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Psychedelics are in the spotlight. Some call them dangerous, others call them life-saving, and many believe they could reshape the future of mental health care. In this episode, Dr. Eeks talks with Martín Polanco MD, founder of The Mission Within Foundation and considered the most experienced ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT physician in North America. Over the past 25 years, he has treated more than 5,000 people — including over 1,300 veterans and special operators — giving him unmatched clinical credibility in a field often clouded by hype, controversy, and hope.

Dr. Polanco shares his perspective on why veterans and frontline workers struggling with overlapping mental health challenges — PTSD, addiction, depression, traumatic brain injury — are increasingly turning to these psychedelic medicines when conventional options fall short.

This episode covers:

• What ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT are, how they work in the brain, and what sets them apart from other psychedelics.
• Why mental health conditions rarely show up one at a time, and how these medicines may help with complex, co-occurring issues.
• How Dr. Polanco’s center guides people through treatment, integration, and long-term support — and why integration is just as important as the medicine itself.
• Results in veterans and first responders: what’s been seen, how long benefits last, and the factors that sustain recovery.
• The real risks, especially cardiac risks, and the safety protocols in place to minimize them.
• Misconceptions about psychedelic therapy and where skepticism is justified.
• The launch of the Mission Within Foundation, which has already raised over $2 million to provide psychedelic therapy scholarships for veterans and first responders.
• Why partnerships with institutions like UT Austin Dell Medical School are critical for building a scientific evidence base and wider acceptance.
• And finally: whether ibogaine and 5-MeO-DMT are ready for mainstream mental health care, or if the science still needs to catch up.

This is a candid conversation about possibility, risk, and the urgent need for new tools in mental health.

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What if your biological age could be younger than the candles on your birthday cake? On this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Chris Mirabile who says he did just that. After surviving a brain tumor at just 16 years old, Chris committed himself to mastering his health. That journey led him to found NOVOS, the first health company to develop science-based solutions targeting the 12 biological causes of aging.

Chris states he has reduced his biological age by 13.6 years and slowed his pace of aging by 37%. In this episode, he explains what biological age actually means, how it’s measured, why it matters (and what it doesn’t tell you), and what it means to age more slowly than the calendar says you should.

We cover:

• Chris’ fascinating personal story of surviving a brain tumor at 16 and how that led him down the path of slowing down aging.
• What aging means to him personally, and his ultimate goal — with a little philosophy sprinkled in.
• How he slowed his pace of aging by 37%, reducing his biological age by 13.6 years 
• The 12 causes of aging and why they matter.
• The spiritual and emotional dimension of health — and how our inner life ties into the aging process.
• The story behind his supplement, NOVOS Core — what’s in it, the evidence so far (lab and human studies), and what future research is on the horizon.

👉 Quick disclaimer: Dr. Eeks does not endorse or recommend any specific supplements, including the ones discussed in this episode. But Chris brings a wealth of knowledge, real data, and genuine passion to this conversation, and I think you’ll find his story fascinating.

If you’ve ever wondered: Should I claim my chronological age or my biological age when someone asks? …this episode’s for you.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Irene Papanicolas, Professor of Health Services, Policy and Practice at Brown University, about her recent New England Journal of Medicine paper examining the links between wealth and mortality across the United States and Europe.

There’s a lot of focus on longevity today, from biohackers chasing longer lives to new medical innovations. But how much does the money in your bank account matter when it comes to lifespan? And why do those relationships between wealth and health look different across countries?

The study analyzed data from over 73,000 adults, exploring how wealth impacts lifespan within and across countries, including comparisons between the wealthiest and poorest quartiles, the concept of a “survivor effect,” and why even wealthy Americans may be dying earlier than poorer Europeans.

We discuss:

• How “wealth” was defined in the study.
• The differences in life expectancy between the U.S. and Europe.
• What factors might explain why U.S. outcomes lag (diet, food environment, culture, lack of universal healthcare).
• Which European countries stood out for protecting longevity.
• Policy implications, and what interventions could have the biggest impact if implemented tomorrow.

 Read the full paper here: NEJM: Wealth, Mortality, and the U.S.–Europe Gap

If you’re curious about the intersections of wealth, health, and longevity, and want to understand what money can (and can’t) buy when it comes to living longer, this episode is for you.

 Dr. Irene Papanicolas is a Professor of Health Services Policy and Practice at Brown University. A health economist and researcher, her work focuses on assessing how health systems perform and using international comparisons to inform policy. She leads the International Collaborative on Costs, Outcomes and Needs in Care (ICCONIC), a 16-country partnership studying care patterns and outcomes for high-need, high-cost patients. Dr. Papanicolas has published widely on health system performance and cross-country comparisons. 

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Disclaimer: Causes or Cures is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, and no medical claims are being made. Always talk to a qualified healthcare provider about your personal health. 

🎙️ In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks talks with Dane Johnson, CEO and founder of Crohn’s Colitis Lifestyle.

Dane shares his story of going from modeling and acting in Los Angeles to a life upended by severe ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease. At the height of his career he looked like the picture of health, yet behind the scenes he faced extreme weight loss, pain, anemia, exhaustion, sleepless nights, and a long stretch of treatments that did not bring relief.

After a near-death hospitalization in 2014, Dane decided to become the "CEO" of his day-to-day health. He reassessed options, leaned into nutrition and lifestyle strategies, and rebuilt routines from the ground up. A decade later he describes full recovery and now works with others through Crohn’s Colitis Lifestyle.

We discuss:

• Early warning signs and the spiral into severe IBD
• What it felt like when standard options did not help
• The turning-point moment in the hospital
• How he rebuilt daily habits around food, stress, sleep, and support
• Why he launched Crohn’s Colitis Lifestyle and how his team operates with clinicians
• What “healing journey” means in real life when you live with a chronic condition

This is a raw, personal episode for anyone navigating Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, or long-haul chronic illness, and for listeners curious about functional and holistic approaches from a patient’s perspective. It is also for people in that restless middle when tests are inconclusive, symptoms persist, and you are mapping your own next steps. We talk about what that search can look like in real life: asking better questions, trying thoughtful lifestyle changes, building a support team, and thinking outside the box while staying grounded and safe with your clinician. 

🎧 Listen in, and share with someone who might need this story today.

Dane Johnson is a board-certified nutritionist who specializes in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. He is the CEO and founder of Crohn’s Colitis Lifestyle, where he and a team that includes licensed physicians support clients with practical nutrition and lifestyle strategies. After a near-fatal IBD crisis in 2014, he rebuilt his health and now focuses on helping others navigate day to day life with IBD.

Our Sponsor:  Today’s episode is brought to you by my favorite coffee, Lifeboost Coffee! It is low acid for an easier sip, organic and non-GMO, and third-party tested for 450 plus contaminants. Shade-grown, bird-friendly, and fairly traded. Coffee without the junk!  Get 58% off Your First Order HERE!   (Use code DrEeks for 10% off all additional orders!) *Affiliate link,I may earn a small commission.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Dr. Jerry Avorn, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, drug safety watchdog, and author of Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take. If you’ve ever felt uneasy about the rising cost of prescription drugs, the process or speed by which new meds are approved, or why the side effects list is longer than your grocery receipt, this episode is for you.

Dr. Avorn pulls no punches. We talk about:

• How our current system rewards speed over evidence, and why “accelerated approval” may sound good but can lead to disaster.
• The rise of drugs approved with weak or surrogate endpoints, yet priced like gold (yep, you still pay full price for half-baked science).
• Shocking case studies, like the Vioxx heart attack debacle and the controversial Alzheimer’s drug Aduhelm.
• The FDA’s evolution from watchdog to lapdog (in some cases).
• Conflicts of interest.
• Public funding, private profits: how taxpayer money fuels breakthroughs that we can’t afford. (WTF!)
• And, yes, we talk about the “Do Your Own Research” crowd.

Dr. Avorn’s mission? Help patients and doctors actually understand what they’re taking or prescribing, and what forces are shaping those decisions.

Why listen?
Because behind every pill is a story, and it’s not always the one you’re told in the ad with the beach scene and happy jazz flute.

Links:
Grab the book: Rethinking Medications: Truth, Power, and the Drugs You Take (Simon & Schuster, 2025)

Jerry Avorn, MD, is a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and a senior internist in the Mass General Brigham health-care system. He built a leading research center at Harvard to study medication use, outcomes, costs, and policies and developed the educational approach of “academic detailing” to provide evidence-based information about medications to prescribers. One of the nation’s most highly cited researchers, Dr. Avorn is the author of Powerful Medicines: The Benefits, Risks, and Costs of Prescription Drugs, and he has written or cowritten over six hundred papers in the medical literature as well as commentaries in the New York Times, The Washington Post, JAMA, and The New England Journal of Medicine.

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Disclaimer: Causes or Cures is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, and no medical claims are being made. Always talk to a qualified healthcare provider about your personal health. 

Can a Daily Supplement Really Reverse Biological Age? A 12-Month Study, Explained

What actually happens when real people take a daily “healthy aging” supplement for an entire year?

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks sits down with Dr. Varun Dwaraka of TruDiagnostic to unpack the results of a 12-month clinical study of the Cel System, a supplement regimen tested in adults aged 54 to 84.

We dive into:

• Why this supplement was developed in the first place
• How the study was designed, including regular checkpoints
• What biological or “epigenetic” age tests really measure (in plain language)
• Why different biological clocks sometimes disagree
• What it means to analyze the apparent age of specific body systems
• What results the team saw after a year
• What those findings do—and don’t—mean for slowing aging
• Big caveats and what smarter, next-gen studies could look like

If you’re curious about “reversing” biological age or just want the hype filtered before you spend money on a supplement, this one’s for you.

🧪 Read the peer-reviewed study published in Aging: https://www.aging-us.com/article/206221/text

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Modern medicine rests on a centuries‑old decision to split mind from body. That fault line still runs through every clinic and classroom, raising an uncomfortable question: if the foundation ignores half of human experience, how scientific are we really? In this episode, Dr Eeks talks with physician‑author Dr Robert Smith about why his new book Has Medicine Lost Its Mind? argues it is time to reunite what never should have been divided. 

What We Cover

• The Great Split: A medieval Church decree let scientists dissect bodies but barred them from the head, setting up the mental‑vs‑physical divide that still guides clinical practice.
• Primary‑Care Patchwork: Family doctors now manage roughly 75 percent of U.S. mental‑health care despite minimal formal training in mental health.
• Medicalizing Real‑Life Messes: Trauma, chronic stress, and tough social conditions often get reframed as diseases because the system lacks better options.
• The “Complex” Patient Label: How “complex” often translates to “we’re overwhelmed and don’t know what’s really wrong.”
• Culture on Autopilot: Rituals, hierarchy, and resistance to change can block genuine healing even when evidence points elsewhere.
• A Way Forward: The biopsychosocial model that addresses lab values and life stories—and what it would take for mainstream medicine to embrace it.

If you have ever felt that your doctor’s office visit left half of you outside the exam room, press play and join the conversation about what real, whole‑person healthcare could look like.

 Dr. Robert C. Smith is a nationally acclaimed authority on evidence‑based mental health care and doctor–patient communication. A University Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry at Michigan State University, he pioneered the first patient‑centered training approach that teaches clinicians how to forge strong, collaborative relationships with their patients. His contributions have earned him numerous honors, including Master status from the American College of Physicians and the prestigious George Engel Award for Outstanding Research. Dr. Smith has authored more than 150 peer‑reviewed articles and continues to garner hundreds of academic citations each year. His expertise has been featured in outlets such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Today Show, and he writes regularly for Psychology Today. 

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Disclaimer: Causes or Cures is for informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, and no medical claims are being made. Always talk to a qualified healthcare provider about your personal health. 

In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with immunology expert Dr. Maziar “Maz” Divangahi about his research on how fiber found in mushrooms may help us beat the flu, and he introduces us to the concept of disease tolerance. 

What We’ll Cover

1. Beta-Glucan 101
   • What it is: a natural fiber in the outer wall of fungi (think mushrooms).
   • Why it matters: growing evidence says it may help fight off the flu by improving something called disease tolerance. More research is needed to confirm. 
2. Two Immune Playbooks
   • Host Resistance: the classic “seek and destroy” tactic.
   • Disease Tolerance: a quieter, damage-control strategy our bodies use to stay functional even when a pathogen sticks around.
   • Dr. Maz will unpack how beta-glucan may tilt the balance toward disease tolerance.
3. From TB Labs to Flu Research
   • Insights from Dr. Maz’s tuberculosis studies that set the stage for his beta-glucan–flu work.
   • Early data on how this fungal fiber might boost flu-specific disease tolerance.
4. Should We Eat More Mushrooms or Supplement?
   • Practical tips and caveats on dietary vs. supplemental beta-glucan.
   • What the current evidence actually supports.
5. Beyond Infections: Beta-Glucan in Cancer Trials
   • Snapshot of ongoing studies in breast and bladder cancer.
   • Why disease tolerance is a hot oncology frontier.
6. Future Directions & Take-Home Points
   • Where Dr. Maz’s research is headed next.
   • Simple, science-backed actions listeners can try today.

Listen If You’ve Ever Wondered…

• Why some people sail through the flu while others end up in the ER.
• Whether “disease tolerance” might rewrite how we tackle pandemics.
• If tossing extra shiitakes into your stir-fry can really make a difference.

Dr. Maziar (Maz) Divangahi is a Professor of Medicine at McGill University. He is the Associate Director of the Meakins-Christie Laboratories and the Associate Director of the McGill Interna onal TB Centre. He is an internationally recognized pulmonary immunologist and the overarching focus of his research program is to inves gate the regulatory mechanisms involved in host resistance and disease tolerance against major pulmonary bacterial (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and viral (influenza virus and SARS-CoV2) pathogens. He is currently inves ga ng how to harness the power of innate memory response (Trained Immunity) in vaccine development. Throughout his career, he has been a prolifera ve inves gator publishing in outstanding journals and received numerous awards, including a CIHR New Inves gator Award, FRQS Award, and the CIHR Founda on grant. His scholarly work has been recognized by elec on to the Royal Society of Canada. He is currently holding the Strauss Chair in Respiratory Diseases. 

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In this episode, Dr. Eeks sits down with world-renowned cardiologist and nutrition dynamo Dr. Kim Williams to pull the lid off “healthy” plant-based restaurant meals, and a whole lot more.

What’s on the menu:

• First-of-its-kind restaurant study – How Dr. Williams scored plant-based dishes for heart health, what shocked him, and the sneaky “health halo” traps you’ll now spot a mile away.
• Plant-based vs. junk-based – Could plant-based be sliding toward the same fate as the Western diet? He breaks down where things are headed and how to dodge the pitfalls.
• Cardio-nutrition deep dive – The eating plan Dr. Williams follows himself, plus straight talk on saturated fat, carbs, sugar, cholesterol, animal welfare, and factory farming.
• Big-picture fixes – Population-level policies he believes could actually move the needle on improving nutrition at the public health level.

If you eat out, care about your heart, or just want the unvarnished science behind plant-powered plates, this episode is packed with gems you won’t want to miss.

Dr. Kim Allan Williams, MD, MACC, FAHA, MASNC, FESC is Chair of Medicine at the University of Louisville and a triple-threat in general, preventive, and cardiovascular-imaging cardiology. He’s a former President of both the American College of Cardiology and the American Society of Nuclear Cardiology, and he previously led the Association of Black Cardiologists as Board Chair. At Wayne State he launched the Urban Cardiology Initiative, and later created Rush University’s H.E.A.R.T. Program (Helping Everyone Assess Risk Today)—community screenings that pair education, nutrition, and lifestyle coaching. A lifelong advocate for nutrition literacy, health-equity, and system-wide reform, Dr. Williams has advised the FDA, CMS, and served more than 25 years as an AMA delegate. Most recently, he sat on the 2022 task force that briefed the White House Conference on Nutrition, Health, and Hunger.

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In this episode of Causes or Cures, Dr. Eeks chats with Erin Williamson, a national expert on child trafficking and a leader at Love146, an organization dedicated to ending child trafficking and caring for its survivors.

We dive deep into what child trafficking really is—both labor and sex trafficking—and explore its prevalence, evolving risk factors, and the role social media plays in recruitment. Erin breaks down how traffickers often target children, sometimes people they know, and how some do it through the internet. She shares eye-opening examples and challenges some of the most persistent myths we’ve seen in media, pop culture, and even online activism.

We also explore:

• What makes a child more vulnerable to trafficking?
• Is child trafficking really increasing?
• Are "rescue missions" always the best path to freedom, or can they sometimes do harm?
• Why the idea that traffickers lurk in white vans is outdated and unhelpful.
• And why it’s not just girls who are trafficked for sex.

Erin also explains what Love146 actually does—why the name “Love146” matters—and offers practical, evidence-based tips for parents who want to protect their kids in a digital world. Finally, we talk public health and policy: What needs to change at the systems level to better prevent trafficking in the first place?

Erin is the Chief Programs & Strategy Officer at Love146, where she leads efforts to prevent child trafficking and exploitation. With over 20 years of experience in social services and child protection, Erin has developed trauma-informed programs that have reached thousands of vulnerable youth across the U.S. She is also a parent, advocate, and expert in human trafficking prevention and survivor care.

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