The evidence increasingly points to a laboratory origin for COVID-19, not a natural spillover from the Wuhan wet market. In this episode, returning guest Steven Quay, MD, PhD, FCAP, Chairman, President, & CEO of Atossa Therapeutics, walks through the case built in his book, The Code as Witness. He explains why none of the animals or market workers tested showed signs of infection, how a 2012 mining accident produced a coronavirus strain closely related to SARS-CoV-2, and what the furin cleavage site reveals about possible genetic engineering. The conversation also covers gain-of-function research, biosafety failures at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and concrete steps that could help prevent the next pandemic.

About the Guest:
Steven Quay, MD, PhD, FCAP
Chairman, President, & CEO of Atossa Therapeutics
Website
LinkedIn
X: @quay_dr

Order your copy of Dr. Steven Quay's book, The Code as Witness, here.

Live Q&A with Dr. Mitchell, August 19: How Stress Turns Into Disease, and What Actually Works to Lower It

Nobody just gets colitis. Stress goes looking for your weak spot, and thirty years of practice says it usually finds it. Dr. Dean Mitchell is live on Wednesday, August 19 at 6:00 PM Eastern for a free hour: the Holmes-Rahe scale, what HRV shows, which relaxation methods have evidence behind them, and where medication belongs. Register here


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Simple habits do more to protect you from viruses than any supplement, Dr. Dean Mitchell explains in this week's tip. Frequent handwashing, avoiding touching your face, and paying attention to indoor ventilation top the list, alongside adequate sleep, regular exercise, and a healthy diet. One striking example: during the COVID pandemic, 75% of passengers on a bus in China caught the virus, but the 25% who didn't were seated by an open window. Add a well-fitting mask in crowded, high-risk settings and staying current on your flu vaccination, and you've got a simple, evidence-based defense against the season's respiratory viruses. No single measure is perfect, but together, they make a real difference.

For the full conversation, listen to Ep. 234 with Dr. Steven Quay on The Smartest Doctor in the Room.

Live Q&A with Dr. Mitchell, August 19: How Stress Turns Into Disease, and What Actually Works to Lower It

Nobody just gets colitis. Stress goes looking for your weak spot, and thirty years of practice says it usually finds it. Dr. Dean Mitchell is live on Wednesday, August 19 at 6:00 PM Eastern for a free hour: the Holmes-Rahe scale, what HRV shows, which relaxation methods have evidence behind them, and where medication belongs. Register here


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Most abdominal pain is not cancer, but certain warning signs like unexplained weight loss, blood in the stool, or pain radiating to the back should prompt further workup. Dr. Douglas Adler, an advanced interventional gastroenterologist, joins Dr. Dean Mitchell to explain how new endoscopic techniques are letting patients avoid traditional surgery for gallbladder disease and other GI conditions, plus his take on Cologuard, pancreatic cancer screening, and when colonoscopy is still the gold standard.

Contact Douglas G. Adler, MD:
Director, Center for Advanced Therapeutic Endoscopy
Porter Adventist Hospital / Peak Gastroenterology, Denver, CO
X (Twitter)

Live Q&A with Dr. Mitchell, August 19: How Stress Turns Into Disease, and What Actually Works to Lower It

Nobody just gets colitis. Stress goes looking for your weak spot, and thirty years of practice says it usually finds it. Dr. Dean Mitchell is live on Wednesday, August 19 at 6:00 PM Eastern for a free hour: the Holmes-Rahe scale, what HRV shows, which relaxation methods have evidence behind them, and where medication belongs. Register here


Contact Dr. Mitchell:

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Medical schools are moving away from lecture-based, multiple-choice testing toward hands-on clinical training from day one. Dr. David Battinelli, Dean of the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell, joins Dr. Dean Mitchell to break down the bold changes his school made, from first-year EMT training to oral and simulation-based exams, and why students who learn this way report feeling less overwhelmed facing real-world uncertainty.

Contact David L. Battinelli, MD:
LinkedIn

Live Q&A with Dr. Mitchell, August 19: How Stress Turns Into Disease, and What Actually Works to Lower It

Nobody just gets colitis. Stress goes looking for your weak spot, and thirty years of practice says it usually finds it. Dr. Dean Mitchell is live on Wednesday, August 19 at 6:00 PM Eastern for a free hour: the Holmes-Rahe scale, what HRV shows, which relaxation methods have evidence behind them, and where medication belongs. Register here


Contact Dr. Mitchell:

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Heart rate variability has become a buzzword in wellness circles — but what does it actually measure, and why does it matter far beyond fitness tracking? Rheumatologist Dr. Andrew Holman, associate professor of medicine at the University of Washington and founder of InMedix, joins Dr. Dean Mitchell to explain how HRV serves as a precise, measurable window into the autonomic nervous system and what that means for immune function, chronic disease, and personalized medicine.Dr. Holman breaks down the difference between consumer wearables and his FDA-cleared cloud HRV device, which uses a five-minute EKG sampled at 500 times per second to accurately measure both sympathetic and parasympathetic activity against clinical standards — not just comparing you to yourself. He shares how a prospective double-blind study using advanced HRV predicted with 90% sensitivity which rheumatoid arthritis patients would respond to biologic therapy a full year in advance, and how addressing autonomic imbalance raised remission rates from 25% to 79% in a pilot study.The conversation covers the autonomic roots of fibromyalgia, the overlooked role of sleep apnea in autoimmune disease, positional spinal cord compression as a driver of chronic pain, and the concept of immunoautonomics — a framework Dr. Holman introduced to the medical literature describing how the brain's command and control center influences immune function in autoimmune disease, cancer, and infectious illness. Dr. Holman also discusses the legacy of Dr. Kevin Tracy's vagus nerve research and how it intersects with his own work measuring autonomic state at its source.For patients and physicians alike, this episode makes the case that measuring HRV with clinical precision is as essential as checking cholesterol — and that the future of medicine depends on understanding who each patient is autonomically before deciding how to treat them.

Live Q&A with Dr. Mitchell, August 19: How Stress Turns Into Disease, and What Actually Works to Lower It

Nobody just gets colitis. Stress goes looking for your weak spot, and thirty years of practice says it usually finds it. Dr. Dean Mitchell is live on Wednesday, August 19 at 6:00 PM Eastern for a free hour: the Holmes-Rahe scale, what HRV shows, which relaxation methods have evidence behind them, and where medication belongs. Register here


Contact Dr. Mitchell:

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Before assuming a new walking problem means Parkinson's disease, Dr. Dean Mitchell shares a key insight from his conversation with neurologist Dr. Alexander Stilbans: not every shuffling gait points to the obvious diagnosis. Many treatable conditions, including degenerative hip disease, spinal stenosis, and certain medications, can cause changes in how you walk, especially after age 60. One patient's case makes this clear: a 72-year-old man whose "magnetic legs" seemed to stick to the floor turned out to have a treatable buildup of fluid in the brain, not Parkinson's. The next time you or a loved one notices a new walking problem, ask your doctor what else it could be. Sometimes the most important diagnosis isn't the obvious one.For the full conversation, listen to Ep. 230 – How You Walk Matters: Movement Disorders That Can Be Mistaken For Parkinson's Disease on The Smartest Doctor in the Room.

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Not every walking problem is Parkinson's disease — and assuming it is can cost patients years of proper treatment. Neurologist and movement disorder specialist Dr. Alexander Schtilbans, assistant professor at Weill Cornell Medicine and attending physician at Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City, joins Dr. Dean Mitchell to break down the many conditions that cause abnormal gait, why they're so frequently misdiagnosed, and what a thorough clinical evaluation actually looks like.Dr. Schtilbans walks through a real case featured in the New York Times Magazine Diagnosis column — a 72-year-old man with "magnetic legs" and progressive difficulty walking who had been treated for Parkinson's for years. The actual diagnosis was normal pressure hydrocephalus, a treatable condition that was identified only after Dr. Schtilbans reviewed the MRI himself and questioned a DAT scan result that didn't match the clinical picture. After a surgical shunt procedure, the patient's walking improved dramatically.The conversation covers the full diagnostic landscape of gait disorders — spinal stenosis, peripheral neuropathy, cerebellar disease, mini strokes, and drug-induced Parkinsonism from medications like antipsychotics and metoclopramide. Dr. Schtilbans also shares his laboratory research on a combination of three supplements — CoQ10, creatine, and TUDCA — that showed a 24% increase in dopamine cell growth and significant reduction in pro-inflammatory markers when tested together on human stem cells derived from Parkinson's patients, despite each supplement failing individually in prior clinical trials.Dr. Schtilbans closes with a strong case for exercise as the only proven intervention to slow Parkinson's disease progression, the emerging role of Apple Watch in tremor monitoring, and practical guidance on how to find a movement disorder specialist no matter where you live.Here is the website for Versamil Brain Dopamine HealthFollow on Facebook Contact Dr. Mitchell:Email: [email protected]WebsiteInstagramYouTubeFacebookLinkedInOrder your copy of Dr. Mitchell’s latest book, Conquering Candida, here.Be sure to visit ImmunoLytics & use coupon code SmartestDoc for 5% off

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Before assuming a new pain means something is physically wrong, Dr. Dean Mitchell shares a powerful framework from the work of Dr. John Sarno and mind-body medicine: ask yourself what's happening emotionally before asking what's wrong with your body. Dr. Sarno's concept of Tension Myositis Syndrome (TMS) suggests that unresolved stress, inner conflict, and unacknowledged worry can amplify or even create physical symptoms. Take 60 seconds the next time pain arises to reflect on what might be bothering you beneath the surface. You may be surprised by what you find.For the full conversation, listen to Ep. 229 – New Approach to Chronic Pain: Psychological vs. Physical Treatments on The Smartest Doctor in the Room.

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Dr. Dean Mitchell shares his own decades-long struggle with chronic back pain before introducing Dr. David Schechter, a physician based in Los Angeles who trained directly under the late Dr. John Sarno at NYU's Rusk Institute. Dr. Schechter now carries on that work, blending Sarno's foundational ideas with modern neuroscience to treat patients with what he calls neuroplastic symptoms, or what Sarno originally termed tension myositis syndrome (TMS).The conversation covers how chronic pain differs fundamentally from acute pain on a neurological level, why imaging findings like bulging discs are often poor predictors of who actually suffers, and how the brain's emotional centers become increasingly involved the longer pain persists. Dr. Schechter describes his diagnostic process, which includes exploring personality characteristics, childhood history, and life circumstances at the onset of symptoms, and explains the concept of the "Type T personality," a profile that includes perfectionism, self-criticism, and people-pleasing tendencies that he frequently sees in patients with chronic pain.Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Schechter also discuss the role of social connection in health outcomes, the nocebo effect and the harm that can come from authoritative but unfounded medical pronouncements, and the practical reality of practicing this kind of medicine outside of a time-pressured clinical setting. Resources mentioned include Dr. Schechter's website mindbodymedicine.com and the nonprofit directory at symptomatic.me, which lists physicians trained in this area.Contact David Schechter:www.mindbodymedicine.comx:  @pain_md_lafacebook:  facebook.com/thinkawayyourpaininsta:  @drdavelayoutube:  youtube.com/mindbodydrContact Dr. Mitchell:Email: [email protected]WebsiteInstagramYouTubeFacebookLinkedInOrder your copy of Dr. Mitchell’s latest book, Conquering Candida, here.Be sure to visit ImmunoLytics & use coupon code SmartestDoc for 5% off

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Dr. Dean Mitchell sits down with Dr. Kenneth Liegner, an internist and critical care physician who has treated thousands of chronic Lyme patients since the early days of the disease's recognition. Dr. Liegner trained in anatomic pathology, internal medicine, and surgical critical care before opening a general practice in Westchester County, where he found himself in the middle of one of the most contested debates in modern medicine.The conversation traces how Dr. Liegner came to understand that Lyme disease could follow a relapsing, persistent course, and why that conclusion put him at odds with mainstream infectious disease guidelines. He discusses the IDSA's 2000 and 2006 guidelines, the role of insurance industry interests in shaping treatment coverage, and what it meant professionally to keep treating patients during an era he describes as dangerous for practitioners. He also shares a 1991 case in which spirochetes were cultured from a patient's spinal fluid after prior intravenous antibiotic treatment, later published in the science press.Dr. Mitchell and Dr. Liegner cover the complexity of tick-borne coinfections including Babesiosis, Ehrlichiosis, Anaplasmosis, and Bartonella; the limitations of standard serological testing and the Dearborn criteria; and the challenge of biofilm as a barrier to antibiotic effectiveness. Dr. Liegner also explains his current approach to prophylactic treatment following a tick attachment, including his use of minocycline and Malarone, and his reasoning for that protocol given what he has seen over decades of practice.Contact Dr. Mitchell:Email: [email protected]WebsiteInstagramYouTubeFacebookLinkedInOrder your copy of Dr. Mitchell’s latest book, Conquering Candida, here.Be sure to visit ImmunoLytics & use coupon code SmartestDoc for 5% off

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Book: Conquering Candida
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