The Deep Six

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz sits down with Longevity Health Institute PA Libby Schoenberg for an honest look at what functional medicine actually looks like from the inside. Libby shares how she found her way to LHI through CrossFit, PA school, and a husband who is a type one diabetic, and why the practice was the only place that fit everything she wanted to do. They get into the peptide wild west and why stacking without oversight is a real problem, the gut connection most patients never make until someone finally connects the dots for them, and why Libby is on a personal mission to get women building muscle instead of chasing weight loss. They also cover what it means when a patient cries in a first visit because no one has ever listened to them before. A grounded, practical, and genuinely fun conversation.

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz sits down with his wife and Longevity Health Institute health coach Victoria Robinson-Lewerenz for a candid conversation about something affecting nearly every woman they see: bone loss, muscle loss, and the habits that either protect you or cost you everything later. Victoria breaks down why women do too much cardio and not enough strength training, how to add without taking anything away, and why training your legs two to three times a week is the single biggest lever most women are not pulling. They also get into the GLP-1 problem, what happens when powerful weight loss peptides are used without guidance or in the wrong patient, and why the combination of resistance training, adequate protein, and hormone replacement is backed by some of the most compelling data in women's health right now. Practical, personal, and long overdue.

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz sits down with Longevity Health Institute physician Dr. Ryan Abboud for a wide-ranging conversation covering three things most doctors never have enough time to talk about. They break down the CIMT test, a simple in-office ultrasound that can detect soft plaque in your arteries years before a calcium score or standard Doppler ever would, and why that window is exactly when you want to intervene. They dig into the sleep crisis, with Dr. Abboud making the case that most poor sleep comes down to modern life pulling people out of sync with nature, and walk through what actually works to fix it. They close with a candid conversation about hormone replacement therapy for women, including why the estrogen patch shortage is actually good news and why taking someone off hormones at a certain age makes no clinical sense. Consider this your cheat sheet for three things most physicians never get around to explaining.

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Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz welcomes one of his closest mentors, Pastor Dominic Russo of Oakland Church in Rochester, Michigan, for a conversation about faith, community, and spiritual connection. Harvard research links regular church attendance to a 30% reduction in mortality, a 30% drop in depression rates, and a fivefold decreased likelihood of suicide. The NIH has compared the health impact of faith community participation to eating fruits and vegetables. Pastor Russo shares stories of addiction recovery, cancer survival, and lives transformed by faith, while Dr. Lewerenz opens up about how his own spiritual foundation changed the trajectory of his medical career.

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. James Lewerenz sits down with Dr. Monica Buchanan, Field Medical Director for the Galleri test by GRAIL, to explore one of the most powerful shifts happening in modern medicine: multi cancer early detection. Dr. Lewerenz opens with a sobering reality: cancer is on the rise in younger populations  and may soon surpass cardiovascular disease as the leading cause of death. But this episode is not about fear.  It's about being proactive. Together, they break down how the Galleri test works to detect cancers as early as Stage I, as well as its important limitations. Galleri uses a simple blood draw to analyze circulating cell-free DNA and AI-driven methylation pattern recognition to screen for over 50 cancer types, including pancreatic, ovarian, head and neck, and esophageal cancers that currently have no standard screening options. They dive into the landmark Pathfinder 2 study, covering results from the first 25,000 participants, impressive predictive values, what a positive result actually means for next steps in care, and what a negative result means. Dr. Lewerenz also shares why he personally takes the test every year and  how early detection changes not just survival odds, but the entire treatment experience. The message is clear: don't live in fear of cancer; find it earlier. (Rx only. Not FDA Approved. See Important Safety Information: galleri.com/patient)

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz sits down with Matt VanSumeren, PhD candidate and owner of Xceleration Fitness in Auburn Hills, to dig into something most people avoid: actually measuring how fit they are. Matt breaks down what a DEXA scan reveals beyond just body fat, why lower body muscle mass and power are the most overlooked deficiencies he sees, and how visceral fat shows up in unexpected ways. They also get into VO2 max testing, hydration gaps that show up in bloodwork, and why the biggest win for patients comes when personalized medicine and quality fitness coaching are actually working together. Know your numbers, build a plan, and stop starting over.

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Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz sits down with Neil King, founder of Neil King Physical Therapy, a Metro Detroit institution with 10 locations and over 65,000 patients served across 30 years. Neil came to physical therapy through an unlikely path in competitive cycling, and that background shapes everything about how he treats patients today. Together, they dig into the real cause of most lower back pain, why shoulder impingement gets mistaken for rotator cuff tears, and why balance and posture matter more than almost anything else as you age. Neil also shares his personal benchmark of riding his age in miles every birthday. At nearly 81, he is still doing it!

Timestamps

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. Lewerenz trades listener questions for medical journals, pulling from recent issues of the New England Journal of Medicine and The Journal of the American Medical Association to share what's actually being studied and why it matters to you. He covers the surprising cognitive benefits of coffee and tea, the overlooked link between autoimmune disease and cancer risk, new evidence that gut health directly impacts depression and antidepressant effectiveness, and a silent cardiovascular threat hiding in most standard lab panels. This is what staying ahead of your health actually looks like!

Timestamps

Longevity Health Institute

Mike Sullivan is back. The CEO of the Loomis Agency and longtime friend of Dr. Lewerenz returns for a conversation that gets real fast. Between motocross memories and Supercross weekend in Detroit, the two open up about near-death experiences, second chances, and what it actually takes to stay alive long enough to appreciate life. Dr. Lewerenz also breaks down a genetic cholesterol marker most doctors never test for, why carotid screening could be the most important thing you do this year, and why sometimes the best medical decision is getting a second opinion. Don't wait for a near-miss to start paying attention to your health!

Timestamps

Longevity Health Institute

This week on The Deep Six, Dr. James Lewerenz is back with another Ask Me Anything episode, tackling the questions hitting his inbox on hormones, cancer, microplastics, and dementia. He breaks down why hormone replacement therapy is foundational to brain volume, bone density, and muscle mass, and why fear of it often does more harm than good. He makes a bold case that the future of beating cancer lies in building your own immune system through natural killer cells, a marker hiding in plain sight on every standard blood panel. He then addresses the uncomfortable reality of microplastics and closes with a look at peptide therapy and the blood-brain barrier as a target for dementia prevention. Test, don't guess, treat root causes, and build a body that thrives for decades.

Longevity Health Institute