Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You: How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed and a Broken System with Dr. Erika Schwartz
56:45 Share

Here's your report. Thanks, Jane. I wish I could hire a whole team of yous. Try posting a job on LinkedIn. It's the world's largest professional network. Unlike resumes, LinkedIn gives a real-time view into a candidate's skills, experiences, and more. Let's do it. You're irreplaceable, Jane, but another you would be great. Find your perfect match with LinkedIn. Post your free job at linkedin.com slash achieve. That's linkedin.com slash achieve. Terms and conditions apply.

Over the past several days, three females have been found dead. Looks like someone's going after these girls. Then they have to know to wash their backs. Streaming now. You really want what happened to this woman to happen to you? Exactly why I need to keep going on this. Starring Emmy Award winner Amanda Seyfried. I'm worried about what you're going to find. So am I. Long Bright River, a limited series. Streaming now, only on Peacock.

This is Smart People Podcast, a podcast for smart people, where we talk to smart people, but not necessarily done by smart people. Hello, and welcome to Smart People Podcast, conversations that satisfy your curious mind. Chris Demp here. Thanks for tuning in. Today's episode dives deep into the one place that should help us most, but often leaves us feeling frustrated and specifically fearful. That's the doctor's office.

I'm sitting down with none other than Dr. Erica Schwartz, author of Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You. And trust me, you're in for a fascinating ride. Dr. Erica doesn't mess around. She says that too many of us hand over all of our power to physicians. We end up bombarded by scary diagnosis we might not even have. And then we get lost in a system that's more about corporate dollars than honest care.

If you've ever felt like you're a hypochondriac or that something is actually wrong with you and no one can figure it out, maybe that's true, but you have to start first from a solid foundation, which is what we try to provide you with in this episode. If you've ever felt intimidated by medical jargon or fed up with an impersonal healthcare system, this is the episode for you.

As I mentioned, our guest this week is New York Times bestselling author, Dr. Erica Schwartz. Her book is called Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You, How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed, and a Broken System. Dr. Erica is the founder of Evolved Science, a boutique personalized medicine group with headquarters in New York City. She specializes in anti-aging, disease prevention, and balancing hormones.

She is one of the OGs of this field, really being a pioneer for much of what we hear today in the health and wellness space that is legitimate. Excited to bring her to you. If you like what you hear, share with a friend, send it to that hypochondriac of yours, post it on social media, and for the love of God, make sure you follow the show.

Let's get in with our conversation with Dr. Erica Schwartz about her book. Don't let your doctor kill you. Enjoy. Right off the bat, one of the things that hooked me about your book and a lot of your work is I have this quote written down and it is to maintain the hugely profitable industry that healthcare has become in our country. You must exist in a perpetual state of terror and dependency in the search for something wrong.

And then you specifically highlight a few things. You say cancer, heart disease, Lyme, parasites. And I was like, wait, how does she know? Like, how does she know those are the things I'm worried about? And I test for, and the other day I had an ache and I was like, maybe it's Lyme disease.

You hit the nail so directly on the head. My question is like, why is this the case? Why are we now so terrified of our own health? Because we have been indoctrinated, brainwashed. The whole point is that if you're afraid, you're going to do whatever you're told. And you know that in anything, actually, in anything in our lives.

Fear is like the worst thing that can happen, right? If we're afraid of something, we're going to do whatever somebody else that we perceive as like the expert or who knows more than we know will tell us. And that's really where we are. That's why the healthcare system is such a disaster. That's why it's a trillion dollar industry that's only made to make us be afraid of

and not enjoy our lives. It's horrible. Yeah. And you know, when I go see my doctors, like for example, one of the doctors that I've worked with, holistic, she's great. Of course, not covered by insurance, extremely expensive, all that. But she listens and will help

But she still goes, this could be lime. This could be mold. And so now I'm searching for all these things. She's not doing it with ill intent. Yet I am still experiencing it. Who is the boogeyman? Well,

Well, we have to go back to medical school, right? Which is basically, and you know, whether they're naturopaths or chiropractors or conventional MDs or DOs, it doesn't really matter. It's really, they have to go through a brainwashing indoctrination cult session. So I was actually on the board of admissions of one of the medical schools in New York. And I have to tell you, I never interviewed

one human being at the age of 18 or up to 30 that they would come in and

that was going into medical school saying, I want to make money. I want to be famous. I can be an arrogant person. They all went in thinking that they were going to be healers, that they wanted to help each other. They wanted to help people. They all had stories that moved me. So what happens between the moment that you get into medical school

And the moment you leave medical school and you leave your postgraduate training and have lost the humanity and the care because it's been literally sucked out of you.

And that's because we live in a world where money is made. It's all about who is the boogeyman. The boogeyman's money. You know that. And it's in everything, right? The boogeyman is about money and it's about making you follow whatever the party line is. So you're going to follow an algorithm. You're going to follow a strategy.

protocol. You're going to follow what you've been told is what facts are. They're not really facts. Who decided what they are? Well, certainly not you or me. Somebody 50 years before us has decided and not 70 years before us. And then these are the people who determine the

what disease you should be afraid of, what problem you could have. Instead of looking at life as a continuum of health with small interruptions when you're sick, we look at life as a series of disease with small interruptions when we're healthy. Well, that makes no sense because we really know that it's much easier to enjoy life when you're healthy and

And when there's a continuum of health, right? Yes. I would imagine in your practice, people come to you when...

when they are not at their best. That's what I would imagine, right? Like people seek out the solution when there is a problem. So how can you fix it if they're already in the red? Well, I don't really get them in the red anymore because, you know, I've been doing this long enough that at this point, you know, 30 plus years, I have patients who've been with me for

close to 30 years. And this is the thing. They come in, you know, initially they were coming in because of hormonal imbalances, menopause, et cetera, andropause, you know, hormones. And then I realized that just fixing their hormones wasn't good enough and that, you

Helping them with their lifestyle and supplements and peptides and everything else was really the way to go. And as I grew in my understanding of what contributes to us feeling good, the

the patients started coming sooner and earlier and earlier. And now I have patients like they bring me their 16 year olds and say, listen, this kid's not eating right. What do you think we should do? Or they, you know, they're coming long before menopause, long before andropause. They come in to make sure that they're preventing things from happening.

And there was no such thing as prevention when I started. There was no such thing as wellness when I started. When I had to fill out some kind of medical forms for licensing things, I had to always, the drop down was always like internal medicine because that's what I'm trained in or critical care because that's what I'm trained in. There was no such thing as prevention, wellness,

longevity, which now are all in the dropdown. So things have changed. So, and I lived long enough to see a change, which is great. You know, in reading your book and it talks about physician arrogance and find doctors that work for you and all these things, my life experience is the best doctors I've had. I had to pay for it. That seems like it's not scalable.

Can we ever get to that point where people such as yourself are more accessible? Yeah, and that's why I decided to come out and write books and do podcasts and do media and maybe start my own podcast and teach doctors and teach people because I think that it should be available. And I think that it shouldn't be

cost prohibitive. And I think that insurance should be paying for it because the truth is, isn't the insurance going to benefit if you're healthy? Do you think that the insurance is making a lot of money if you're having 17 procedures when you don't need one? I mean, it's common sense. It's not even scientific stuff. It's common sense that you would know that if somebody's feeling good,

then they're going to do better. So why would you keep on looking to find something wrong when in fact, all you need to do is help people understand how much of what's going on they're in control of? How can people balance this?

notion of staying informed about our health and risks and the aches and pains we have without falling into the trap of that medical anxiety that puts us out there for every doctor to potentially take advantage of? That's a very good question, right? I think the way to look at it is the way you look at any relationship. I think that if you look at it and you say,

Is this person who's sitting across from me, who are supposedly my doctor or my provider, my nurse practitioner, my PA, whoever's taking care of you, somebody I want to be friends with, someone I trust, someone who hears me, someone who's listening to me? Or is this just somebody who's going to move me through and not even remember who I am after I walk out? And if the answer is no,

It's not a great relationship. You know that if it's a one-way street, it's a dead end. So it's got to be a two-way street. So I think that the way to look at it is like any other relationship. We've put our doctors on pedestals. Well, maybe not us, but like maybe...

The generations before, you know, I know my mother and my grandmother, they used to say, you know, whatever the doctor says, I'll do. What are you out of your mind? Your doctor doesn't live in your body. Why would you do that? Why wouldn't you do what makes sense to you? So you listen to what they're saying and then you go about your business and leave. Don't do anything they say. Just go home and process it.

Slow down. You don't have to go do Google Scholar. You don't have to Google it. You don't have to go on Instagram and start looking to see what all the other self-made gurus are saying, but rather figure out what in your life is really not quite what it should be. It's a matter of being truthful, honest with yourself. Let's say you can't sleep well.

Let's give that as an example, because it's a very common example, right? People are tired because they can't sleep well. So you can't sleep well. Well, instead of going to the doctor and asking for a sleeping pill or saying something's wrong with you, that obviously you can't sleep well, something's wrong. Maybe you look at your lifestyle and you say, what time do you go to sleep? What time do you have dinner? How much exercise do you get?

How much walking outside do you get? I mean, it's winter where I am, so nobody's outside. You know, how much water do you drink? How much alcohol do you drink? How much caffeine do you drink? When do you stop drinking caffeine? When do you stop drinking alcohol? They're simple questions that if you tell the truth to yourself,

you might be able to start changing what you're doing. And if you change what you're doing a little bit, I don't mean a lot, a tiny little step at a time, things may change for the better faster than you think. Imagine what's possible when learning doesn't get in the way of life. At Capella University, our game-changing FlexPath learning format lets you set your own deadlines so you can learn at a time and pace that works for you.

This episode is brought to you by Shopify.

Forget the frustration of picking commerce platforms when you switch your business to Shopify, the global commerce platform that supercharges your selling wherever you sell. With Shopify, you'll harness the same intuitive features, trusted apps, and powerful analytics used by the world's leading brands. Sign up today for your $1 per month trial period at shopify.com slash tech, all lowercase. That's shopify.com slash tech. Okay. You just opened up Pandora's box here because...

There's so much information. So even as you say these things, what time are you going to bed? How much water are you drinking? How much without trying, I will come across four different recommendations for each of those lifestyle changes a day. And I think that, I mean, look, that's the Genesis of this podcast. I'm like, I can't do it anymore. I need to talk to the people who can kind of boil it down for me. How does the average person handle all

all of the information to even try to make those changes on their own. Chris, I don't think anybody's doing it. I think there are very few who are actually trying to do anything about it. That's the problem. I think that it's much easier to go to someone that your insurance covers and just tell them whatever you think is wrong with you and take the pill that they will give you.

Or do the test.

I have to tell you, you know, because I was reading, you know, obviously I'm a fan of your podcasts. And I was reading about like, you know, the whole idea of like, this is a conversation that you would have over the dinner table. And I wanted to tell you about, I was at a dinner table many years ago and somebody, there were people going around and saying, well, you know, what do you want to do with your life? And when it came to me and I had no idea what to say, I said, oh, I'm going to change healthcare.

Nice. And they looked at me and they said, well, how are you going to do that? And I said, I have no idea how, but I'll do it. Something will happen. I'll figure it out. And then people started talking about being afraid. How are you going to stop people from being afraid? Well, this is the thing. I can't stop you from being afraid. You can stop yourself from being afraid. You are the only one who can figure out what works and what doesn't work.

I mean, we're a nation that's like, we will buy any snake oil that we're given, whether it's called conventional, misinformation, information, whatever you want to call it, we'll buy it. Which is why, you know, when they started doing the online shopping and everybody said, ah, nobody's going to do online shopping. We're all online shopping. You know, COVID only helped us become even worse at it. But

That's all we do is we shop online. We'll buy anything. So maybe the first thing to do is to bring that down a little bit and think of what would work for you. I mean, how many diets have people been on? I mean, I have to tell you, the patients I see, and I still see patients three times a week, you know, they're still...

comments say, oh, I tried 60 different diets. It's like, why? Why would you try any diet to tell you the truth unless you have a good reason why you got to be 100 pounds overweight? And how did you get there?

Maybe it was some kind of endocrine disorder. Maybe your hormones were out of whack. I'll buy that. But maybe you ate garbage, junk. That's all we eat is junk, right? Maybe you just didn't sleep at night. You went to sleep at three in the morning and you got up at 10 in the morning or whatever.

Maybe you just stop there and watch TV or whatever, your iPad, instead of moving. Maybe if you looked at yourself and told the truth, you might figure out what you've done to cause you to get to where you are. Now, if you've done everything as well as you could and you couldn't get to where you want to get, by all means, then you have to find somebody to help you.

But you don't have to have the best one to help you. You just want to find the one who notices you, who listens to you, who wants to work with you to kind of quarterback you in deciding what to do. Not some fear monger, like you said, you know, about the Ayurvedic person that was still talking about disease. But that's what they're trained to do.

They're just, we're all trained. It's a cult. And we're all brainwashed to think disease. I don't know what happened to me, but I woke up and I was like, this doesn't make any sense to me. That was 30 years ago. As it turns out, I was right. But I didn't know that for the first 30 years. And I have to tell you that a lot of the patients that I still have who've been with me for 30 years, they're not

I would look at them and I go like, you know what? Thank you. You trusted me when I had no idea what I was talking about. And I respect and I'm grateful to you because without you, I would never have known what I know now. If you had to boil down this philosophy, your philosophy, the 30 years, I mean, and I know that's a ridiculous proposition, but into kind of a guiding principle of health.

For those listening, what would it be? What are the elements of it? Take care of yourself and stop. Stop running because we live in a crazy society where all we're doing is running.

And when you're running, you're never going to know yourself. You're never going to know what you need, what you don't need. So I just say, you know, I used to say to people, oh, you need to start meditating. And they'd be like, I can't meditate. I'm not going to meditate. I'm like, okay, I don't blame you. Listen, how about just sit, sit alone, sit without a phone, sit without a computer, sit with any, without anything outside, just with you alone.

Learn how to breathe. Those are good starting points to figure out what's going on because we're so busy running and running to the emergency room, running to URGY Center, taking the kids to sports, going out with our friends. We're always running.

And if we stopped running, I think it would give us pause and we could actually spend some time figuring out who we are and what our own individual needs are. It's not so hard, really. I love this idea. I mean, what I'm hearing is...

almost a belief that we have far more of an understanding of what is happening inside our body, both good and quote unquote bad, whatever you want to call it, health and sickness that we have almost separated from and put in the hands of a medical institution. And so step one sounds like it's just realize that,

you're the only one that really knows it and can know it. There are others that can help, but you're the only one. Is that kind of what it is? Like first you got to know self, know why, evaluate your life. Hell yes. Yeah. You know, I love that. I gotta tell you, I love this. So it's February, it's winter, all these, I've been feeling kind of lethargic. The other night, my wife was like, Oh, you've been more tired lately. And I was, I was thinking about it and I was like, yeah, well, let me think. Um,

I do go to bed a little late and now with all the kids, they wake me up a little early. We have a puppy who wakes me up randomly throughout the night. I haven't been moving as much as normal. I have been eating healthy though. And I just went through this thing, but what's crazy is,

is I could hear my brain going, yeah, but it might be an illness. It might be a virus. It might be Lyme. Like, yeah, you could exercise, but that's going to take you weeks to figure out if it helps. Maybe you should go get a test. And I think this is what you're highlighting is like, we really...

have been trained to think this is broken. There is a solution. If I look hard enough, I can find it in a doctor or in the medical system. And that's not true. So that is the key. What you just said is the key to what everyone needs to hear and understand. That is not the solution. A test is never going to tell us what's wrong with us. A

Decision made by somebody who lives outside your body is never going to help you understand your body better. Allowing someone else dominion over us as individuals is to make a really bad mistake.

So what I'm saying as a physician, having been there for a long time, is it's all in your power. You make the decision. You are the one who has to decide. So when that little voice says to you, oh, what if it is a disease? What if it is Lyme? What if it is a virus? Well, I tell you something else. If that is true, which could be true,

Wouldn't you have to sleep more? Wouldn't you have to rest more? Wouldn't you have to drink more water? Wouldn't you have to do exactly the same thing we just spoke about to help your body heal itself? You wouldn't care. You wouldn't care about a test that would tell you if you have it or you don't have it. You would care about what your body feels as far as immunologically being strong and

reacting to inflammation, reacting to a virus. So there are a lot of things that your body can do without help, without a pill, without a test, without someone else telling you what to do. As somebody who does help people medically, but is also explaining... And mentally. And mentally, yeah, through all lifestyle choices, but is also saying like, first, you got to know self.

How do you balance that with your patients? I talk to them. I listen to them.

We know each other. I mean, we spend a lot of time learning each other. And, you know, I still, you know, as I said to you that, you know, all these people have been around for 20 plus years with me. I'm very grateful to them and they've taught me a lot. And I still get new patients and I explain to them, I have to get to know you and I will give you everything I have, but you have to give me the information I need to know you.

And that implies that you, the patient, knows themselves. And unfortunately, because we spend so much time outwardly directed, most people don't know themselves. And it's a journey that we take together sometimes, and sometimes we don't. It just depends. Like I said, you know, it's got to be a two-way street. Otherwise...

It's a dead end. And a dead end doesn't work. And then I say to people, listen, give me three months. If in three months, I don't help you feel the way you would like to feel, that I don't bring back the joyfulness, the health, the happiness that you want to feel in your life, then change. Get another doctor. I may not be the right doctor for you.

You know, it's happened a few times, not too many. But when you tell people things like that,

They hear you and they love to be connected to you because they know you're not lying, that you're telling the truth, that you're not there to make money off of them, that you're not there to just feel important, but you're there to serve them. And you know, that's an important thing to address. Healthcare is the ultimate service industry. How come it's so badly serviced? How come

are not educated to speak to providers

to people, to listen to people, to provide services. It's horrible. It is just such a mess that when you go into a doctor's office, it's ugly. It doesn't make you want to go there again. It makes you fearful. It makes you uncomfortable. Do you think that that's going to work out? I don't think so. If you come to my office, I tell you, you feel really nicely because I have patients who own a hospital

art gallery and they exhibit these beautiful paintings on the walls and we take care of the patients and everybody who works in that office. They've been there for a long time, most of them, but even the ones who come and join the new ones,

We teach them how to provide services. How come when you go to a hotel, they treat you like gold? How come when you go into a store or in a restaurant, they treat you like gold? How come in healthcare, which is the most important, you accept anything less than

than being treated like gold. That is a crazy, I just have to pause on that for a second. That is crazy. You're right. Like, I mean, I traveled for a living for a long time. And when you're traveling and even think about, like, I think about flight attendants, you know, for the most part, super helpful, always aware. Right. We're going to be traveling and we got to send my dog with us. And we called the airline and they talked us through how it's going to work and how we want.

Yet, I genuinely, I'm thinking of my primary care physician and I don't even really go anymore because they ask questions and go, you should go see a specialist. I'm like, well, then first of all, why am I here? But why is it like that? Why can't they see it? If you said doctors come in trying to help,

Once they're, let's call it 40 years old, they're in a primary care practice. Why is it so impersonal? Because they don't care. Because they don't care. Because the care and the love and the connection that they felt when they went into the system was taken away from them. Because the system breeds fear and contempt in the doctors.

So they are just as afraid of you as you are of them. Oh, let's talk about that. What are they afraid of? Yeah. They're afraid of getting sued. They're afraid of you turning on them. They're afraid of you reporting them. They're afraid of making a mistake. So you know what? The more afraid you are, the more likely you are to screw it up. No? Yeah. Yes. Yes. Yes.

Okay. Because personal example, long story short, I had this, um, what do you call it? A medication I was taking that was a, uh, it's like an off label, right? Totally like a harmless, basically a supplement, but it needs to be prescribed. And I had a new doctor because my doctor moved and the new one was like, I won't prescribe that for you. And I was like, wait, I said, why? She's like, cause I don't know what it does.

I said, okay, exactly. But no. So then I was like, okay, let's go through a couple of things. Number one, I've been on it for like six years at this point. Number two, it is at one 50th of the FDA approved thing. Cause it's a, it's a really low dose. Um, I said, and number three, you're a doctor read a few papers. I don't do anything. And guess what? She said, if you would rather have a doctor that is comfortable with that, I can find one, but it's not me. And I thought,

That's insane. It is insane. And this is what you're talking about. Like, I'm not asking for cocaine. Like, it's a very, you know what I mean? I just, I don't get it. But the fear, you could sense it. Yeah. They're afraid. And their fear permeates everything. And instead of them learning that if they abandon the fear, they can help, they lose. They lose.

I mean, it's crazy. You know what? When I started doing hormones and it was like, oh my God, you know, initially hormones were great. And then they had a stupid study that was actually, they said it was a government sponsored study. But the truth was that it was pharma that sponsored it. The female thing? Estrogen? Yes. Oh, yeah. So what happened was that they, um,

So they lied because they got scared that it would come out that the government took $100 million from the drug companies, which I know sounds like a shock to us. Yeah, right. Right? And because of that, they immediately, you know, the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology and all the societies decided to stop using the drug. Turns out it was a mistake because the drug was fine. But anyway, that...

they would then take the patients off the drug and, you know, eight, 7 million women were taken off the drug. It was really horrible.

So I actually, at the time, I had published the first hormone solution. And the book was number two on Amazon because nobody knew what to do. So they read the book and I wound up being the expert. The hormone person? Yeah. Yeah, the hormone person. So the interesting thing is that

And since then, and it's now 20, it was in 2002. So it's 23, almost 23 years later. I still encounter people. First of all, women would not tell their doctors, their gynecologists, that they were on the hormones, even though they felt great, that the doctors would say, oh, you're looking great. And be like, uh-huh, uh-huh. And they never told the truth because they were afraid that the doctor would disagree as if that matters.

Maybe they would have learned something, right? Anyway, the other thing was that to this day, the doctors that will say, oh, you shouldn't be taking those hormones, they cause cancer. First of all, they don't cause cancer. There's data to support the fact that they don't. I've been prescribing them for over 30 years. They don't cause cancer. I can tell you that. The science is there. It doesn't matter. The point is...

that instead of saying, don't take those hormones because you don't know what they do or don't do, just say, I don't know. And if the doctor was honest and said, I don't know,

maybe things would be better. And if you say to your patient, no, you can't do it, it's bad for you, or like that person that you went to that said she wouldn't prescribe it, what you're doing is you're creating such a bad blood situation between us that instead of just spending 10 minutes on learning about it or picking up, like in this case with the hormones, just pick up the phone and call me. They can't

They kind of know who I am. So it would have been real easy instead of lying to the patient and saying, if I don't know about it, it's not good for you. And that's a problem. Sergeant and Mr. Smith, you're going to love this house. Bunk beds in a closet? There's no field manual for finding the right home. But when you do, USAA homeowners insurance can help protect it the right way. Restrictions apply.

Business taxes. We're stressing about all the time and all the money you spent on your taxes. This is my bill? Now Business Taxes is a TurboTax small business expert who does your taxes for you and offers year-round advice at no additional cost so you can keep more money in your business. Now this is taxes. Intuit TurboTax. Get an expert now on TurboTax.com slash business. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service.

Yeah, I know that actually is becoming quite mainstream. The hormone replacement therapy, is that what it was referred to as? Yeah, primarily with women and like estrogen and progesterone and stuff. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's really interesting to see that because I know now that it's come out that it was basically all...

made up by, I don't know, fake studies or something. And now women are going back on these hormones. And so there's like this whole generation of women that struggled really without needing to. Horrible. Horrible. And you know what? And it turns out that

They benefit from them. I could tell like literally down the street, women who aren't hormones versus those who aren't, they feel good. They don't get sick. And the thing is that it's so much easier for the doctor to have said, oh, I don't know about it. Let me look it up or let me call somebody or let me Google it or let me do something to get the information.

But that's not the way it was and not the way it is in a lot of ways. It's like, like I got this guy who wrote, who sent me a text the other day and said, I think I'm going to take a pause on taking testosterone. He's on testosterone. And I said, why? He says, well, I want to make sure I don't have prostate cancer.

So I said, listen, we follow your bloods. We make sure you don't have prostate cancer. What makes you think you have prostate cancer? He says, well, I'm afraid that testosterone causes prostate cancer.

Let me just give you the background on that. In 1939, before I was born, but sure, before you were born, right? There was a report in one of the surgical journals by one called, a doctor called Huggins, who reported one case of a patient who had prostate cancer and high testosterone.

That's where it all comes from. One patient, one time in 1939. Wait. How's that one? Wait. So-

Even today, I was just listening to a book. I won't say the book on tape or on, you know, audible yesterday. And it talked about TRT because I'm 41. I, I, I'm like, I don't know, should I take it? I was going to ask you about this actually, but they talked about prostate cancer. And then when you hear the C word, you're like, I'm out. I don't, I don't care. I'm not taking it. Is, so is that not basically not true?

No, it's not true. And the guy who was the head of urology at Harvard had all the studies put together and did a meta-analysis, whatever, of all the studies that came out in 2007. Now we're talking about 1939 to 2007, urologists refused to give men testosterone.

I mean, they could get the testosterone, but it wasn't from conventional urologists because they believed in that 1939 idiocy. Now, in 2007, this guy by the name of Morgenthau

something like that, Morgenthau, from Harvard, had done all these studies, researched all the studies, and came out with the definitive information saying there's no connection between testosterone and prostate cancer. That's in 2007.

Guess what? You could still find people, doctors and people who will say, ah, maybe I won't take testosterone because it might cause prostate cancer. And that's where we stand today. Because, wow.

Okay. So let me ask you about this. How should we think of them? Because I've heard everything from like miracle drug. Like I want to be on testosterone and feel like I'm 20 all the way to you're going to die. So where is the reality of hormones? Well, the reality of hormones is that when you're in your 20s and you're full of hormones, whether you're a man or a woman,

You are fertile. You look great. You feel great. You recover great. You don't have to sleep more than three hours a night. Everything's wonderful, right? Your muscle mass is great. Your libido is soaring. So that's when you're full of hormones. When you're a woman and you're full of hormones and you're pregnant, think about it. You're immortal. Nothing happens. Immortal. Because that's when you're making another human being.

So you tell me what hormones are doing to you. I think hormones are great for you. Now this is 30 something years later that I've been doing it. And I'm still, I'm still taking hormones. I've been taking hormones for almost 30 years. And anyway, so hormones are great. Bioidentical hormones, like hormones that are identical molecularly to what your body makes. Like you said, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, those are great hormones.

If they're given in the right doses, if they're given by the right person who knows what they're doing, they have the experience, they listen to you. If they're part of an integrated program that puts the rest of you together, optimizes you, by all means, everybody should be on hormones.

But having said that, everybody is on birth control pills and they're basically synthetic. They're not identical. And it puts your hormone levels, a woman's hormone levels,

at menopausal levels. So that's crazy. It's insane that we don't stop and say, hold on, what are you doing here? On the topic of hormones, how relevant or valid, useful are kind of blood tests on the thing, right? So, you know, people do, they measure their

I'm familiar with testosterone more, but I'm sure it's similar. So free testosterone or this or that. Is that a valid measurement to see if hormones would benefit you? Or do you go more off of how they feel and what their issues are? How do you look at it? I put it all together. So as you know, I'm into patient service. So obviously I would listen to you rather than care about the numbers. But

First of all, it would be nice if we knew what your testosterone level was when you were 20. Wouldn't that be nice? Oh, yeah. That would tell me what you, Chris...

have as optimal testosterone, right? But we don't know that because nobody would measure that, God forbid, because it would be too commonsensically, right? So we don't know that. But if you start having symptoms and you don't feel like yourself and you're not building muscle like you used to, your libido is not what it used to be. First of all, look at your lifestyle. How long have you been in your partnership? How

how many kids do you have? How often do you, how much do you sleep? There are a lot of things in your lifestyle that will push us in the wrong direction. So we're not going to be doing the same thing we were doing at 20. But doing the numbers and doing the blood test is fine. And it makes sense to give us a baseline where we start. I wouldn't do bloods all the time because

Unless I can get it right and you insist on having the blood tests done regularly. So I listen to my patients, basically. What do you typically see as the best lifestyle and medical interventions?

I didn't understand supplements at the beginning because I came from the conventional world and I was like, what the hell? You're taking a supplement, it's going to affect every part of your body and that can't make sense. Then I realized that when you take Tylenol for your headache, it affects your liver and your kidneys and everything else. Maybe

Maybe everything else affects everything else. So then eventually I got it. And this was a long time ago. I got it that it was about that supplements were important and that everything affects everything. So, you know, listen, I think that there are some vitamins that all of us need to take, which will help us improve our life.

balance as far as not just hormones, but what are we looking for? We're looking to decrease inflammation in our bodies as we get old, right? And boost immunity. Those are the two things that we really care about. Now, you're not going to be able to do that unless what you're doing is

having balanced hormones. So without hormones, you're not going to be able to get off the couch, literally. I mean, no matter how great your diet is, no matter how well you feed, you're not going to sleep at night if your hormones are out of balance. So your hormones are kind of like, I looked at it as layering. The way we do the care is layered. And

I don't put everybody on hormones, by the way. They may be too young to start or they, you know, when women are in perimenopause, they fluctuate a lot. So I'm not going to put them on hormones, but there are a lot of other things that you could do. And when you're talking about what's the optimum thing, it's like, look at the lifestyle that they're leading today and then see. So that's like the first time we sit together, we go over like, okay,

How do you feel? How do you feel? It's like, it's the most important thing because none of us really know because nobody asks us how we feel. So if you think about it, how are you feeling? And if you start saying, well, I'm tired. Okay. Well, let's look like why you're tired. You said you have the kids, you're not getting as much rest, you have the puppy. So that explains it. And I don't think I need more than that. Right.

I really don't. I don't think you need to worry about hormones then. I think you need to make sure you figure out ways in which you and your wife figure out how to give each other space to sleep, to rest, to get the rest you need. It's as simple as that.

Then if we ate food that's actual food, and we see this now everywhere, we're being fed chemicals. And if you just try to avoid eating chemicals, I don't know how you do that in the United States, but you can, you can, but we will, and we will, I'm sure we're going to.

Right? That if you start, you know, if you eat vegetables and you eat fruit and you eat, you know, good organic like meats and things like that, you'll get better. You'll feel better. The other thing is don't overeat. Like we're into this eating huge amounts. Well, the huge amounts are not going to help us. We know protein is good for you. We know fats are good for you. Non-animals primarily like avocados, potatoes.

or olive oils, et cetera, coconut oil. They're good for you, for your brain, for your body. You have the information. So just include that in your diet. Then increase the amount of water. I mean, people go crazy with drinking water, but I think like, if you look at Tom Brady says like half your body weight in water, that's okay if you're working out by all means, but your body will tell you when you need more water, listen to your body.

The other thing is don't drink soda. Soda is really not something you want to clean your toilets with it. You don't want to drink it. And then the other thing is alcohol. And, you know, when you think during COVID, alcohol, you know, liquor stores were essential businesses. It kind of makes me wonder. I know. Right? The gyms were not essential businesses. But businessmen.

The liquor stores were. That's offensive because alcohol in no form is good for you. It's toxic for you. The only thing you need is to get rid of the alcohol. In like 40s, it's enough. Get rid of it. And you want to have a drink with some party or something by all means, but not block out drink. Not drinking is a very good thing for your body. Your body will thank you.

So that's basically it. Then supplements, vitamin B is like, you know that. It's the go-to. But then magnesium, you have vitamin C. We have a thing called Defense, which is a supplement that improves your immune system.

Then you want probiotics to help maintain your immune system. There are a lot of them, you know, there are a lot of them, but don't take them all at once and don't stay with them. And then peptides. I've been working with peptides and I teach at faculty at the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Oh my God, not obstetrics, my God, I'm so sorry. And I'm...

American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Oh my God, can you imagine? No, I gave a talk there a few times. So anyway, but the point is that

Peptides are huge, and I agree with you. I think that being interested in them is really good. BPC being the peptide, and we use that, we have that. Oral, and then TB4 fragment is another one. The other thing we work with is NMN, which is the NAD precursor.

And, yeah, we do a lot of really good stuff. And then, of course, we've been working with GLP-1s, you know, the trisepatide and semaglutide, long before they were FDA approved. And you know what?

They work, but you got to change your diet and you got to use them as an opportunity to, you know, they open the door ajar to weight loss and feeling better because they work on the brain, as you know. But then you have to walk through it and open the door wide open and don't go back. Don't use it as an opportunity. Oh, I'll lose 20 pounds and I'll put it back later. Don't yo-yo.

I love that. It's like a mix of common sense approach, but then with focus. I think one of the big takeaways is there's these messages we all have in the back of our mind about our health. And I think we then, I know I do this, I push them aside for the messages that I'm hearing or consuming.

You know, I go on Instagram. Oh, Lyme disease is the one I see all the time. Everything's Lyme disease or mold or there was the parasite cleanses or whatever. Not that these things aren't real. Sure. Maybe. I don't know. But like it shouldn't be the primary focus to your point. Are you tired? OK, let's just ask the simple question. Are you sleeping? We don't do that anymore. We go, oh, my God, I'm tired because I have a virus because I'm dying or something. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so really that that common sense approach. I love it.

Dr. Erica, I've thoroughly enjoyed this conversation. A lot of this, I mean, look, the emphasis or the foundation for this conversation is from your book, Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You, How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed, and a Broken System. And you said you are re-releasing it this year. Yes, I'm working on finishing it and we're going to re-release it in a few months. And we're adding COVID and AI to it. Oh, I can't wait. Okay.

For those listening that are enjoying this, where can they find you? Where are you these days? I'm on Instagram at Dr. D-R-E-R-I-K-A Schwartz, S-C-H-W-A-R-T-Z.

then where am I? I'm on ES Health. And I think you can find me wherever you want and I'll be happy to answer all your questions. I love it. Happy to help. I think it's time to take control of our health and stop being bullied and intimidated by people who really don't know any better than we know. Well, you're helping people do that. I can say for sure. And I know for those listening, if you love this conversation as much as I did, definitely check out the book. I mean, it goes into so much detail

context and there's so much in there. That's what structuring this conversation. I was like, man, there's so many things I want to talk to Dr. Eric about. So we will link to that and your Instagram as well. Dr. Erica, thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you, Chris. It was a pleasure. This week's guest was Dr. Erica Schwartz. The episode was hosted as always by Chris Stemp and produced by yours truly, John Rojas.

Dr. Schwartz's book, Don't Let Your Doctor Kill You, How to Beat Physician Arrogance, Corporate Greed, and a Broken System is available wherever books are sold.

And now for the quick housekeeping items. If you ever want to reach out to the show, you can email us at smartpeoplepodcast at gmail.com or message us on Twitter at smartpeoplepod. And of course, if you want to stay up to date with all things Smart People Podcast, head over to the website smartpeoplepodcast.com and sign up for the newsletter. All right, that's it for us this week. Make sure you stay tuned because we've got a lot of great interviews coming up.

And we'll see you next episode.