Get Better Faster

Most people do not go looking for a chiropractor until something has already gone wrong. Dr. Nick Athens built an entire career on that fact, and then spent 44 years trying to change it.

He opened his doors in June of 1983 with no patients and no safety net, in a profession that was still being called quackery out loud. Eight out of ten people he approached turned him down. He kept going, built a practice from scratch in San Carlos, and eventually found himself in the locker rooms of the San Francisco Giants and the San Francisco 49ers, working on athletes whose careers depended on whether his hands actually worked.

What he learned there was not really about athletes. Somewhere north of 750,000 adjustments in, the pattern he kept seeing was that almost nobody had ever been taught how to sleep, how to breathe, how to handle stress, or how to sit, stand and move without slowly wrecking themselves. Doctors were handing out prescriptions. Nobody was handing out guidance.

So he wrote it down. "To Health With You" is his answer to the question he was tired of repeating one patient at a time: what does it actually look like to age on purpose instead of by accident? In this conversation he walks Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester through proactive aging versus reactive aging, why adding calm beats subtracting stress, what professional athletes have in common with a grandmother who cannot get off the couch, and why the single most valuable thing you own is time you cannot get back.

He is 68 years old, sprints, deadlifts, and still adjusts a hundred patients a day. He is not selling anything you need a billionaire budget to buy.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

Most stories about rising out of poverty get told as inspiration. Dr. Silvermoon Cashen tells hers as engineering. She was fourteen when the police came to the door in the middle of the night to say her mother was going into surgery, and she overheard her father say the thing she has never forgotten: we are really going to lose the house now. She took a work permit, took a job, and figured out within two months that no number of hours was ever going to change the math. That was the moment the method started, years before it had a name.

In this episode, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with her to take that story apart and look at the machinery underneath it. She walks through The Milestone Method and its five stages, and she is candid about why big plans fail people who are already overwhelmed. She explains what poverty actually costs a person beyond money, which is access to the people who know things, and she makes the case that what gets passed down through families is not just circumstance but a ceiling nobody ever names out loud.

The conversation then turns to health, and it gets combative in the best way. James presses both of them on whether the state of American health can actually improve, and refuses to accept the first answer he gets. Jason walks through what he sees in the data and what he sees on the end caps at the grocery store. All three get into the difference between health care and sick care, what people are actually being sold, and what it takes to step off what Jason calls the generational treadmill. James closes by asking the hardest question of the episode: are prescriptions medical care, health care, or poison?

What holds it together is a single idea that Dr. Cashen keeps returning to. She is trying to be the person she needed and never had. Whether the subject is a business plan, a blood pressure prescription, or a fourteen-year-old being told by a school psychologist that he had better get used to working for someone else, the answer she keeps giving is the same: unlearn the ceiling, take the next milestone, and do not wait for permission.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

What if the fatigue, the brain fog, the stubborn weight, and the hormone chaos all traced back to one hidden driver? In Episode 54, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with Ayurvedic practitioner and turmeric researcher Dr. Shivani Gupta for a wide-ranging conversation on inflammation and how to cool it without extreme protocols.

Dr. Shivani shares the personal journey that took her from a childhood of endless antibiotics to studying Ayurveda across India, and she breaks down the science of turmeric and curcumin, including why absorption, potency, and sourcing matter so much. The conversation moves through why so many midlife women feel depleted, the guilt that keeps them running on empty, and the difference between paying for health now or sickness later. It closes with a deep, practical dive into sleep: circadian rhythm, evening self-care rituals, Abhyanga self-massage, and simple changes that help the body clear inflammation overnight.

Along the way, Dr. Jason and James connect Dr. Shivani with a holistic vet referral, trade notes on grounding sheets and EMFs, and make the case for investing in yourself. It is a warm, information-dense episode that leaves listeners with tools they can use tomorrow morning.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

What if the reason you can't get better isn't a single missed diagnosis, but a whole system quietly running 20 or 30 percent off across the board? In this episode, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with Dr. Eric Gordon, a physician with 46 years of experience treating the patients modern medicine leaves behind.

Together they pull back the curtain on plasmapheresis (therapeutic plasma exchange), one of the most talked-about and most misunderstood therapies in medicine right now. Dr. Gordon explains what TPE actually removes, from albumin-bound toxins to the “senescent-associated proteins” that drive inflammation and aging, and why he is candid that it is “not magic” and “not a cure on its own.” The conversation goes deep on why people are sicker than ever, the central role of mitochondria and the Cell Danger Response, why testing before and after matters, and why the right candidate has to be prepared properly first. This is a masterclass in individualized, root-cause medicine, and the honest, hype-free case for a therapy everyone is suddenly talking about.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

Jim LaValle, RPh, CCN, is an internationally recognized clinical pharmacist and board-certified clinical nutritionist with more than 40 years of clinical experience. Best known for his metabolic model of health, he is the founder of Metabolic Code Enterprises, a cloud-based platform that turns a person's labs, symptoms, biometrics, and wearable data into a clear roadmap of what is happening inside their body. He is the author of more than 26 books, including Cracking the Metabolic Code and Your Blood Never Lies, along with 20 e-books and 200-plus articles.

LaValle taught for 18 years at the University of Cincinnati College of Pharmacy and serves as adjunct faculty for the Master of Integrative Medicine program at George Washington University. He is the clinical co-chair of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine and the chair of the International Peptide Society, where he trains hundreds of physicians each year on responsible peptide use. He was the clinical director for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Performance Health Program, and organizations including the Orlando Magic, Chicago Blackhawks, San Jose Sharks, Golden State Warriors, NASCAR teams, military Special Forces, and first responders have leaned on his work for recovery, readiness, and resilience.

Today LaValle serves as Chief Science Officer at Life Time, supporting the science behind the MIORA longevity and performance program and its more than 2.5 million members. Having personally seen roughly 100,000 patients over his career, his throughline is simple: get to the root of why the body is breaking down, and then actually fix it.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

He was told to sit down, be quiet, and stop talking about his case. He spent the next three years on every stage that would have him. In 2021, Dr. Eric Nepute became the first person in the United States ever charged under the COVID-19 Consumer Protection Act — a statute signed into law only months earlier, and one that expired along with the public health emergency. He is, almost certainly, the only person who ever will be.

In this conversation, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with the St. Louis chiropractor and Bio Limitless founder for his account of what the next six years cost him: frozen accounts, a law firm that had to drop him mid-fight, an ownership vote that removed him from his own company, and a settlement offer he says he turned down three separate times. Nepute walks through the case as he experienced it — the Friday-afternoon phone call, the expert witness his team investigated, the three choices he says he was finally given, and why he kept speaking in public the entire time he was told not to.

It is also a conversation about why all three men in the room came out of chiropractic, what the Wilk v. AMA history has to do with any of this, and how a profession that spent a century being told it was quackery produced the people most willing to say something now.

This episode is a personal account, not a legal summary. Court records are public and listeners are encouraged to read them.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

Timothy Ruppel lost a friend, lost another to suicide 48 hours after their last conversation, went through a breakup, and got burned on a six-figure deal — all inside 90 days. He hadn't cried in twenty years. Then he spent four hours on a hotel room floor in New York City trying to, and couldn't.

What came next was 40 days of water, salt, lemon and lime. He entered it as a five-day promise and finished on day 42.

In this episode, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with Timothy — business developer for OsteoStrong and partner at Resolve Peptides — for the whole story: the brutal first week, the night he walked seven hours because he was afraid to sleep, day 22 standing in Lake Tahoe when he finally forgave himself, and the nearly 100 people he reached out to before it was over.

We also get into proximity as a strategy, why your rolodex should get deeper instead of bigger, bone density as the foundation of human health, and where to actually start if you've never fasted a day in your life. He didn't add anything to get here. He took everything away

Use code GETBETTERFASTER for 20% off

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

In Episode 49 of the Get Better Faster Podcast, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester (joining live from Rome, Italy) sit down with herbalist and Alternativ co-founder Kim Lauffer for a masterclass on growing medicinal plants at home. This is a hands-in-the-dirt conversation aimed at anyone who has ever wondered whether the plants outside their back door could actually replace what is sitting in their medicine cabinet. Kim's answer, drawn from thirteen years of farming in rural Iowa and a lifetime of practical herbalism, is a confident yes.

Kim walks GBF Nation through the exact plants a beginner can start with, no farm and no PhD required: lavender, basil, aloe vera, chamomile, and calendula. She explains what each plant actually does in the body, how to grow them in a pot on a window sill or a raised bed, and how to prepare simple, shelf-stable remedies like elderberry oxymels and chamomile eye compresses. Dr. Jason and Kim compare notes on lavender as a broad-spectrum antimicrobial, the safety profile of botanicals versus pharmaceuticals, and the reality that most Americans are chronically deficient in vitamin D and magnesium.

The conversation then widens into the business and philosophy behind Alternative, Kim's partnership with Mindy Skarda and Allivea Travis, and why she deliberately chose to build small, family-first, and referral-based rather than chasing conventional scale. James pushes Kim on brand integrity and the pattern of natural companies being acquired and gutted by big consumer giants, and Dr. Jason takes on the peer-reviewed literature and the pay-to-play problem inside evidence-based medicine. The episode closes on a thyroid-specific conversation and Kim's single homework assignment for the audience: go to a greenhouse, pick one plant you know you will actually use, and start.

This is the Get Better Faster message distilled into soil, water, and sunlight. Nobody is coming to save you, but Kim Lauffer just handed you a blueprint for taking your health back one plant at a time.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

In Episode 48 of Get Better Faster, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester welcome Dr. Melissa Sell for a conversation that stretches the very foundation of how we understand symptoms, disease, and healing. A chiropractor for 14 years who came up through the maximized living model, Dr. Sell reached a point in her career and personal life where the standard tools of nutrition, detox, and spinal alignment could not fully account for what she was seeing in her patients and in herself. Her search led her to Germanische Heilkunde, and everything changed.

Dr. Sell walks the GBF audience through the origin story of German New Medicine, tracing its discovery to Dr. Ryke Geerd Hamer's own testicular cancer following the loss of his son. From there, she unpacks the 5 Biological Laws, the psyche-brain-organ connection, and the language of adaptation that reveals every symptom as a coherent response to a specific conflict shock. Separation conflicts and eczema. Death fright and the lung. Self-devaluation and the connective tissue. Morsel conflicts and the thyroid. Piece by piece, the framework builds.

The conversation then opens into women's health, the masculinizing of women, sexual frustration conflicts, and the dysregulation of hormones that Dr. Bradley sees on labs every week. Dr. Sell introduces Awareness School and Imagination School as the tools she and her partner Steve created to help people notice their internal patterns and begin sending different signals to the body. And in the final stretch, she introduces the deepest layer: constellations, maturity stops, and why so many of us are walking through adult life at an emotional age that froze years ago.

This is a conversation the GBF Nation will return to more than once. It is dense, it is radical, and it delivers on the show's core promise: solutions exist, and nobody is coming to save you but you.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.

In Episode 47 of the Get Better Faster Podcast, Dr. Jason Bradley and James Chester sit down with Heather Cooan for one of the most unflinching conversations we have ever aired on the state of modern cancer care. Heather walks GBF Nation through the moment she got the phone call. She was standing on a sidewalk outside a work happy hour, still deep in her Google-era digital marketing executive life, when her doctor told her, quote, it looks like there's a little bit of cancer there. What followed was the collision most cancer patients never see coming: a diagnosis, a graphic list of side effects, a surgeon willing to bargain, and a system that only knows three moves. Cut it out, burn it out, poison it out.

Heather chose a fourth path. She refused chemo and radiation, leaned into the metabolic approach to cancer under Dr. Nasha Winters, and rebuilt her body from the terrain up. This episode is the story of how she did it and what she has learned about cancer, autoimmunity, trauma, and the industrial forces that keep patients on a rail.

Along the way, Heather and Dr. Jason unpack terrain theory (it's not the seed, it's the soil), the Russian nesting dolls model of generational epigenetics, the fact that the entire household calibrates off of mom's nervous system, and the uncomfortable math of a cancer industry that is currently a 400 billion dollar economy and is projected to cross 1 trillion within the decade. James pushes the conversation into affordability, prevention, and the recovery mindset shift, drawing the line between an alcoholic in recovery and a cancer patient in remission: same community principles, same daily choices, same refusal to go back to the bar.

This is one of those episodes that will change the way listeners talk to their oncologists, read their labs, and think about their kitchens. As Dr. Jason puts it, if people knew what we know, they'd do what we do.

Work directly with Dr. J and his team to reclaim radiant health ➝ thyroidauthority.com

The content of this podcast and any related materials is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any condition and it should not be used as a substitute for advice from a qualified healthcare provider. Always consult a licensed Medical Professional before making decisions about your health. By listening to this podcast, you agree to use the information at your own risk. The host, guests, and producers disclaim any liability for actions taken based on the content presented.