Stronger Medicine Podcast Dr Julian Donovan

DAN DWORKIS, MD PhD, is a clinical assistant professor of emergency medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine, a board-certified emergency medicine physician at Los Angeles County+USC Medical Center, and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians.



He trained at Brigham and Women’s Hospital / Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Affiliated Emergency Medicine Residency. Dr. Dworkis built The Emergency Mind platform and podcast to help individuals and teams perform better under pressure in and out of the emergency Department.



After reading his book, The Emergency Mind, I wanted to speak to Dan more about some of the ideas that he had explored in his writing. Expect to hear about how to approach emergency and high pressure situations, as well as failure, craftsmanship, challenges and teamwork.



LINKS:  
The Emergency Mind Project
Grab the book: The Emergency Mind; Wiring your brain for performance under pressure
The Emergency Mind Twitter
Dan's IG



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Get in touch: 
julian@strongermedicine.com 
www.strongermedicine.com

Will is a Certified Strength and Conditioning coach who runs his own facility, Powering-Through, in Essex, UK. He works with athletes and individuals across all backgrounds, but specialises in MMA fighters, grapplers, motor sport athletes, and golfers. He is a Strength and Conditioning consultant to the PGA European Tour, and spends much of his time abroad working closely with professional golfers. He practices what he preaches, and pushes himself in his own training as much as he does his own athletes. 



I sat down with Will to talk about his approach to Strength and Conditioning, and his views on pragmatism, iatrogenics, skin in the game, being a 'do-er', and dealing with imposter syndrome, amongst other aspects. He also shares his own experience with severe depression, how he got through this, and the psychological journey this involved. We finish up with Will giving us some timeless concepts and principles that he has garnered through his work in S&C, that we can all apply to our own lives.



WILL'S ARTICLES:
The Pragmatists Approach to Strength and Conditioning: https://simplifaster.com/articles/pragmatic-coaching-strength-conditioning/
Grappling with Depression: http://www.powering-through.com/grappling-with-depression/
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LINKS:  
Powering Through website: http://www.powering-through.com
Instagram @poweringthrough
Twitter @WSWayland
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LISTEN TO THE STRONGER MEDICINE PODCAST ON: 
Spotify: http://bit.ly/stmdspotify 
iTunes: http://bit.ly/stmditunes 
Stitcher: http://bit.ly/stmdstitcher
-
Get in touch: 
julian@strongermedicine.com 
www.strongermedicine.com

https://youtu.be/UmRGUSX0PLA



In September 2015, Nick put his generalised muscular aches down to his keen squash playing, but soon after, other unexplained symptoms started to appear. On Christmas eve of 2015, Nick was found to have inoperable cancer on a CT scan, being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer the following month.



At 625 ng/ml, his PSA (a prostate tumour marker) was 150x the upper limit, and he was given a gleason score of 9/10 (the most aggressive rating for prostate cancer).



Since that time, Nick has taken an extremely proactive approach to his cancer and health. He has assembled around him a multi-disciplinary team, including Cancer Buddies, complementary oncologists, yoga masters, psychotherapists, nutritionists, Chinese herbalists & acupuncturists, strength & conditioning experts, buddhists, GPs, nurses, conventional oncologists and his wife.



Alongside this, Nick has been on a mission to share what he has found through his own journey, and has been writing and speaking about the undeniable impact of lifestyle on our health and, as he sees it in his case, his own experiences with cancer.



Thank you Nick for your generous time on the show.



LINKS:
Nick's website: https://thecancerjourneyman.co.uk
His Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/thecancerjourneyman
His Twitter: https://twitter.com/CansaJourneyMan



LISTEN TO THE STRONGER MEDICINE PODCAST ON:
Spotify: http://bit.ly/stmdspotify
iTunes: http://bit.ly/stmditunes
Stitcher: http://bit.ly/stmdstitcher



Get in touch:
julian@strongermedicine.com
www.strongermedicine.com

Aaron Stark was almost a school shooter.



He experienced a childhood of relentless violence, trauma and being told he was worthless. Moving from school to school, with a chaotic family constantly evading social services and the police, he plummeted deeper and deeper into despair and depression. Despite reaching out a number of times, he remained mostly alone until, driven to 'annihilation', he resolved to buy a gun and attack a school.



An almost banal, everyday act of human touch from his friend, Mike, was the turning point that averted a catastrophe.



Listen as Aaron discusses his childhood experience, how he ended up in that dark place, how he narrowly missed an atrocity, and his journey of recovery that has lasted decades. He tells us about how surreal life has been since he started to talk openly about his experiences, and the thousands of people that have contacted him and, ultimately, how this despair can happen to any of us; not just monsters.



LINKS:
YOU ARE NOT ALONE: https://www.facebook.com/groups/589481718072201/
Aaron's Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/azRl1dI-Cts



LISTEN TO STRONGER MEDICINE PODCAST ON:
Spotify: http://bit.ly/stmdspotify
iTunes: http://bit.ly/stmditunes
Stitcher: http://bit.ly/stmdstitcher



Get in touch:
julian@strongermedicine.com
www.strongermedicine.com

Professor Sabina Brennan is the author of the book '100 Days to a Younger Brain', which details how we can maximise our cognitive and brain health for as long as possible, through lifestyle.



She is a neuroscientist with specific interest in the risk factors and impact of lifestyle on dementia, cognition and brain health across the lifespan. Currently as a Research Assistant Professor in the Neuroscience department at Trinity College Dublin, she made her move into this field through studying her psychology undergraduate degree at the age of 42, after leaving her previous career in acting (a leading role on Ireland's soap opera, Fair City).



As well as her work in lifestyle and neuroscience, Sabina is passionate about challenging the stereotypes that pervade ageing in the West, asserting that there is much to celebrate in our later years and that we are capable of much more than society would allow us to think. She has created around 30 short animations in multiple languages across the globe to share education on brain health and lifestyle.



In this episode, we discuss:



Why Sabina wrote the book (2:33) Why we are not doomed to decline despite our brains shrinking with age (8:25)How even a brain that appears to be ravaged by Alzheimer's dementia may not result in any outward appearance of disease (10:25)Sabina gets into the difficult area of how best intentions can sometimes steal independence from loved ones and patients (20:30)The concepts of brain resilience and reserve (22:55)The odd lack of awareness about our brains (29:14)Sabina does a deep dive into how sleep is perhaps the most important thing for our brain health (32:20)Learn why stress can be both bad and good for us (47:50) How your attitude and approach to life can make or break you (56:26)We close with reflecting on how we are absolutely sabotaging ourselves as we age through how society views the process of getting older (01:06:09).



Links



'100 Days to a Younger Brain' is available in all good book stores. Check out Sabina's website at http://www.sabinabrennan.ieFollow her on Twitter @Sabina_Brennan. Also take a look at her (excellent) animations on dementia, ageing and brain health at http://freedemliving.com



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I'd never before put into perspective that the ten year survival of type 2 diabetes is worse than many cancers. Today, we get into what can be done about this, once and for all.



Mike Lean MA, MB, BChir, MD (Cambridge), FRCP (Edinb), FRCPS (Glasgow), FRSE holds the chair of Human Nutrition, is an acute medicine consultant physician, and has completed extensive research in obesity, nutrition and diabetes. In more recent years, his work as joint Principle Investigator with Prof Taylor and team has uniquely proven that diabetes is a reversible disease process. The DiRECT trial is the first of its kind to have focused on remission of diabetes as its outcome, by calorie restriction alone. Almost 50% of those recruited reversed their diabetes, with 9 in 10 people who lost 15kg achieving complete remission and coming off all diabetes medication.



In this episode, Prof Lean tells us where he thinks we have gone wrong with diabetes and its management. We learn what actually causes diabetes, the relation of body weight and fat to this disease, and why those who seem to be of a normal weight can still get diabetes. Prof Lean tells us why just focusing on good blood sugar control may not be adequate, the findings of the DiRECT trial, and how YOU or your patients can actually reverse your diabetes, and come off medications completely. We hear about the ins and outs of approaches such as low carbohydrate, fasting and calorie restriction for diabetes management, and is there such a thing as a 'healthy food'?



This was a real privilege as Prof Lean is at the absolute forefront of diabetes research and management, and is in great demand internationally to share his work. He was kind enough to steal some time to talk with me during a busy working day when he had just finished his morning ward round, and so I'm grateful for the opportunity.



Let me know what you thought! Do you have diabetes? Do you care or work with people with diabetes? Get in touch at julian@strongermedicine.com



Further links: https://www.directclinicaltrial.org.uk where the 'no doubts diet' and other resources can be found, as well as Prof Taylor's area on https://www.ncl.ac.uk/magres/research/diabetes/reversal/#publicinformation.