, people eat at certain times of the year, certain types of food, and we see that other animals where they hibernate. So there likely are seasonal cycles. if we look at sleep, sleep also has cycles. And here’s the 90-minute cycles that happen.

So there may be other things that we just don’t know yet. For example, testosterone for a man has a cycle. It has a, you know, probably a daily cycle peaks in the morning comes down. And if one can start to understand these things and start to be in harmony with them, that’s what, that’s what true vitality would look like. It’s when we are out of harmony is what causes disease.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (10:33)

I mean, it’s just, you know, it’s hardly a surprise that in our modern society, given how out of harmony we are, we, you know, people are surprised when they get a diagnosis. I’m surprised more people or everyone isn’t diagnosed, which maybe eventually they are. Intermittent, I mean, you talked about caloric restriction too. And I think intermittent fasting is quite an interesting aspect in terms of a natural rhythm that we’ve lived with through the millennia. What’s your view of that? How do you incorporate that into you? Do you incorporate that into your own life?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (11:10)

Yeah, I mean, I think going again, going without food is a very good thing. Like it just, again, apart from the metabolic benefits, it also builds self-control, teaches you about your hunger cues. So there may be other benefits from that. And, know, intermittent fasting has become popular because probably that was how we used to eat, you know, our ancestors ate with, you know, that’s what breakfast was.

Breaking of the fast where we didn’t eat for a long time. So I’m a big proponent that yeah, we should eat within a certain window. It doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to be it’s eight hours or six hours or whatever. It can be 12 hours. I think it’s just a good idea to have a good break. And then it’s also a good idea to fast for longer periods. Everyone’s got to pick what’s good for them. I mean, for me, I’m a relative on the lean side. It’s not, I’m to want to disappear into the, into the ground. If I start fasting constantly, it’s going to be difficult for me, but I think one has to look at their own makeup and see what is the right way. But definitely, we have a constant food all around us and we’re constantly eating, which is, think that might be more the issue is that we need to understand when are we truly hungry and really eating for the right reasons.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (12:32)

Now Sanjeev, you mentioned before we came on that you’ve been in medical practice for 30 years. So I’m just intrigued because what you’re talking about is not exactly covered in medical, in academia, in medical, even at specialty levels. So it’s not like you missed out at undergraduate, even specialist. And I find it very interesting when I talk to many doctors, which I have.

that there’s a kind of an epiphany which a turning point in their life when they decided the medicine they were taught was one thing and it certainly seems to be the mainstream way of going. But your approach is different on a personal level. Was there a turning point? Was there an epiphany? What prompted this philosophical change in professional development?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (13:18)

You know, even as a medical student, I was always looking for what was the best use of my talents. And that’s why I became a GP, because we were able to look at the body in a more holistic manner. Like I was, you even though I had an interest in psychiatry and interest in internal medicine, I thought that could never give the full answer because it was never going to be just about one organ. So I came from an interest that, hey, this has to be, you know, this has to be a much bigger answer. 

So over the 20 years I spent, becoming GP psychotherapist, worked in remote villages and did cannabis clinic, psychedelic medicine, like a whole bunch of various things that I’m trying to find the answer. And now I’m 54 years old. So you start to think about your own mortality and what can you do for your own health. And that’s what kind of got me interested in longevity medicine because I think ultimately living a long life and a healthy life is really.

It all comes down to that, like for purpose. So, you know, I’m blessed to be able to help at least push the needle a little bit in this regard and to give other people access to things they wouldn’t normally have. So there wasn’t really any one turning point apart from the fact that I started seeing my own mortality when you’re 54. was, you know, my uncles and aunts all have Alzheimer’s in their 80s. I have one of the APOE4 genes. 

So I’m particularly, concerned about that and I wanted to figure out okay. What can I do now 20 years beforehand to prevent Alzheimer’s? And you know South Asians have a very high risk of diabetes heart disease You know my father-in-law died from heart attack and you know diabetes runs rampant throughout our community So I want to prevent that so that that’s how I got interested in thinking What is what could be the other answers to this to this issue? 

Dr Ron Ehrlich (15:11)

Well, of those topics are topics that we are covering. We’re doing a whole program on the prevention of dementia. Too many people have this facialistic, it’s my genetic background and I have no control and it’s exactly the opposite. So I’m pleased to hear that. I mean you combine longevity science with mindfulness, nutrition, psychedelics you mentioned, I want to talk to you about that. And AI supported health tools which I’m also interested in. think there’s great potential. How do these areas work together to help people take control of their biology and extend their, we talk about longevity, health span, not just lifespan but their health span? How do we…

Dr Sanjeev Goel (15:52)

Yeah, like I came the whole peak human, is what we call our clinic really started from a 2017 biohacking conference that I led here in Toronto where that whole concept because we’re right at the right time in history where technology is now providing people access to information they never had before. And that’s what’s basically feeding the whole biohacking movement. We would never be able to think that all these wearables could provide all this data, that you know what your sleep was, you know what your HRV.

All this was not possible. And now I think with the technology and even AI assisted stuff, it really opens up so many more doors for us. so, for example, I use something called Limitless. Limitless is one of these recording apps that basically records every conversation you have, right? Records everything and provides you an AI summary of your day and it even tracks reminders that you can.

But what I really found was interesting is that you can start to now teach it, okay, you know, I want to make sure I do my mindfulness 10 seconds. want to record that. I want to be giving myself reminders. So I think using technology to start even improving mindfulness is a potential idea as well. You know, I do my affirmations and I tell this little journal, it’s like an online journal that, I’m doing it right now, it records it.

It kind of gives me prompts that, hey, it’s time to do your affirmations. It’s quite impressive. I think there are lots of things that we can incorporate this technology to get away from some of the destructive things that technology is doing to our mental state. And we can use it for positive things as well. It’s going to take some effort.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (15:11)

This limitless thing, app, app is it?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (17:49)

It’s a little thing, it’s a little necklace. It just listens to everything. It sends information to your phone.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (17:59)

So are you telling me you’re recording this podcast right now? There’s copyright issues there, Sanjeev. I have to put you off on that.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (18:12)

No, I took a joke. 

Dr Ron Ehrlich (18:13)

But it is interesting this ability to look at ourselves on a physiological level. You mentioned heart rate variability, HRV and there’s so many things we can measure our sleep quality, our breathing. But there’s a fine line there isn’t it between becoming obsessed with it which mentally can be very stressful and using it constructively but not all the time. Have you got these devices on? Are you constantly monitoring yourself, Sanjeev?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (18:47)

No, I don’t do that. I think these devices need to get better to just provide us the salient information that we really need. Yeah. Right. Just give us a summary. We don’t need like every little piece of data. That’s where I think AI will be a big help to us because should be able to parse out what’s the really important stuff here we need to understand here. One of the good interesting things, I’m not sure if any of your listeners have used an aura ring, is smart ring. used to get up every morning.

First thing I looked at my O-ring, tell him, okay, my score is 95. Turn to my wife, said, I’m 95, what are you? Like that’s all I really want to know about. I didn’t have to know anything else beyond that. Like it would give me feedback, okay, if I drank one drink of alcohol, I had 10 point reduction. So that’s the type of stuff that I think is useful. Now one can overdo it, but I don’t think that’s gonna really have much extra benefit.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (19:43)

Well, to that point about waking up in the morning, I also wore an aura ring and got a bit obsessed by it. And you wake up next to your partner, how did you sleep last night? And I would get up and look at the data and tell her, and she got so annoyed with me at the end, she said, don’t even look, just tell me how you slept. How do you feel? How do you think you feel? So we can get carried away.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (20:20)

Yes, yes, I don’t wear one anymore.

Yes, I don’t either. But I actually have been exploring whether I should for one or two months a year just to benchmark myself, to keep the hooves tapping along.

Yes, I think it’s good. It’s good to check in. One needs to all the time. One needs to check in just to check. You could wear these little glucose Dexcoms or Libras and you might just want to do it for two weeks to understand, is there some issue there? So you understand if you eat your food, what happens to your sugar at nighttime. Don’t do it all the time. Otherwise, our brain cannot handle all this data and all this. just too much.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (20:43)

You’re talking about a continuous glucose monitor. Yes. It’s a little plug-in to literally a pin in your arm with a monitor. Yeah, I think that’s another great learning tool for two weeks of the year. Yeah, I think using it like this. It’s so interesting to see you look and I do believe AI has tremendous potential for medical practitioners dealing with an avalanche of information.

Are you incorporating AI tools into your daily practice of medical practice?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (21:18)

Yes, we’re starting to use it now to help provide our patients some guidance. And my patients do it a lot on their own, to be honest. They’re already feeding the data, the information I’m giving the labs and say, hey, this is what the AI came back to me with. What do you think? It’s already happening. People are starting to do that. Whether even if I do it or not, they’re already providing that. again, there’s so much more than even

The human brain can’t even comprehend some of the relationships and we need AI to kind of do that.

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Dr Ron Ehrlich (23:00)

I recently read an article in the Journal of American Medical Association which looked at AI empathy of the medical practitioner versus an AI medical practitioner. And when you think about it, an AI tool could absorb, integrate, organize all of the patient’s medical history, pharmaceutical history, interactions of all drugs within about 30 seconds to a minute.

And then spend the next 14 minutes of the 15 minute appointment just listening to patients. Wow, what did I do?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (23:40)

That is amazing. Amazing. I think it’s going to happen pretty quickly because like I just went to Waymo for example, right? I mean just the car the self-driving car and said in Austin the other day and it just so happens so naturally the way most talking to you and you start talking to it even you know this for you forget that this is this is not a human and I think that people will start to very quickly start to take these things in and accept forget that they’re human and start just interacting with them.

Yes, and they’ll get this. They’ll get a lot of benefit. They’ll get a lot of benefit.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (24:13)

A lot of benefit but this is a perfect segue into my next question to you because I know you concentrate a lot on brain health and that includes the dangers of tech addiction which we just kind of touched on a little bit and we’ve got this increasingly distractive society. What practical steps can individuals take to restore focus, mindfulness and mental resilience and find that balance if you like?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (24:38)

This is by the complete answer, would be billionaire or whatever. I mean, but I’m obviously extremely concerned about this. And I see so many, you know, issues that we need to deal with one of which is that the constant, like, perfect responses that we get from AI are going to make it difficult for us to tolerate anything that is not perfect, like our human

You know, family, friends and other people that we’re interacting with, because they will not be at the same level. And so because, you know, we’re not going to be able to tolerate, just like we’re not able to tolerate a slow moving movie anymore. Like when I show my kids a movie from the nineties, they’re like, this is like, I can’t tolerate this. So the same thing is happening. And I think that’s where I feel like there’s a real danger. that part means that we have to, cannot completely immerse ourselves into these tools which will then dissociate ourselves from other human contact. 

That’s one major concern I have and I’m not sure that’s an easy answer. Second thing is that we need to be able to focus our attention, be able to keep our attention because our attention is our only real resource that we have. Our attention is what makes us who we are. So if we’re not able to control our attention because technology is guiding us, and knows us better than we know ourselves, then what is left to become human? Like what is left? So I feel that mindfulness is extremely important that we need to learn how to have awareness of where our attention is going, at least begin with awareness.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (26:34)

Back to how we started this conversation because I mean the economy that we all live in is an attention economy, isn’t it? It’s just constantly seeking our attention and is pretty darn good at attracting it.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (26:43)

Yeah, that’s it. The average person is spending over six hours of screen time per day. I think it’s even more than that. Yeah. But that’s huge amount of our time is being spent now on basically something that’s taking our attention away from living.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (27:00)

And another aspect I would argue about AI is its sycophantic nature. Whenever you ask ChatGPT or Cloud or Perplexity a question, always prefaces it. Oh, that’s a great question. And you kind of think, wow, gee, aren’t I clever? That’s great. So there is this, I wonder if there’s a sycophantic dial, like how sycophantic do you want?

Your AI tool to be or do you want it to be more human? I think we’ll come to that eventually.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (27:34)

I think there’s already been concerns that tell the companies to just tone it down because people are complaining that it was too much. Yeah. And so there’s already been this outcry of this is happening. But people like it. My son just recently told me, said, you know what? I asked this question, came back and said, that was a great question you asked. And he liked it. Who doesn’t want to hear that? That they have a great idea, the great person, whatever. So unfortunately, AI knows exactly how to play. They’ve trained it on how to play and interact with us.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (28:09)

Yeah, now when we talk about awareness and I know you speak about this, you’ve already mentioned it, about the promise and I might add the risks of psychedelic medicine and we’ve done quite a few programs on that but from your clinical perspective, and personal one actually, where do psychedelics fit into the future of mental health, neurological health?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (28:31)

Yeah, I know I’m really quite pro psychedelics in certain contexts. I mean, they just came out with a study, I think maybe just a month ago, looking at a novel analog of LSD. So they had come up with and what they found was that a single dose of what’s called MM120 provided the same effect as an antidepressant that was used for three months. And so, you we’ve even if someone isn’t depressed or isn’t that doesn’t have anxiety and who doesn’t have, but let’s just say you don’t have clinical anxiety or depression. They’ve said a hero dose of mushrooms is one of the most powerful things in your life that can ever happen. Like people 20 years later said that mushroom trip was so powerful and changed my life. 

Apart from just treating mental illness, we can either just be okay, which is how most people are living their life, or you can actually live a… at the top and where think psychedelics give you a bit of a shortcut. It’s not going to replace mindfulness or meditation, but it could give you a little bit of opening to see that there’s more possibility. There’s more possibility in how your consciousness can be and your thoughts can be. This is not everything. Our current state right here is not the full state of our mind. It’s quite in a…impressive thing. I myself had a couple of journeys and I generally when you have that ego disillusion, it does you, you cannot unsee it, let’s just say you cannot forget that it happened. Even to come back to this regular.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (30:16)

That’s a very interesting term you’ve just used there, ego disillusion, which I think is fascinating and is an interesting way of describing the experience because I’ve similarly had that kind of experience. Talk to us a little bit more because I know your background is also psychotherapy, you know, which is wonderful to be incorporating all of these modalities and to tell us a little bit more about ego disillusion.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (30:42)

Well, there is a point that these medica- what these substances do or let’s not call them medications but molecules do is that they somehow open up certain pathways of different parts of the brain and they can lead to this feeling of what you don’t that you don’t know exactly you don’t really relate to yourself as a person here I you know my situation I felt I was God or the universe and it was out of this body. And I know other people, people have taken, let’s say DMT, 5MeO, they could be out flying into the world. So it basically means that, you don’t identify with this particular body anymore, that you’re not, I’m not Sanjeev Goel, I’m God or I’m something else, I’m the universe, I’m nature, I’m connected to all other beings.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (32:08)

So that’s generally what happens. And it’s a pretty powerful thing and replicated by many people. So it’s not even just me. It’s a known fact. And on fMRIs, they do show that the brain does change the way the messages are being sent. can’t exactly, there’s no replication of it. I can’t promise somebody to have it, but generally when you hit a certain number, a dose, people will have this thing happen to them.

And it’s interesting to hear you say you feel you’re connected with everything because the reality is that we are. I mean, you know, it’s easy for us to go into our own heads and pretend that we’re disconnected but the reality is and we’ve done programs on environmental health and you know we’ve often said we’re all connected so we’re all affected.

And to have that kind of ego disillusioned. I’ve never heard that term used like that before, but that’s a powerful tool to be using and a wonderful insight to have in your work of psychotherapy, using it with a client, a patient, do we, know, the client and patient term, how do you prepare a patient or how does the patient, do you use it clinically?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (33:05)

Well, in Canada, these things sit in a kind of a gray zone. Okay. So yes, I’ve taken people on journeys, but it is not a standard medicine. there are many practitioners who do this work. generally, generally, we use psilocybin, which is about, if it depends on, we don’t want to necessarily put somebody to a hero dose of five grams. Normally we start a little bit slower, maybe one or two grams, maybe a gram at the beginning. And usually we’re mixing with MDMA. So, it tends to give a much more positive trip, if you want to say. And it’s extremely important the person needs to be prepared and what we call set and setting and bright intentions and the right environment so that they get the best out of what’s happening. Because it’s not a guarantee, this what I to tell people, that it’s not a guarantee that using a psychedelics can give you a positive outcome. All it’s doing is for a temporary moment in time, it’s wiping clean the slate.

So that you have the opportunity to build new pathways. And if you start watching horror movies when you’re on psychedelics, you will have a bad trip and build some really bad pathways. And if you have bad thoughts about killing somebody, that’s not good either. So I’m just saying that all it’s doing is a tool if used in the right way can have positive outcomes.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (34:21)

And you talk about establishing pathways because I know we’ve done some programs I said, and I think the default mode network is a major, major focus where antidepressants shut down the pathways. You know, they dull down the path.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (34:46)

People say that, people say, I don’t feel anything. I feel nothing. Yes, that’s, you know, maybe that’s what is there, but it’s completely different mechanism than psychedelics.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (34:54)

In fact, opposite, in fact.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (34:55)

Yeah, default mode network is that part of the brain that’s constantly ruminating. It’s the part that’s on top. That is the logical part, rational, that is, you know, checking on things. so, and in depression and all that, that is going on constantly, constantly evaluating, evaluating and checking and ruminating and thinking and thinking. But you’re right in psychedelics, they show that there’s a suppression of that. And so then the underlying part, the subconscious can now come up and that’s why when there’s unresolved issues and things that people are working on that can come up during psychedelics.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (35:46)

I know we’ve done a program on post-traumatic stress with the former head of the Australian Armed Forces, Rear Admiral Chris Barry. And PTSD is a major issue in society, but certainly for the military. I mean, in Australia, think 50 people died on the battlefield in Iran and Iraq, but I think something like 600 former military people have taken their own lives.

So, you know, PTSD is a major problem and that’s a major breakthrough for them.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (36:17)

Yeah, for sure. MDMA has been, I think it’s in phase three trials for PTSD. Yeah. That’s definitely very helpful.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (36:27)

Now inside the longevity lab, think, is that a term that you’ve used at all, longevity lab? getting stuff that improves longevity, there’s tools like hyperbaric oxygen therapy, plasma exchange, peptide. BPC157 are attracting interest. Now, before we dive in, just for the general public, can you give us peptides 101 and kind of. What is truly working? What’s emerging?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (37:03)

Yes, for sure. so peptide, it’s a bit of a misnomer here because the word peptide could mean many different things, but the technical meaning of the word peptide is any amino acid chain from 2 to 50 and anything greater than that becomes a protein anything which has a chain of amino acid from 2 to 50 is a peptide and

These peptides are signaling molecules between cells, sending messages, telling cells how to behave. Now our body has 100,000s peptides and proteins in the system, some naturally made. The DNA is coding for it and then they get produced by our cells. But what you’re talking about and what most people think about peptides and what’s really famous is that there is a group of about 30 peptides out there that people are starting to take.

That your body produces, in most cases, bodies are already producing them, and that they’re well known and they seem to have some effect on a beneficial response in the body. So for example, let’s move to something like BPC157, which is the most popular peptide out these days. It’s called the Wolverine peptide. It naturally occurs in the lining of the stomach and is there to protect the lining of the stomach from the acid.

And so BPC means body protection compound. People have been using it to protect the gut. It’s one of those few peptides that you can take by pill because it was there, it’s actually found in the stomach. And so when you have gut problems, it seems to have a benefit. Now people have been noticing, well, apart from these gut benefits, they’re also noticing regenerative benefits like healing from tendonitis and like… know, injuries and things like that. And so it has an anti-inflammatory effect. So the same like, you know, taking an anti-inflammatory medicine, seems to work on the same pathways. It seems to have angiogenic effect means building new blood flow. People are using it for brain health as well. So it may have these other things that we don’t fully understand. But the thing about this peptide is that.

A lot of people are reporting benefit. Even though we don’t have huge, we have really very little human control studies, it’s extremely safe because it’s found in the body and the stomach already. So it doesn’t seem to have any danger. But the fact is that people are noticing all these great effects from it. There are many other peptides. Most are all injectable. I’ll give you another example. There’s a peptide called Tesamorelin.

The tesamorelin is a peptide that people are taking to stimulate their own growth hormone. So it’s a growth hormone releasing hormone. So your hypothalamus, which is a part in your brain, sends a signal. It has its own growth hormone releasing hormone and sends signal to your pituitary gland telling your pituitary gland, send off growth hormone. So by taking this peptide, you can go send a signal to your pituitary gland release your growth hormone. Now people are taking growth hormone because it has a lot of potential health benefits. Like as we hit 50, young people like us hit 50, then our growth hormone numbers are a little bit lower. you can help with building muscle and reducing fat, improve skin and things like so on and so forth. So there’s many of these peptides, generally safe, but nothing if you take…

If you don’t take without proper education and understanding, you know, there’s potential, there could be potential harms, know, just nothing is innocuous completely, but they seem relatively safe. They they sit in a gray zone in most countries because they’re not patentable because they exist in nature, no farm. So companies have really taken it up. They’ve tried to modify these molecules to see if they can patent them and make a commercial success of them.

But for example, this is why I said LSD, they can’t even do anything. LSD is already gone, it’s patentable. Or even psilocybin. They try to attach a molecule onto these things so they can patent them, but that’s why you cannot make a business out of selling psilocybin, for example. So that’s probably why peptides are not pharmaceutical driven.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (41:40)

How were they produced? How are they made?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (41:41)

They are made, they’re synthetic. They are made in a factory. Yeah.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (41:47)

And with this Wolverine peptide, what a name, BPC 157 and its protection of the gut, I’m thinking here that gut permeability, intestinal permeability is a major problem. Is that helpful for that?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (42:05)

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Decreasing inflammation of the gut, gut permeability issues, and inflammatory bowel disease people are using it for. It just seems to have a protective effect on the lining and leaky gut or gut permeability is basically holes in the lining causing antigens to come through.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (42:26)

Wow, okay. So we’ve covered some territory here today, Sanjeev. I want to just finish with one question because and we may have already touched on it but we’re all on a health journey together in this modern world as individuals. So taking a step back from your role as a medical practitioner, psychotherapist, what do you think the biggest challenge is for us as individuals on that journey in this world?

Dr Sanjeev Goel (42:49)

Yeah, I would say this is why I want to, my next focus will be on attention is that we need to really gather where we are putting our attention because there are a hundred choices out there of what you could do with your time and your attention and your energy. What should you be running to do fasting? Should you running to do exercise? Should you take this supplement? Should you plasma freezes like all these things? And I think unless we understand we have some control of our attention then only we could potentially be successful on what we want to achieve. I think that, and we do have a lot of people, a lot of things that are clamoring for our attention. So I would say the first step is for people to get awareness of where they’re putting their attention and then hopefully have some control over that. And that give us more of a happy life. Because ultimately happiness is what we want, right? Happy in a long life would be the two things. And I think attention is, if you lived a life of complete automation and have no control over it, that would basically be a recipe for disaster.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (44:01)

Well, that’s a great note for us to finish on and thank you for your attention today and sharing your knowledge and wisdom with us. And we’ll of course have links to your website, your book and all the things that you are offering. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Dr Sanjeev Goel (44:17)

Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Dr Ron Ehrlich (44:18)

Well, isn’t it great to bring together so many things under the umbrella of health span longevity? I mean, this is about awareness and this is what this podcast is all about. As I mentioned in the podcast, if the only thing you know about health is your doctor’s phone number, well, you wouldn’t be listening to this podcast, would you? Awareness. And the beauty of health is the more you learn, the more you realize you don’t know. And I’ve always found that exciting purpose. It’s why I do this podcast and why I enjoy doing it because each week I get to talk to people, ask them questions and I learn more and I hope you do too. I thought that ego disillusion was so interesting and an interesting way of putting psychedelic therapy as a descriptive term because we are stuck in our heads. We are stuck in that conversation we have in our heads and in my experience having experienced psychedelic therapy.

On one occasion, I would describe it as just that, as opening up your mind, opening up connections. He talked about the default node network. One of the things about antidepressants is it actually shuts down that. It kind of blocks things. And as we’ve discussed before, when trauma occurs, it just spins around in your head and you’re on repeat constantly. You just cannot seem to get it out of your head psychedelic therapy does or MDMA. Also it opens up those pathways, it connects those pathways, it allows you to integrate experiences and traumas that are just spinning around in your head or that antidepressants have just dulled down and we’ve done plenty of programs on that. The story about peptides is an interesting one too and I haven’t really explored that. If you’re wanting to explore it, we’ll have links to the peak human store lab.

Apparently if you use Unstressed Health 10 you can get something off the cost of that. So that’s all one word. But we’ll have links to all of that in our show notes. I hope this finds you well. Until next time, this is Dr Ron Erlich. Be well. 

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This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person as a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.

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This podcast provides general information and discussion about medicine, health and related subjects. The content is not intended and should not be construed as medical advice or as a substitute for care by a qualified medical practitioner. If you or any other person has a medical concern, he or she should consult with an appropriately qualified medical practitioner. Guests who speak in this podcast express their own opinions, experiences and conclusions.

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