Introduction to Dr. Dillon Meier

Kerry 0:28

All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller, and today we have Dr. Dillon Meier joining us on the podcast. Welcome, Dr. Meier

How 7Longevity Was Created

From Cardiac Anesthesia to Longevity Medicine

Autoimmune Disease & Functional Medicine Journey

Dillon 0:39

Thanks for having me, Kerry. Yes. Why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do? So I'm a practicing cardiothoracic anesthesiologist. I love that. I've been doing that for about eight years now out of training, and on the side I've started to explore what really moves the needle as far health and health span and longevity. Became super interested in all of it a few years ago, especially when the Bryan Johnson character came into light all of the different biohacking things he was doing to slow his aging. Around the same time, became very interested in functional medicine through an autoimmune diagnosis from my wife, and then everything started to come together and began to really deep dive and look into how we can apply different process improvement and systems engineering principles to our own health in order to be the best version of ourselves and optimize whatever we can before things break, and once things have broken, how do we get back on track? And so that's what I've been exploring, and I I created a business to explore it within and to help others, and I call that Seven Longevity. And how did you come up with that name? What does the seven mean? This was a big m- multi, multi-day whiteboarding session with my wife and I. I'm a big whiteboard guy. We have a whole wall of whiteboards, and seven is her birth month, and seven is also it's like a m- mystical number in a bunch of different religions and cultures. We just thought it was, like, a really cool idea to have the number seven, and then once we realized that we could make the seven slanted and then flip it and it would be like L, so then we had a really cool logo idea. Around the same time we were also thinking of, Like the seven pillars or spheres...of health. There's all these different, the sixth this, the eighth that. So we, we came up with a system of seven, and it's things like sleep, social wellness, exercise. A bunch of different pieces to the puzzle. Yeah. I thought it was gonna be more like the pillars, not the, birth month. But, sometimes it's all about the logo too, so that's definitely too. Yeah. Once you have the logo you're like, right. just, we'll just build a story it. Yeah. You're a cardiac anesthesiologist. How did you get into longevity and functional medicine? Tell us a little more. So I've always been an optimistic optimizer. So all throughout my medical training, I was always looking for bottlenecks and things to improve outcomes and efficiency. I'm very focused on, Increasing Speed and efficiency, but not compromising quality or safety. There's that fine window of opportunity where we can do things better across the board. And so I was always looking to learn from all of my attendings and also books and journal articles. And so I've always had that let's figure out how we can be better and app- and apply it and test and iterate and move things forward. then, like I saying, all of that stuff started to come out about Bryan Johnson, and then I started to look into functional medicine, and I got some of my own labs tested, trying to figure out, is there more to the story than the annual physical? Like,...what's happening under the surface before those labs go off the rails? And I got really into sauna and cold plunging. I was doing cold showers in Cleveland while I was in fellowship. It was, if the worst thing that happens you is first thing in the morning, then nothing phases you the rest of the day. And so that's where I started. And over time, I've continued to train up on the functional medicine concepts and look more into longevity medicine principles and using what I know from conventional medicine and doing massive projects at an institution and system level, and it all kinda comes together. Like, all the stuff that we learn over our entire lives kinda takes us to this moment, and I've been able to apply all of it into a pretty interesting setup. And I like to think of my current state with Seven Longevity as management consulting meets systems engineering. So it's not like a typical medical visit where, you know, I just-- I'm gonna identify something, start a medication, and then see them in three months. It's a lot more of understanding the goals of the client, coming up with concrete objectives, do we measure the key results, and then what actions are we gonna do to achieve them? So it's a very regimented, data-driven process. And I follow like a ninety-day cycle, so I continue to iterate and update the hypothesis as we go along. Yeah, and you u- use lots of other tools

Kerry 5:20

testing and things like that. I don't know, whether you wanna go into that. But you also mentioned, a personal story of how you got started in this as well with your wife and the diagnosis. Could you walk us through that and tell us how that kind of, made difference in what you're doing Yeah, love

Gut Health, Gluten & Hashimoto’s Thyroiditis

Functional Medicine vs Conventional Medicine

Dillon 5:36

to. So she was in PA school, and anyone that's done any medical training or advanced education knows that it's very stressful. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of information to learn. And so she was having, the n- normal amount of work-related and study-related stress. And stress is one of the, our biggest killers, right? We all know that stress is bad for us, but we all suffer through it in order to achieve our goals and complete what we need to complete. But at a certain point, it's very counterproductive. There's that graph where some stress is good, but then too much stress and the wheels come off. And so in her case, it manifested as Hashimoto's thyroiditis, so an autoimmune attack on the thyroid. And she went to her doctor. Things weren't really seeming right for a few months. to her doctor. They worked her up. It was, like, a couple doctors in the chain, and then eventually they discovered that she had the antibody to her thyroid. And the answer was to start levothyroxine, which is the thyroid replacement. And I'm, like, a systems thinker and a root cause analysis kind of person, and so I kept thinking how did we get here," right? Like, that's the final product, and the solution is hormone, but how did the thyroid get attacked to begin with? What was the step before that, the step before that, the step before that? And I wasn't getting any answers through the conventional medicine lens, and so I- that's when I started to really explore functional medicine of looking at how things come to be in our bodies. And I came across a website where I was able to order pretty much any test on any organ system, and none of it was covered by insurance, so I'd never heard of any of it working in a hospital. And so I just kinda threw the book at her, ordered all sorts of stuff. We got thousands of markers back. And like a forensic accountant, I was able to connect all these pieces together, and it's kinda you throw a bunch of stuff at the wall and see what sticks. And so I was able to develop a hypothesis of how it all came to be, and The cascade's pretty interesting. So the stress caused her to have leaky gut, so gut dysfunction. And when her gut's leaky the membranes in the gut are open more, and so f- foods that she's normally eating that she might not have had any reactions to in the past started to cause problems, and the two major ones were gluten and eggs. And so we were eating a lot of eggs. Eggs are good for you. Depends on what year it is whether they're good or they're bad. But we, she was eating eggs, and the eggs were activating her immune system even more. So then the immune system's in the gut causing more inflammation, making it more leaky, so the process continues to cycle and worsen. Now, what's interesting is the gluten molecule itself, the immune system in some people, it confuses it for a thyroid protein. So the immune system gets worked up, activated towards the gluten particle, and then in the defense of the body ends up attacking the thyroid itself. So that's how autoimmune thyroiditis can happen. And so it was like the perfect storm of the stress-mediated gut dysfunction causing the gluten sensitivity and then the immune system tagging the thyroid, mistaking it for gluten. And so other markers that came up too was, like, her her inflammatory system had shifted to a pro-inflammatory state. Her cysteine was low, and cysteine is a precursor for glutathione, the master ox- antioxidant. And what's interesting is the cysteine in the blood was normal, but the cysteine in the white blood cells was low. So that's you can't order cysteine in the conventional medical system, but in the functional medicine sphere you can go as deep as knowing the cysteine in all different sorts of cell types. So there's way more to the story out there that's not covered by insurance. that's where I saw the opportunity to apply these tests and principles of deep investigation to issues. And so then I started to, to wrap up her story, we were able to cut the gluten. She started doing more mindfulness exercises. We replaced whatever she was low with. We started to supplement N-acetylcysteine and glutathione to help with her antioxidant system, and fish oil to switch her to a anti-inflammatory state. And she started to improve a lot, and her an- antibodies went down, and she's doing great. And I like to think that we halted the progression of that and also arrested any progression to other autoimmune conditions because lot of times, especially in women, they'll start with Hashimoto's thyroiditis, and then over the years they'll progress to other ones like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis. So I like to think that we caught it early and we're able to suppress it now. Yeah, there... that's definitely a reality, right? One autoimmune disease can lead to

Kerry 10:40

many others, and it's so nice that, functional medicine does things. Now, I operate in an insurance-based model and, it doesn't really give me the time or people are not going pay for those studies. But when you have a practice like your own that's when they can really dive these things. So I think it's, functional medicine is still, I don't wanna say in infancy or anything like that, but, it's very, I don't know, newer to some people, I think, and definitely helping get the root cause of things which we didn't really understand in medicine before. And while there may not be like, multiple evidence-based or clinical trials on I think it's still showing that there is a lot of there. And it may be nuanced, and it be, an N of 1 and things like that. But it d- being able to do all these types of tests that you're doing it really can help dive in to find more things. tell us more about that systems engineering approach and the tests that you do and what this seven longevity model looks

Systems Engineering & Personalized Health Testing

Sauna Therapy, Detoxification & Modern Toxins

Why Dr. Meier Uses 90-Day Health Cycles

Dillon 11:39

Yeah. So you you nailed it with the N of 1 positioning. So it's functional-- the functional medicine style approach it's still early enough where, like, when we're from the-- through the conventional lens, we still look at it as early, but these people have been talking about the gut being involved for, Decades, right? And so decades ago, they were screaming about the gut, but there weren't the level of tests that we have today. But now there's stool microbiome tests where there, there's a dozen different markers of gut inflammation. Quantify all of the different bacterial strains to show you, how much of the good guys do you have versus the bad guys. And so it's it's really become interesting that now there's data to back up what they've been preaching for decades. It's nuanced, and nuanced is definitely the right word because we don't have the, 30,000 people massive multi-cent-center trial to validate this stuff. But the way I look at it is if you do this test on somebody and you-- it's-- and you create a hypothesis and you implement some interventions and they do better, to me, that's all the evidence that I need that it worked for them. So that's that N of 1 positioning. If you cut out something and you add in a certain supplement, and now suddenly their bowels are back to normal, their brain fog has cleared, they're sleeping better, they're not anxious to-- that, that's a win right there. So my general approach is i'll meet a client. We'll go over what are their major issues at this time. So what-- what are their-- what's their key problems, and what are their goals? And once I have a good understanding of that, then I'll do my complete panel on them, and it's usually 1,200 mar- markers. There's a lot of genetics. There's epigenetics. So that's how we can approximate different ages, like biological ages of different organ systems, so we can see where's the rust. Are your-- is one organ aging a lot faster than another organ because of how hard you're driving it? And so we can get an idea of where we need to focus. And then stress panels, other inflammatory panels, deep cardiovascular panels, gut panels, hormone panels. pretty much every system covered, and all of those data points come back, and then I'm able to map out a story. So a lot of these tests, they're new. There's-- Some people would argue they're not validated and-- But the way I look at it is if have a constellation of data points if I have three or four things that are all saying that mercury is a problem, then to me that validates that mercury is an issue. If I had one, one number that might say that,"Hey, this might be an issue," I'm not really adding as much weight to it, right? But, if the same story is appearing in all of these different panels, th- then I'm much more confident in the ability to intervene on that. So all those come back. I identify what actions will move the needle. So it's easy to tell somebody,"All right. In order to be The best version of yourself, you need to wake up at four thirty in the morning. You need to do a HIIT workout every morning. You need to do forty minutes of sauna. You need to do this, you need to do that, and you need to take 50 supplements." Right? But it's-- that's not really practical for a lot of people....For anyone other than Bryan Johnson. And so you have to meet somebody where they are. So understand what are their constraints, right? Do they have time to go to the gym? If they don't, what sort of home equipment do they have? Are they in the position financially to put a sauna in their garage? If they're not, is there a gym nearby that they can go to use the sauna, right? So it's understanding all of that, and then it's creating a custom plan for each person to implement those things. The, other key thing th-that I've come to realize is you have to-- there's a lot of, so on an organizational level, there's a lot of, change management principles that you have to understand. You can't go into a hospital unit and tell everyone,"This is how it's gonna be." You to get buy-in, right? You have to talk to the different stakeholders and really understand what is their starting state, and do they understand what we're trying to do, and how do we get it to feel like a win for them? And so on a personal level, there's a lot more psychological habit change type principles. So habits take months in order to- To really seal in. And so again, you can't throw everything at somebody the first cycle, like the first couple months. It's what can they start doing today that will give them a huge leg up? And then over time, you layer in a couple other things. So for one client sleep may be their biggest obstacle we're gonna target that first. Another one, their gut test may have been the worst test that came back, and so it's, let's optimize that And a lot of times all these systems connect and interact with each other. So someone that has poor gut health is gonna have poor brain health because of the gut-brain axis. There's a lot of connections between all these different things that we're starting to learn more about. So that's the systems engineering aspect, like understanding that everything is connected to everything else, and that one lever that we pull somewhere is going to have a positive or potentially negative aspect on something else. So that, that's what keeps it interesting is that there's always more to learn and there's more connections to see. But that's why I like doing it. I have to ask, since you've mentioned sauna several times, I'm sure the listeners will want know, but what is the benefit of So So sauna has a long history g- in... i'm sure everyone's aware, like in Norway and Sweden and Finland, there's more saunas than people, and they've doing for hundreds of years. So the- a lot of cardiovascular benefits. So you get the vasodilation effect of it. That helps with your cardiovascular system to relax your blood vessels. Also, there's like the heat shock protein aspect of it. So it, it helps with your mitochondrial system. And then more importantly, especially in our modern world where we're assaulted by a lot of, toxins, is that it's our primary detox system is our skin. So the ability to sweat out all of the stuff that we're exposed just the nature of modern life. So we're still this, the toxin story is still unfolding. Like by now a lot of people are aware of BPA in cans, and now they're making cans without BPA, but it's like an arms race because then they'll just make like another BPA-like compound that isn't banned yet. know, like BPAs. And and then there's like the PFAs, so like the non-stick pans. It's interesting with the non-stick pans because if anyone's ever tried to cook an egg on a pan that's not a non-stick pan, like i, my joke is that the pan eats one egg each time, right? So the pan eats first. So all these things that help our modern life be better are sometimes hurting us and potentially worse. So sauna's a good way to get rid of all these things that start to accumulate in our bodies.

Kerry 18:49

Okay. Another thing you mentioned was work on these 90-day cycles things like that. Why is that?

Dillon 18:56

So I like the 90-day cycles because a lot people in business and finance, that's how companies run. They run on quarterly cycles. So there's q2, and so it's a good way to, to set a date and a target and say,"We're gonna work for three months on something, and then we're gonna see our results." And I think that three months is a good time too, because certain, cell lines and organs, that's like a time for turnover. it gives a person a chance to build a habit, so it's like a multifactorial timeline. Like it's modeled after a business timeline, but also there's some body processes that fall onto that timeline, and also habit formation. And the tests can be expensive too, so then we're not testing like monthly. Like the billionaires might have their blood drawn once a month, but for everyone else, like a quarter gives us a good time length where we're moving things along. We're not bleeding ourselves dry. Yeah. I think you-- once you mentioned earlier was, doing kind of one new thing at a time and, making that a habit before moving onto the next thing and starting with the most pertinent thing is definitely something we even try to do, in a regular lifestyle modification model. And it's very important'cause we're human and that's how we, respond to things and things like that. So I totally agree with that. And I also try to operate on the quarterly business cycle, so that also makes sense too. What else you wanna share with s- share with us about Seven Longevity? You mentioned the seven principles. Do you wanna go into them a little bit more? So what's interesting is that th- those were part of our our marketing plan for a massive center. So last year started to build this vision of the medical practice, like the medical consulting practice, and but I really wanted a center that was like state-of-the-art, had, this massive sauna, a Roman bath. And so I, I designed the whole thing. I have it all. I was, I spent a fair amount of time raising money in the area, and then I realized I was spending like all weekend like comparing like HVAC costs and picking out tile and stuff, and I wasn't actually building the medical practice that was like the root of it. And so I dialed back on the building- And just went all in on building my consulting frameworks and and then ultimately all the software that I've built for it too. So I the I've, I've built a whole full stack system to, for my operating model, and I wasn't able to find any EMR or project management software that really fit my vision, and so I just designed and built it. And that allows me and my clients to see everything track all of their biomarkers. I have a lot of really good data visualizations, and so it keeps us on target and so that we know where we're at in each cycle, where we're at in the grand campaign, and what comes next.

Kerry 21:54

Yeah, I was gonna ask you more about technological side of but I know we wanna talk about more in the in the other, in another conversation. But so you built your own electronical medical record essentially, which pretty cool. And so how does it... does it analyze all of the data that's coming in? Are you using extra tools to do that? Does it point you in direction which way to go with each patient, or how does it guide so like

Dillon 22:22

the, tech guy within the anesthesia department, and so I have a lot of hands-on experience with Cerner and building and integrating like different modules and updating things like in the hospital side. So the ability to customize it to, to what I want was like essential to me and to not be on any other company's developer timelines or stuck on, on their software in case they made some sort of update and then it, broke everything that I'd built. So I have complete ownership of it. And as far as like the intake engine, so all of the data goes into a database, like spre- spreadsheets style, Then I'm able to process it with different like coding scripts and large language models to organize it to, to tell the story. And so I robust system where I'm like the alpha physician director, and I the LLMs working sort Like my residents or like PAs. So they're researching things and coming up with ideas and pulling PubMed articles and presenting it all to different layers of other like AI agent doctors, and I'm managing all of them. And so they'll come to me with ideas and proposals as far as what they think might be going on, and then I'll review it and clarify. And so it's really streamlined everything because when I first started doing this, I would spend like 12 to 14 hours on a Saturday, like with all these papers in front of me, like connecting all the dots on my own. And now I'm able to do it a lot more efficiently. Very cool. Very cool. So if, Like, how-- Walk me through a patient case. Someone comes in to see you, the first thing you do is order a bunch of labs things like that and

Wearables, Advanced Labs & Personalized Optimization

Kerry 24:09

through a testing model and everything like that, correct? Or what would, what do you do? so

Carnivore Diet Experiment & What Went Wrong

Dillon 24:14

the biggest thing is understanding how to work with the person. And what it that they truly want? Like, so wha- and what is their current state? So everyone's starting at a different place. Some people, they may not have an Apple Watch yet, or they may not track things, and they may have a primary care physician. Other people are on the complete other end of the spectrum. They wear an Apple Watch and a Whoop, and they get all of their blood work done through some of these direct-to-consumer companies like Function Health. Or there's other people where they may see a concierge physician, and then they may also have a longevity physician that they get hormones through and and GLP-1s. And so everyone's starting somewhere else. Understanding what are their goals, How can I help them? And because it's definitely not a one-size-fits-all. But I do like to start my testing with that panel that I described because then I know that I'm not missing something. Because the biggest risk isn't ordering too many tests. It's as- it's like assuming something is happening without knowing, without ruling something else out. So if I don't let's say like the hormone panel, and then I'm hyper-focused on other things, then I may have missed that their testosterone has been low this whole time. Or if I don't order the gut panel, then the gut could be the center of the whole thing. And so if I'm optimizing their hormones and I'm optimizing their oxidative stress levels, but I'm missing the fact that both of those things are off the rails because of the gut. So that's why I like that as like the comprehensive audit, no stone unturned, good starting place. And so I take that and their entire history of labs up until that point. So I try to get as much info as possible. So any previous tests they've had, any other workup, any notes from other consultants they want me to see, like a a cardiologist. And so it's like a real business-like audit. Let's look at all of the data and come up with a plan. And then from there, then that's when I set the targets. So the targets for each quarter may be things like their hemoglobin A1C or their glucose system or their LDL cholesterol sleep. Whatever things we want to attack, and then the actions would be things that help us get there. Speaking of the LDL cholesterol, I'm gonna change the

Kerry 26:45

topic, but you mentioned previously you had explored carnivore diet. Tell us about your experience with that. this is a fun one.

Dillon 26:52

So I don't wanna say I almost died, but It was bad. and I'm not saying that carnivore is bad for everyone, but it's definitely something that you should do under a monitored setting. So I read the Paul Saladino book. I was digging into it. I'd already been keto for several years, so eating low carb, eating a lot of fat and protein, and I felt great on keto, and it felt really strong. And so I wanted to test it out, and I'd been doing these large panels on myself for about a year every quarter as I explored and learned more about them and how I could integrate them into managing other people. And so I went full carnivore, so like breakfast was like a pound of beef, and then lunch was like salmon, and then dinner was like a steak. That would be a typical day. And I'd have cheese. So I did that for like weeks, maybe even like a month, and, I th- I had the kinda like the placebo effect at first where I was like,"Oh, man, I feel like 10X, like I'm super ripped and strong and everything." And then it started to go off the rails, and I started to have like mood lability kinda swings and anxious and couldn't sleep and would get like really hot and sweaty at night and, just like kinda soreness, like poor recovery. And so I ordered a full panel of tests because I was running an experiment, so I wanted to catch it in the act. What is actually going on? And so on the, one of the epigenetics tests, it looked at my inflammatory levels two markers IL6 and the TNF alpha, and they were both like 98th percentile. And so the fine print said we can't really say that you have cancer, but you either have cancer or you have a profound amount of inflammation happening." And then my biological age had gone up by 10 years, and then And I had been trying to get it down because I was like into the Bryan Johnson stuff at that point. And so my pace of aging, like speed at which I was aging was like.67 before I did that, and then it jumped to.9 something. And so that was all bad. And then my homocysteine, so like a marker of vascular inflammation, that had jumped a ton. And so I looked at all of the stuff, and the story that was evolving was that my methylation cycle had gone off the rails. So the methylation cycle's this like master cycle at the center of a bunch of different processes. People have probably heard about like the MTHFR enzyme at the center of it, but I had some heterozygotes genetics of several pieces of that cycle, and so that resulted in the conveyor belt, if you will, slowing down at different points. And so I was essentially overdosing on protein. So the protein comes in, it's converted to methionine a protein byproduct, and then that kinda jams up the whole cycle. And because I w- wasn't getting enough folate, so because I wasn't eating any greens, so I was having like a folate deficiency. And we always think of like folic acid in pregnancy, but I was having a folate deficiency, a methionine overdose, and then the methylation cycle wasn't working effectively. And methylation is key for protecting your g- your genetics, your genome, and your epigenetics. And so that's why those numbers shot up. And then downstream from that, your mood is involved. So when when your methylation cycle goes down, then you can have like anxiety and depression. And so all of these things were like coming together, and it was really cool to see it live. a- around same time I started the functional medicine training program, and one of the first things that you do is you do an elimination diet on yourself. And so I started the elimination diet. I like went to, having fiber and having no, no red meat, and things started to get better, but it took like months to, to get my numbers back to normal. And so it's not for everybody, but if you do it, you need-- you should probably be testing a bunch of stuff and following things closely because, it's so I'll just say this about the carnivore diet. It works for people because it's an, it's a form of an elimination diet. And so when you suddenly stop eating like gluten and dairy or all of these sugary things, and you're not exposing yourself to all of that stuff and like processed foods, when you cut all of that out, you're gonna do better. But I don't-- as as a long-term diet, i'd be hesitant without like thorough testing and metrics and following. Yeah. I definitely have some patients or colleagues that have had a lot of success with

How to Work with 7Longevity

Kerry 31:52

carnivore diet, and maybe it's from what you mentioned. And even saying that it's anti-inflammatory, and you've really had the opposite effect it sounds like. Yeah, it's crazy. the oth- oth- th- o- one more thing to it. The I w- thought I eating all grass-fed and organic stuff, but then glyphosate level was 98th percentile, so that's the toxin in Roundup. And so that 98th percentile. So even though I thought I was, eating really healthy, that so- something in my food stack, either the beef or the yogurt, something was not, had been--

Dillon 32:28

They were lying, so I don't know. I don't know. Where... So basically in your 7Longevity practice, someone wanted to work with you, where could they find you and does that... where w- how would they start? Yeah, so they can go to my website www.7thenumberlongevity.com, and I have a like a self-referral and I form in the corner. They self-referral form in the corner. We can get in touch and chat more about their goals and how I can help them. Nice. Is there anything else you'd like share about that practice before we on another topic? No, I think we covered it. There's-- the story's continuing to evolve, and I could talk about it forever, but, Okay. Awesome. We will have to have you back to learn more about it, and obviously if have any new patient cases and things that,'cause those always But I'm going

Kerry 33:20

say, everybody stay tuned next week so that we can have Dr. Meier back talk about AI and what doing with that. So thank you so much for being on podcast today, and stay tuned everybody for next week, and we're gonna have Dr. Meier back.

Dillon 33:34

Thank you.