#119. Extending the Healthy Human Lifespan with Jo Bhakdi

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Episode Transcription

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  00:00

Hi it’s Marissa Lee here, and I’m so excited to be sharing today’s interview round episode with you. In these episodes, our brilliant lineup of guests will include healthcare practitioners, voice educators, and other professionals who will share their stories, knowledge and experiences within their specialized fields to empower you to live your best life. Whether you’re a member of the voice, community, or beyond your voice is your unique gift. It’s time now to share your gift with others develop a positive mindset and become the best and most authentic version of yourself to create greater impact. Ultimately, you can take charge, it’s time for you to live your best life. It’s time now for a voice and beyond. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  01:15

Our guest on a voice and beyond this week is Joe bhakti, who is the founder and CEO of serenity. Joe has a master’s in economics and has held numerous executive positions with a focus on business model innovation and technology. However, the sudden passing of his mother through cancer made him question the medical system, and he was further inspired to found the serenity system. Joe describes this system as the most advanced genomic and artificial intelligence driven preventative care system in the world. He tells us that serenity has been created with a vision of extending the healthy human lifespan by a decade within a decade. He believes that early detection is key in many of our 21st century illnesses, and that preventative medicine can reduce our risk of early death very dramatically. In March this year, Joe launched a new preventative health care platform called 20 Questions dot Live, which is the first of its kind platform. In today’s episode, Joe talks about the gaps in our current global health care system, the importance of Preventative Medicine and early detection and how his healthcare platform can direct us to a healthier future. This is a most fascinating and eye opening interview with Joe Buck D one you don’t want to miss, especially if you care about your health and longevity. So without further ado, let’s go to today’s episode.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  03:23

Welcome to a voice and beyond we have a very special guest. Welcome Joe. Bob kid. Okay, Bhakdi. That’s right, isn’t Joe Bhakdi?

Jo Bhakdi  03:36

That’s right.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  03:37

I know it’s very confusing because your name doesn’t match your German background. But that’s a whole different story. You are the founder and CEO of Serenity, you have a master’s in economics and you have held numerous executive positions. And your focus has mainly been on business model innovations and technology. But today we’re going to speak about something completely different. And that is your interesting work that you’re currently doing with serenity. So do you want to tell us about serenity, what it is, how you came to found this business, and how you transition to the work you’re doing now? So a lot of questions.

Jo Bhakdi  04:28

Absolutely. Thanks, Marissa for having me. Well serenity, the origins of serenity are very personal, right. I lost my mother to to cancer just a few years ago, five years ago, and she was a physician herself. And she was late to her screening. It was colon cancer. And we detected it just far too late at stage four. And I think a lot of families know the story, right? You’re losing a loved one, in this case. For the most important person in my life. Yeah. then you ask yourself, why did this happen? And when you understand, like the nature of cancer, I always say that these four horsemen, that ultimately kill us one of them, right neurodegenerative diseases, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, then of course, cancer, cardiovascular, vascular stroke, and heart disease, and then metabolic diabetes related. And these are the main killers, by a far distance, right 70 80% of deaths, and in the Western world. And all of them have one thing in common that most people are not fully aware of. They are basically diseases we already have defeated, that we can cure. If we detect them early stage, if you detect any of these at the earliest stages, there are ways of reversing them in neurodegenerative, and which is a very new thing, but neurodegenerative in metabolic diseases and cancer. The cures for early stage cancer are just so good that most people don’t have to die if they found in stage one. So I was asking myself, like why if we have all the tools, we can detect all these things early stage, and then no one would die anymore? I mean, to put it simple, we can reduce the deaths by at least 50%, which was, why are we not doing it. And that triggered this whole journey that ended up with serenity, where we said, we need to get the most cutting edge at the most advanced early detection screenings into a product that people can afford. It’s still not super cheap, but it’s much cheaper than was before. And that we can do annually. And that is easy to understand and easy to use. And that is a comprehensive service solution. So where you click one button, and you get your screenings, and you’re safe, which means that includes a physician and includes different modalities from deep genomics to imaging, full body MRIs, everything that is effective, and within the price range. And that is the vision of serenity. Can we change our healthcare system and behavior? So we do enable precision medicine screenings for everyone, detect all diseases early stage, and reduce our risk of dying? very dramatically.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  07:16

Wow. Wow. So then did you put together a team of professionals? How did this all come about in terms of, you know, who who were the people that you call then all the all the little micro things that had to happen in order for this to come together?

Jo Bhakdi  07:37

It’s a long story that started in 2015, when my mom was actually diagnosed, it was a weird coincidence, I started quantgene, which is a genomics company back in 2015. And I think a month later, my mom was diagnosed, so it was weird. And quantgene’s mission was to solve this problem we just discussed only in cancer and only on one modality, which is a blood-based early detection test. It’s called liquid biopsy, because it’s basically taking a biopsy of your cells in your body through a blood sample. So it’s very noninvasive. And we’ve worked on that for a long time, invested over $40 million into one of the most advanced genomics labs in the United States, the quantgene Alpha lab, and we can, you know, that allowed us to do amazing things on the genomic side. But the reason Serenity was founded, is that we saw Well, that’s a very diagnostic-centric approach, right? You have a great genomic solution now, but people don’t care about genomics, they care about not dying. They have the connection, but genomics alone is not doing the full job. What about precision imaging? What about medical services? What about doctors who understand that? What about the price point? What about medical intelligence cloud systems that connect all these data points. And so we realized, genomics alone is not going to solve the entire problem, the entire problem can only be solved when we assemble a solution that takes the genomics but adds precision imaging, that adds medical intelligence that adds a service layer of trained precision medicine doctors who understand all these data points and give you a specific answer to the question what you should do to stay safe. So that’s what we did next, created serenity, and build a solution that is really focused on the patient. So a patient can understand why they’re doing it, because you don’t want to die. And you wanted to take all these diseases early stage, and you want to detect by any means possible. Because in the end, you don’t care how your cancer was detected and how you were saved. If that was a genomics molecule, or it was an imaging image or it was a standard of care procedure. You don’t care. You just want to get them all deployed so you’re safe. That’s what’s renovated

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  10:00

Okay, now, you say that you can increase the lifespan of most human beings by a decade. So is this truly possible by this detection process that you’ve set up? And is this possible for anyone? Can any human being increase their lifespan?

Jo Bhakdi  10:26

So what you’re referring there, Marisa is our vision, which is like to extend the healthy human lifespan by 10 years within the next 10 years. And so can we really do that? Well, we definitely can. We can do it on a statistical basis, right. So if you give me a population of 100,000 people, and you get early detection, precision screenings, like serenity optimized and rolled out and create full adherence, I am very, very confident that this would lead to something like a 10 year lifespan extension in average. So that’s the hard thing to wrap your head around in medicine, everything is statistics, right? So no one can guarantee that you specifically will live 10 years longer, because there are a million things that can happen that are completely out of control of anyone. So exactly. But if you take 10,000 viruses, because there’s only one, but you know what I mean, 10,000 people in a certain age group, a certain number of these people unfortunately die, you know, in a certain period of time, statistically. And what you can do is, by deploying these things, we can bring down your personal risk of dying very dramatically. I’m publishing white paper right now, we estimate precision screenings annually done reduce the risk of death by 50%, they cut it in half, that’s a lot between 35 and 75 years old. So that is a lot because you’re basically attacking the Four Horsemen that are most likely to kill you in the most effective possible way. So to your question, I think on a population level, yes, I’m very confident, if you roll a system like 70 out across a critical mass of people that you will with very high reliability see, because you decrease of the risk of death per year so dramatically, that this leads to an extension of the average lifespan that is also dramatic. And it’s kind of simple math in a way, if you have, you know, a life expectancy of 78 years. In the United States, for example, for men, if I reduce your risk of death, between 35 and 75, by the candidate in half, I basically reduce the risk of death from 30%, which it is, you have a 30% chance of dying between 35 and 75, which is i It is nobody wants to think about it. But that’s how we have in the eight years median, whatever it is. So if you cut this in half, what happens? These 15% That don’t die, they are still alive. And so what does it do to the whole cohort? Of course, then everyone lives longer on average, because the average is not pushed out dramatically. That’s how we have to think about it. I know it’s like people always like stories, and Oh, no. They want to know, more concretely, like, Oh, if I if you do this to me, can you guarantee me, I live 10 years long as like, well. It’s not that simple. First of all, no one knew how long you would live. So it’s hard to compare. So we have to look at it on a population level. But on that level? Yes, I’m very the science is pretty compelling. On that side.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  13:40

Yes. Now, you’ve also launched, I’m assuming this is part of serenity, you’ve launched a pretend preventative health care platform called 20Questions.life, and that commenced in March this year? What is that? And are these the types of questions that doctors are most likely to ask you?

Jo Bhakdi  14:06

That’s a great question. So serenity is still? Well, when you look at comparable services in the United States, the people who actually get these precision screenings once a year, they pay between 20,000 to $120,000 per year for that, that’s like

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:23

you kidding. That’s how much money we have to pay or a person has to pay to find out what’s going on with their health.

Jo Bhakdi  14:32

That is what the cutting edge concierge Doc’s charge for to organizing this because it’s so difficult to organize all these components. And so what serenity did is we disrupted that price point and brought it down very dramatically. But we’re still at roughly, you know, $350 per month, so you’re still it still costs roughly $4,000 which is much better than 120,000 My gosh,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  14:57

sign me up today.

Jo Bhakdi  15:00

That’s a huge disadvantage. Well, you’re in, you’re far away, you have to come to LA,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  15:06

and then next month.

Jo Bhakdi  15:07

So that’s what we basically made happen on serenity. Now, obviously, is there still a lot of people are there? Let’s see, there are definitely people who cannot afford $350 a month. And so the 20 questions were designed as a free system that does at least what we can do through pure questions and medical intelligence for everyone. And so governments like this, for example, to try to keep the local population is healthy. So they’re trying to get everyone to engage. So the 20 questions are basically 20 questions in categories that are very easy to answer. And to your question, yes, it is something your physician should ask you. But when you look at the statistics, less than 20% of physicians actually do that. And that leads to crazy care gaps, only 6% of Americans actually have fully covered preventative care. So vastly over 90% of Americans are not getting all the preventive care, they should be for simple knowledge, reasons that say no one asked the right questions. They are not diligent and asking them there is no system second paper thing or something. So the 20 questions is, is a new medical intelligence system that allows you to just go there 20 questions.life, answer a bunch of questions. And according to US guidelines, it will tell you, Oh, Marissa, you have three problems. You were late to the screening, you didn’t do that lab test, and you missed your annual physical. So all the things that I actually recommend that you should do, statistically backed, that this can save you live. And so it’s a very convenient tool to just for free figure out what’s what’s going on. And often the physicians I mean, when you talk to physicians behind the scenes, they always say, I don’t have time for this, like too many patients, we don’t have a system. So it’s too complicated. So we’re not asking the right questions.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  17:02

So in terms of these questions, what are some of the things that you ask?

Jo Bhakdi  17:09

It’s it goes from everything from family history? Like, did you have a cancer in the family and have Yes, who had what cancer? That is very important to understand your risk into other disease categories? Same question, family history, anyone had a heart attack? Anyone had a stroke? Do we have, you know, elevated cholesterol in the family and so on? So that’s family. Another thing is yourself. Were you ever diagnosed with any of the following like diabetes? Cancer? Yes. Lifestyle question, do you smoke? Do you drink a lot of alcohol? Or do you have exposure to certain chemicals? So that is one area? And then of course, screening questions? Do you remember when your last time was you got a mammogram? Yes. When was it? Oh, roughly last year, okay. And then so we get this in? And so and so on, like, if you if you had risk for lung cancer, did you ever have a lung cancer CT scan? And you can always say I don’t recall, I don’t know exactly when. So it’s like, smart, so it can be adaptive. And then the amazing thing about the 20 questions, that revolutionary technology about it is that you get your results right away after you answer them. That’s the first time ever, it tells you actually what your gaps are. Wow. And a system like this doesn’t exist, because for liability reasons, no one was able to make it so accurate, that they can make these statements because these are medical statements. So if you normally do the surveys somewhere on the American Cancer Society website on American medicine, they always say, oh, answer all the questions. And then it says, oh, Marissa, you might, you should talk to your doctor, like, Well, why do I answer the questions? If you just tell me I should have talked to my doctor. So he made it happen that he says, Oh, you’re two months late to a mammogram, you should get a pap smear. And you know, you’re also late to your colon cancer test if you need help, click here.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  19:10

Okay, so this type of questioning my I’m sort of thinking about Dr. Google here, the number of people that go I’m just going to do like a little Google search and I call it Dr. Google when people put in what they think is wrong with them, you know, all their symptoms, and then Dr. Google spits out this is what is wrong with you. And I mean, many people are Miss diagnosing themselves. Is there a possibility that this 20 questions live can have the same effect if someone answers a question incorrectly or puts in the wrong information? Can it be that kind of scenario as you can get with Dr. Google?

Jo Bhakdi  20:05

Well, I would say no, because, first of all, we don’t diagnose anything. What we do is we point out preventative care gaps, right? We are very specific. This is a system not designed to tell you hear have a certain disease or something, it tells you what you need to do to be maximum safe and protected. So it’s a preventative care system. Now the risks for that are very limited, because whatever we tell you, you should do go through physicians anyway. I mean, you can just go somewhere and get a mammogram without a physician involved, right? So exactly. So basically, we sent you to a physician. But now you know exactly what you need to do. And the physician is now forced to double-check. Of course, they’re gonna say like, Oh, why do you think you need a mammogram? It’s like, well, because they upset it. And then it’s like, well, when was your last mammogram? Is it like, oh, last month? And the physician is correlated? Then you don’t need a mammogram? Did you tell the app? You had it last month? Like no, I told the app? Yes, years ago. So there is a double check, because we are not telling you a diagnosis. So we don’t create anxiety, we just tell you, you are late. Based on your answers, you are late to the following things and that’s not good. Go to your doctor and fix it. Or call your little helper here on 20 questions. You can pay a little money and we give you a helper to organize it in case you don’t have a doctor or you don’t have insurance, or whatever it is.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  21:28

Do you think the medical industry is going to support what you’re doing? Because, you know, the Western medical system is a money making industry that you know, there are billions and billions of dollars being made through people being sick. So trillion trillions. Okay, that’s even scarier. So is it in the medical industry’s best interest to endorse this kind of prevention? Or do they want us to keep getting sick because they’re making money out of it?

Jo Bhakdi  22:09

Well, that’s I’m an economist by trade. Yes. So I like your question, because that is the right question to ask. Right? Humans will always remain humans. And I think a lot of people have a very romanticized idea of healthcare for some reason. It’s very simple, it’s about in the end, people are also motivated by money or power, whatever it is. And these incentives need to be set correctly, and they are not set correctly. So correct setting would be for serenity, they are set correctly, because we make money, if you buy serenity, our promise to you is you don’t- you die at a lesser rate. And we have to prove this constantly. Otherwise, people don’t buy it. So we align our profit motive with your life motive, because there’s not much to trick here, right? If we would fail constantly and constantly, our people die at a higher rate, no one would buy the product. That’s a clear cut nice and centered. It’s like cars, right? The car industry is very big, no one has a problem with the car industry, like cheating on you. Because they try to convince you it’s the best car, then you pay a lot of money. And either it is or not. And if it’s not, you buy another car. So that’s no problem. Like, the money motive is not inherently a problem. It becomes a problem in certain situations. Like, for example, if I’m a drug company, and you are not even choosing the drugs, they’re chosen for you, and I can only make money when you’re sick, then it starts being a problem, right? If a drug company would knock out cancer with vitamin C, I’m not saying that’s possible, by the way, but Let’s hypothetically say some random vitamin would cure cancer, that would be a disaster for $200 billion industry. Exactly. They’re not going to like that. So the short, the short answer is the medical industry is very complex, has many different people in there and companies and government organizations, some of them like it, some of them don’t. And the ones that like it are the ones that can benefit from systems like serenity. Employers, for example, in the United States that pay for health care, they don’t want you to be sick, they want you to be healthy because you are a worker, so they can benefit from more healthy populations. They tend to like what we do and if they can really benefit from it, that’s also they you know, it’s a long story. There’s also a lot of inertia and conservativism there that a lot of doctors often just say I don’t like anything new. So let’s just work. And so some Doc’s are amazing, and they want the new things, they want to protect their patients, but then they also doctors who just say, new stuff is annoying.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  24:49

Yes, well, it’s education, isn’t it? And I think in one sense by this 20 questions that that this platform, use that up, you’re also educating people,

Jo Bhakdi  25:03

the 20 questions, it’s very, very difficult to be against that. So it’s not many people who are against the 20 questions. There are some like payers and insurance systems that benefit from all kinds of complicated things that not like it, but most doctors are, of course, they’re like 20 questions. Whereas even most health plans, they say, like, Sure, of course, if people would do what we want them to do in order to not get sick, that will be very good. And it’s a big problem in healthcare that will create the most engaging system like that, and they’re not many trying,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  25:35

yes, the problem I feel is that, as someone who, you know, I take care of myself, I do whatever I can, in order to prevent becoming unwell. And some time ago, I went to the doctor, I won’t give you the whole backstory, I won’t bore you with that. But that we were talking about family history, only because I happen to be there by mistake, which is a whole other story. And we were talking about my mom who had a heart attack, she had a five bypass operation, but arteries were blocked. And we talked about cholesterol levels, and she had high cholesterol. And if you look at me, you wouldn’t think I’m someone who has high cholesterol because I’m not overweight, and I exercise, I don’t smoke, I do all the right things. I eat good food. But she sent me along to have a cholesterol test. Now went for that test. And it came back that in fact, I did have high cholesterol. And so once again, you know, there’s nothing we can change here. Because you eat well, you’re doing all the right things, so we have to medicate you. And I said, No, I will not take medication. Because I’m one of those people who believes that you take a pill for one thing, a year later, you’ve got to start taking a pill for something else that that pills caused. And then you end up on this roller coaster, and you can never get off. So I said, No, I don’t want to have this medication. But I’ve heard of this test that you can have, that will give you an indication of what your risk factor is by having a heart attack. And her response was, Well, you’ve got to pay for that test. I said, I don’t care that I have to pay for it. It was $200 Australian for me to go and have this test. And I knew about this because of a friend of mine who had been down the same road. So this is where a little knowledge can be powerful. So my test came back zero possibility of me having a heart attack. However, they found that I had minor COPD, which would not have been detected, if I didn’t have that test that I’ve requested. Now, my friend, on the other hand, having that same test, because both of us are asymptomatic, came back that she had stage one lung cancer. Oh, wow. Right now, if neither of us had requested this test, she could have been at stage four, before she had symptoms, I could have been way worse, because I now have been educating myself in how to manage what I have, because it is incurable. But I can manage it. And now she’s going to be okay. But you know, if we didn’t know about this, we didn’t know about these tests, both of us could have been in that in those statistics that you were talking about. So I feel that the easy fix for medicine is let’s just give you a pill to fix it. No one’s doing the work as you’re saying to prevent and to do the screenings. And I think that our medical systems are at a mess at the moment. And if there’s a way that doctors can start making money from prevention, maybe that’s the shift that we need economically. Do you feel?

Jo Bhakdi  29:21

I mean, these are tremendous stories, and Marisa thanks for sharing that. And I mean, we see this all day long. And the bottom line is standard of care. Of course, you are never allowed to say anything negative about it. But we have to understand the standard of care is the most socialized medicine approach ever, right? It’s basically saying you’re all the same. We apply some averages on you. And if something was standard bucks, you’re not going to get it. Yeah. And if you die, that’s not our problem. It’s not worth 100 bucks. That’s literally what what it is. Yes, and I’m not like even kidding. That’s exactly how it’s being calculated. Like what We have to prove that we extend a quality life year by one year for less than $50,000. Which means if you spend 100 bucks, right and 500 people need it for 600 people need it before you save one life, it’s not worth it. And so, well, who are you to tell me? What’s my life worth? Like? Maybe I want to spend the 200 bucks. And guess what? So that is why we invented serenity. I mean, Serenity is basically what you guys figured out is tremendous. But there’s more things to figure out. So yes, it is very simple. Buy serenity become a member. And all of that is taken care of like the entire thing. Because what you want is a specialized company and technology and team and knowledge base that looks into all of these tests, and all of the conditions and all of that it isn’t comes up with a solution that is comprehensive. It’s when it’s just there, and it be complete. Because the theory is studying the theory, like get screened every year comprehensively across all organ systems, and with deep genomics, and with full data. And from there we go, if there’s any subsequent tests that might be appropriate, we do that. So you are not tactically doing something. Because what you guys went through is a kind of a random tactical success, right that you had, oh, my God, and that’s cholesterol. That’s what can I do about that? Then you made the right decision with a physician to say like, I want this test, and then you got that specific test, and then actually told you COPD. But what about everything else like that? You look at your pancreas, or liver or kidney, right? So there’s like, I mean, there’s more. And of course, and of course, you want a system that is so complete and proactive that you, you know that you have most of your bases strategically not technically covered extra cans and screens?

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  31:52

Yes. Now, you’re saying that your system is costing $350 a month, which, you know, I think is who wouldn’t pay that to stay to ensure that they remain in good health and have that longevity? But what about the people who can’t afford that? What can they be doing then, to help themselves?

Jo Bhakdi  32:17

Well, number one, that’s why we invented the 20 questions, because it’s free. So that’s a good starting point. Of course, it’s more limited than serenity, because it cannot do deep genomics, it cannot do whole body imaging and things like that, and physician advisory, but it gets you in the door, because it already has some of the bases covered through data. Now, our vision as a company, not as vision, it’s a very clear path, how do we get complete protection to the extent possible, which is a very big extent, to everyone. And talking about profit motives, and so on, we do this to get this technology to everyone. But if we lose money, we’re not going to get it to everyone. So we need to price it when we price it now. But we did a you know, first principle analysis on the cost basis, we can get 70 Complete the most advanced system of precision medicine screening to everyone for under $100. If a million people would use it. Wow. And a million people is not that many, I mean, the US alone. 40 million, so no. So our mission is a company that was very clearly delineated and carved out. I know, firstly, I know we can reduce your risk of death by 50%. There’s a lot of arguments made to show that in the white paper, I can’t guarantee it, of course, but we can have a very compelling model that a lot of smart physicians agree. Okay, this cost right now, roughly four and a half $1,000 A year or 350 a month. If he gets to a million, this will cost less than 1200 bucks a year. So 99 or something. And in between, we will hit certain milestones at 100,000. Already, you know, I think 30% cheaper. So now it’s very clear, there are enough people, way more than a million that can afford that price point. So let’s push it allow us to reach scale to get these more efficient ways of delivering this to more and more people. Yes, and we can make this happen within the next five years, and then everyone would have access to it.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  34:26

Okay. Now I love that you’re using AI as part of the work that you’re doing. Do you feel that AI is going to really play a role in technology in the future of healthcare?

Jo Bhakdi  34:42

Yeah, absolutely. I’ll tell you one example. First of all, all our systems AI-powered the deep genomics needs a lot of AI the imaging needs a lot of AI to for detection. So we already have aI all over the place. It’s like software, but I think every company nowadays does take driven is an AI company AI first will be out cause an AI company. But I don’t say because it’s obvious, like you need to be an AI company. It’s like saying we’re a software company. Of course, we are software company. Like we have a big cloud team and they, but the 20 questions, for example, my prediction is, in latest 18 months, and latest 18 months, the 20 questions will be one of the most powerful diagnostics tools in the world, because what’s happening on AI is very dramatic. And I think in latest 12 months or something, AI large language models will be, I shouldn’t say that maybe, like, my conviction is they will be better than the vast majority of physicians in diagnosing Wow. Because what they can do now, that’s a big call. I’m pretty sure about that. And if you then can plug that into systems, like 20 questions, that’s why 20 questions is so important, and it’s free, go to 20 questions dot live. Right now, we only do prevention, right? We only tell you preventative care gaps. But once we have a fully capable, you know, chatbot, kind of on the back end that is truly medically sound. We will have to see if there FDA approvals for these AI systems are not Yeah, yeah, we will be able to basically have a doctor with you all the time. And that will happen in the next 18 months. And that means you can type in your issues and problems and you can get very high resolution response. And that is dramatic, and it will be free, basically.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  36:31

Thanks, incredible. So do you believe that the medical profession will ultimately back what you’re doing? If in one sense, you’re going to be sending the people to the doctor? If there is a problem,

Jo Bhakdi  36:48

I think the medical proof I mean, what’s often like a little misunderstood is that the health care system is not the medical profession, there’s a huge difference between healthcare and medicine. And medical professionals, I mean, no one in their right mind, or with any kind of knowledge about anything is going to be against what you’re doing was a doctor, right? Were against what we are doing, even though they would never say that or not doctors are not in the role of a doctor that might be doctors, they are healthcare system administrators. It’s the money people, they are the problem that people in Management Administration, and who have touched the money, they become the problem, not the physician enemy for them. Any physician who is reasonably educated, who looks at Serenity is gonna say, Fine, if you do it this way, it’s probably saving a lot of lives. Yes, they can learn about the costs and say, Is it really accessible, and so on. But we have a plan for this. The people who are the real problem and not the physicians, it’s it is their bosses may basically or the payers were the people who say, Well, you can’t do that, because we are not going to pay for that. And even if you detect something, we will deny coverage of downstream treatments for the patients because it was not detected through the means we recommended. So they are just trying to not pay while they’re trying to give you more drugs, like it is not the physicians that are the problem. The problem is the healthcare system, and the admin.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  38:12

And I think too, you’re going to have to shift the mindset of a lot of people who run to the doctor every time they break the fingernail. But my mom bless, she would run to the doctor every week, if she sneezed, she would run to the doctor. And you’re going to have a part of the population who will only they look at the doctor as the unsung hero and the Guru Swami of life. And so those people there, they’re probably going to be harder to convince that they should use the test as a first port of call rather than their doctor.

Jo Bhakdi  39:00

Yeah, I mean, it’s very simple. The more the more strategic you think the more logical and the more effective you think the faster you buy serenity. And the more you’re the opposite of that, the less you will be convinced because it’s in the end a strategic understanding of health, of risk of death of the quantitative probabilities that something kills you and how you defeat it. And so people are very emotional about things like wait until it’s too late and then just want to be taken here, not use their brain actually understand how they fight the risk of death, they will be the least likely to buy our systems because our systems are all about who’s the most strategic target group who is strategic about their life, who is who wants to be knowledgeable and who uses logic and their own judgment to understand what’s going on and who uses physicians as their advisors. And not like, caretakers or something. Yeah, and physicians like that they like educated patients. They want to have discussions and inform the patient.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:02

Definitely. Now you’ve also launched a YouTube channel.

Jo Bhakdi  40:08

Yes. Save your life with Joe, on YouTube.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:12

Save your life with Joe. Well, we’ll have to put that in the show notes. And also, where can you Where can our listeners go and find the 20 questions, because I want everyone to go and do the 20 questions. This is really interesting. And we want to hear your feedback once you’ve done that.

Jo Bhakdi  40:33

Absolutely. On 20questions.life very easy, right.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  40:37

And it’s free. It’s free, it is free, which is I believe,

Jo Bhakdi  40:42

this US guidelines like full disclosure, this is United States guidelines. So whatever we say there’s technically only valid in the United States. But most other countries like Australia, Germany, UK have very similar because it’s like a consensus in the word so. But there are certain guidelines that this is based on the US base,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  41:02

what I love about the US, they have the best drugs, you can go to the pharmacy or the drugstore, as you guys call it. And there’s a drug for everything. We don’t have access to those drugs here in Australia. Literally some of the stuff that you can buy over the counter, we have no hope of getting that over the counter here. It’s incredible. And then the other thing I find fascinating is the ads on TV, they’re selling the drug. But then by the time you go through all the the side effects that they warn you about you go get at the start of the the ad, you’ll go, oh, that sounds so cool. Yeah, that that will fix me, I really want to go and take that drug. By the end of it, you’re going no, there’s not I don’t want to be taking that drug.

Jo Bhakdi  41:53

It’s kind of a European furniture and friend told me when she was here, kind of it’s like a set tire the whole editor because the first day of all the crazy food ads to get diabetes, and then the drug that is good against diabetes. And it’s like,

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  42:09

yeah, but it’s all this I have they tell you all the side effects, see our advertising here. We don’t get told the side effects on the advertising. But you know, by the time you get to the end of them, you think I’d rather just put up with the diabetes. side of x. It’s crazy. Now in wrapping up, is there anything you wanted to add to our discussion? Joe?

Jo Bhakdi  42:38

I think your questions were amazing. And they also show your journey yourself, right? COPD, and your friend lung cancer. And I can just really advise everyone use your own judgment. Like you need to use your brain and common sense. And listen to your doctor, but don’t just obey anything they say like, use everyone as an advisor also me like, don’t just what people say like listen, like learn from it. And but then think critically about it. Like is it really? Is it really not appropriate to buy a test for $100? Like why would that not be appropriate? Because it’s a big bias with physicians that they say no, no, you don’t need the testing, because they don’t want to deal with any kind of result that creates too much work and trouble for them. But as a patient, I am very Of course, I’m maybe a little extreme. But I want every data point I can get like I will make my own judgment. I don’t need like, Oh, whatever. It’s a false positive. What if they say you have cancer, like no one tells me I have cancer, people telling me results. And they’re telling me how and you know, circulating tumor DNA Did you find? Did you have a lesion in the kidney? That’s what I want to hear. I don’t like the question if it’s cancer or not. It’s my call. And you know, the question if I should get a biopsy is my call. And so I think, of course, I want physicians to advise me as well, do you think it’s reasonable risk, but I am making the calls here because I’m the boss, I’m the patient. And that’s what people need to understand. If you’re not your own boss over your life and health, the odds that you will die go up. And that’s not good. So I can just encourage people, be your own boss, especially when it comes to your life.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  44:22

And I think sometimes, if you are an intuitive person, you know yourself when there’s something not right. I mean, I have been misdiagnosed in the past. I was told that I had depression when I was having terrible headaches. And I was really unwell. And I was told I needed met to be medicated for depression when I ended up having viral meningitis. Yeah. And I was I ended up being sick, very, very sick for six months, but I just knew that But I don’t feel depressed. He telling me, I’ve got this. And sometimes they go on a history of, or you’ve had this in the past. So, you know, this is this loosely sounds like what you’ve had in the past. So let’s just diagnose you with the same thing and get you out the door. Because the more patients I can see in an hour, the better it is for me, and my and my hip pocket. But anyway, we can all go on a tangent about this. But I want to thank you, Joe, for your time and the incredible work that you’re doing. If it’s, you know, we end up saving all these lives, you end up doing this work, it’s brilliant. And we will share all your links in the show notes for our listeners. And I encourage everybody to go and do the 20 questions initially, just go and have a look at those. I’m certainly going to do it. And let’s give Joe some feedback on this. It’d be great for you to hear how this has all gone for people and what they’ve discovered in the 20 questions.

Jo Bhakdi  46:10

Yeah, and I can encourage everyone, go to my YouTube channel, save your life with jo and then you also get an email, saveyourlifewithjo@gmail. And you can always write me. And I would love to hear from everyone from all your listeners, because this is like a feedback loop. Right? We need to learn from people, exactly. Their concerns, or maybe Australia like, you know, we just want to know everything about what concerns you and how you view the whole thing out what your experience was, was 20 questions, questions about serenity, but also questions about preventative care. It was stories like the one Marisa shared today that sounds so interesting for me to hear. So I love to hear stories and from from patient journeys, or feedback on our own everything we do, or comments.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:00

Yes, thank you so much for your time, Jo. This has been fascinating and something a little different for our listeners to to engage with as well. So wish you all the very best and keep saving lives. Do the work that you’re doing and let’s rattle the healthcare system give it a bit of a shake up. So they don’t continue to just put band aids on everything. But actually, let’s see what’s truly going on within our patients.

Jo Bhakdi  47:31

You definitely will do that. Thank you so much.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:33

Thank you. Bye.

Dr Marisa Lee Naismith  47:39

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of a voice and beyond. I hope you enjoyed it as now is an important time for you to invest in your own self care, personal growth and education. Use every day as an opportunity to learn and to grow so you can show up feeling empowered and ready to live your best life. If you know someone who will also be inspired by this episode, please be sure to copy and paste the link and share it with them. Or share it on social media and use the hashtag a voice and beyond. I promise you I am committed to bringing you more inspiration and conversations just like this one every week. And if you would like to help me please rate and review this podcast and cheer me on by clicking the subscribe button on Apple podcast right now. I would also love to know what it is that you most enjoyed about this episode and what was your biggest takeaway? Please take care and I look forward to your company next time on the next episode of a voice and beyond.