Episode 455: Dr. Vishal Patel: Why Your Feet Control Your Longevity and Most Wellness Tech Is Wrong

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1:30So I'm joined today by Dr. Vishal Patel, who is the chief science and innovative officer at a place called, it's the most beautiful place I've ever been, Sensei. Sensei is basically, I want you to kind of walk us through it because I had a beautiful experience. It is a wellness facility that is beyond anything I've ever been to because of the care and the quality and just overall the programming. Let's talk about how would you describe what it is? And then let's get into your background and what your involvement is. Oh, sure. To describe what it is, it's a wellness retreat. But even that doesn't do justice to the place and the experience.

2:13It was a vision that our co-founders, Larry Ellison and David Agus, had. There's a passing of a close friend, Steve Jobs, that really made them realize that the world needs spaces where even the best and brightest can feel safe and get trusted, vetted advice about their health and wellness. And I think that's probably what you experienced at Lanai, that it feels like a place where you can let your guard down, where you can feel safe, you can have space to wander, and you have experts, which are really hidden gems that a lot of people don't expect. But we have brilliant, brilliant minds and hearts on Lanai that can guide our guests to greater well-being.

2:56It's something special. It is something special. So yeah, I went to the one in Lanai, in Hawaii. And there's how many locations do you guys have? Three now? We are now three as of last week. Yeah, we just opened our first international location in Cabo with the Ritz-Carlton Reserve in Mexico. So yeah, because the one I went to was with the Four Seasons. And let me just kind of explain and break it down a bit because I've been given what I do for my background, for my job, whatever. I've been to like a plethora of different wellness facilities. I've tried every program retreat. Number one, what I found to be very unique, it is very personalized.

3:37That's the first thing I would say. And the attention to detail with what you can have. I think I did the rest of relaxation program. And Jim, I think his name was Jim, who really kind of like really did a lot of like intake on like my background, what I'm going through in life. And then the program is very personalized for my, for me. You also have another program that I didn't do. That's very much about data and metrics. Yeah. We call it the optimal wellbeing program. The optimal wellbeing program. What I found with the one I was at, the one thing I found was interesting was, you know, a lot of these programs, the food is very precise like the you know the caloric intake you're taking they really kind of try to like they try to really kind of i guess kind of like be involved in like your overall like what you're taking in nutrition wise while you're there yeah we often describe it as like a prescription or a boot camp or a regimen i know i'm really familiar with you know maybe like the ranch in malibu and places like that where it's it can feel a little yeah very restrictive yes that's right yeah but it was a really property in there right like that's right there was very little yeah that like i i found that to be like kind of like the antithesis that what a wellness program is about can you explain why you guys are not oh absolutely yeah because i found that to be an interesting takeaway yeah and in a nutshell it's because the scientific evidence doesn't support rules for living life so when we looked at the scientific literature my my team and our co-founders for what results in, say, healthy eating, just as one example.

5:20You know, we focus on movement, rest, but just taking food and nourishment. But when you take a rules-based approach to eating, where there's a certain list of foods you can eat, and then a very long list of foods you can't eat, in the psychology literature, what happens inevitably with every cohort, every population, is that as soon as you're given that naughty list of foods, your mind very naturally starts wanting to eat those things. So then you start feeling these cravings and this desire that has an emotional impact. You start feeling guilty for wanting those things. You start punishing yourself for avoiding those things.

5:59And then in a few weeks to months, you fall off the wagon. So with every diet, paleo, keto, anything that's considered a diet where you're following a set of rules, you end up having this yo-yo behavior where people end up latching onto a diet thinking it's going to be the end all be all they fall off and then they revert back to their their old ways and old habits and then they find the next fad diet and then they latch onto that and so sensei didn't want to perpetuate that not only is it an unsustainable approach to living it's not good for you you end up with a slightly disordered relationship with food where you use food as punishment and reward it's it's not healthy for us in the long run.

6:40And so that's why it's open-ended. It's kind of more of like a choose your own adventure rather than a bootcamp where we're going to tell you what to do. And I know what you mean. We get a lot of guests that show up and say, okay, so tell me what to eat. Tell me when to wake up. Tell me when to sleep. Where are my supplements? Just tell me what to do. But longevity and wellness don't work like that. It's about the choices you make and learning to teach yourself to be more intentional with those choices. And so that's why Sensei was designed in that way. Yeah. Like I found a lot of things that I was questioning, there was scientific backing of why it is the way it is.

7:14Right. The food thing really threw me for a loop because to me, a big piece of wellness and health is all it is about the, the, the nourishing part, right? That the food also, I love to eat. Like I'm with you. Yeah. Yeah. I'm a big proponent of almost food as medicine. I studied Ayurvedic medicine in India, which is, you know, that's kind of a central tenet of that system of thought. But on the flip side, you know, telling someone what to eat removes the joy out of food, removes the sensory appreciation from food. And what we recognize is that, no, the sensory aspect of eating is just as important as the macronutrients on your plate.

7:54It has to look pretty. It has to be presented beautifully. There's a certain pace to eating that needs to be synchronized with your gastronomy. So you actually are salivating before you eat and so we take all that into consideration to introduce a more intentional approach to eating yeah i mean uh can you talk about more of the science behind that because the overall in the program just to kind of give some differentiation for people why it is different because like you said well like besides the fact that they're in these beautiful places and the programming is spectacular from of course you have the sound baths you have the yoga you have all the meditation Even the teacher, I had this other teacher there, which again, kind of like threw me for a loop because I thought I had like this one-on-one with him to do like that.

8:43I thought like a personal training session, right? But it was a very unique one because it wasn't what I was expecting. I ended up taking off my shoes. He was looking at my feet and he gave me literally like a four-year degree and how my feet is It's basically where all the power comes in and where my strength comes in. If my feet are not strong, then basically my whole body will fall apart, like my hips, my knees, my joints. Yeah, so that sounds like Eduardo. Eduardo. But I'll tell you something. He is not wrong because my feet are weak. They're flat. They are not to give people too much information, but like my arches have fallen, all the things because I work out so hard.

9:24Yeah. But your body breaks down so much quicker if your feet are not properly, if they're not properly worked out, literally. And for longevity, that's like, that's like such, that's so terrible, right? Because having to stay younger, longer is having these strong feet, which is one of these things where I think that people are amiss. They don't realize that. They think they don't, they just go, go, go. And then when their hip falls or their knees are, they don't go to the source of the problem. which is always the feat. That's exactly right. So that's, I think you hit on the science actually, and that's what we've tried to incorporate.

10:01And Eduardo does it with such warmth. He's really disarming, but he has a way of like cutting right to the heart of the problem. Yeah. But yeah, what we notice, you know, with these, with our retreats, they're built very intentionally for high performers. And as a high performer, you know, and your audience probably knows that you're so focused on a goal, performing, whether it's in the gym, on the field, in a sport, whatever your area, arena of performance is. Results. You're focused on the result and you learn over time to be more resilient, more tolerant of the pain of the aches and complaints and whether that's in the workplace or in the gym, right?

10:44But what our retreats do is create some space in your mind so you can start noticing that all those little things that you might have overlooked in your pursuit of that goal. So maybe it was your footwear. Maybe you were wearing shoes that were a little too tight. Maybe you didn't really think about your footfall while running. And that might be why you're having the knee pain. Maybe there is a lot of tension in your jaw that stems from your ergonomics in your workplace. But all of these small details are really almost imperceptible in our day-to-day life because we build our environments in pursuit of a vision, in pursuit of a goal, because we're trying to achieve something.

11:23But to be able to do that for the long haul, like you said, longevity for a longer, healthier life, you do need occasional resets or retreats where you can take a more mindful approach at things like your footwear or the type of pillow that you sleep on. Maybe the pillow is contributing to your neck pain. There's all of these subtle factors in our environment and our habits, but it really does take stepping away from it all to get that perspective. Totally. Can you tell us a little bit about your background, how you got involved? Because you said you studied aromatic medicine. You're obviously a physician.

11:55Can you just explain to us what your expertise is and the relationship? Yeah, happy to. I trained as a physician. I got my PhD in genetics, both from Case Western Reserve in Ohio. Oddly enough, and I know we were having some IT challenges at the beginning of the call, so maybe you'll find this amusing. but the reason I got into Sensei was because of technology and data of all things. My background, my research was in the same field of research as Dr. Agus, our co-founder, which is proteomics and genomics. And it was the data and the intention was to think about human beings on the inside, as well as on the outside as complex systems that maybe we don't understand how everything works, But maybe if we measure more of it, we can start painting a more complete picture of how human beings work.

12:49And that was really what motivated me. And when I came to Sensei, it was the same vision. That our guests as high performers, we're all hell-bent on figuring out how this world works and making it better in some form or fashion. And we're really analytical. We like to measure everything around us so that we can perform better, faster, harder. and the thought was, well, why don't we take that language of data that really speaks to us and to our guests and use it as a, almost like a mirror to turn that lens inward. Say, why don't we measure you? Why don't we shed some light on how you're doing? So a lot of, some of the initial data that we were collecting, basic things like blood pressure and lipid panels that were just surprising that our guests hadn't had that measured in a while.

13:36We had a partnership with Whoop, which was tremendous because then we started collecting real life, real world data, you know, our guests in the wild and their home environments. And we get to see how they're doing and whether they're doing well or not so well. And then there's some real exciting innovations that Sensei has incubated. One that I'm passionate about is around thermography. And we're using thermal cameras that are used in like home construction and defense. But again, we're taking that lens and pointing it at the human being and saying, well, why don't we look at your thermal patterns and thermal signatures?

14:13Why don't we try to understand skin temperature as a biomarker and to tell us, to try and figure out what does that tell us about what's happening inside of you? And it's really exciting. And so again, I think for me being at Sensei, it feels like a culmination of my love of data and technology, but I also get to blend the East and the West. So I studied Ayurveda. I have a deep appreciation for traditions and culture and history. And that has a really important place. It always has and it always will in how human beings understand their health and wellness. I'm here in Mexico now, there's an indigenous system of medicine here in Mexico.

14:51There are traditional ways that people have thought about health and food and diet. And you have to take those into consideration when you're trying to shift perceptions and minds when you're trying to introduce healthier eating patterns when you're trying to incorporate more physical activity you do have to be considerate of how people grew up and where they came from and so i i enjoy bringing that understanding of eastern traditions and culture as well as biomedicine into my work at sensei and again before we started i mentioned we you know we don't diagnose and treat at our at our retreats and so sometimes people wonder is like, yeah, well, why do you need a doctor at the helm?

15:29It's actually because we say no to a lot of things. I mean, there's just a lot of clinical things in the wellness world that don't have evidence. And it's important that we steer people clear of magic bullets and gimmicks that don't work, that aren't proven, that may have some toxicity, that may have side effects, that may not be beneficial for you in the long run. And so that's how I incorporate my medical background here. So could you talk about that a little bit, like in terms of a lot of the things that don't have any research or background that you guys, you think are kind of myths or because the wellness business has become, do you, have you heard this?

16:06I've heard this. I just heard this yesterday that the wellness business has actually become more profitable than big pharma now, supplement company, all of this. And with social media as well, there's a lot of information, misinformation and people glom onto it because they they're looking for this magic bullet they they want to believe if i take this that i want to get that result and i'm very like i'm a person that i try to uncover this and talk about it as much as possible because we could all fall prey to this i do all the time if i see something that's captivating i'm like oh i'll buy it and i have to stop myself and realize oh maybe that's not the best thing can you talk about some of the things that you've seen that you guys have steered away from that why you said it's important to have a medical doctor around there's a lot okay we have is there yeah what's your favorite topic or disease or supplement at the moment i whenever you think is the most harming that people should be aware of or things that just are just silly that don't work that you've kind of encountered well you know i mean our partners are our hotels four seasons and the ritz carlton i think the one that I get the biggest kick out of are the IV drips at the pool.

17:21They look sexy. And I think there's a fascination with pumping your body full of stuff, but there's no evidence that it works. You know, my team of scientists and researchers, we've poured over the literature trying to find some kernel of truth for why that might make someone feel better. And our best, most informed conclusion is it's because you're well hydrated afterwards. You got pumped full of a liter of water and of course you're going to feel better. But there's no evidence that being injected with B12 is necessary or beneficial for most people. So that's one. Another one where I'm really skeptical are peptide injections.

18:02And I don't know if you've turned around your cosmetics over the past couple years, but most cosmetics nowadays have proprietary peptides. Peptides are short chain amino acids, you know, some building blocks of any protein. And on one hand, they're being studied as a new type of drug, as a vehicle for delivering drugs, because they're so powerful and so potent. And on the other hand, labs are whipping this stuff up. Your cosmetic companies are whipping this stuff up in the lab. I can't find a toxicology report online. And then they put this and they bottle up in a cream and you can put it on your face.

18:36And yes, you have outcomes. It will reduce your wrinkles, but at what cost? And that's what concerns me is that in the pursuit of call it anti-aging or looking younger, living longer, we're willing to make sacrifices where we don't know the full cost of it. And again, my background was in proteomics. I studied proteins, peptides, and amino acids, and all the things that they do in the human body. And they're so powerful. So the way that a peptide works is it triggers so many cellular pathways that we scientists don't even understand what cellular pathways and signaling pathways have been triggered by the peptide.

19:15It's a little bit of magic at the moment and not entirely scientific. Do you know what I find interesting? Peptides is a big fad right now, right? Like things kind of, that's a big one. And so what I find very interesting is a lot of the doctors that I speak to offline who are not involved in social media, they don't even, they're not on there, they don't care, you know, have a, agree with you. They think that the IVs, you just basically pee out whatever you're getting because you're getting such an abundant amount. And so it's basically just a money grab, you know, like the$300,$400 and you're going to, it's completely not worth it.

19:53and the peptides, the problem with the peptides. And that's why they've been, there's laws against a lot of them. People think it's because the pharma is trying to control it. But people, and maybe that's true, I'm not saying it is or not. But a concern is there is not enough back research to know what the outcomes are because they haven't been around long enough. No. And plus, many of them are proprietary. So in Sensei's work, as we look at skincare and try to find evidence-based skincare products for our customers. There's been so many brands we've said no to because they concocted this chemical in their lab.

20:30There's no published peer-reviewed toxicology report that we can stand behind, that we can believe in. And yeah, and I think that's unfortunate. But on the other hand, I feel like the consumer, maybe because of podcasts like this, I think consumers are becoming more informed and discerning. They're looking for transparency in ingredients and manufacturing and quality. And I feel like that's part of Sensei's mission is to keep educating and informing our listeners so that they can make more informed choices. One thing I found very interesting when I was there, I had this back and forth with one of your employees because I went to use the sauna, the infrared sauna, and it was cold in there.

21:12I'm telling you, it was cold in there, Michelle. Okay, it was literally, I'm like, can we put it on? and they're like oh it's this it's the highest that we can put it and i'm like the highest i'm like literally i need to go get a towel and wrap it around me it was cool she's like what she said 140 was the highest i was like first of all i had the same song i have the same sauna at home and my problem with the sauna that i have is that it's too cold it goes up to 170 and it takes a long time to go up to 170 and it still doesn't get me hot enough and she's like oh all the research proves that your body is from the inside out, poor temperature, all these things.

21:46And you don't have to sweat. Like I pushed back on that a little bit. I pushed back on that one. Thank you. I think that may be a bug. Might be an error. I don't think it was very animate. And then the next time someone else said also that they could only put it up to a certain temperature. Because no, so if you have one, and I appreciate you bringing that up to me. And it's silly, but not really. Right. But it's important. No, it's important to understand that. Yeah. And it's so, you know, one point where you're correct, it doesn't saunas don't raise your core body temperature. Actually, our core body temperature doesn't change unless you have an infection or there's something really dire happening.

22:28But when you take a cold plunge or you're in a sauna, it's it is peripheral temperature. It's skin temperature that's being modulated. So I think that's with infrared radiation, it is true that infrared radiation from an infrared sauna does penetrate below the skin, but it is inconclusive if that's why it's beneficial for your health or more or less beneficial than traditional sauna. Again, from the science and evidence, I think it's just a different mechanism of heat and radiant heat production. A little less air pollution in an infrared sauna versus a traditional charcoal sauna. But you're absolutely right.

23:03It needs to get you hot and you need to be sweating and you need to do it for 15 minutes so that your heart rate is pounding. And I like to be a little dizzy by the time I step out of a sauna. That's what I say. Like, that's why right now the push is actually to get away from the ones with the red light and for red ones and to get the ones that are wood burning. They go way hotter. They go to like 220 some of them. You can die in one of those. But most of the research I've seen is really based around the science behind the wood-birding ones from Finland. That's exactly right. Right? So the ones with the infrared, like there is a lot of people are like, this is not getting me hot enough.

23:42I got to sit in here for 45 minutes to even like get a beat. It's not as efficient, yeah. Not as efficient, right? I had to just ask about that because I swear that I was like, I'm not wrong on this one. You're not wrong on that one. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for pointing that out, actually. And it's important. Thank you.

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25:12can you give me some other things that you that data some things science back database stuff that you've kind of, you know about that is kind of integrated into the program or by the way, not, it's just, you know, someone like you who's very data related. Gosh. Yeah. I mean, it's fascinating. So I'll give you just like some fresh hot takes, I guess, because I'm here in Cabo, like, you know, we just opened our operation. I'm literally testing some of the equipment on myself yesterday. So there's, there's some fascinating. Maybe we can talk about thermography. I wrote that down because I am fascinated by its thermography.

25:55You've said that that's something that you guys are doing. What is it? Can you explain what it is? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It is. It's fascinating, but it's a, I don't know if you've ever seen a thermal image or a heat map, but a thermal camera has a special type of infrared sensor. And so it detects infrared radiation. You know, they use it in, gosh, I mean, in home construction, so they can look behind, like through the wall in a way and identify leaks or, you know, gaps in insulation. But when you point an infrared sensor at the human body, what you're looking at in that heat map of the human body is heat dissipation from the skin, which is an indicator of differences in circulation.

26:35So you see hot spots, which could mean vasodilation. There's more blood in those areas. And you see cold spots. What's fascinating is that we're beginning to correlate those hot spots and cold spots to muscular imbalances and asymmetries. So the muscles that you overuse and, you know, overused muscles can be because either you're working out too hard or you're holding a lot of stress or tension in a certain muscle. You know, so for instance, I mean, what's a good example? So hamstrings and runners are a good example of an underused muscle. They tend to be kind of chronically shortened, right? Even most of us, as we're sitting all day, so we have kind of that, they call that superior cross-body position where our pectoralis and our chest muscles are tightened and constricted, our backs are extended.

27:26But when we start looking at the thermography data, we can start seeing that. And I saw it in myself. So my sternocleidomastoid on my right side was flaming red, like hotter than on my left side. And it's because there's no normative data on thermography, there's not like age and gender databases of thermal data. We have to use internal control. So we compare our left and right sides to figure out what's happening on the right side of your skin versus your left side. So my right sternocleidomastoid was incredibly tight, which was incredibly hot. So it indicated either there's some inflammation or a lot of tension that is holding here.