184. Doug Collins: US Government Finally Embraces Alternative Medicine

0:00As someone who's actually spoken to someone who's told me I'm at the end of my rope, when you deal in that real moment when all the light ceases to exist, they see one light, they see one answer, and nothing else matters.

0:09Gary Brecka:And it represents a crisis that permeates our society, and we've known for a long time that we've had a suicidal crisis in our veteran community, and we've increased the awareness of suicide, but suicide rates keep going up. For some, it was brought about by crisis. Some it was brought about by trauma, moral injury. We've got to look for alternative ways to help that. So I'm going to do everything I can from the VA's perspective to say, let's think outside of the box. The box is no longer square at the VA. The box is open. Let's figure it out. So do you see lanes starting to open up for, let's call, alternative therapies like peptides and dietary changes, especially if we're expending more money and what we're trying to limit is continuing to get worse?

0:47Gary Brecka:The spiritual, the mental, and the health is now coming together. And I think we are going to see change because we see how they all intertwine with each other. What is your long-term vision for Veteran Affairs? A place where a veteran can walk in and say, I have got what the country promised me. Quote, alternative methods are not the cure-all for everyone, but if it fixes one...

1:16Gary Brecka:Hey guys, welcome back to the Ultimate Human Podcast. I'm your host, human biologist Gary Brekka, where we go down the road of everything anti-aging, biohacking longevity and everything in between. And today we're welcoming Secretary Doug Collins, Department of Veterans Affairs, to the podcast. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you for taking the time to come. Glad to be here. Thank you for coming and being a part of this. No, this is amazing, man. I mean, to potentially be a part of affecting public policy for the next generation and the generations beyond that, to me, is a great honor. You know, I'm still one of those old, Mr.

1:51Smith goes to Washington times. I grew up in a time in which I still thought this city could make great change. I've been in this city when I saw it as most dysfunctional. I've been in Congress. I've been in the military. But I still wake up every morning and believe that this is the greatest, best hope of the world. And do you believe,

2:08Gary Brecka:something's different though now, I believe, about this movement. Not just this administration, but about this in terms of, from my perspective, the Make America Healthy Again movement. The intentionality, the passion, the purposefulness of a lot of what I feel are government officials now, at least for the first time in my adult lifetime, I really sincerely believe we're going to see material change. I do. I know we are. Yeah. And I think that's the, it's led by the president who has agreed and said, you know, this looks like a change. And again, you have to think about this. This is from a president who has lived a long life, who has done a lot of things, who is now looking back and saying, how does he want to see his kids, his grandkids, and great-grandkids grow up?

2:52And for some of us, and I'll be honest, this has not been a—it was never talked about. It was not a priority. The healthy lifestyle was always something, oh, well, go run a couple miles, maybe in the military, you know, you put it out. But putting it all together, and for me, from my background as a chaplain as well, that the spiritual, the mental, and the health is now coming together. And I think we are going to see change because we see how they all intertwine with each other.

3:13Gary Brecka:And I'm so happy that you brought that up because I believe that this is a spiritual awakening in America. And I believe that this is as much a spiritual revolution as it is a health revolution. And so I'm so glad to hear you say that. My 26-year-old son sent me out of the blue. And, of course, he was raised in, you know, background of faith with being a pastor and everything. But it was amazing. He just sent me a thing out of the blue. And he was very happy that the newest generation, Gen Z and all of them, were the highest growth percentage, you know, getting back into faith. And he just sent the thing.

3:41Really? Yeah, he just sent the thing. Gen Z? Yeah. It's like, wow. Okay. I'm really happy to hear that too. I think a lot of it's authenticity. A lot of they're wanting something. Think about this generation. And think about the generations up to mine as well. How much we've been told that we're lies. How much we've been told that depend on other people and depend on the government and depend on this. And then they look around and say, wait, this isn't what it's supposed to be. And you go to a simple faith, you know, from my Christian belief, you go to a simple faith that says, here's what was done for you.

4:14and no fluff, no the, this is, you know, here's a path that's much better.

4:19Gary Brecka:Yeah, you know, it's amazing. This was not the objective of sitting down on the podcast, but we're going to go there for a minute. You know, I was saved years ago at a Promise Keepers convention. I don't know if you remember Promise Keepers. Are they still around? I think they do it in a different way now. It's a similar concept. But I had a lawyer at the time who tricked me into going to, I was in grad school in Chicago, and he tricked me into going to Soldier Field. He told me it was going to be this big motivational event. He bought me a ticket, and I thought I was going to go there, like Tony Robbins and John Maxwell.

4:50Gary Brecka:Oh, Maxwell's great. And he's amazing. I've seen him speak so many times. But there was a point at this Christian men's movement where 70 ,000 men joined hands and said the Lord's Prayer. Amen. That was a moment for me. It is. Again, you can run it, you can deny it, you can whatever, but there's this sincerity, there's a belief, I believe that fortunately there's that place in your soul, so to speak, that can be fit by only one thing. And I believe God feels that. And if you either let him or you don't or you deny it, he's there. The question is, will we listen so many times? And our paced society doesn't want to do this.

5:26Everything in the world, this is I think maybe the younger folks for my health, because this is also my same son who also gets on to my wife and I for having Diet Cokes in the house. I like this guy.

5:36Gary Brecka:He probably follows me, dude. Yeah, he probably does. My future daughter-in-law probably does. But this is something because they're looking for authenticity. They're looking for something that is not selling them something. Yeah. And so I think this is just what you're seeing in a bigger sense of everything we've got going on. You know what's really interesting is science is starting to prove this too. You know, when we looked at the Blue Zone research, right, there was, you know, these hypercentenarianism pockets around the world. There was no continuity between diet, right? So it wasn't like this specific diet, people live the longest.

6:07Gary Brecka:There was a lot of differentiation between diet, but two things that were non-exchangeable. One was a sense of community and purpose, which I believe is interchangeable with faith. And in most of these blue zones where they had hypercentenarianism, they had a very strong faith because they were okay with delayed gratification. And the other was mobility into later in life. And I believe that with what we see going on right now, especially under this Maha movement, this is a spiritual awakening. This is an awakening of the pendulum has swung so far in one direction that it's just got to come back to common sense and to the middle.

6:51Gary Brecka:It comes back to contentment. It's scriptural. Paul speaks to me, I've been rich, I've been poor. He said, if I had to, I would take, of course, be rich. But he said, I've been there. He said, but it's not about that. It's about being content. Think about what you just said. I'm in a community that loves me. I'm in a community I'm comfortable with. I'm in a society that I participate in as a purposeful part. That's contentment. Just a different definition. Yeah, so true. I want to bring this back to your role in the Department of Government Affairs for a minute because you've been an advocate for the integration of alternative therapies, which I am a huge proponent of.

7:27Gary Brecka:And to see so many agencies within the government openly embracing lifestyle, dietary, and what we would call alternative, which I don't – I hate the word alternative. It's like – because when you say, oh, they have an alternative lifestyle, it sounds a little sketchy. But psychedelics, nutritional supplements, dietary interventions. You know, this report that's coming out today, even though I haven't seen the whole report, I got, you know, a summary of some of the statistics that are coming out. Some are very scary. One in particular that I was unaware of. I mean, we've known for a long time we are one of the sickest, fattest, most disease-ridden nations in the world.

8:10Gary Brecka:And we're sadly the highest spender on health care worldwide. but I've raised four children and this mental health crisis among our youth and then also particularly in our veterans is a concern but teen depression rates nearly doubled from 2009 to 2019. In 2022, one in four teenage girls reported experiencing a major depressive disorder and 3 million high school students considered suicide 2023. That to me is astounding and it represents a crisis that permeates our society. And we've known for a long time that we've had a suicidal crisis in our veteran community. And we've increased the awareness of suicide, but suicide rates keep going up.

8:59Gary Brecka:We've identified the problem. We've not identified how we help it. And I think we're good at naming stuff in this country. And I think that's contributes. It makes us feel good. It makes us feel good. Oh, we named this and here's your pill. And I think we're coming away from that. We've named suicide, death by suicide, as an issue for veterans. We've named homelessness as an issue. But the question is, what are we doing to actually reach those who are in that position? And I was sort of sharing a sort of part of my job. I'm in the process of redoing and relooking at how we do a rather large budget for suicide prevention, death by suicide.

9:34And I got back a report, and it's a preliminary. But I looked at it and I said, this is what we would have produced 10 years ago. I appreciate it. I appreciate the effort. But this isn't what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that gives us out of a committee, out of this, say how do we actually reach people in the need? As someone who's actually spoken to someone who's told me, hey, chap, I'm at the end of my rope. I'm not going to live any longer. Who sat in my office and said, I've come to the end. My wife just left me. I got nothing to live for. Or I'm going to, and when you deal in that real moment, it's beyond bumper stickers.

10:08It's not looking at it. It's saying, what got them to this place? Why have they come to a place when all the light ceases to exist, they see one light, they see one answer, and nothing else matters. We've got to look for alternative ways to help that. For some, it was brought about by crisis. Some it was brought about by trauma, moral injury. There's all these out here. But especially in our veteran population, we've got to figure out a way to get to them. So for me, quote, alternative methods are not the cure-all for everyone. It's not going to fix everyone. But if it fixes one or 20, what is the value of place on life?

10:41I believe it's all inspired by God. Every life is valued in me, whether you agree with me or disagree with me, where you're from, no matter what your background, all life is precious. So I'm going to do everything I can from the VA's perspective to say, let's think outside of the box. The box is no longer square at the VA. The box is open. Let's figure it out.

10:56Gary Brecka:Wow. You know, I have a good friend. And his name is Tony Capuano. He's the CEO of Marriott Worldwide. He's only like the fourth CEO and a massive organization, 9 ,000 hotels, millions of hotel rooms. I remember he told me, he said the one way to get fired from my board at Marriott, hopefully I'm not disclosing this, Tony, you don't want it out there. This is about to hit the world. What he said is by saying, because that's the way we've always done it. You know, and I think nothing, you know, speaks more true to, you know, the government and government agencies than, though, that's just the way it's always been.

11:30Gary Brecka:Oh, I get this all the time. I become almost like I sort of joke about this and some of my detractors will make fun of me. I become like a toddler again. I ask why. Why? Why don't we do this? Why are we doing this? And a lot of times they look at me. And it's not because they're bad people. And it's interesting because they might not even have the answer. And they go, you know, that's a great question. Well, because we've always done it this way. And as an old Baptist preacher who's heard this before, we've always done it this way, preacher. No, we haven't. You know, why are we doing it this way?

11:56Gary Brecka:So this is where we've got to start. And the movement started by President Trump, and Bobby Kennedy has led this effort. All of us in the cabinet who bought into this idea and saying, how do we get this better? We're asking from the point of zero again. We're saying, okay, if we can reshape it, how would we shape it? Because we've seen where we're at. I've seen the issues in our rising healthcare costs. I see it in our mental health issues. I see it in our suicide rates. By the way, 17 to 22 has not changed since 2008. Wow. And we spent billions of dollars. Wow. Billions of dollars in this. Wow.

12:29Okay. So, again, we use the tools that we give them, but my question is, are we giving them the right tools? Right. And so for us, I think it's just a rebuilding. We're tactical secretaries in this cabinet, many of us. Yeah. We can think strategically. We all look at it from a big picture. But we're tactical saying, no, we've got a limited amount of time to make a difference. And I'm asked all the time, what do you want to happen after you leave? I said, I want to just be said, I made a difference. I left it better and I found it.

12:55Gary Brecka:So do you see lanes starting to open up for what let's call alternative therapies, things like peptides and lifestyle, dietary changes, things like that for our veteran community? Because I agree with you. You know, what we've been doing doesn't work. It doesn't mean we don't care. It just means that we've been applying an old principle to the same problem. And, you know, what's the definition of insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And especially if we're expending more money and what we're trying to limit is continuing to get worse. Well, it's like having, and this may be a very simplistic look at it, but it's like having, you know, three acres of flatland grass and you have a pushmore.

13:34But yet the combine come by and says, well, hey, I've got a lot. It sounds like me in eighth grade, by the way. I used to have a pushmore and three acres of grass. I didn't care. But it was me coming by and saying, I come to that same person and saying, but hey, there's a zero turnover that you can get instead of six hours, you can get this done in 45 minutes. Oh, I don't know if it'll work. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's because you've never tried it. And so, again, I don't fault the people. I fault the system that has allowed us to become so cookie cutter in our answers that we don't actually think.

14:03One of the things we're doing at the VA right now is going to help in our community care aspect. That's where we partner with our community. The Mission Act a few years ago allowed this to happen because we were like a public private.

14:12Gary Brecka:Well, it's central community doctors. So we can do this. And if we if they have a need that we can't fill it to be or the time. And if we can look at ways we can expand those options for us, we use we now just have put into effect from the Dole Act, which is passed out here called best medical interest. So in other words, we don't have to keep going back to get a couple. We don't have to. The doctor can say, you know, this is right. But let me get a second opinion over here or another opinion. We're saying, no, the best medical interest is going to apply here so they don't get bogged in the system.

14:39The person who's ready to make a change is ready to make a change. You cannot let them come in and say, I'm now here ready to talk to you. You get a guy, a 35-, 40-year-old guy who's lost their family, they're on drugs, they've run around with everybody, they've lost their family, they've lost their fortune, they don't know who the kids are anymore, and they finally make it into a place, and they say, I'm ready to talk. And you say, well, let's hold on about this. I'll get back with you, or here's some medicine. This Zoloft will help you. No, they're there. Let's make sure that we take that moment.

15:07And that's just got to be a real way of thinking. I got 470 ,000 employees. Wow.

15:13Gary Brecka:Which is huge. I have 18, and it's a pain in the ass. Yeah. I get that in my senior staff meeting. So believe me, they can do the same thing. But I say that not to say anything else, except we put money and people at a problem. But our wait times and our backlogs and stuff are still where they're at. And we have veterans out there who've turned away from the care that they've earned. This is earned care for what they did when they raised that right hand, put that flag on their shoulder, and went whenever we told them. And they chose not to. Yeah, I can't think of a more selfless human being than somebody that raises their hand and says, I'm going to go into a career where I may be called to give my life for a perfect stranger.

15:55Gary Brecka:and that's why I'm so empathetic and supportive of our men and women in blue and our firefighters, our first responders and our veterans. It's a community that we need to cater to the most because those are the most selfless people on the planet. My father was a Navy captain, gave his life to the military too and those are the people that deserve us. One last question. Just in general, and this isn't a political question, What is your long-term vision for veteran affairs? I mean, in a perfect world, when you leave office, what kind of organization are you leaving behind? A place where a veteran can walk in and say this is – and they get the efficient care, cost-effective, and effective care for what they need.

16:38And they do so at a level that values them for not only the care they get, but what they've earned. And I want them to be able to say, I have got what the country promised me. Wow. And that's what we're going to want to strive for.

16:52Gary Brecka:Wouldn't that be something unique? Doug, thank you so much for taking your time on the Ultimate Human Podcast. Yeah, I appreciate it so much. And caring for this Maha movement. We're going to keep you doing it. Amen. Until next time, guys. That's just science.