Full Transcript for 157 : Why Functional Medicine Went Mainstream After Being Dismissed for Years

Organization says there's not enough science that hormones impact health. 00:04:39.360 --> 00:04:41.199 You're just doing this to protect your industry. 00:04:41.360 --> 00:04:50.480 And so the EU said, well, fine, we'll pay the US these fines, like hundreds of millions of dollars of fines every year, to still keep out their beef because we don't think it's healthy. 00:04:50.720 --> 00:04:53.680 And so if you look all the way back to my students. 00:04:53.920 --> 00:04:54.959 What grew with that? 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:57.199 This is in 2003. 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:05.839 Oh my god, and so it's like hilarious because sometimes you do these things in life that you think have literally nothing to do with anything. 00:05:06.000 --> 00:05:13.920 And after that, you know, I go work in New York for a while, and then I decide to go back to undergrad to do my pre-med classes, and I'm gonna go to med school. 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:19.759 But you look back at these things that at the time kind of don't make sense or aren't really relevant to anything. 00:05:19.839 --> 00:05:29.199 And then looking back, it's like, of course, I did something on public health, food supply, endocrinology, cancer risk. 00:05:29.519 --> 00:05:30.079 Of course. 00:05:30.319 --> 00:05:30.639 Wow. 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:34.480 Out of curiosity, at the time, what were you thinking? 00:05:34.639 --> 00:05:38.879 In that were you thinking, wow, the Europeans really have a point? 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:39.279 Yes. 00:05:39.680 --> 00:05:42.639 Or were you saying I was. 00:05:42.800 --> 00:05:47.279 I was already had this personal interest in health and prevention. 00:05:47.439 --> 00:05:51.519 You know, my grandmother had died of colon cancer my sophomore year. 00:05:51.839 --> 00:06:00.480 And I had been in a class at my undergrad as well that year on cancer and sort of the biology, epidemiology, sociology of cancer. 00:06:00.560 --> 00:06:02.480 Everyone's getting a real tour of my college experience. 00:06:02.560 --> 00:06:03.199 I'm sorry, everyone. 00:06:03.279 --> 00:06:05.360 We'll get to the functional medicine part. 00:06:05.519 --> 00:06:10.720 But in that class, I had learned that 50% of cancer is preventable. 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:17.279 And that stat at the time, again, this is back, that was back in like 2001, really shocked me. 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:20.959 And it gave me some exposure to doing medical research. 00:06:21.040 --> 00:06:25.120 And this was like the early days, everyone of medical research being on the internet. 00:06:25.439 --> 00:06:28.720 It was really new to be able to go to PubMed and look up articles. 00:06:28.800 --> 00:06:32.000 There was something called Ovid at the time that was like impossible to use. 00:06:32.160 --> 00:06:45.759 And so I think that there was just this germ really early for me around health prevention and public health and our environmental health that really was always there. 00:06:45.920 --> 00:06:52.319 But I didn't think of myself as a science person or a math person, kind of the typical person that was going to go to med school. 00:06:52.480 --> 00:06:58.399 I had a lot of preconceived notions about who that person was, which was silly of me, but I did. 00:06:58.480 --> 00:07:06.399 And so it wasn't really until after college that I said, you know, I actually really want to work in health and I think I want to get a medical degree. 00:07:06.639 --> 00:07:13.360 And I think looking back, all of these experiences really shaped my perspective going into my medical training. 00:07:13.680 --> 00:07:14.959 Wow, for sure. 00:07:15.199 --> 00:07:16.800 That that's an amazing story. 00:07:16.959 --> 00:07:20.240 So I'm guessing you don't come from a family of doctors. 00:07:20.639 --> 00:07:21.519 I sort of do. 00:07:21.600 --> 00:07:22.399 My dad's a doctor. 00:07:22.560 --> 00:07:24.639 Nobody else is, but my dad is a doctor. 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:25.040 Yes. 00:07:25.279 --> 00:07:25.600 Okay. 00:07:26.079 --> 00:07:28.240 What kind of medicine did your father practice? 00:07:28.480 --> 00:07:29.439 Does he still practice? 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:30.399 He doesn't now. 00:07:30.480 --> 00:07:34.240 He's retired, but he was an internal medicine doc for a long, long time. 00:07:34.639 --> 00:07:40.879 And is that where your preconceived notions of who doctors are and and what they're like came from? 00:07:41.360 --> 00:07:44.000 You know, he was a history major at my same college. 00:07:44.079 --> 00:07:52.160 So like I don't know why I thought I couldn't be a doctor, but I think it's like typical, you know, you want to rebel against your parents and you're just not whatever they do, you're not gonna do. 00:07:52.399 --> 00:07:53.120 You're not doing it. 00:07:53.680 --> 00:07:54.560 You're not doing it. 00:07:54.720 --> 00:08:01.759 And I didn't have any of those ideas came from maybe the other kids I met in college. 00:08:01.839 --> 00:08:02.240 I don't know. 00:08:02.319 --> 00:08:06.959 There was sort of a pre-med type where I went to school, and I just didn't think think of myself that way. 00:08:07.040 --> 00:08:08.800 And I had never been interested in medicine. 00:08:08.959 --> 00:08:11.680 I was always more of a words person, not a numbers person. 00:08:11.759 --> 00:08:16.319 And I had for whatever reason categorized met the field of medicine as numbers. 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:30.800 And really the field of medicine is about digesting very large quantities of information, being able to synthesize them, sort them, pattern recognition, and make fast decisions, and then also being able to relate to people. 00:08:31.040 --> 00:08:36.399 That stuff is way more important than your ability to finish a chemistry equation. 00:08:36.559 --> 00:08:57.120 And so I think in that way, a lot of the pre-med classes you take, organic chemistry, physics, regular chem, are almost they're important for going into the field of medicine, but they almost are a little bit of a red

herring in a way, in terms of what your actual job as a doctor is eventually going to be about. 00:08:57.200 --> 00:09:00.399 I mean, you're a surgeon, you're a breast cancer expert. 00:09:00.639 --> 00:09:05.759 Like you're not doing chemistry and physics equations as part of your job, right? 00:09:05.919 --> 00:09:09.279 And like that stuff just no longer has a lot to do with it, I would imagine. 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:10.000 Yeah. 00:09:10.240 --> 00:09:17.600 So I always thought of it as, well, if you can do that, then you can definitely do what you need to do as a doctor. 00:09:17.679 --> 00:09:22.159 Like I thought it was just kind of a rite of passage, more or less. 00:09:22.480 --> 00:09:30.480 Like if you can get through all of this kind of really, really tedious work, then you're gonna be fine out there as a physician. 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.120 But I agree with you 100%. 00:09:33.679 --> 00:09:47.039 You know, maybe plastic surgeons do think about some of those principles as they're, you know, designing their incisions and thinking about how they're gonna put things back together in a way that was better than how they were before. 00:09:47.279 --> 00:09:58.720 But outside of that, you know, once we learn high how to calculate hydrostatic pressure, we're not using it again when your patient is in front of you crashing. 00:09:58.879 --> 00:10:02.399 Like, you know, we're we're not thinking about the rules of Osmolalis. 00:10:03.120 --> 00:10:09.840 But but but I do think that it's a little bit of can you play this game? 00:10:10.159 --> 00:10:15.039 In that are are you going to be able to synthesize all of this information? 00:10:15.279 --> 00:10:17.919 So let's get let's give you a trial run. 00:10:18.080 --> 00:10:20.159 Here's some really boring stuff. 00:10:20.320 --> 00:10:25.039 If you can get through this, then I think you can figure out human physiology. 00:10:25.840 --> 00:10:26.639 I think that's true. 00:10:26.799 --> 00:10:30.960 I mean, I think there is something to the rigor and the sheer difficulty of it. 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:32.480 At least it was difficult for me. 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:38.159 You know, I remember thinking biology was a cinch and chemistry was really hard for me. 00:10:38.320 --> 00:10:56.080 And actually, organic chemistry in that post-back pre-med year that I had to go back and do, I kind of did better in too, because picture I'm good at picturing things and visualization, and I could picture all the molecules and whether the confirmation of the molecule was the right way or the left way. 00:10:56.320 --> 00:10:59.200 And so my ability to picture things sort of did me well there. 00:10:59.279 --> 00:11:02.960 But when it was pure math in chemistry, I really struggled. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:09.120 And, you know, nothing of what I do today involves me solving equations, right? 00:11:09.440 --> 00:11:11.600 It is much more about Thank God. 00:11:11.840 --> 00:11:25.039 Thank God the ability to have

really memorized and synthesized huge quantities of information around all aspects of human health and then be able to make the right decisions around that. 00:11:25.279 --> 00:11:29.279 And I think that I don't know, I didn't really understand what being a doctor was. 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:40.000 And I think a lot of us, you know, if you're listening and you're thinking back to whatever your undergrad or your high school was, and you ended up doing something different, I think that's a pretty common story. 00:11:40.080 --> 00:11:43.600 But for whatever reason, I didn't think I was going to be a doctor and never even thought about it. 00:11:43.840 --> 00:11:47.759 So then I had to go back and do this whole year of all these pre-med classes. 00:11:47.840 --> 00:11:56.879 But that inkling around population health, prevention, environmental health, nutrition was there early on. 00:11:57.039 --> 00:11:59.840 I just couldn't pick up the thread of it until later. 00:12:00.159 --> 00:12:16.399 So you went to a conventional medical school, but your career is anything but so talk to me about how that happened for you and when when that enlightenment came all out about for you. 00:12:16.879 --> 00:12:17.200 I know. 00:12:17.279 --> 00:12:22.639 Sometimes I'm like, I wonder what the people of Columbia University Medical Center think of me, if they ever do. 00:12:22.879 --> 00:12:27.679 There's definitely people who've come out of that institution and done weirder things than me, though. 00:12:27.759 --> 00:12:29.440 So I'm I'm sure I'm not alone. 00:12:29.919 --> 00:12:33.360 I think what they thought of you, and I'm guessing, right? 00:12:33.519 --> 00:12:43.600 Because I actually I'm I'm very much in a lived experience right now with someone who I consider a colleague being very, very critical of me right now. 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:54.159 And I know that what I'm saying right now in the breast imaging space is gonna be what people were saying five years ago in the functional medicine space. 00:12:54.240 --> 00:12:57.600 And like who's laughing now in the functional medicine space, right? 00:12:57.759 --> 00:13:01.519 And it's gonna be the same thing in five years in the breast imaging space. 00:13:01.679 --> 00:13:11.200 But in any event, I think what they would have said about you five years ago or seven years ago is very different than what they today. 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:16.720 They're smiling ear to ear, super proud that that you came from there. 00:13:17.039 --> 00:13:22.559 One of one of these Columbia grads went off into functional medicine and and wasn't crazy, you know. 00:13:23.200 --> 00:13:33.440 So I mean, my mom even brought up with me the other day, I think the New York Times or something like that, maybe the journal, had an article about inflammation and how it drives every disease process. 00:13:33.600 --> 00:13:41.840 And she was like, You've been saying this for 15 years in functional medicine, and now it's finally, you know, becoming conventional. 00:13:42.000 --> 00:13:45.519 And so I think, you know, at Columbia, whatever. 00:13:45.600 --> 00:13:57.039 I was just another medical student, and I knew what I wanted to go into functional medicine, which for everyone listening, if you're not familiar with functional medicine, is really just a different way of seeing medicine. 00:13:57.200 --> 00:13:58.399 We use all the same tools. 00:13:58.559 --> 00:14:03.919 We use drugs, we use tests, we use procedures, we refer to specialists, we do all the same stuff. 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:11.679 We're all doctors, but we look at the world differently and we say to ourselves, what is the root cause of this condition? 00:14:11.840 --> 00:14:14.480 And what's the best way to treat that root cause? 00:14:14.639 --> 00:14:35.039 And so it's a much more in-depth, personalized, preventive, and holistic way of practicing medicine while using all the cool advanced conventional medicine tools that we do and that I was trained to use at Columbia, which is what I love about it, because it's not natural or the highway and it's not totally in the box. 00:14:35.120 --> 00:14:36.879 It just takes this broader perspective. 00:14:37.039 --> 00:14:54.799 And so I was fortunate enough to know about functional medicine a little bit going into medical school and to at that point have become a little bit of a health nut myself, insofar as like I was into yoga and I would always be getting on the train to go downtown in the city to take take yoga class. 00:14:54.879 --> 00:14:57.759 And I would pack my lunch and I would have this healthy lunch. 00:14:57.840 --> 00:15:05.840 And so all the kids would be eating the really gross pizza and Chinese food that they feed medical students, which is like ironic when you think about it. 00:15:06.000 --> 00:15:10.080 But I was like the one who packed the healthy lunch and you know, got made fun of. 00:15:10.240 --> 00:15:11.679 And so I was this other person. 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:13.200 But why? 00:15:13.440 --> 00:15:15.519 Why did you pack the healthy lunch? 00:15:15.600 --> 00:15:17.679 And why did you know about functional medicine? 00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:29.600 So I I decided to go to medical school already with this idea that I was interested in what I would have called then integrative medicine. 00:15:29.759 --> 00:15:37.759 I had gotten into after college, I was working in New York City, was not in medicine right away, actually worked in a legal job for a little while. 00:15:38.000 --> 00:15:39.919 And I was a paralegal at the U.S. 00:15:40.000 --> 00:15:46.240 Attorney's Office, and I probably I was on the Martha Stewart trial at one point, prosecuting poor Martha for her insider trading. 00:15:46.960 --> 00:15:47.919 No way. 00:15:48.480 --> 00:15:53.919 And I remember thinking somebody should definitely prosecute securities fraud, but I just don't think it should be me. 00:15:54.080 --> 00:15:57.759 I am so bored, I could just fall over. 00:15:58.080

--> 00:16:07.919 And I was escaping downtown in Manhattan by like going to this random little yoga studio that I had found, like in the middle of the day. 00:16:08.000 --> 00:16:10.159 Like if I had a couple hours, I'd like leave. 00:16:10.240 --> 00:16:18.240 I'd come back drenched in sweat and like put my clothes back, my business casual paralegal clothes, like back on and freeze in the office. 00:16:18.399 --> 00:16:28.799 And I was getting, I just found through my yoga practice, I think it was honestly just one more way that I tapped into the body, the mind, health. 00:16:29.039 --> 00:16:32.080 I started paying attention through that to what I was eating. 00:16:32.240 --> 00:16:42.480 And, you know, I was like a typical college student, not eating necessarily very healthfully, but I started thinking about eating organic food and what I was putting in my body. 00:16:42.559 --> 00:16:47.200 And I realized that through yoga and slowing down and eating better, I felt better. 00:16:47.360 --> 00:16:49.279 I also felt better in my body. 00:16:49.360 --> 00:16:59.919 Like as a young woman at the time, or at least in college, I sort of thought that healthy was sort of defined by the number on the inside of the waistband of your genes, like healthy equaled skinny. 00:17:00.080 --> 00:17:01.600 But that's what we were taught. 00:17:01.840 --> 00:17:02.960 That's what we thought, right? 00:17:03.120 --> 00:17:17.599 And then sort of through yoga and changing the way that I eat and developing a little bit of a spiritual practice and meditating a little bit, I just became more aware, more aware of food, more aware of the chemicals that were in products around me. 00:17:17.680 --> 00:17:21.680 I think like some of these things are almost cultural, right? 00:17:21.920 --> 00:17:29.519 And then again, when you look back to my college experience and this interest in health and nutrition was already there, I just glommed onto these things. 00:17:29.680 --> 00:17:32.000 I became really passionate about them very quickly. 00:17:32.160 --> 00:17:36.960 And I went to Columbia already with the idea. 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:41.920 I worked in psych research and NYU for a year to kind of get my feet wet in medicine. 00:17:42.079 --> 00:17:44.319 I wasn't so interested in psych specifically. 00:17:44.400 --> 00:17:48.799 Like I didn't want to be a psychiatrist, but I needed like a job in medicine. 00:17:48.960 --> 00:17:54.640 So I worked at NYU for a bit because I knew I had to do that to get into medical school, although it was really interesting. 00:17:54.799 --> 00:18:01.519 And it was actually running pharmaceutical trials for ADHD, mainly some other interesting addiction work too. 00:18:01.599 --> 00:18:10.240 But the ADHD stuff is ironic because I really realized later that I have ADHD, but now I have a child with ADHD. 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:19.200 So I really, you know, some again, everyone, you think you're doing these random things just to get to the next step in life, but they all have a reason. 00:18:19.519 --> 00:18:31.920 And so I went into medical school at Columbia, already being what they would have described as like the weirdo who doesn't want to be a cardiac surgeon, which is like what everyone at Columbia is basically there to do. 00:18:32.079 --> 00:18:35.200 Not everybody, but you know, that's like the proverbial a lot. 00:18:35.279 --> 00:18:38.240 It's it's a very surgical specialty. 00:18:38.400 --> 00:18:41.119 Yeah, it's a top place for CT surgery and fields like that. 00:18:41.279 --> 00:18:43.519 So, and listen, my class was amazing. 00:18:43.599 --> 00:18:46.000 The people I met were incredible, everyone was brilliant. 00:18:46.079 --> 00:19:01.920 And I remember as I was applying to medical school thinking, I just want to go to the best place possible and have the strongest credentials and foundation I possibly can because I know that I'm gonna go off into this other field. 00:19:02.079 --> 00:19:07.599 And I don't want people questioning me and saying that I don't know what I'm talking about. 00:19:07.680 --> 00:19:31.200 And so I just kind of knew it from the beginning, but I knew I had to get this conventional training to have the confidence and the background to be able to then use that to do something that I really believed in, which again, I would have called integrative medicine, maybe, but I also was lucky enough to early and before medical school actually know Mark Hyman and Dr. 00:19:31.359 --> 00:19:31.680 Oz. 00:19:31.839 --> 00:19:32.319 I worked for Dr. 00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:35.839 Oz in Oprah for a year when I was waiting to go to med school. 00:19:36.079 --> 00:19:48.480 And so Mark had sent me the Institute for Functional Medicine's textbook when I was like the radio producer for Oprah for Oz's radio shows, another weird job I had for a while while I was waiting to go to med school. 00:19:48.640 --> 00:19:57.599 And I kind of knew about functional medicine from him and from some of the other doctors who were in the field in like the mid-2000s, 20 years ago. 00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:05.200 And I had this inkling and I had this exposure that I truly think God put me in those places to get. 00:20:05.440 --> 00:20:10.079 And made that made me an odd duck at a place like Columbia. 00:20:12.240 --> 00:20:12.640 Yeah. 00:20:12.880 --> 00:20:16.240 Although not that odd in some ways, because you know, at the time, that's where Dr. 00:20:16.400 --> 00:20:19.359 Oz was chairman of this cardiac surgery department. 00:20:19.440 --> 00:20:24.480 You know, he went off in a totally different direction eventually, too, from 20 years ago. 00:20:24.559 --> 00:20:29.359 But when I knew him, he was mostly, believe it or not, a cardiac surgeon at Columbia. 00:20:29.519 --> 00:20:32.799 And then he was doing all these other things like on the side. 00:20:33.119 --> 00:20:33.599 Yeah. 00:20:33.839 --> 00:20:34.319 Yeah. 00:20:34.640 --> 00:20:37.839 And he was a very good surgeon, by

the way, for anyone who's curious about that. 00:20:37.920 --> 00:20:41.599 He was considered one of the best cardiac surgeons ever. 00:20:41.680 --> 00:20:44.960 And I've been in the OR with him a long, long, long time ago. 00:20:45.200 --> 00:20:48.480 And you know, he is an incredible surgeon or was. 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:51.839 So and and a super talented guy. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:21:16.000 And I I think has lent a lot of credibility to the yes and and what you started off with, which is that as a functional medicine physician, and we're we're gonna talk about the the problem with that whole functional medicine title because it app a lot of people are are putting that on their business card and putting it on their shingle. 00:21:16.240 --> 00:21:23.599 And so it it makes it it makes the value of it a little confusing, right? 00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:33.680 Because you you don't know what you're getting, and there's everything from snake oil salesmen to people who are really, really, really doing a good job. 00:21:34.640 --> 00:21:37.680 Yes, and everything and real science, yes. 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.759 I mean, I started Parsley Health essentially to solve that problem. 00:21:41.920 --> 00:21:46.000 I mean, to make functional medicine easier and easy to work with. 00:21:46.160 --> 00:21:59.119 And one of the things I observed because I ultimately went and trained with Mark for a little bit, and I also mainly worked with a top functional medicine doc in New York City for about a year and sort of apprenticed myself. 00:21:59.200 --> 00:21:59.599 This is after. 00:22:00.240 --> 00:22:02.000 My conventional medical training. 00:22:02.240 --> 00:22:16.160 And what I saw across the field quickly was that it was inconsistent, different kinds of providers, inconsistent across protocols, really expensive, hard to find, not covered by insurance. 00:22:16.319 --> 00:22:18.960 And everything about it was like too hard. 00:22:19.200 --> 00:22:37.759 And I was like, okay, if we want to bring this medicine to the world because it's so powerful, because the other thing I saw in the time when I, you know, was practicing functional medicine, working for some of these guys, was that the medicine itself was incredibly powerful and effective. 00:22:37.920 --> 00:22:41.039 We were helping women get pregnant who couldn't otherwise get pregnant. 00:22:41.119 --> 00:22:42.960 We were reversing autoimmune disease. 00:22:43.119 --> 00:22:51.440 We were curing GI illnesses, cleaning up people's metabolic health, solving their migraines, getting rid of their depression and chronic fatigue. 00:22:51.519 --> 00:22:52.480 I mean, the list went on. 00:22:52.559 --> 00:22:59.519 And I could see all of this incredible outcomes, but I just said, okay, the these tiny private practices that are hella expensive. 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:09.359 And, you know, the ones I was working in were all doctors, but there was lots to your point that were all sorts of people sort of claiming

they were doing functional medicine. 00:23:09.519 --> 00:23:25.440 And I said, this just isn't going to be prime time unless we bring more rigor, we streamline the protocols, we ensure everything is evidence-based, we ensure everybody has a strong conventional medical training in addition to their functional training. 00:23:25.599 --> 00:23:36.000 And really parsley was just a response in some ways to what I saw in the world that was blocking functional medicine from getting to the people who would need it most. 00:23:36.960 --> 00:23:37.119 Yeah. 00:23:37.599 --> 00:23:48.079 And and I love what you said about the fact that, you know, it's not just nutraceuticals and the things that you find outside of the conventional system. 00:23:48.319 --> 00:23:50.240 It's it's everything married together. 00:23:50.400 --> 00:24:04.880 A little bit of what drives me crazy is I have at least uh two patients a week who come to me because they don't want surgery or chemotherapy or radiation for their breast cancer. 00:24:05.200 --> 00:24:15.039 And I don't know how I became the person who you go to when you don't want conventional treatment because I am not in any way against conventional treatment. 00:24:15.440 --> 00:24:23.599 I think that we have to use everything we have, and I think that what each person needs is different and everyone should get what they need. 00:24:23.920 --> 00:24:37.119 So how we how I became the person that only does let's call it alternative medicine, I don't know because it's not who I am, not what I do, and not what I believe in. 00:24:37.359 --> 00:24:48.000 And I I I think it bled out of some of these other practices, which are the that all or nothing that you were talking about. 00:24:48.240 --> 00:24:50.799 And that's not it, right? 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:51.759 That's not it. 00:24:51.839 --> 00:24:54.960 No, I you know, I don't believe in natural or the highway. 00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:57.279 I always say don't Reiki or UTI away. 00:24:57.359 --> 00:24:59.119 Take a antibiotic and move on with it. 00:25:00.319 --> 00:25:06.000 And, you know, but if you're getting UTIs over and over again, taking antibiotics over and over again is an unsustainable path. 00:25:06.160 --> 00:25:09.039 So let's figure out why on earth you're getting UTIs all the time. 00:25:09.359 --> 00:25:13.119 Fix your diet, fix the microbiome, do a bit of a reset. 00:25:13.279 --> 00:25:20.400 And for a lot of folks, we're able to help them treat them with vaginal estrogen, you know, like whatever it is. 00:25:21.039 --> 00:25:23.839 And that's the point that drove me nuts in conventional medicine. 00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:27.440 It was like you have a UTI, take another antibiotic over and over and over again. 00:25:27.680 --> 00:25:31.279 No one's stopping and pausing and saying, what is the root cause? 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:32.799 Why is this treatment not working? 00:25:32.960 --> 00:25:35.200 Why are we just doing this over and over again? 00:25:35.519 --> 00:25:53.279 Or migraines, for example, you know, giving people different painkillers and then sumatriptans and then Botox and all of these different symptomatic treatments when the cause of the migraine was this person has sleep apnea and isn't breathing at night, or this person's allergic to dairy. 00:25:53.440 --> 00:25:54.559 Really freaking simple. 00:25:54.720 --> 00:25:56.720 Stop dairy, stop the migraine, right? 00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:08.079 And so that's what I loved about functional medicine was this stop, look more broadly, get the data, and then use the best treatment for the condition at hand. 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:17.039 And sometimes that's a drug, and sometimes that's a food, and sometimes that's a supplement, and sometimes that's a lifestyle intervention, and sometimes that's all of the above. 00:26:17.359 --> 00:26:26.160 And functional medicine's ability in some ways, you know, it's so much more complex to practice functional medicine than it is primary care. 00:26:26.400 --> 00:26:38.960 Primary care today is like a list of formulas and protocols that you're just you start with this cholesterol med, and then when you add this one, and then you add this one, it's a third-line treatment, and it's all pharmaceutical-based. 00:26:39.200 --> 00:26:43.279 And some of it, not all of it, but some of it is very paint by numbers. 00:26:43.599 --> 00:27:00.559 And functional medicine, when you start introduced supplements, nutrition, mindfulness, and mental health, advanced diagnostic testing, larger data sets, it's a much harder, more complex form of medicine to practice, but it's much more effective. 00:27:00.799 --> 00:27:05.920 And so what I thought with parsley was how do we streamline this? 00:27:06.079 --> 00:27:07.839 How do we train doctors in it? 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:17.519 How do we bring that legitimacy and efficacy and evidence to functional medicine and then put it online so that anybody can have access to a functional medicine doctor? 00:27:17.680 --> 00:27:20.799 And then we went in network with insurance earlier this year. 00:27:20.880 --> 00:27:30.720 So now we're in network nationwide for the first ever functional medicine longevity practice that is fully in network with all major commercial health plans as of this year. 00:27:30.880 --> 00:27:33.759 And so really just a long journey of the company. 00:27:33.920 --> 00:27:42.000 But, you know, the whole the whole point from the beginning and still today is just to make functional medicine more accessible and easier to work with. 00:27:42.640 --> 00:27:47.920 So everyone's looking at version 3.0 of you, right? 00:27:48.079 --> 00:27:53.359 And saying, like, oh my god, it's amazing, and she's an overnight success. 00:27:53.680 --> 00:27:55.200 But it wasn't that way. 00:27:55.440 --> 00:27:56.799 And I know it wasn't that way. 00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:00.000 I still don't feel like I'm a successor for the record. 00:28:00.240 --> 00:28:00.960 Well, you are.

00:28:01.200 --> 00:28:04.000 There's so much more to do, you know, there and it never ends. 00:28:04.319 --> 00:28:14.319 For sure, and there always will be, but I I can tell you for the people in the stadium watching you go, you are our champion, for sure. 00:28:14.559 --> 00:28:21.599 But I think it's important for people to know where the ashes that the champions arise out of. 00:28:21.839 --> 00:28:39.440 So I I want to hear more about the journey along the way and where you got the as we would call it, chutzpah, where you got, where you got the the bravery to go out and do this, the courage to go out and do this. 00:28:39.680 --> 00:28:58.240 Because you've done some really amazing things, like starting a this this functional medicine practice, which was more than just you know opening up a doctor's office, and then you took it to a different state, and then you took it online to 50 states, and then you took it to the insurance world. 00:28:58.480 --> 00:29:10.400 These are not insignificant feats, these are amazing feats that required attention while while you were being a doctor, by the way. 00:29:11.279 --> 00:29:15.920 You you were also building a tremendous business, an enterprise. 00:29:17.039 --> 00:29:24.480 You had to go to the street for money because I know these things cost a lot of money, and it's hard for women to raise money. 00:29:24.720 --> 00:29:28.319 One percent of the VC money goes to women. 00:29:28.559 --> 00:29:30.799 One percent, and you raised a lot of it. 00:29:31.440 --> 00:29:33.599 So I I want to hear about that. 00:29:34.880 --> 00:29:35.200 Yeah. 00:29:36.799 --> 00:29:37.839 Is it back to one percent? 00:29:37.920 --> 00:29:39.359 It was two percent for a minute there. 00:29:39.440 --> 00:29:45.519 It got up to two percent of all venture capital went to female founders without a male co-founder. 00:29:46.559 --> 00:29:52.799 Yeah, I, you know, I I really it was a lot of trial and error. 00:29:53.119 --> 00:30:00.720 And I want to emphasize the error part of the trial and error to of this past 10 years of running this business. 00:30:01.039 --> 00:30:14.559 I had co-founded a digital health company during medical school with a co-founder who was a guy in my med school class who had, you know, kind of typical guy, like gone to Stanford and he'd had a startup before med school. 00:30:14.799 --> 00:30:20.559 I loved Columbia, actually, because there was a lot of us, you know, I had worked in the law and then I had done psych research. 00:30:20.720 --> 00:30:23.039 There was a lot of us there who were these odd ducks. 00:30:23.200 --> 00:30:24.079 I wasn't the only one. 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:31.119 Like there was a guy in my class who had been in like hedge funds or something for like eight years and then went to medical school. 00:30:31.519 --> 00:30:37.920 And so there was like a celebrated author who had written like a top-winning fiction novel in college or something. 00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:44.160 I mean, there's definitely some other weirdos, which made it for me uh a really good place to land. 00:30:44.480 --> 00:30:49.279 But nonetheless, you know, I didn't have really business experience. 00:30:49.519 --> 00:30:53.200 But my friend from med school and I co-founded this first company. 00:30:53.359 --> 00:30:56.720 And I stayed involved with it for my first year of residency. 00:30:56.880 --> 00:30:58.880 And he had a lot more experience than me. 00:30:59.039 --> 00:31:01.599 He had raised money before, he raised the money for that company. 00:31:01.680 --> 00:31:04.240 I didn't have anything to do with the fundraising for that company. 00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:07.839 I had more to do with building what the actual product was. 00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:13.039 And that was a an app for and software for doctors and health systems. 00:31:13.200 --> 00:31:16.559 So very, very different from Parsley, not functional medicine related at all. 00:31:16.720 --> 00:31:21.759 But it gave me like a little bit of a view into what building technology at the time meant for healthcare. 00:31:21.839 --> 00:31:25.680 You know, this is again like like 18, 20 years ago. 00:31:25.759 --> 00:31:34.319 I mean, this is in my med school era, and so I guess we formed that company in 2010 or 11, so maybe 15 years ago. 00:31:34.480 --> 00:31:41.599 And at the time, it was really hard to build software for healthcare because there was all these rules and regulations around healthcare. 00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:44.640 So to like build an app for healthcare today sounds like who cares? 00:31:44.720 --> 00:31:47.759 But at the time it was really freaking hard to do. 00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:58.960 And so uh I was part of that and I was the co-founder of that company, and I just got a little bit of a of a taste of like, okay, no one knows what they're doing, it turns out. 00:31:59.119 --> 00:32:02.799 You just have an idea and then you go figure out each step of the way. 00:32:02.880 --> 00:32:08.880 Like if I had to summarize the main thing I learned from co-founding my first health tech company, it was that no one knows what they're doing. 00:32:09.039 --> 00:32:22.160 And it gave me more confidence, more confidence to then after my training, you know, and at that point I was no longer involved in that company anymore. 00:32:22.480 --> 00:32:27.920 And I was really passionate about functional medicine, and I really didn't know what I wanted to do. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:36.000 So I went and sort of apprenticed myself in functional medicine and I consulted in health tech a little bit just to kind of understand what was out there. 00:32:36.240 --> 00:32:43.519 And I I knew some founder friends, and I sort of knew like the founder of One Medical and people like that a little bit, not well. 00:32:43.680 --> 00:32:45.279 And I just sort of talk to people. 00:32:45.359 --> 00:32:47.920 I would call people up, I would get warm introductions. 00:32:48.160 --> 00:32:52.799 Probably my biggest

superpower as a founder is I constantly understand what I don't know. 00:32:52.880 --> 00:32:55.119 And I just call around. 00:32:55.279 --> 00:33:04.720 Like I use my network and my friends and friends and friends and friends and friends of friends, and I just call around until I can get the people and I understand that that's one perspective. 00:33:04.799 --> 00:33:14.799 So I'll get like a few perspectives and I'll filter them through my crazy doctor brain to what do I actually think about this based on what they're saying, or how does this relate to what I'm trying to do? 00:33:15.039 --> 00:33:17.200 And then just put one foot in front of the other. 00:33:17.359 --> 00:33:20.400 And so, you know, I started Parsley totally bootstrapped. 00:33:20.480 --> 00:33:22.160 I didn't take outside money to start it. 00:33:22.319 --> 00:33:24.640 I didn't take a salary for a year. 00:33:25.039 --> 00:33:30.400 And I had some savings and I was newly married, and we had no kids and no dogs. 00:33:30.480 --> 00:33:35.839 And so we had a really cheap apartment in New York that was my husband's before. 00:33:35.920 --> 00:33:38.640 And so we had like basically no expenses. 00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:44.880 And I, as I think about now, my home, my three kids, my two dogs, my nanny, like good God. 00:33:45.119 --> 00:33:48.160 It was a very, very, very cheap life at the time. 00:33:48.400 --> 00:33:54.319 And I was that really enabled me to kind of go on a limb and pilot this thing. 00:33:54.559 --> 00:34:01.359 And I think as a female founder who did not have access to capital, did not have experience fundraising herself. 00:34:01.519 --> 00:34:06.079 I didn't really know VCs or bankers or private equity people. 00:34:06.240 --> 00:34:10.960 As a doctor, I had I'd never gone gotten an MBA, I'd never worked in business. 00:34:11.119 --> 00:34:15.760 Like I had no experience whatsoever in that world to everyone, to be clear. 00:34:15.920 --> 00:34:17.920 Like it was a blank slate for me. 00:34:18.159 --> 00:34:25.519 My co-founder for the first company had like dealt with all of those people because he had come from more of that world, and I never did. 00:34:25.760 --> 00:34:29.199 And so I really just didn't know what I was doing. 00:34:29.440 --> 00:34:40.159 But I started the company, built a patient base totally bootstrapped, and I got like 40 or 50 people to sign up for their year in advance at a major discount. 00:34:40.320 --> 00:34:43.519 And that gave us like 50 grand of runway. 00:34:43.599 --> 00:34:46.000 And I hired a couple of health coaches and an office manager. 00:34:46.079 --> 00:34:46.880 And I said, guess what? 00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:51.360 I have three months of cash, and you might all be out of a job in literally 90 days. 00:34:51.440 --> 00:34:55.119 But if you're willing to sign on to this and find out, let's see. 00:34:55.440 --> 00:34:58.559 And one of them still works with me. 00:34:58.639 --> 00:35:04.559 And she was two days a week, one

day a week, then she was two days a week, and now she's our vice president of clinical operations 10 years later. 00:35:04.639 --> 00:35:08.079 Um, so I've thus far have yet to miss payroll. 00:35:08.239 --> 00:35:11.440 And you know, I just kind of figured it out one step at a time. 00:35:11.679 --> 00:35:16.800 So when you went to because you did eventually raise money. 00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:18.480 Oh yes, quite a bit. 00:35:18.880 --> 00:35:20.320 Yeah, quite a bit. 00:35:20.719 --> 00:35:21.280 Quite a bit. 00:35:21.920 --> 00:35:34.400 Tell tell us about that because that is something that very few women get to do, and very few women are successful at, and you knocked it out of the park. 00:35:35.840 --> 00:35:44.480 It was as hard as everyone says it was, and I was aware that women often are not able to raise capital on their own. 00:35:44.639 --> 00:35:48.639 And I literally made a conscious decision to block that out. 00:35:49.280 --> 00:35:52.719 I remember thinking, if I focus on that, I'm effed. 00:35:53.199 --> 00:35:58.639 Like all I'll do is make it an excuse, or I'll worry about it, or I'll feel bad about it. 00:35:58.800 --> 00:36:12.239 And I don't know if that was like the right way to think about it, but it was more of like a practical, tactical way of basically blocking out reality and saying, Well, I'm gonna try. 00:36:12.400 --> 00:36:13.199 And you know what? 00:36:13.360 --> 00:36:19.199 The first I gave a talk at a conference and a woman, VC, came up to me after. 00:36:19.360 --> 00:36:25.599 And this was before I started Parsley, but I was, or maybe I was in the pilot year, but I was thinking about raising some money. 00:36:25.840 --> 00:36:28.639 And she and I spoke and we stayed in touch. 00:36:28.719 --> 00:36:31.360 And she said, if you think about raising for this, let me know. 00:36:31.519 --> 00:36:37.280 She was an amazing PhD at Harvard MBA, like just badass woman. 00:36:37.760 --> 00:36:46.239 And I when I was getting it together, my first round of funding that I went out to raise was$500,000, which today is like a joke, right? 00:36:46.320 --> 00:36:53.199 People today, when they raise their quote pre-seed or seed round, whatever you want to call it, it's like five million. 00:36:53.360 --> 00:36:57.599 And I raised$500,000 as my target seed round. 00:36:57.760 --> 00:36:58.079 Yeah. 00:36:58.400 --> 00:37:05.039 And I went back to her and some other people, and actually the first checks into the business were women. 00:37:05.360 --> 00:37:11.519 She structured the round for me because you needed somebody to on the other side to kind of agree to terms. 00:37:11.760 --> 00:37:17.760 And I had a lawyer to help me set up the business, and he was not the right person long term to work with on fundraising. 00:37:17.840 --> 00:37:23.119 He wasn't really that kind of lawyer, but he'd sort of done enough of the early stage stuff that he could kind of do it. 00:37:24.159 --> 00:37:26.000 And he wasn't too expensive. 00:37:26.239 --> 00:37:35.199 And first person who wrote me an angel check was a woman who was a big executive at Google who was personally real, really interested in preventive health. 00:37:35.280 --> 00:37:45.679 And I remember her$25,000 check clearing and being absolutely terrified because I was quite sure I was gonna lose all her money, like quite. 00:37:45.840 --> 00:37:47.280 And to take someone else. 00:37:48.159 --> 00:38:00.400 Well, I mean, I just again, like I was a doctor and a solo founder with this medical practice and sort of this idea for something, and I really, really had no experience fundraising. 00:38:00.559 --> 00:38:08.800 So it was really scary to take anyone's money, even you know, now for me, when I think about raising money,$25,000 is a very tiny amount. 00:38:09.039 --> 00:38:19.760 But in that moment,$25,000 in Parsley's bank account that was from someone who was hoping I would turn that$25,000 into something bigger, was really, really terrifying. 00:38:19.920 --> 00:38:22.480 And she was kind of this big deal lady. 00:38:22.880 --> 00:38:24.880 And so, you know, I think about her. 00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:36.480 And then also I went to my friends in my network who had people who in it who were young venture capitalists themselves, like the kind of people who were actually kind of looking back, they were like me, they were early in their careers. 00:38:36.639 --> 00:38:43.039 They were in their early 30s and kind of proving themselves at their funds or with their own funds or somebody else's fund. 00:38:43.199 --> 00:38:46.960 And uh, some of them, men and women, were really helpful to me. 00:38:47.119 --> 00:38:54.880 Another woman, VC, who was early in her career, you know, she had thyroid cancer, she had all sorts of health stuff. 00:38:54.960 --> 00:38:58.320 And we literally traded medical advice for venture capital advice. 00:38:58.400 --> 00:39:00.400 And she helped me with my first deck. 00:39:00.960 --> 00:39:08.159 And I think that when you're starting these things like that and you really don't know what you're doing, again, just don't be ashamed to ask. 00:39:08.400 --> 00:39:15.280 Because I just asked her so many questions and I got so much feedback, and you know, I just went and did it. 00:39:15.440 --> 00:39:18.639 And so, and then you the problem with venture capital is it never ends either. 00:39:18.800 --> 00:39:25.360 So you raise one round and everyone tells you you're getting on a hamster wheel or a treadmill, and you don't believe them. 00:39:25.519 --> 00:39:28.239 You think that's everybody else, but that's not gonna be me. 00:39:28.400 --> 00:39:31.360 I'm just gonna raise this amount of money. 00:39:31.519 --> 00:39:33.519 I'll never raise more than a million. 00:39:33.599 --> 00:39:37.199 I'll never raise more than 10 million, I'll never raise a hundred million. 00:39:37.280 --> 00:39:39.840 And here we are, well over a hundred million into parsley. 00:39:40.000 --> 00:39:52.000 And I could

never have imagined that I would, as a female solo founder, raise over a hundred million dollars in capital, but each round teaches you something, and then you learn how to raise the next round from there. 00:39:52.320 --> 00:39:55.360 And if you thought about it from the beginning, you would just never do it. 00:39:55.440 --> 00:39:56.960 You would, it's like childbirth. 00:39:57.199 --> 00:40:01.920 You would like, yeah, and if you think if you think about it too hard, you're gonna talk yourself out of it. 00:40:02.000 --> 00:40:03.360 So just don't think, just do. 00:40:03.519 --> 00:40:04.079 Yeah. 00:40:05.679 --> 00:40:20.960 So I'm I'm curious as to you went from a solo practitioner and running your own business and founding Parsley Medicine with no one else's vote, and then you took money. 00:40:21.199 --> 00:40:25.119 How did that affect what you were doing day to day? 00:40:25.199 --> 00:40:26.559 And how did you feel about that? 00:40:26.800 --> 00:40:31.360 It got progressively more complicated the later and later we got. 00:40:31.519 --> 00:40:41.840 I would say the early stage fundraises and venture capital and VCs that I was working with were pretty typical in that they're pretty hands-off, actually. 00:40:41.920 --> 00:40:46.880 Like they're not, they want the business to be successful, but they're not there, you know, marionetting. 00:40:47.360 --> 00:40:48.079 Micro managing you. 00:40:48.239 --> 00:40:48.400 Yeah. 00:40:48.480 --> 00:40:54.719 And even when I raised our Series A in 2018, which was a$10 million round, which I like could not believe. 00:40:54.800 --> 00:41:00.320 I was like, this very well-respected venture capital firm put$10 million into my business. 00:41:00.480 --> 00:41:02.800 Like, I was like blown away, honestly. 00:41:03.840 --> 00:41:04.800 We were all blown away. 00:41:05.440 --> 00:41:08.159 We were all watching and rooting for you. 00:41:08.320 --> 00:41:10.639 And you it it's been amazing. 00:41:10.880 --> 00:41:15.119 It's been absolutely amazing to be a fly on your thank you. 00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:15.599 Thank you. 00:41:15.760 --> 00:41:19.039 It was, I was like, I don't know what is gonna happen from here. 00:41:19.199 --> 00:41:21.679 That was scary and exciting. 00:41:22.000 --> 00:41:25.199 I hired a real finance lead at that point. 00:41:25.360 --> 00:41:28.320 Like, you know, I had to really level up my game. 00:41:28.400 --> 00:41:35.599 And I would say that at that point, the the whole work of building the company got next level harder. 00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:54.960 And next level, really, frankly, outside of what I had any business doing, in the sense that it became about identifying talent, hiring executives, managing people who have jobs that are very different than your job or the things that you're good at. 00:41:55.039 --> 00:41:59.360 So the things that I was good at, I could manage because I knew how to do that job. 00:41:59.599 --> 00:42:03.760 But somebody building software or a

product leader or a finance leader, right? 00:42:03.840 --> 00:42:05.119 I didn't have an MBA. 00:42:05.199 --> 00:42:13.280 I'd never built, you know, my own profit and loss spreadsheet beyond a very rudimentary one that I built when I was like conceiving of the company. 00:42:13.519 --> 00:42:17.679 And we didn't have AI, we didn't have Claude to go build you a beautiful spreadsheet. 00:42:17.920 --> 00:42:25.280 So, you know, you really were relying on the talent level and the integrity of the people you were hiring. 00:42:25.360 --> 00:42:28.320 And then I had to learn how to like manage people. 00:42:28.480 --> 00:42:31.840 And I'm sure you know this from being in medicine. 00:42:32.000 --> 00:42:39.280 Like, medicine is not a good environment to learn how to be an executive or a people leader. 00:42:39.519 --> 00:42:41.760 Medicine is extremely hierarchical. 00:42:41.840 --> 00:42:46.880 Uh, there's a lot of there's a very built-in culture of deference to it. 00:42:47.119 --> 00:43:04.239 There's frankly, in many places, a pretty unhealthy paternal culture or very paternalistic, very militaristic, hierarchical, things that actually work quite well in a hospital setting and are very necessary, I think, in a hospital setting to keep the ship moving in the way that it needs to move. 00:43:04.480 --> 00:43:06.079 So there's a place for that. 00:43:06.400 --> 00:43:17.599 But that way of running a business or managing people is actually very unhelpful in startups and in the kind of business I then found myself in. 00:43:17.760 --> 00:43:34.159 And so if I look back and say, like beyond the VCs and the board I then had and so forth, in the early days, the board and the advisors and stuff were there to be supportive, but they weren't like themselves experts in medicine or functional medicine or healthcare even. 00:43:34.239 --> 00:43:36.719 So they weren't like telling me what to do. 00:43:36.880 --> 00:43:44.880 It was more that I was suddenly aware that I really didn't know what to do, that I had stepped into this whole nother layer of need. 00:43:45.199 --> 00:43:46.400 Um, let me say this again. 00:43:46.559 --> 00:43:51.519 I had stepped into territory where I really had no experience and I had to learn as I went. 00:43:51.599 --> 00:43:55.119 And often when I say trial and error, I mean a lot of error, error. 00:43:55.360 --> 00:43:59.119 I hired wonderful people who were really bad at their jobs. 00:43:59.440 --> 00:44:04.079 I I wasn't a good manager to them. 00:44:04.159 --> 00:44:04.880 I wasn't a good coach. 00:44:05.280 --> 00:44:06.400 Right person wrong seat. 00:44:06.639 --> 00:44:08.000 Right person, wrong seat. 00:44:08.159 --> 00:44:12.000 Or, you know, I hired people and wasn't a good manager to them. 00:44:12.159 --> 00:44:13.599 I wasn't a good coach. 00:44:13.840 --> 00:44:16.719 I knew how to triage and make decisions very quickly. 00:44:16.800 --> 00:44:18.480 And I was a bold decision maker. 00:44:18.719 --> 00:44:23.199 I

was a very good zero to one CEO, and I was a pretty good one to ten CEO. 00:44:23.440 --> 00:44:35.119 But then as we got sort of past that, probably one of my biggest learning curves and the one I've candidly slid back down multiple times is how to become like an executive. 00:44:35.360 --> 00:44:38.480 And I don't mean an executive in like parsley is 120 people. 00:44:38.559 --> 00:44:42.559 It's not like we're Johnson and Johnson and it's like I'm the executive of some huge company. 00:44:42.800 --> 00:44:52.000 But it's still it's very different to be leading 120 people than it is to be leading five or 10 or even 20. 00:44:52.320 --> 00:44:53.840 Yes, completely. 00:44:54.079 --> 00:44:59.360 And I think some of the things that innately work in those smaller settings really stop working along the way. 00:44:59.519 --> 00:45:01.280 And it took me a while to figure that out. 00:45:01.519 --> 00:45:07.440 And I have evolved tremendously as a CEO, but it just took, it just took time. 00:45:07.599 --> 00:45:22.320 And I think along the way, you know, to your question about the investors and so forth, I eventually did get to a place where the capital market slowdown happened in terms of availability of venture capital. 00:45:22.960 --> 00:45:28.159 Consumer business were businesses were reviled for a period of time. 00:45:28.400 --> 00:45:40.480 And in healthcare specifically, and in in everywhere for a while, too, because cost of acquisition became so high across the board for things that had to do with like Facebook and Meta and all these things that had nothing to do with parsing. 00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:41.039 Yeah. 00:45:41.280 --> 00:45:58.559 And I definitely, as the years went on, had a much more decisive, hands-on set of investors, people with in some cases a lot of healthcare background or a lot of healthcare investing background, if they didn't have the actual background of being the people that ran the companies. 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:03.440 And the combination thereof really got challenging to manage. 00:46:03.679 --> 00:46:10.079 I made decisions for the company that were in keeping with what they wanted us to do versus what I really thought. 00:46:10.559 --> 00:46:25.199 And I 100% sent the company sideways for a couple years in following what was needed and desired from the investors in the board more than listening to myself. 00:46:25.920 --> 00:46:28.960 And these were, you know, men who were a lot older than me. 00:46:29.119 --> 00:46:30.480 Some of them were billionaires. 00:46:30.960 --> 00:46:33.199 They're very respected in healthcare. 00:46:33.360 --> 00:46:33.920 They're really smart. 00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:34.719 They're really caring. 00:46:34.800 --> 00:46:36.400 They wanted the company to be successful. 00:46:36.480 --> 00:46:37.920 It all came from a good place. 00:46:38.079 --> 00:46:40.079 They're not bad people in any way. 00:46:40.559 --> 00:46:43.920 But they didn't understand what this company was. 00:46:44.639 --> 00:46:45.119 Right. 00:46:45.280 --> 00:46:48.079 And I didn't listen to myself closely enough. 00:46:48.239 --> 00:46:51.039 And so I managed to sort of reroute us. 00:46:51.199 --> 00:46:52.400 It's like Google Maps. 00:46:52.559 --> 00:46:54.559 It's like, okay, you're taking the wrong turn. 00:46:54.639 --> 00:46:55.440 You're taking the wrong turn. 00:46:55.519 --> 00:46:57.199 You're getting farther away or in farther away. 00:46:57.280 --> 00:46:59.039 But Google's saying, go down this road. 00:46:59.119 --> 00:47:00.880 And you're like, it's getting really dark. 00:47:01.039 --> 00:47:01.760 There's nothing. 00:47:02.320 --> 00:47:04.000 I'm at the top of a mountain. 00:47:04.159 --> 00:47:06.320 I don't really think I'm supposed to be here. 00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:10.800 I like I had to like reroute hard. 00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.000 And luckily the company's in a great place now. 00:47:14.400 --> 00:47:23.519 But in my own compassion for myself and defense of myself and some of those decisions that I made, I also made some of them in an effort to keep the company alive. 00:47:23.679 --> 00:47:36.239 And I think as we all, especially those of us listening as mothers, um, who will do anything for our children, and Parsley has been my child, you know, I also headed in the direction I needed to because that's where the capital was. 00:47:36.400 --> 00:47:41.280 And that was what was going to keep the company going in a moment where the alternative was to die. 00:47:42.480 --> 00:48:00.159 And so there's, you know, all these learnings in that of listening into myself, sorry, listening to myself, staying on my own course, not thinking that just because someone's older than me or richer than me or worked with lots of companies that they know better for my particular company. 00:48:00.320 --> 00:48:16.320 Um, and also like mad props to myself and respect that in this time when it was really hard to raise money, I still was able to raise in that period like around 40 million in aggregate to keep the company growing and like alive, literally, even when we weren't growing. 00:48:16.480 --> 00:48:24.480 And I think that, you know, a lot of being a founder and building something, especially in healthcare, is just being able to weather the storm. 00:48:24.719 --> 00:48:25.039 Yeah. 00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:26.719 No, I I couldn't. 00:48:27.039 --> 00:48:29.599 Which I know you're learning you're finding out for yourself right now. 00:48:29.840 --> 00:48:30.480 For sure. 00:48:30.719 --> 00:48:31.199 I am. 00:48:31.440 --> 00:48:48.400 And and the other thing is, I and I do want to talk about what you see your overall mission and Parsley's overall mission, and how you convinced insurance companies that that was. 00:48:48.719 --> 00:48:49.599 I see parsley. 00:48:49.840 --> 00:48:56.320 Well, my personal mission is to help guide as many people to greater health as I possibly can. 00:48:56.639 --> 00:49:00.880 And parsley is one manifestation of that.

00:49:01.119 --> 00:49:06.320 And it's not the only temple of health that I will build, but it is one that I've built so far. 00:49:06.559 --> 00:49:16.639 And it's one living embodiment of a service that can help people achieve greater health and well-being through functional medicine and this kind of care. 00:49:17.119 --> 00:49:26.880 And I knew that this medicine had to live in the world because it was obvious to me that if we keep going down the path of conventional care, the costs are unsustainable. 00:49:27.119 --> 00:49:31.280 It's breaking all of our piggy banks when it comes to our insurance premiums. 00:49:31.519 --> 00:49:37.679 It's breaking our employers, like Bloomberg just announced they're no longer going to cover health insurance. 00:49:37.920 --> 00:49:38.239 Right. 00:49:38.400 --> 00:49:51.039 We have an we have an employer-sponsored health care system, which is why a lot of people don't even have health insurance because they don't work for an employer steadily enough or big enough to have to pay for it. 00:49:51.199 --> 00:49:51.519 Right. 00:49:51.599 --> 00:49:59.920 We somehow in America decided that our health care would come through our employer, which is like so that we don't have to do it through the government, but it ends up being the government anyway. 00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.119 It's like kind of crazy. 00:50:01.360 --> 00:50:03.760 And then, you know, and then we have Medicare and Medicaid. 00:50:04.079 --> 00:50:19.679 But just if you look at sort of the trajectory of any of all of it for the United States, the burden of people living with chronic disease who are overutilizing our healthcare system is breaking our wallets, whether you're the government or you're the employer or you're the person. 00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:21.039 It's unsustainable. 00:50:21.199 --> 00:50:28.320 And as a population, we're getting sicker and sicker and not better and better, because again, our medical system is designed to keep us alive, but not to help us thrive. 00:50:28.480 --> 00:50:37.920 And we needed a form of medicine to optimize health and not just prevent disease 20 years ago from now, but to turn the disease ship around and to help people get better. 00:50:38.079 --> 00:50:39.599 And that is functional medicine. 00:50:39.679 --> 00:50:43.199 And so, really, functional medicine should become the standard of primary care. 00:50:43.360 --> 00:50:45.119 That is what should happen. 00:50:45.360 --> 00:50:48.960 All price PCPs should be trained in functional medicine. 00:50:49.119 --> 00:50:58.480 Functional medicine should be supported by our healthcare system, whether you're, you know, on an exchange with Aetna or, you know, Medicare, whatever you are. 00:50:58.719 --> 00:51:08.800 And the system should pay for the things that functional medicine does that it currently doesn't pay for, like supplements and tests and certain things that fall a little bit outside of the standard. 00:51:08.960 --> 00:51:15.280 And if we did that, we'd have a dramatically healthier population and we'd save trillions of dollars. 00:51:15.519 --> 00:51:29.840 And so to answer your question about how did you convince the insurance companies, I knew that the only way that we would do that would be outcomes data that showed that not only were people healthier, which sadly enough our insurance companies actually don't care that much about. 00:51:30.159 --> 00:51:30.639 They don't. 00:51:30.880 --> 00:51:37.679 But but they care if you, you person are using your medical services because now you cost me less. 00:51:38.000 --> 00:51:38.320 Yes. 00:51:38.960 --> 00:51:41.199 But only only in this year. 00:51:41.599 --> 00:51:46.239 Yes, within this year, because next year you're going to be on somebody else's health plan because everybody switches. 00:51:47.119 --> 00:51:47.440 Yes. 00:51:47.679 --> 00:51:50.079 Yes, it's 18 months, is actually the average. 00:51:50.239 --> 00:51:52.639 And so they have a very short attention span. 00:51:52.719 --> 00:51:54.719 They want things that save money this year. 00:51:54.880 --> 00:52:10.159 As a result, all of the things that are built out there to save money that are new technologies and interventions are sadly kind of weak because the biggest impact you have is sometimes two years out or three years out or four years out. 00:52:10.400 --> 00:52:25.199 And if all you're doing is trying to work it so that you can get some in-year cost savings, you often have a lot of what is referred to as solutions in that world, solutions that aren't much of a solution to anything, but they'll a little bit save some money right now. 00:52:25.360 --> 00:52:32.559 Oftentimes those quote, solutions that get sold to these health insurance companies or these employers actually will cost more money like two years from now. 00:52:32.719 --> 00:52:37.679 But because they saved, you know, 500 bucks this year, everybody's like giving them a pat on the back. 00:52:37.840 --> 00:52:41.760 So it's all very short-sighted, but nonetheless, that's how the game is played. 00:52:41.920 --> 00:52:44.000 And I wasn't going to change that. 00:52:44.320 --> 00:52:55.360 So I knew that we had to get outcomes data to show that we reduced things like medication utilization and specialist utilization, and that we got people better. 00:52:55.519 --> 00:53:38.400 And so we had enough data after a few years to work with some independent firms that do these types of analyses and were able to show that we drove really meaningful cost savings in a population of patients that really surprised the insurance people and the employer people because there's an assumption around functional medicine that everybody using functional medicine is really healthy, that they're like well and they just want to be a little more well, and maybe they're just like some lady who wants to lose the last five pounds, which is actually very biased and you know pejorative towards women because it's another way of

dismissing women's symptoms as superficial and unimportant. 00:53:38.639 --> 00:53:48.239 And because Parsley was started in New York by a woman, there was this and had a beautiful brand because we wanted to feel good and pretty and attractive. 00:53:48.400 --> 00:53:55.199 People assumed that like we were for the worried well and that this was like a New York LA lady service or something. 00:53:55.440 --> 00:53:55.760 Yeah. 00:53:56.000 --> 00:53:56.639 Yeah. 00:53:56.960 --> 00:53:59.760 And so when, which would be fine if that's what it was. 00:53:59.920 --> 00:54:22.719 I love my New York and LA ladies, but the reality was when we showed them the data, they saw that the people using parsley were sick, that they had two, three, or four chronic conditions, that they were using multiple medications, that they had diseases like autoimmune and infertility and heart disease, and you know, the list goes on, and that they really needed this kind of care. 00:54:22.800 --> 00:54:32.639 And so when we were able to show that we were A, saving money and B doing it in a population that cost them money, then they were willing to talk to us. 00:54:32.880 --> 00:54:39.360 And how do you think that has positioned you in the general medical community? 00:54:39.599 --> 00:54:46.159 I mean, I don't I don't know because I'm not I'm not out there listening anymore to the voices, but you have lost. 00:54:47.280 --> 00:54:47.920 I have. 00:54:48.159 --> 00:54:55.440 Are are words like quacks still being used, or are words like genius and innovator being used now? 00:54:55.599 --> 00:55:00.719 Like how, how, what, how is how's it going at your Columbia reunion? 00:55:01.119 --> 00:55:02.960 Haven't been to one of my med schools. 00:55:03.760 --> 00:55:05.039 Yeah, I don't know. 00:55:05.280 --> 00:55:27.440 I stopped listening to, you know, I said to myself, like, if I'm gonna do this, I don't need their opinion to show me that this medicine is working, to have all the people telling me, thank you for helping me get pregnant and have my babies, and thank you for curing my autoimmune disease and my PCOS and treating my menopause and all these things. 00:55:27.599 --> 00:55:31.280 Like, I just don't, it doesn't matter to me, truly. 00:55:31.519 --> 00:55:35.599 And I I I made a decision a long time ago not to listen. 00:55:35.760 --> 00:55:40.960 I think that in the current moment, you have a lot of both, right? 00:55:41.119 --> 00:55:59.119 You have a lot of, you know, and now that we're in this longevity wave, like you have a lot of people that are like, yeah, all these conventional docs who now want to be longevity docs, like my buddy from you know, Mass General, who's an internist who's like, no, I want to be a longevity doctor, and he's like learning about food. 00:55:59.280 --> 00:56:01.840 And I'm like, great, come on over, like let's do it. 00:56:01.920 --> 00:56:02.639 That's awesome. 00:56:02.800 --> 00:56:06.880 Like, like bring them all on, bring all of the

doctors like you, like into the fold. 00:56:06.960 --> 00:56:07.360 Let's go. 00:56:07.519 --> 00:56:16.000 And then there's people who are still skeptics and you know, are always gonna think that anything that's not what they're doing is quackery. 00:56:16.159 --> 00:56:27.760 And then quite frankly, there's people in the current administration who are doing quackery-like things that are making all of us like parsley look bad, that's pissing me off. 00:56:28.079 --> 00:56:29.840 Because I'm like, stop it. 00:56:30.079 --> 00:56:42.960 Your aunt, parsley, and functional medicine and longevity and stuff are getting wrapped up and sort of swept up for some people in a what is frankly a move, a movement that's about politics, not health. 00:56:43.360 --> 00:56:48.880 And that's quite frustrating to me because you know, we're not a political organization. 00:56:49.039 --> 00:56:51.440 We've been doing the same thing for over a decade. 00:56:51.760 --> 00:56:58.800 And there's a group of people like yourself, like me, who have been working to make America healthy. 00:56:59.039 --> 00:57:04.239 We cannot make America healthy again because it never was, but we can work to make America healthy. 00:57:04.400 --> 00:57:15.840 And there's a bunch of us, like I've been in this for 20 years in some facet, even from when I was like, you know, pre-med school and certainly for 10 years since I've started the when you wrote your thesis. 00:57:16.079 --> 00:57:17.519 Yeah, even from college. 00:57:17.679 --> 00:57:24.239 And so I think that, you know, that is just what I try to focus on and not worry about what anybody thinks. 00:57:24.480 --> 00:57:25.119 I get that. 00:57:25.840 --> 00:57:28.800 But did you ever go through any dark nights of the soul? 00:57:28.960 --> 00:57:37.760 Did you ever did you ever let the outside voices like somehow say to you, Wait, I I've really stepped outside of the lines? 00:57:37.920 --> 00:57:40.159 Am I am I on the right side of history? 00:57:40.320 --> 00:57:43.519 I mean, I think for you it's so clear that you are. 00:57:44.719 --> 00:57:52.800 But were there ever those moments were you ever afraid when you were taking that money that like, wow, this is this is real now? 00:57:52.960 --> 00:57:54.320 Can can I do this? 00:57:54.480 --> 00:57:56.000 Is oh yeah. 00:57:56.159 --> 00:57:59.920 I mean, on the fundraising side, I had too many Dark Knights of the Soul. 00:58:00.000 --> 00:58:14.000 I mean, there's many times that Parsley, like almost like like most venture back startups, people don't understand that most venture back startups like get the next tranche of capital in the bank like weeks to days, sometimes months before they're closing. 00:58:15.119 --> 00:58:18.800 Yeah, because the funding cycles kind of end up working that way. 00:58:18.960 --> 00:58:24.400 Like, no one's like raising a new tranche of capital like two years before they're out of their current tranche. 00:58:24.639 --> 00:58:34.400 I mean, some companies occasionally are if they're actually rocket ships and people are throwing money at them, but mostly the point is to like use your capital to get to the next milestone and then raise more. 00:58:34.559 --> 00:58:37.440 So you need time to do that and you need to spend some of the money. 00:58:37.599 --> 00:58:39.199 So then you're almost out of it. 00:58:39.360 --> 00:58:48.880 Which is, I mean, I've had nights of like total like not sleeping, you know, pit of my stomach moments. 00:58:49.039 --> 00:59:11.599 I had a year where I was really at odds with my board, and that was probably the hardest year of my life in the business, where I had basically within a year to like flip over the board, get in new investors, fight off our one of our banks, and re-pivot the business from an enterprise focused back to consumer all in 12 months. 00:59:11.760 --> 00:59:16.000 And it was like, I mean, at that point I was like, I'm done, it's over. 00:59:16.079 --> 00:59:17.519 I like don't care from here. 00:59:17.679 --> 00:59:19.760 Like, I can't believe I survived. 00:59:19.840 --> 00:59:27.280 It it felt like being in a in some sort of accident and then like walking out into the sunlight and being like, did that happen? 00:59:27.599 --> 00:59:44.639 Except it was like a 12-month accident was like the feeling that like we were crashing for a year because so much executives leaving, firing executives, like it was just it it felt chaotic and it was chaotic for the team. 00:59:44.880 --> 00:59:52.400 And uh, we never let it be chaotic on the patient care side because we really protect that part of the business from the business business part. 00:59:52.639 --> 00:59:56.079 But it was it was really hard. 00:59:56.320 --> 01:00:10.639 And I feel like in the early years, maybe I had I remember being interviewed in the health tech world for some things, some doctors like in the comments, like, you know, tearing down this kind of medicine and me. 01:00:10.960 --> 01:00:12.639 And that was really early on. 01:00:12.719 --> 01:00:16.000 And I remember just thinking, like, cool, you're not my audience. 01:00:16.400 --> 01:00:18.800 And did it hurt, did it hurt or was it scary? 01:00:18.960 --> 01:00:19.360 Yes. 01:00:19.679 --> 01:00:26.800 But at that point, like there was enough of the world of functional medicine out there that I was like, this isn't going anywhere. 01:00:26.960 --> 01:00:37.039 So there's always gonna be naysayers, and there's gonna be those of us who know that this is the future and are gonna stand up for what we believe in, even if not everybody likes it. 01:00:37.280 --> 01:00:48.559 So I I want to know when you're going through all of this and you're an entrepreneur and you're still you're a doctor and you're still seeing patients and you're an executive and you're all of these things. 01:00:48.719 --> 01:00:50.400 How are you taking care of you? 01:00:50.639 --> 01:00:54.480 And did your health take a hit anywhere along the way?

01:00:54.719 --> 01:00:56.480 I mean, my mental health definitely did. 01:00:57.280 --> 01:00:57.920 Definitely. 01:00:58.159 --> 01:01:04.639 You know, I think I think one of the things that has gotten me through these 10 years, I also had three kids during this time. 01:01:04.880 --> 01:01:11.280 So I had my first child in 2017, Race Star Series A in 2018. 01:01:11.519 --> 01:01:17.360 And I think that the things that have kept me going are really living the medicine. 01:01:17.840 --> 01:01:20.480 Like I eat the functional medicine foods. 01:01:20.559 --> 01:01:25.280 And if I eat a lot of sugar or processed stuff, I feel awful and I can't keep going. 01:01:25.440 --> 01:01:28.320 I do drink some alcohol, but like really moderate amounts. 01:01:28.400 --> 01:01:39.280 And alcohol never became luckily something that I was overusing because for me, I can't sleep and I get depressed if I drink more than like twice a week or you know, a little bit. 01:01:39.440 --> 01:01:44.320 So, you know, really limiting that, getting good sleep, taking my supplements. 01:01:44.400 --> 01:01:48.400 Um I'm MTHFR variant, so I need my methylated B vitamins. 01:01:48.480 --> 01:01:50.880 And if I don't take them, I get actually depressed. 01:01:51.119 --> 01:01:52.960 So, like sticking with that. 01:01:53.199 --> 01:02:04.960 Um, I always joke that the amount I inventoried recently, like the amount of time, money, and practitioners I spend on various forms of self-care, whether it's massage, acupuncture, I threw everything in there, right? 01:02:05.039 --> 01:02:12.559 Like my hair coloring, my my haircut, my facialist who I see a couple times a year if I'm breaking out, right? 01:02:12.719 --> 01:02:13.840 Like all of it. 01:02:14.159 --> 01:02:21.440 My spiritual guides that I work with, my therapist, like, and I was like, shit, this is a shit ton of money and time. 01:02:21.599 --> 01:02:24.320 And I was like, wow, it really takes a lot. 01:02:24.719 --> 01:02:29.519 But those things are truly what keep me going, keep my energy up. 01:02:29.679 --> 01:02:31.920 I meditate every single morning. 01:02:32.239 --> 01:02:36.719 And if I don't meditate, it's 15 minutes and I might have a kid or two sitting on me. 01:02:36.880 --> 01:02:42.400 It might be loud, it might not be ideal, but I meditate every morning. 01:02:42.480 --> 01:02:49.360 And the handful of days that I don't do it, I those days I'm totally off. 01:02:49.519 --> 01:02:51.199 Like I am not a good leader. 01:02:52.079 --> 01:02:54.400 I'm impatient, I'm more reactive. 01:02:54.559 --> 01:02:56.480 It makes a huge difference for me. 01:02:56.639 --> 01:03:01.840 And so, you know, people always ask me, like, what's your morning routine? 01:03:01.920 --> 01:03:05.920 And like, kind of like, I feel like what they're really asking is like, do you practice what you preach? 01:03:06.480 --> 01:03:18.239 And I'm like, oh yeah, like I I take the supplements, I eat this way, I meditate, I lift weights, I do yoga, I do Pilates, like I am doing the things that I tell my patients to do. 01:03:19.199 --> 01:03:21.519 And it's the only way reason I'm still here. 01:03:22.320 --> 01:03:22.639 Yeah. 01:03:23.199 --> 01:03:29.840 I I think that that's really important for people to know that we all have our non-negotiables. 01:03:30.159 --> 01:03:30.639 Right. 01:03:30.880 --> 01:03:35.840 And now I am definitely guilty of working too much. 01:03:36.400 --> 01:03:43.840 Like I if if my if I had a patient who worked as much as I worked, I would come down so hard on them. 01:03:44.000 --> 01:03:51.280 So I know that that I do bend some rules for me, but we all have our non-negotiables, right? 01:03:51.519 --> 01:03:54.800 So meditation is your is one of your non-negotiables. 01:03:54.880 --> 01:03:55.599 Do you have others? 01:03:55.840 --> 01:03:57.199 Getting a good night of sleep. 01:03:57.280 --> 01:03:59.679 Like I've never been someone who pulls the all-nighter. 01:03:59.840 --> 01:04:04.480 And I I work a lot too, but you know, I go to bed by 10:30. 01:04:04.559 --> 01:04:07.440 I get eight hours of sleep most of the time. 01:04:08.159 --> 01:04:10.079 And I prioritize that. 01:04:10.239 --> 01:04:12.639 I don't go to the bed at the same time every night. 01:04:12.800 --> 01:04:19.199 My sleep schedule is somewhat erratic, which, you know, per my whoop and per the data is not great for longevity. 01:04:19.440 --> 01:04:22.239 So I need to work not just on sleep quality hours, but look. 01:04:23.440 --> 01:04:26.800 I'm on whoops medical advisory board, so I literally can't stop looking at mine. 01:04:27.039 --> 01:04:27.679 Oh my God. 01:04:27.840 --> 01:04:28.079 Yeah. 01:04:28.239 --> 01:04:38.079 All I can all I think about when with the whoop and the R ring and all of those is that that Jackson Brown song, don't remind me of my failures. 01:04:38.159 --> 01:04:39.519 I have not forgotten them. 01:04:39.760 --> 01:04:40.400 That's a good point. 01:04:40.559 --> 01:04:40.960 I don't know. 01:04:41.039 --> 01:04:44.320 I don't look at it obsessively, but I do find some of the data useful. 01:04:44.559 --> 01:04:47.039 And things like heart rate variability. 01:04:47.280 --> 01:04:53.119 It's been a good wake-up call, no pun intended, for the fact that I do have a bit of an erratic bedtime. 01:04:53.199 --> 01:04:55.440 Like, listen, I live in New York, I have a social life. 01:04:55.519 --> 01:05:02.320 Like some nights I'm going to bed at midnight, some nights I'm going to bed early, but I I really do prioritize sleep and get a good amount of sleep. 01:05:02.559 --> 01:05:05.360 The food that I eat is a huge non-negotiable. 01:05:05.519 --> 01:05:11.679 I shop at the grocery store before I go to the airport so I don't have to eat food on the plane or in the airport. 01:05:12.000 --> 01:05:22.800 I go to the Whole Foods when I land, if I'm going to be somewhere for more than like a day, um, or even short term, and I stock my hotel room with water and

healthy snacks. 01:05:22.960 --> 01:05:27.840 And I intermittent fast a lot, but I break the fast with protein. 01:05:28.000 --> 01:05:30.639 I take my supplements almost every day. 01:05:30.960 --> 01:05:32.559 I'm a skincare nut. 01:05:32.719 --> 01:05:41.920 And so I do, I do, you know, I'm that person like, you know, the the person in college that like had too many beers and you're still like perfectly washing your face. 01:05:42.000 --> 01:05:48.639 Like you're swaying back and forth, but you're but you're still gonna do all your stuff. 01:05:48.880 --> 01:05:52.159 I can't see myself in the mirror, but I'm gonna still wash my makeup off. 01:05:52.320 --> 01:05:55.199 Like never went to bed with the full face of makeup, whatever. 01:05:55.519 --> 01:05:57.599 All of this speaks to something of my personality, right? 01:05:57.760 --> 01:05:59.760 Not everybody is like does these things. 01:06:00.400 --> 01:06:07.039 But and then I do put a lot into it, takes a lot of energy for me to keep my mental health stable. 01:06:07.199 --> 01:06:20.400 Like I if I don't sleep, if I do drink alcohol too frequently, if I don't take my supplements, if I'm not eating well, I I am gluten-free mostly because I will get a little bit of eczema when I eat it. 01:06:20.480 --> 01:06:22.639 And I also feel hung over. 01:06:22.719 --> 01:06:25.920 Like it, I feel the inflammation wave, like it gives me a headache. 01:06:26.159 --> 01:06:37.840 And, you know, so I'm I'm on track with these things, not because I'm punishing myself and I feel like I have to be in control, but because just if I don't do them, I actually just don't feel good. 01:06:38.719 --> 01:06:41.280 And I want to feel good most of the time, you know? 01:06:41.440 --> 01:06:41.679 Yeah. 01:06:42.800 --> 01:06:44.719 I know my time with you is running out. 01:06:44.800 --> 01:06:46.480 So I have one more question. 01:06:47.760 --> 01:06:55.679 When your career is over, which I know is not any time soon, but what do you hope medicine is doing differently because you were here? 01:06:56.800 --> 01:07:31.760 I really hope that functional medicine, an evidence-based standardized form of functional medicine, is truly the standard of care, that these principles around identifying and treating the root cause, using nutrition and mental mindfulness-based stress reduction and mental health, bringing mental health together with physical health, supplements where appropriate, in-depth testing, personalization, that all these things that we say today are, you know, I wish medicine were like that, I wish healthcare were like that. 01:07:32.000 --> 01:07:33.360 I just hope that it is. 01:07:33.440 --> 01:07:42.880 And I hope that I and also Parsley, uh, we are technically two separate things, are both a part of seeing that become the reality. 01:07:43.039 --> 01:07:46.159 And not because I'm just like functional medicine is better. 01:07:46.320 --> 01:07:50.079 Um, that's what we need for people to be a lot healthier. 01:07:50.239 --> 01:07:56.000 And beyond the medical system, because I've over these 10 years, I think I had grand visions of really changing the healthcare system. 01:07:56.079 --> 01:08:01.840 And I've I wouldn't say I've totally given them up, but I'm sort of less interested in that now. 01:08:02.079 --> 01:08:17.680 And I'm more interested in how to help people, just individuals, make the changes in their lives that functional medicine teaches that enable them to improve their health span, avoid and reverse chronic disease, and feel better every day. 01:08:17.840 --> 01:08:38.079 And if I do that through the things I'm doing, and if Parsley keeps doing that through the things that it does, and if I'm able to do that potentially in the future through other companies or projects that, you know, have that impact, I think that now interests me more than when I started when I was a little bit more like, you know, I'm gonna change healthcare. 01:08:38.159 --> 01:08:41.680 And 10 years later I'm like, I have a little bit, and now I care, I just don't care. 01:08:41.840 --> 01:08:43.600 Or I do, but I'm like adjusting. 01:08:44.239 --> 01:08:44.800 I don't care. 01:08:44.880 --> 01:08:45.680 But listen. 01:08:46.399 --> 01:08:59.279 If you're if if your impact is going to be because you're doing your job, if you left said job to go influence medical education, then who's doing your job? 01:08:59.439 --> 01:09:00.880 That's the problem, right? 01:09:01.039 --> 01:09:04.800 People say to me all day long, like, why don't you go and lobby? 01:09:04.960 --> 01:09:07.680 And why don't you go to the medical schools? 01:09:07.760 --> 01:09:09.039 And why don't you do this? 01:09:09.199 --> 01:09:20.960 Well, if I'm doing all that, then I'm not doing my job, and I'm not helping the women, and I'm not giving another, I'm not giving another option, and I'm not giving another opportunity or another perspective. 01:09:21.119 --> 01:09:27.439 So And also those are really slow roads, and I think what you and I share is a desire to have impact. 01:09:27.680 --> 01:09:36.880 And the best thing about what you do and are doing and are building and what Parsley does is, you know, I don't have to wait for impact. 01:09:37.039 --> 01:09:39.920 We have impact on thousands of people every single day. 01:09:40.159 --> 01:09:40.640 Every day. 01:09:40.880 --> 01:09:44.640 And we are therefore more of the light bearers, right? 01:09:44.800 --> 01:09:48.239 We're sort of outdoing it and showing people what's possible. 01:09:48.479 --> 01:09:50.560 And that is one role in the world. 01:09:50.720 --> 01:10:04.319 And then other roles that are equally as valid but might just be suited more to somebody else are, you know, being translating what the light bearer showed into education or into political progress in various ways. 01:10:04.479 --> 01:10:07.039 I'm too impatient for that kind of work. 01:10:07.199 --> 01:10:14.560 Like, at least at this point, it's just my

personality, my ADHD is like too impatient to, you know, I like need to see the impact all the time. 01:10:14.800 --> 01:10:19.199 And yeah, the thing that motivates me is like the patience getting better, you know? 01:10:19.520 --> 01:10:20.239 Exactly. 01:10:20.560 --> 01:10:24.880 And also playing to your audience, right? 01:10:25.359 --> 01:10:29.520 So there's a part of me right now that I'm like, you know what? 01:10:29.600 --> 01:10:34.079 If you don't believe in my mission and what I'm doing, that's fine. 01:10:34.319 --> 01:10:34.479 Right. 01:10:34.720 --> 01:10:37.039 Because I have millions of people who do. 01:10:37.199 --> 01:10:38.720 So I'm gonna talk to them. 01:10:38.880 --> 01:10:40.800 And you don't have to listen to me. 01:10:41.039 --> 01:10:51.039 You can keep scrolling or or read someone else's book or do whatever you want to do because that that's that's no longer the fight that I want to fight. 01:10:51.279 --> 01:11:11.840 Spending energy there is something that I think I mostly have done a good job of not doing, and I understand that not everyone's gonna agree with me, not everyone's gonna think that the way I'm doing it is right, or that the work I'm doing is the most important, and everybody thinks their thing is the most important thing, and that's how we as humans are, and that's cool. 01:11:12.079 --> 01:11:14.960 And I, you know, I wish everyone well. 01:11:15.039 --> 01:11:25.199 And it's like, I also think about it this way, you know, we came up recently with the the debate for a while out there about the food dye thing. 01:11:25.359 --> 01:11:27.439 Like, is this the most important thing? 01:11:27.680 --> 01:11:34.479 And, you know, Peter Atia called it majoring in the minors to even care about food dyes, which was very like dismissive. 01:11:34.640 --> 01:11:36.720 Like, this is just not important, right? 01:11:36.880 --> 01:11:53.760 And then there's the people who are like up in arms and like the environmental working group, which is an incredibly well-respected environmental group that does a ton of independent research on the impact of various chemicals in our environments and foods and what they do the human body, which is an amazing group. 01:11:53.920 --> 01:12:00.800 And, you know, they're lobbying for different in different states to, you know, get these things out of our food supply and schools and stuff. 01:12:00.960 --> 01:12:04.159 And so you've got people on all the different sides of it, right? 01:12:04.239 --> 01:12:06.800 Like, yeah, it's not great, but it's not that important. 01:12:06.960 --> 01:12:08.319 This is my life's work. 01:12:08.560 --> 01:12:11.840 And I just thought, like, listen, like, food dyes are not great. 01:12:12.000 --> 01:12:12.880 They're not good for you. 01:12:12.960 --> 01:12:16.640 They've got a lot of proven negative effects, especially in kids. 01:12:16.800 --> 01:12:18.560 I don't want my kids eating food dyes. 01:12:18.640 --> 01:12:20.239 Like, I can't advocate

for that. 01:12:20.479 --> 01:12:24.560 Do I think it's the most important public health thing that we have at the moment? 01:12:24.720 --> 01:12:26.880 No, but it takes a village. 01:12:26.960 --> 01:12:31.840 And so, what we need when it comes to health, because health has so many variables and so many factors. 01:12:32.000 --> 01:12:44.399 And you need the food dye people working on their food dye mission, and you need the heart disease people working on their heart disease mission, and you need the breast cancer prevention and imaging people like you working on that mission. 01:12:44.640 --> 01:12:53.520 And we're not gonna solve this unless we have lots and lots of people who are obsessed with whatever the thing that gets them out of bed in the morning happens to be. 01:12:53.760 --> 01:12:57.279 For me, it's functional medicine and holistic healing. 01:12:57.439 --> 01:13:09.840 And let us all do that and celebrate each other for each working on the piece of this that matters to us, rather than being like, we should all only focus on one thing, which is just not possible. 01:13:10.159 --> 01:13:13.840 And and maybe not dismiss each other so much. 01:13:14.079 --> 01:13:21.439 I mean, I remember I was at a party just a couple of weeks ago, and uh, someone said, Oh, you're a doctor, you should go talk to this guy. 01:13:21.520 --> 01:13:24.479 He just got his drug for MS approved. 01:13:24.640 --> 01:13:28.000 And I was like, Oh, wow, congratulations. 01:13:28.159 --> 01:13:29.680 Do you know Terry Walls? 01:13:29.760 --> 01:13:31.600 And he's like, No, I never heard of her. 01:13:32.000 --> 01:13:36.079 I'm like, wait, you have an MS drug and you never heard of Terry Walls? 01:13:36.239 --> 01:13:37.119 And he's like, No. 01:13:37.279 --> 01:13:42.319 And I told him Terry Walls' whole story, and he's like, Oh yeah, well, she didn't have MS. 01:13:42.800 --> 01:13:46.479 I'm like, No, I'm I'm really certain she did. 01:13:47.199 --> 01:13:50.079 No, she didn't have MS because you can't cure MS. 01:13:50.239 --> 01:14:03.520 I'm like, all right, well, I'm not saying she's cured, I'm just saying that you know, she is living her life in a mostly, she still has a little trigeminal neuralgia, but she is mostly living her life in an asymptomatic way. 01:14:03.600 --> 01:14:07.680 And she was in a zero gravity wheelchair, and he's like, No, no, impossible. 01:14:08.319 --> 01:14:19.680 So I all all that I wish is that yes, we should all be the lamp lighters for our for our slice in it, right? 01:14:19.840 --> 01:14:20.960 For our piece of it. 01:14:21.119 --> 01:14:24.960 And let's not like extinguish each other's lamps. 01:14:25.680 --> 01:14:26.159 Yeah. 01:14:26.800 --> 01:14:27.760 I love that. 01:14:28.000 --> 01:14:30.960 Yes, we are all the lamp lighters for our slices. 01:14:31.199 --> 01:14:33.920 And yes, keeping all the lamps on is really important. 01:14:34.159 --> 01:14:35.279 I'm fully aligned. 01:14:35.439 --> 01:14:36.399 I'm fully aligned. 01:14:36.640 --> 01:14:47.039 Yeah, and there's a lot of that in dismissiveness or sort of lack of curiosity in the culture of medicine, and that's sort of invary at odds with being in startups. 01:14:47.279 --> 01:14:57.279 And so one of the things I love about startups, and it really fit for me, was like you have to constantly be curious and asking questions and saying, well, if this doesn't work, what does? 01:14:57.520 --> 01:14:59.680 And it's just a different way of thinking. 01:14:59.840 --> 01:15:03.600 And I think that um the culture of medicine doesn't really reward that way of thinking. 01:15:03.760 --> 01:15:13.279 So a lot of people who are in conventional medicine and spend a long time there, you know, are sort of almost by force lose some of that curiosity, even if they naturally have it as people. 01:15:13.439 --> 01:15:15.199 And, you know, and then not always. 01:15:15.359 --> 01:15:18.239 So we'll just keep lighting our lamps and keep walking. 01:15:19.439 --> 01:15:27.279 So let's end by you telling people what what Parsley offers now and how they can get in touch with you. 01:15:27.520 --> 01:15:28.159 Yeah. 01:15:28.479 --> 01:15:30.720 So visit us at parsleyhealth.com. 01:15:30.800 --> 01:15:31.600 You can work with us. 01:15:32.079 --> 01:15:33.520 Which I should tell you. 01:15:33.680 --> 01:15:36.640 I think your website is phenomenal. 01:15:36.880 --> 01:15:43.680 And when we redid our website, I told my website designer, because I know that yours is a very custom website. 01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:50.560 And I said, can you just make it look as much like Parsley's does, but make mine pink? 01:15:51.119 --> 01:15:51.600 Great. 01:15:51.840 --> 01:15:52.399 Awesome. 01:15:52.640 --> 01:15:56.079 So I just want you to know that imitation is the finest form of flattery. 01:15:56.800 --> 01:15:57.199 Well, thank you. 01:15:57.359 --> 01:15:59.039 We are also constantly changing it. 01:15:59.119 --> 01:16:02.640 So keep looking at it because it's like an A-B testing permanently. 01:16:03.039 --> 01:16:05.600 And yeah, always, always be improving. 01:16:05.760 --> 01:16:08.079 But yes, you can find us at parsleyhealth.com. 01:16:08.399 --> 01:16:10.880 We you can work with us really in two ways. 01:16:11.039 --> 01:16:26.960 You can sign up for one of our programs for care, and you'll work with our doctors and our nutritionists and our nurses, and you'll work with the team over time to optimize your health, diagnose you if that's what you need, or treat you if that's what you need, or all of the above. 01:16:27.119 --> 01:16:29.840 We usually do all of those things for the same for one person. 01:16:30.000 --> 01:16:32.000 And um that's our complete care program. 01:16:32.159 --> 01:16:44.800 And then the other way to work with us if you're not ready for care is you can do labs and you can either do our labs through Quest or you can do bring, or you can bring us your labs from one of the labs companies out there.

01:16:44.880 --> 01:16:45.439 There are many. 01:16:45.600 --> 01:16:52.319 And you can do a 30-minute visit with us where we'll one of our docs will review your labs and tell you all about them and what they mean. 01:16:52.479 --> 01:17:02.079 Because we saw a lot of people doing these kind of functional labs today and then getting kind of stuck because they didn't know really what they meant or what to do with them, even though they got like the little report that comes with them. 01:17:02.239 --> 01:17:04.640 And so those are two of the two ways you can really work with us. 01:17:04.720 --> 01:17:06.720 And we're in network everywhere. 01:17:06.880 --> 01:17:09.680 Our lab review visit is not covered by insurance. 01:17:09.920 --> 01:17:18.720 Our complete care program is partially covered, and then we do have a supplemental fee that you pay because again, we are not just your standard medical care. 01:17:18.880 --> 01:17:22.399 We are a lot more than that, but it's pretty reasonable. 01:17:22.640 --> 01:17:24.079 And yeah, that's what we do. 01:17:24.159 --> 01:17:27.920 We work in 50 states, so you can work with us over video from anywhere. 01:17:28.000 --> 01:17:31.279 Um, and you can come in person in New York City and LA. 01:17:31.680 --> 01:17:32.640 Amazing. 01:17:33.119 --> 01:17:39.039 Well, I loved this time with you, and I'm so grateful that you put it aside for me and for my community. 01:17:39.199 --> 01:17:43.119 And what you've done and what you've built is truly astounding. 01:17:43.199 --> 01:17:48.479 And I know that the world and medicine will be a better place for having had you here. 01:17:48.800 --> 01:17:57.920 So keep going, and we're gonna keep watching and seeing what you are doing to change the world and to change medicine and to change health. 01:17:58.079 --> 01:18:00.960 Because after all, that that's all of our goals. 01:18:01.119 --> 01:18:10.800 It's one thing to diagnose disease and and help to ease suffering, but what all of our goals, our collective goals, are to prevent suffering. 01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:12.319 Right? 01:18:12.479 --> 01:18:16.800 So that we can all live as long as possible, as well as possible. 01:18:16.960 --> 01:18:19.760 And I know that that you're out there doing it. 01:18:19.920 --> 01:18:20.479 So thank you. 01:18:21.119 --> 01:18:22.000 And same to you. 01:18:22.159 --> 01:18:24.399 And thank you all for joining us today. 01:18:24.560 --> 01:18:35.439 If you liked what you heard, then make sure you share it with someone who needs to hear it, because I know you know someone who needs to hear it, and also know that I will be back next week, same time, same place. 01:18:35.600 --> 01:18:36.079 It's Dr. 01:18:36.239 --> 01:18:36.560 Jen. 01:18:36.720 --> 01:18:37.600 Bye for now. 01:18:42.560 --> 01:18:45.840 So that's it for today's episode of Keeping A Breast with Dr. 01:18:46.000 --> 01:18:46.399 Jen. 01:18:46.560 --> 01:18:56.479 Wherever you are on your breast health journey, screening, a new diagnosis, navigating life before, during, or after treatment, you don't have to figure it out alone. 01:18:56.640 --> 01:19:01.039 That's exactly what we built perfection imaging and wellness to do. 01:19:01.199 --> 01:19:07.760 Go to perfectionimaging.com to find real answers and real support, whatever stage you're in. 01:19:08.000 --> 01:19:11.840 Remember, perfection is spelled with a QT in the middle. 01:19:12.079 --> 01:19:18.239 If this conversation gave you something to think about, share it with a woman who needs to hear it and leave us a review. 01:19:18.399 --> 01:19:20.399 It helps more women find this show. 01:19:20.800 --> 01:19:21.359 I'm Dr. 01:19:21.520 --> 01:19:21.920 Jen. 01:19:22.079 --> 01:19:22.800 I'll see you next time.