Prevention is Cure

Every habit has a price tag. In this episode, Grant and Sam use micro-lives (30-minute units of life expectancy) to work out what smoking, sleep, coffee, exercise and even owning a dog add to or take from your day, and why a triathlon is riskier than skydiving for a man in his 60s. They also unpack a large study on brown fat and cold exposure, debate which jobs and fields AI has already “cooked,” and introduce the new PREKURE Clinic. Dr Louise Schofield closes out with why a stark number can spark behaviour change, and what happened when the family switched off their phones for 24 hours.

00:00 Coming up
00:13 Brown fat and cold exposure
09:12 What’s worst for your health?
11:58 Micro-lives explained
16:09 Habits that add time to your life
17:13 Micro-morts: what’s riskier than skydiving?
22:01 What has AI “cooked”?
27:54 AI in medicine and science
30:02 Is academia cooked?
38:14 What will AI never replace?
40:26 Lightning round
45:25 The PREKURE Clinic
49:35 Louise on micro-lives and behaviour change
53:55 Getting Grant into cold water
57:13 AI, phones and a 24-hour switch-off

How much training is enough, and how much is too much?

Prof Grant Schofield works through the team's fitness questions: combining running and weights, over training vs under training, morning vs evening sessions, the 10,000 steps target, fitness through life stages, getting back on track after a break, and the performance nutrition tricks athletes swear by.

Grant's take on the "you can't outrun a bad diet" line might surprise you. Under certain endurance conditions, he reckons you can.

Brought to you by PREKURE. Free health coaching masterclass: https://prekure.com/events/free-health-coaching-101-live-masterclass/

Prof. Grant Schofield sits down with Prof. Julia Rucklidge, clinical psychologist, University of Canterbury researcher, and one of the world's leading voices on micronutrients and mental health, for a wide-ranging conversation on three decades of research most people have never heard about.

Julia walks through the origin story of it all (yes, it really did start with pig farmers in Alberta), then into the studies that built her case: ADHD trials showing improved emotional regulation, faster recovery after the Christchurch earthquakes and mosque attacks in well-nourished populations, and the landmark "NUTRIMUM" pregnancy study, where mothers taking a broad-spectrum micronutrient formula saw dramatically better birth outcomes than those on antidepressants, including a threefold difference in resuscitation rates at birth.

From there the conversation turns to the part that will frustrate you: why none of this has translated into practice. Julia unpacks New Zealand's 40-year-old+ Dietary Supplement Regulations, the bizarre legal reality that a supplement is not allowed to claim it can prevent or treat disease (yes, even scurvy), and her own first-hand experience being refused a prescription for the very formula she's spent her career researching. They also cover her newly-teenager emotional dysregulation trial, the reward-system dysregulation driving the "anxious generation," and her new role on the NZ Psychologists Board.

If you've ever wondered why good nutrition science doesn't reach GPs, mums, or teenagers who need it, this one's for you.

• How a pig-feed observation in Alberta led to a career studying micronutrients and mental health
• Faster recovery from trauma (Christchurch earthquakes, Christchurch mosque attacks) in well-nourished populations
• The NUTRIMUM pregnancy trial: depression outcomes, birth outcomes, and postnatal depression rates vs. antidepressants
• Why broad-spectrum micronutrients may work better than single nutrients like vitamin D or B-vitamins alone
• Reducing emotional dysregulation in teenagers, without a psychiatric diagnosis
• New Zealand's outdated supplement law (Dietary Supplement Regulations Act, 1985) and why a food "cannot legally prevent or treat disease"
• Julia's own experience being denied a prescription for daily essential nutrients by her GP
• The regulatory maze around lithium-containing micronutrient formulas and Medsafe's crackdown
• What an ideal, evidence-based regulatory environment could look like
• Reward system dysregulation, dopamine, and the "anxious generation" in young people
• Julia's new appointment to the NZ Psychologists Board

In this episode Guests & Links

Prof. Julia Rucklidge, Clinical psychologist and researcher, University of Canterbury🔗 https://prekure.com/meet-the-faculty/professor-julia-rucklidge/?srsltid=AfmBOorWCSuCEW407OjLSwFlvzAGhZkB_bItn5IHAgKW4Y1IAk25NVIr

Prof. Grant Schofield, Host🔗 https://profgrantschofield.com/

PREKURE🔗 https://prekure.com/

Prevention is Cure is brought to you by PREKURE. Subscribe for more conversations on nutrition, mental health, and the science of prevention.

Prof. Grant Schofield explains ketosis from first principles: what it is, why it matters, and how it differs from simply "eating low carb." We talk about insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, which affect a significant share of adults today, the surprising wartime origins of chemotherapy.

Prevention is Cure is sponsored by Prekure - a New Zealand education organisation with a bold vision: to redefine the future of medicine. Prekure's CEO, Louise Schofield, saw that people weren't getting the support they deserved, and decided to do something about it. Her answer? Train masterful health coaches who can empower people with the knowledge and tools to prevent illness - not just treat it.

Feel inspired by these conversations? If you think you might have something to give, maybe you were meant to be a health coach?

Learn more at prekure.com.And if you're loving the show - let us know what topics you want us to cover next. We're listening.

In this episode, Grant Schofield sits down with ocean swimmer and activist Jono Ridler, fresh off an extraordinary feat: swimming just shy of 1,400km from North Cape to Wellington in just 90 days.

Jono shares what drove him to take on the swim, the physical and mental toll of months in open water, and the deeper mission behind it: raising awareness of what's happening beneath the surface of our oceans, including the impact of bottom trawling on fragile deep sea ecosystems. He talks candidly about training while working full time and raising a young daughter, navigating shark encounters, adapting to dropping water temperatures, and the injuries and setbacks along the way.

Follow Jono's journey and future adventures here: https://www.instagram.com/jonoridler/

www.liveocean.org

Footage of Jono's Swim 🎥 : https://www.instagram.com/jonoridler/

Prevention is Cure is sponsored by Prekure, a New Zealand education organisation with a bold vision: to redefine the future of medicine. Prekure's CEO, Louise Schofield, saw that people weren't getting the support they deserved, and decided to do something about it. Her answer? Train masterful health coaches who can empower people with the knowledge and tools to prevent illness, not just treat it.

Feel inspired by these conversations? If you think you might have something to give, maybe you were meant to be a health coach? Learn more at prekure.com.

And if you're loving the show, let us know what topics you want us to cover next. We're listening.

Prof Grant Schofield and Dr Louise Schofield are embarking on their annual 5-day fast, and they're sharing everything: the science, the struggles, and the practical tips that make it work.

Whether you're fasting-curious or a seasoned faster, this is the honest, science-backed conversation you need before you start.

Follow along on socials: Prof Grant Schofield & Dr Louise Schofield on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.

PREKURE - where prevention is the cure. | www.prekure.com

PREKURE trains masterful health coaches and is on a mission to redefine the future of medicine.

A Herald story revealed New Zealand households spend $20 million a year on energy drinks, and some people are drinking two litres a day just to get through a shift. In this episode Prof. Grant Schofield and guest co-host, Sam Schofield unpack the predatory marketing with energy drinks aimed squarely at young boys, why a single 500ml can hides 13 teaspoons of sugar and 160mg of caffeine, and the B6 toxicity risk almost nobody talks about, with recorded cases here in NZ and Australia.

From there:

- Are "sugar-free" lollies just a clever scam? Should governments regulate the food environment the way they regulate everything else?

- A surprising new zinc trial where people lost nearly 3× more weight on the same calories.

- The real story on seed oils and your cell membranes, which is more nuanced than the internet tells you.

- And why the coming robot age might make some of us healthier, not sicker.

This is general discussion, not medical advice. Talk to your own clinician before changing anything.

Got a guest or topic you want us to cover? Drop it in the comments.

In this episode of Prevention Is Cure, Prof Grant Schofield and Sam Schofield dive deep into the most explosive topic in metabolic health right now - have we actually cracked weight loss and aging? From the latest GLP-1 triple agonists showing 30% body weight loss, to gene therapies that can reverse the age of individual cells, the science is moving faster than most people realise.But here's the uncomfortable truth: 9 out of 10 people regain the weight when they stop. The "Ozempic personality" is real. And the first human trial of Yamanaka factor therapy just began.

We cover:

→ The 4 weight loss options (and which actually works long-term)

→ The newest GLP-1 drugs you've never heard of — and can't pronounce

→ What "food noise" is and why killing it might cost you more than hunger

→ Longevity escape velocity — the first person to live to 1,000 may already be born

→ Yamanaka factors and the science of reversing cellular age

→ Why Grant believes prescribing these drugs without behaviour change is unethical

🎙️ Prevention Is Cure with Prof Grant Schofield & Guest Host Sam Schofield

Subscribe for conversations on metabolic health, longevity, and the science of living well.

#weightloss #GLP1 #Ozempic #longevity #metabolichealth #preventioniscure

Prof Grant Schofield speaks with Paul Alden, a 38-year veteran firefighter turned author about his upcoming book The Amplified Mind. Drawing on his experience watching EMTs lose critical thinking capacity when protocols replaced diagnostic reasoning, Paul draws a striking parallel to what's happening right now with AI adoption across every profession.

They explore why the sequence matters, generating your own ideas before turning to AI, and how "synthetic fluency" is quietly eroding our agency, creativity, and capacity to learn. From the five-minute rule to the Google Effect, Paul shares practical disciplines for staying the author of your own thinking rather than becoming an editor of AI output.

The Amplified Mind is available on Amazon from May 26th. Pre-order from May 22nd at theamplifiedmind.ai.

From the Hardiness podcast with Dr Paul Taylor

If you think ease and comfort are the keys to happiness, think again. This episode explores how deliberately embracing life's challenges, through movement, fasting, cold exposure, and mental resilience, can transform your health, happiness, and purpose. Grant Schofield, an esteemed researcher and author, reveals that life's true reward lies in choosing the hard path, strong in the knowledge that it leads to a more vibrant, resilient life.       

Choose your path, and in doing so, choose your future. And for those ready to take action, Grant’s new book Choose Your Hard distils these powerful principles into actionable step because the path to a better life is a deliberate choice.

00:00 The Role of an Emeritus Professor

02:57 The Academic Publishing Industry

05:54 Understanding Misogi and Personal Challenges

09:00 Fasting and Autophagy Explained

12:01 The Science of Metabolism and Immune Function

15:04 Psychological Aspects of Fasting

17:58 Preparing for a Fast: Strategies and Mindset

20:58 Physical Responses and Adaptations During Fasting

25:51 The Role of Stress in Health

27:28 Choosing Your Hard: Embracing Life's Challenges

35:19 Agency and Responsibility in Health

40:10 Movement: The Foundation of Health

46:43 Dopamine: The Devil's Seesaw

52:41 Hard vs. Soft Dopamine: Resetting the System

53:28 The Irony of Pleasure and Pain

55:24 Facing the Elements: Hot and Cold Exposure

01:01:38 Understanding Emotions and Their Ownership

01:05:18 Finding Meaning and Purpose in Life