The DNA of Things with Dr. Jeremy Koenig

Dr. Jeremy Koenig
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Health & Fitness
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The DNA of Things," hosted by Dr. Jeremy Koenig, is an auditory journey into the evolving world of health science, performance, and longevity. This podcast brings together the sharpest minds in the field, including elite health strategists, pioneering scientists, and wellness mavericks, to share cutting-edge practices and revolutionary insights. Each episode is meticulously curated to enrich your understanding of well-being and to extend your vitality, propelling you toward a future filled with possibilities. Join Dr. Koenig as he unveils the secrets of human potential through the lens of genomics, and discover how to transform your health and life trajectory.

  1. 3d ago ·  Video

    Episode 134: Walter Gjergja of Zing Coach on Shaolin Wisdom, Heart Rate Recovery and AI Fitness

    His Shaolin master judged fitness by how fast a storm-tossed lake returned to calm. Modern exercise science measures almost the same thing. MORE EPISODES → https://thednaofthings.com/ Dr. Jeremy Koenig sits down with Walter Gjergja, co-founder of Zing Coach and a 32nd-generation Shaolin master, who spent eight years training at the Shaolin Temple before going on to study exercise physiology at Stanford. Gjergja explains how his master’s lake analogy lines up with heart rate recovery, which he calls perhaps the best marker of cardiovascular health, even better than VO2 max. He also describes how Zing’s AI coach, guardrailed by tens of thousands of rules, adjusts a long-term plan to daily sleep, HRV, and mobility data for the roughly 90% of gym goers who train without a personal trainer. By the end, the conversation turns on a question neither of them fully settles: as these systems learn more about us, how much of our own data should we actually see? Connect with Walter Gjergja: ► Website: https://xingmi.info/ ► Zing Coach: https://www.zing.coach/  SUBSCRIBE for more science-backed health conversations https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig ► Dr. Koenig’s website: https://thednaofthings.com/ ► Follow Dr. Koenig on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ ► Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all platforms TIMESTAMPS: 00:00 – How Fast Does Your Heart Return to Calm? 03:24 – Why a Tech CEO Walked Away to Shaolin 06:12 – A Day in the Life of a Shaolin Monk 07:40 – Bringing Temple Simplicity Back West 10:21 – The Heart Rate Recovery Aha Moment 18:48 – Shifu: Parent, Teacher, Older Sibling 23:32 – Why Every Training Plan Crashes Into Real Life 26:15 – Too Much or Not Enough: What the Data Shows 32:42 – Gym Chains, Pharma, and Paris Saint-Germain 34:59 – Blood Biomarkers, DNA, and the Cardio Nudge 38:18 – Orthosomnia and the Limits of Optimizing 47:04 – How Training Caught a Hidden Infection 51:41 – How Much of Your Own Data Should You See? 1:01:13 – Why One LDL Number Isn’t the Whole Picture 1:06:09 – You Are Your Own Best Wearable Walter Gjergja, co-founder of Zing Coach and a Shaolin master also known as Shi Xing Mi, joins Dr. Jeremy Koenig on The DNA of Things to talk about heart rate recovery, AI fitness coaching, and where Shaolin philosophy overlaps with exercise physiology. Gjergja describes eight years of study at the Shaolin Temple on Mount Song in Henan Province, where mornings started with chanting sutras and then running 1,500 steps to the cave where Bodhidharma meditated. Afterward he studied exercise physiology at Stanford. He explains why his master compared cardiovascular fitness to a lake returning to calm after a storm, and why he considers heart rate recovery perhaps the best marker of cardiovascular health, even better than VO2 max. Gjergja describes how the Zing AI coach is guardrailed by tens of thousands of rules and combines long-term trends and goals with real-time data like sleep and heart rate variability (HRV). It also uses computer vision to assess mobility and injury risk, and tracks body composition instead of scale weight. He talks about Zing’s partnerships with gym chains, health insurers, pharmaceutical companies, and Paris Saint-Germain, and about a co-pilot tool for personal trainers. Koenig and Gjergja also discuss functional and hybrid training, orthosomnia and sleep anxiety, data anxiety from wearables, and LDL cholesterol and Lp(a) in context. Koenig shares how his training helped him spot Lyme exposure early, and how his sprint coach Garnet Cross shaped his view of coaching, mindfulness, and consciousness. #TheDNAofThings #HeartRateRecovery #AIFitness #CardiovascularHealth #Shaolin  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 134: Walter Gjergja of Zing Coach on Shaolin Wisdom, Heart Rate Recovery and AI Fitness

  2. Oct 25 ·  Video

    Episode 133: Dr. Renata Braudy on Wearables, Breast Cancer Survivorship and the Invisible Months

    Up to 76% of breast cancer survivors develop arm or shoulder problems within three years of treatment. Most of them go home with no one tracking what happens next. Physical therapist and researcher Dr. Renata Braudy explains how wearable data could close that gap in breast cancer survivorship. Dr. Jeremy Koenig talks with Dr. Renata Braudy, oncology lead at Life Cycle Health, about the months after active treatment ends, when the care team steps back and survivors have to work out what’s normal on their own. She explains how early education can cut lymphedema risk by up to 40%. She also explains why radiation can tighten the chest wall enough to pull a healthy shoulder out of position, and how drops in step count, walking speed and gait symmetry can point to chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy before a fall happens. She cites data showing the most active survivors have a 42% lower breast cancer mortality risk than the least active. The open question is which wearable signals, from resting heart rate to muscle loss and sarcopenia, actually tell a clinician it’s time to act. Dr. Renata Braudy, PhD, PT, OCS, CLT, is a physical therapist, researcher and certified lymphedema therapist. She is oncology lead at Life Cycle Health and founder of Empowered Recovery and Wellness. Website: https://www.thisisempowered.com/ | Instagram: @breastcancer.empowered LINKS:  https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 133: Dr. Renata Braudy on Wearables, Breast Cancer Survivorship and the Invisible Months

  3. Oct 18 ·  Video

    Episode 132: Dr. Luke Bucci of Juvenon on Why Supplements Take Weeks to Work, Not Days

    Most supplements don’t fail in the bottle. According to Juvenon chief scientific officer Dr. Luke Bucci, they fail because people quit long before their biology has time to respond. Dr. Jeremy Koenig sits down with Dr. Luke Bucci, chief scientific officer at Juvenon, the longevity supplement company founded by Dr. Bruce Ames, to look back on four decades inside the supplement industry. Bucci explains how acetyl-L-carnitine carries fuel into the mitochondria, and how alpha-lipoic acid helps drive ATP production while soaking up the oxidative “sparks” that come with it. He names the three supplements he thinks everyone needs (vitamin D3, omega-3s and magnesium), and he argues for krill oil over fish oil based on how omega-3 phospholipids get into cell membranes. That leaves a hard question: can a market built on instant gratification support products that take weeks or months to show results? Luke Bucci, PhD, is chief scientific officer at Juvenon and a former expert advisor on supplements to the United States Olympic Committee. Website: https://juvenon.com   LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 132: Dr. Luke Bucci of Juvenon on Why Supplements Take Weeks to Work, Not Days

  4. Oct 11 ·  Video

    Episode 131: Dr. Nikolas Baya of the Broad Institute on Rare Variants and Polygenic Risk Scores

    What happens when your polygenic risk score says one thing and your body says another? Broad Institute geneticist Dr. Nikolas Baya studies the people who don't match their genetic prediction, and the rare variants that often explain the gap. Dr. Jeremy Koenig talks with Dr. Nikolas Baya, a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute, about his recently published UK Biobank study showing that people who deviate from their polygenic score are enriched for rare variants in genes linked to rare disease. Nik explains why that makes polygenic scores useful as a filter for rare disease diagnosis, how protective variants in genes like PCSK9 have led to new drug targets, and why an estimated 240 million people worldwide live with a rare genetic disease. He also walks through the BRaVa browser, a free tool for the Biobank Rare Variant Analysis consortium that pools rare variant results across ancestrally diverse biobanks, which he built with Claude Code in about two weeks. And he explains why he still writes by hand, comparing heavy AI use to eating cake: you feel full and productive, but it isn't intellectually nourishing. Dr. Nikolas Baya is a postdoctoral researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, with a DPhil from the University of Oxford's Genomic Medicine and Statistics program.  Connect with Nik: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikolas-baya/  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

  5. Oct 4 ·  Video

    Episode 130: Mark Talbot of Lifecycle Health on the Wearable Data Your Doctor Never Sees

    Engineer Mark Talbot was tracking his weight, food, steps, and sleep across five apps when his weight loss stalled, and none of them could tell him why. One question to AI about a year of his own Apple Health data gave him the answer. It also pointed to a bigger gap: doctors never see what happens between visits. Dr. Jeremy Koenig talks with Mark Talbot, co-founder of Lifecycle Health, a platform that brings patients' wearable data into specialist practices. After going from about 5,000 to 12,000 daily steps and losing five to seven pounds in under a month, Talbot shared the idea on LinkedIn and heard from more than 80 people in under 10 days, including cardiologists, menopause specialists, and weight loss clinics. He explains how a practice can go live in about 10 minutes, how each patient is flagged red, amber, or green against their own baseline, and how cardiologists can watch blood pressure readings come in after a heart attack instead of waiting for the next appointment. They also discuss an early pattern from a small informal group of women wearing Oura or WHOOP, where skin temperature rose a few minutes before a hot flash, and ask whether longitudinal health data could replace "How have you been?" at every GP visit. Mark Talbot is co-founder of Lifecycle Health and a former mainframe systems programmer whose career runs through British Airways, IBM, and two decades building software partnerships.   LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 130: Mark Talbot of Lifecycle Health on the Wearable Data Your Doctor Never Sees

  6. Sep 27 ·  Video

    Episode 129: Dr. Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen on the PCL-R and the Myth of the Psychopath

    Dr. Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen has spent years reviewing the research behind the Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R), a tool that helps shape parole, prison placement, and even capital sentencing decisions. What he found is that many of the core claims about psychopaths aren't supported by the evidence. Dr. Jeremy Koenig sits down with Larsen, a philosopher of science at the University of Toronto Mississauga and author of Psychopathy Unmasked, to look at what the psychopathy diagnosis actually rests on. Larsen's group is building a database to synthesize the roughly 2,300 studies that use the PCL-R. He explains why common claims, like psychopaths lacking emotion or empathy, haven't held up in that research. He traces the idea back to a 1786 speech by Benjamin Rush and walks through how a score of around 30 out of 40 can follow someone through the justice system, even though there's no solid evidence those individuals are meaningfully more dangerous than other offenders. That leaves forensic psychology with an uncomfortable question: if most human wrongdoing comes from psychologically ordinary people, why is the psychopath still treated as a separate category? Dr. Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen is an Assistant Professor of Forensic Epistemology and Philosophy of Science at the University of Toronto Mississauga and author of Psychopathy Unmasked: The Rise and Fall of a Dangerous Diagnosis (MIT Press, 2025). Website: https://www.rasmusrosenberg.com | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rosenberglarsen  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 129: Dr. Rasmus Rosenberg Larsen on the PCL-R and the Myth of the Psychopath

  7. Sep 20 ·  Video

    Episode 128: Chris Mearns of LIV3 Health on Fructokinase, Endogenous Fructose, and Cravings

    High fructose corn syrup dominated health headlines for years, then the conversation went quiet. Chris Mearns argues the research on fructose metabolism only got stronger, and that one enzyme called fructokinase may explain why cravings spike, why energy crashes an hour after eating, and why restrictive diets stop working around week three. Chris Mearns, founder of LIV3 Health and creator of the Fructose Model, walks Dr. Jeremy Koenig through the mechanism: metabolizing fructose depletes cellular ATP along the path to uric acid, which drives mitochondrial fission and a low-energy, inflammatory state the brain reads as scarcity. He explains why diet alone often fails, since the body also makes fructose endogenously through the polyol pathway in response to high glycemic carbs, salt, alcohol, dehydration, and sleep apnea. The conversation covers why GLP-1 drugs blunt cravings without restoring energy, why people with essential fructosuria who lack fructokinase entirely appear largely protected from metabolic dysfunction, and a four-week approach that pairs sugar reduction with compensatory slow carbs and MCT oil while taste preferences recalibrate. Mearns is also direct about the limits of his own case for luteolin as a fructokinase inhibitor, which has been studied in liver cells and rodent models but not in living humans, leaving the question of whether this enzyme is the central lever in metabolic disease still open. Chris Mearns is the founder of LIV3 Health and the creator of the Fructose Model, a systems-based framework connecting fructose metabolism to cellular energy and chronic metabolic dysfunction. Website: https://liv3health.com | LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/chrismearns Your Free DNA of Things Starter Kit: https://liv3health.com/dna  LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 128: Chris Mearns of LIV3 Health on Fructokinase, Endogenous Fructose, and Cravings

  8. Sep 13 ·  Video

    Episode 127: Gustavo Ruthes on Stress Inoculation and the Fighter Pilot Mindset Under Pressure

    What do fighter pilots and founders have in common? Mental performance consultant Gustavo Ruthes explains why the same stress inoculation techniques used to train NATO fighter pilots can rewire how anyone handles high-stakes decisions. Gustavo Ruthes, a Registered Psychotherapist and Mental Performance Consultant who trains fifth-generation fighter pilots at Canada's International Tactical Training Centre, joins Dr. Jeremy Koenig to unpack the neurobiology of performing under pressure. Ruthes discusses explicit monitoring theory and why choking under pressure often comes from overanalyzing instead of trusting your training, and he breaks down why even one week of six-hour sleep can impair cognitive performance as much as two full nights of no sleep at all, without the person noticing. Drawing on his own path from Brazilian soccer and Jiu-Jitsu into military aviation psychology, he explains why self-compassion, not harsh self-criticism, is what actually builds resilience in high performers. The conversation closes with a candid look at how AI is reshaping cognitive habits in both classrooms and cockpits, and what parents should be doing about it. Gustavo Ruthes is a Registered Psychotherapist (RP Qualifying, CRPO) and Mental Performance Consultant (MPC, CSPA) and the founder of Perfect Mind Mental Performance, where he works with NATO fighter pilots, athletes, and entrepreneurs. Website: https://perfectmind.ca   LINKS: https://www.drjeremykoenig.com/ https://www.instagram.com/drjeremykoenig/ https://www.youtube.com/@drjeremykoenig

    Episode 127: Gustavo Ruthes on Stress Inoculation and the Fighter Pilot Mindset Under Pressure
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About

The DNA of Things," hosted by Dr. Jeremy Koenig, is an auditory journey into the evolving world of health science, performance, and longevity. This podcast brings together the sharpest minds in the field, including elite health strategists, pioneering scientists, and wellness mavericks, to share cutting-edge practices and revolutionary insights. Each episode is meticulously curated to enrich your understanding of well-being and to extend your vitality, propelling you toward a future filled with possibilities. Join Dr. Koenig as he unveils the secrets of human potential through the lens of genomics, and discover how to transform your health and life trajectory.

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