Why Are Men Obsessed With Testosterone?
Testosterone, Looksmaxxing and the Dangers of Bro Science
Why Are Men Obsessed With Testosterone?
Testosterone has become more than a hormone online. It is marketed as a shortcut to strength, confidence, attractiveness, sexual performance, productivity, and masculinity.
But medically prescribed testosterone therapy is not the same as bodybuilding steroid use, and a viral “optimization stack” is not a diagnosis.
In this episode of Network Issues, Jamie Cohen and Destinee Day speak with Saad Alam, CEO and co-founder of Hone Health, about testosterone, longevity, looksmaxxing, peptide culture, hormone testing, body dysmorphia, and the risks of building a health protocol from TikTok or Reddit.
Medical note: Saad Alam is a health-care entrepreneur, not a physician. This episode contains personal experiences and general discussion, not individual medical advice. Hormone symptoms, fertility concerns, medication decisions, and injectable products should be discussed with a qualified medical professional.
What Is Hone Health?
Hone Health is an online health clinic serving men and women through laboratory testing, telehealth consultations, and clinician-guided treatment when medically appropriate.
Saad founded the company after experiencing fatigue, weight gain, reduced stamina, and changes in his mental health during his 30s. He says his initial medical visits did not produce a satisfying explanation, but later testing indicated low testosterone.
That experience, together with his family’s experiences with chronic disease and medically induced menopause, led him to build a company focused on hormones, metabolic health, and longevity.
Hone describes its service as personalized, clinician-guided care involving biomarker testing and treatment when medically indicated.
Why Has Testosterone Become So Popular Online?
Testosterone is easy to convert into an internet symbol.
It can be presented as the biological explanation for:
Strength
Muscle mass
Confidence
Competitiveness
Sexual function
Energy
Masculinity
Social status
Motivation
Physical attractiveness
That makes it attractive to online communities built around self-improvement.
Instead of treating testosterone as one hormone inside a complex endocrine system, creators can frame it as a destination: become larger, leaner, stronger, more confident, and more masculine.
This framing is especially compatible with looksmaxxing and biohacking content because it appears to offer a measurable path toward an ideal identity.
What Is Testosterone?
Testosterone is a sex hormone produced primarily in the testes in men and in smaller amounts by the ovaries and adrenal glands in women.
In men, it contributes to functions including:
Sexual development
Libido
Sperm production
Muscle and bone health
Red-blood-cell production
Body-hair patterns
Mood and energy
A testosterone result should not be interpreted alone.
Symptoms associated with low testosterone can also result from sleep problems, obesity, medication effects, depression, chronic illness, thyroid conditions, stress, nutritional issues, or other causes.
That is why diagnosis requires both clinical symptoms and properly conducted blood testing.
How Is Low Testosterone Diagnosed?
Major clinical guidelines recommend diagnosing testosterone deficiency only when a patient has symptoms consistent with low testosterone and repeatedly low laboratory results.
Testing is generally performed in the morning, when testosterone is typically highest. A low result should usually be confirmed with a second morning test on a different day.
Additional testing may be needed to identify the cause, including measurements of luteinizing hormone, prolactin, or other relevant markers.
A single low result—or a creator saying that a certain symptom “means low T”—is not enough to establish a diagnosis.
Does Testosterone Decline With Age?
Testosterone can decline gradually with age, but the pattern varies considerably among individuals.
Age is not the only factor. Testosterone levels can also be affected by:
Obesity
Metabolic conditions
Sleep quality
Certain medications
Acute or chronic illness
Alcohol or drug use
Pituitary or testicular disorders
Nutrition
Physical activity
It is therefore misleading to treat every change in energy, weight, mood, or sexual function after age 30 as proof that testosterone therapy is needed.
Some people have clinically significant hypogonadism. Others have nonspecific symptoms requiring a different explanation.
What Is Testosterone Replacement Therapy?
Testosterone replacement therapy, commonly called TRT, is a medical treatment for people with confirmed testosterone deficiency when a qualified clinician determines that treatment is appropriate.
TRT may be delivered through injections, gels, patches, pellets, or other formulations.
Treatment requires monitoring because testosterone can affect:
Red-blood-cell levels
Fertility
Prostate-related measures
Sleep apnea
Fluid retention
Acne
Breast tissue
Cardiovascular risk factors
Hormone balance
The appropriate treatment depends on symptoms, laboratory results, age, fertility goals, medical history, and other individual factors.
What Is the Difference Between TRT and Steroid Abuse?
Medical testosterone treatment aims to restore testosterone to an appropriate physiological range in a patient with a diagnosed deficiency.
Anabolic-steroid abuse often involves much larger doses, multiple drugs, repeated cycles, and the pursuit of extreme muscle growth or athletic performance.
A bodybuilding stack may combine testosterone with other anabolic steroids, growth hormone, insulin, stimulants, or additional substances.
Risks can include:
Infertility
Testicular shrinkage
High red-blood-cell counts
Liver injury
Cardiovascular problems
High blood pressure
Cholesterol changes
Mood and behavioral effects
Hormonal suppression
Injection-related infections
The fact that testosterone can be prescribed medically does not make unsupervised or high-dose use safe.
Can Testosterone Therapy Affect Fertility?
Yes.
External testosterone can suppress the hormonal signals that tell the testes to produce sperm. That means TRT may reduce sperm production and, in some cases, contribute to infertility.
People who want to preserve fertility should raise that issue before beginning treatment.
A testosterone clinic or physician should not treat fertility as an afterthought. The patient’s goals should be part of the initial evaluation and treatment decision.
What Does Looksmaxxing Have to Do With Testosterone?
Looksmaxxing is an online self-improvement culture focused on maximizing physical appearance.
Its recommendations range from ordinary grooming and fitness to extreme or medically risky practices.
Testosterone, peptides, supplements, cosmetic procedures, restrictive diets, jaw exercises, steroid stacks, and even deliberate facial injury can be presented as components of one optimization plan.
The appeal is understandable: users receive specific instructions and visible goals.
The risk is that an appearance problem becomes treated as an engineering problem. A person may begin believing that every feature can—and should—be altered through increasingly aggressive intervention.
Why Is “Stacking” So Popular?
A stack combines several supplements, medications, hormones, or practices into one protocol.
Stacking appears sophisticated because it uses:
Precise dosages
Timelines
Cycles
Biomarker language
Before-and-after photographs
Scientific terminology
Optimization goals
But complexity does not guarantee safety.
When several products are started at once, it becomes harder to determine:
Which product produced an effect
Which caused a side effect
Whether two substances interact
Whether the dose is appropriate
Whether the product contains what its label claims
Whether any intervention was medically necessary
A carefully formatted spreadsheet can still contain a dangerous protocol.
What Is “Bro Science”?
Bro science is health or fitness advice based primarily on anecdote, repetition, community belief, or personal results rather than reliable medical evidence.
It often sounds persuasive because the speaker appears confident and may have a desirable physique.
Common signals include:
“This worked for me, so it will work for you.”
“Doctors do not want you to know this.”
“This compound has no side effects.”
“Everyone should optimize this hormone.”
“Natural means safe.”
“One laboratory number explains everything.”
“You need this exact stack.”
“Buy it from this research-only website.”
“The scientific studies are behind what we already know.”
Personal experience can generate useful questions. It cannot establish that a treatment is safe, effective, or appropriate for everyone.
Why TikTok and Reddit Health Advice Can Be Dangerous
Social platforms reward content that is decisive, emotional, surprising, and easy to imitate.
Responsible medical advice is often less satisfying. It includes uncertainty, individual variation, testing, contraindications, and the possibility that the intervention is unnecessary.
A creator can say:
Take this peptide and recover twice as fast.
A credible clinician may have to say:
Evidence in humans is limited, the product is not approved for this use, the supply may be unreliable, and we do not know your medical history.
The first message spreads more easily.
The second is more useful.
What Are Peptides?
Peptides are short chains of amino acids. The human body naturally produces many peptides that act as hormones, signaling molecules, or parts of larger proteins.
Some peptide-based medications are FDA approved for specific medical conditions.
Many compounds promoted online for healing, muscle growth, anti-aging, fat loss, sleep, or cognition are not FDA approved for those purposes.
The word “peptide” does not describe one uniform category of safety. Each compound has its own evidence, risks, manufacturing requirements, and regulatory status.
Are BPC-157, TB-500 and Similar Peptides Legal?
The answer is more complicated than saying that all such peptides are simply “legal” or “illegal.”
Many popular research peptides are not FDA-approved drugs. Some bulk substances have been placed in FDA categories associated with significant safety concerns and generally do not qualify for routine compounding exemptions.
As of July 2026, the FDA’s Pharmacy Compounding Advisory Committee is scheduled to consider whether several substances—including BPC-157-related compounds and TB-500-related compounds—should be placed on the Section 503A bulks list.
That meeting is not an approval.
Until regulatory decisions change, consumers should not assume that a prescription, a professional-looking clinic, or a “research use only” label establishes that a compounded peptide is approved, proven, or safe.
Why Buying Injectable Peptides Online Is Risky
Products sold through unregulated or gray-market websites may present risks involving:
Incorrect ingredients
Contamination
Sterility
Inaccurate concentration
Improper storage
Counterfeit labeling
Unknown impurities
Injection technique
Drug interactions
Lack of adverse-event monitoring
Injecting a product bypasses many of the body’s protective barriers.
A substance should never be mixed with bottled water or improvised materials for injection. Injectable products require appropriate sterile preparation and professional guidance.
Are Microplastics Lowering Testosterone?
Researchers are studying whether microplastics and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals affect hormone and reproductive health.
Some chemicals can imitate, block, or otherwise interfere with hormonal signaling. Experimental and observational research has raised concerns about phthalates, pesticides, PFAS, bisphenols, and other environmental exposures.
However, the evidence is not strong enough to say that microplastics alone explain an individual’s low testosterone or that they account for a precise percentage of population decline.
Human exposure is complex, and obesity, metabolic disease, lifestyle, medication use, and other environmental factors may also contribute.
The responsible conclusion is that endocrine-disrupting exposures are a legitimate research and public-health concern—not that every hormone symptom can be traced to microplastics.
Have Sperm Counts Fallen by Half?
A widely discussed meta-analysis estimated a substantial decline in average sperm concentration between 1973 and 2018.
That finding has generated serious concern, but its interpretation remains debated.
Researchers disagree about study populations, measurement methods, geographic representation, selection bias, and whether changes in measured sperm count translate directly into equivalent declines in fertility.
The episode may discuss the reported decline, but the page should not state that every man today has half the sperm of a man 30 years ago.
A more accurate statement is:
Several large analyses have reported substantial population-level declines in measured sperm concentration, although the magnitude, causes, and implications remain actively debated.
What Is Body Dysmorphia’s Role in Health Optimization?
Health optimization can become harmful when the person’s underlying goal is not health but relief from shame, anxiety, or distorted body perception.
Someone who believes their body is fundamentally unacceptable may continually move the target:
More muscle
Less fat
A sharper jaw
Higher testosterone
Better hair
More symmetry
Lower biological age
More energy
Less sleep
Greater productivity
No result feels complete because the underlying distress remains.
Medical testing and professional supervision can reduce physical risk, but they do not automatically resolve body dysmorphia or compulsive optimization.
Mental-health support may be as important as laboratory testing.
Is “Hormone Optimization” the Same as Medical Treatment?
Not necessarily.
Clinical treatment begins with a recognized health problem, appropriate testing, a diagnosis, and an evidence-based discussion of benefits and risks.
Optimization may seek to move a healthy person from a normal result toward a personally preferred or “ideal” number.
The distinction matters because increasing a biomarker does not always improve health.
More is not automatically better.
The Endocrine Society recommends against routinely screening otherwise healthy men for hypogonadism and advises testosterone treatment for men with symptoms and unequivocally, consistently low levels—not simply those who want performance enhancement.
What Should Responsible Testosterone Care Include?
A responsible evaluation may include:
A detailed symptom and medical history
Medication and supplement review
Fertility goals
Physical examination when appropriate
At least two morning testosterone tests
Additional hormone or metabolic testing when indicated
Discussion of alternative causes
Clear treatment goals
Informed consent
Follow-up laboratory testing
Monitoring for side effects
A plan for stopping or modifying treatment
The exact process depends on the patient and clinician.
Frequent testing alone does not prove that every treatment in a protocol is beneficial. The quality of the diagnosis and evidence still matters.
How Can People Evaluate Online Health Advice?
Ask five questions:
1. What is the source?
Is the speaker a licensed clinician working within their area of expertise, a researcher, a patient sharing an experience, a founder selling a service, or an influencer earning commission?
2. What evidence supports the claim?
Look for clinical guidelines, peer-reviewed human research, regulatory information, and independent medical sources.
3. Is the advice personalized?
A hormone level, medication, or peptide cannot be responsibly recommended without relevant medical context.
4. What does the speaker gain?
Consider product sales, affiliate links, subscriptions, clinic enrollment, sponsorship, or audience growth.
5. What uncertainty is acknowledged?
Credible experts explain limitations, risks, alternatives, and what remains unknown.
Should People Experiment With Their Health?
Saad argues that careful experimentation can have a role when it is conducted with medical guidance, monitoring, and a willingness to stop interventions that do not work.
That should not be interpreted as permission to cycle through numerous prescription drugs or unapproved products.
Safer medical decision-making generally involves:
A defined health problem or goal
Evidence proportionate to the risk
One controlled change at a time when possible
Qualified supervision
Authentic products from lawful sources
Monitoring
A stopping rule
Recognition that no treatment is risk-free
A person should not change a health plan because of one post, one podcast, one laboratory number, or one founder’s personal routine.
What Does Menopause Have to Do With This Conversation?
The episode broadens from men’s health into hormone literacy for women.
For years, many women avoided menopausal hormone therapy after early interpretations of the Women’s Health Initiative raised fears about breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, and other risks.
In November 2025, the FDA initiated the removal of broad boxed warnings from many menopausal hormone-therapy products. In February 2026, the agency approved the first related labeling changes.
That does not mean hormone therapy is risk-free or appropriate for every woman. Risks differ by age, health history, treatment type, dose, route, and whether a patient has a uterus.
The updated regulatory approach supports individualized conversations rather than a universal rejection of treatment.
Why Do Women Often Seek Validation From Health Care?
Destinee and Saad discuss a difference they observe between some male and female patients.
Men may arrive seeking an immediate solution. Women may arrive seeking validation after years of having symptoms minimized or dismissed.
This should not be treated as a biological rule about all men and women.
It does, however, reflect a documented cultural problem: patients—especially women—can experience delayed recognition of pain, reproductive symptoms, menopause, autoimmune conditions, and other health concerns.
Better hormone literacy should help patients describe their symptoms without forcing every experience into a simplistic gender stereotype.
Will People Today Live to 120 or 130?
The episode includes the claim that a healthy 36-year-old will probably live to 120 or 130.
That is speculative and should not be presented as a base-case medical forecast.
No currently established treatment makes a lifespan of 120 to 130 probable for today’s general adult population.
Longevity research may improve healthspan and treatment over time, but future breakthroughs cannot be guaranteed for an individual.
A more responsible takeaway is:
People may live and work longer as medicine improves, making long-term health habits increasingly important. Predictions of routine 120- or 130-year lifespans remain speculative.
What Should Young Men Know Before Following a Health Trend?
Saad’s final advice is to make informed choices rather than reacting impulsively to content.
Before starting a hormone, peptide, supplement, extreme diet, or injectable product:
Learn what the intervention is.
Identify whether it is approved for the proposed use.
Understand the evidence.
Consider fertility and long-term effects.
Verify the product source.
Consult a qualified professional.
Avoid starting multiple substances at once.
Establish a monitoring plan.
Decide in advance when to stop.
Examine whether the goal is health, appearance, status, or relief from distress.
The goal is not to avoid every new idea.
It is to prevent a moment of insecurity and a viral post from becoming a long-term medical consequence.
Key Takeaways
Testosterone is a hormone, not a complete measure of masculinity, attractiveness, or health.
Low testosterone should be diagnosed through symptoms and repeat morning testing.
Medically supervised TRT is different from high-dose bodybuilding steroid use.
External testosterone can suppress sperm production and affect fertility.
Looksmaxxing can move from ordinary self-care into body dysmorphia and risky self-treatment.
Many online peptides are unapproved and supported by limited human evidence.
A prescription or clinic does not automatically prove that a peptide is FDA approved.
Environmental endocrine disruptors are a legitimate concern, but precise claims about microplastics and testosterone require caution.
Reported sperm-count declines are significant but scientifically debated.
Menopausal hormone therapy should be evaluated individually rather than treated as universally safe or dangerous.
Claims that most adults will live to 120 or 130 are speculative.
Health decisions should not be based on one influencer, podcast, Reddit thread, or AI response.
Questions Answered in This Episode
Why are men obsessed with testosterone?
Online culture presents testosterone as a biological shortcut to strength, confidence, attractiveness, sexual function, and masculinity. The reality is much more complex.
How do doctors diagnose low testosterone?
Diagnosis generally requires relevant symptoms plus at least two low morning testosterone tests taken on separate days.
Is TRT the same as taking steroids?
TRT uses testosterone under medical supervision to treat diagnosed deficiency. Steroid abuse commonly involves much higher doses, multiple substances, and nonmedical performance or appearance goals.
Can testosterone make a man infertile?
External testosterone can suppress sperm production. Fertility goals should be discussed before treatment begins.
Are peptides safe?
Some peptide medications are approved for specific conditions. Many peptides sold online for recovery, anti-aging, or performance are unapproved, insufficiently studied, or associated with manufacturing and safety concerns.
Is BPC-157 FDA approved?
No. BPC-157 is not an FDA-approved drug. Its potential use in compounding is under regulatory review, which is not the same as approval.
Are microplastics causing low testosterone?
They may contribute to endocrine disruption, but current evidence does not justify attributing an individual case—or a precise population decline—to microplastics alone.
Have sperm counts declined by 50 percent?
A prominent meta-analysis reported a decline of approximately that magnitude over several decades, but the finding, methodology, causes, and fertility implications remain debated.
Is hormone optimization medically necessary?
Optimization and clinical treatment are not the same. Major guidelines recommend testosterone treatment for patients with symptoms and consistently low levels, not simply for healthy people seeking higher numbers.
How can someone identify bro science?
Watch for universal claims, secret protocols, guaranteed results, hostility toward all doctors, weak evidence, affiliate sales, unapproved drugs, and advice based entirely on one person’s experience.
Episode Chapters
00:00 — Welcome, Saad Alam
Jamie and Destinee introduce the CEO and co-founder of Hone Health.
00:31 — What is Hone Health?
Saad shares the personal health and family experiences that inspired the company.
02:56 — How Hone works with patients
The discussion covers testing, clinician consultations, treatment plans, and follow-up.
04:02 — Telehealth and physician availability
Saad describes Hone’s virtual-care model.
04:51 — What changes in the 30s and 40s?
The hosts discuss aging, hormone levels, energy, and health expectations.
05:47 — Why are men obsessed with testosterone?
Testosterone becomes a symbol of masculinity, strength, and self-improvement.
07:01 — Competition and wanting to feel empowered
Saad connects hormone culture with social and physical comparison.
09:11 — Testosterone as a destination
Men may seek the identity associated with testosterone rather than treatment for a diagnosed condition.
10:31 — Looksmaxxing, stacking, and biohacking
Detailed online protocols transform health experimentation into a lifestyle.
13:44 — Saad’s personal health protocol
Saad describes his own intensive approach to health monitoring and optimization.
15:37 — Testing and medical supervision
The conversation emphasizes physicians, biomarker monitoring, and controlled decisions.
16:30 — Steroid abuse vs. medically guided testosterone care
Saad distinguishes physiological replacement from bodybuilding-scale use.
17:12 — TikTok, Reddit, and bro science
Online communities distribute confident advice without complete medical context.
18:36 — Body dysmorphia and impatience
People may use aggressive interventions to correct distress that no physical result can fully resolve.
21:10 — Environmental exposures and hormone health
Saad explains the proposed role of endocrine-disrupting chemicals.
23:37 — DIY health and misinformation
The internet’s self-improvement culture makes medical experimentation feel accessible.
24:53 — Optimization-based care vs. clinical care
The hosts examine the difference between treating a condition and improving an already normal result.
25:40 — Hone’s testing process
Saad describes confirmatory testing and continued monitoring.
27:12 — Peptides and the regulatory gray market
The conversation turns to unapproved products and compounding rules.
30:09 — Cutting through health misinformation
Destinee asks where people can find credible, usable information.
31:13 — Experimenting responsibly
Saad argues for controlled decisions made with qualified professionals.
33:00 — Do not rebuild your health plan from one post
Online content should generate questions, not immediate medication changes.
33:56 — Developing a “bullshit-ometer”
Credentials, evidence, incentives, and uncertainty all matter.
34:43 — Finding the right medical support
Patients may need to seek clinicians who understand their goals and communicate clearly.
37:56 — Men’s health, women’s health, and hormone literacy
The episode expands into menopause, patient education, and partner support.
40:00 — Why women may enter care more informed
Saad discusses differences he observes in how patients describe symptoms.
42:00 — What young men need to understand
Looksmaxxing content can provide instructions without adequate risk information.
48:06 — Make informed choices
Saad encourages education before experimentation.
48:43 — Build a health plan thoughtfully
The episode closes with a warning against impulsive self-treatment.
About the Guest
Saad Alam
Saad Alam is the CEO and co-founder of Hone Health, an online clinic focused on hormones, metabolic health, and clinician-guided longevity care.
Saad is a health-care entrepreneur and patient advocate. He is not a physician, and his personal health practices should not be interpreted as individualized medical recommendations.
Learn more about Hone Health: honehealth.com
About the Hosts
Jamie Cohen
Jamie Cohen is a media scholar, professor, writer, and expert on internet culture, online extremism, algorithms, and media literacy.
Learn more: jamesncohen.com
Destinee Day
Destinee Day is a marketing strategist and founder of Rudy & Company. Her work focuses on branding, communications, digital strategy, and the cultural effects of online media.
Book Destinee’s services: rudyandcompany.com
Sources and Medical Guidance
This episode discusses evolving medical and regulatory topics. For independent context, consult:
The American Urological Association’s Testosterone Deficiency Guideline
A qualified primary-care physician, endocrinologist, urologist, reproductive specialist, or menopause clinician
Continue the Conversation
Why has testosterone become such a powerful identity online? Can health optimization help people feel more in control—or does it make every ordinary sign of aging feel like a medical failure?
Follow Network Issues for more conversations about men’s health, looksmaxxing, social media, misinformation, artificial intelligence, marketing, and the systems shaping how people see themselves.
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Jamie (00:01.445) Assad, right? That's I pronounce it. Yeah. Okay, cool. Excellent. So hello. Hi, Assad. Welcome for let me just do this again. Ready? Three, two. Hi, Saad Welcome to our show. So glad you're here. Just want to say, first question out of the bat is, what, what is Hone Health? Tell us about some of your work and how you became interested in the topics of like men's health or the health of people as they're like reproductibility. Saad (00:02.978) So I just digress. Saad (00:31.914) Okay. so one, thanks so much for having me here. I really, really appreciate this in, terms of how did it get started? and I'll actually use that to talk about what the company does. Cause I think that kind of, really feeds from a personal problem. I've been an athlete my entire life. you know, I was, I was an immigrant growing up in the country and the best way I knew how to fit in was to go play sports. so working out became a really big part of my life early on. Worked out five days a week for the past six days a week since I was probably like 15 or 16 years old. I'm 44 today. And so it's been a very large part of my life. I've taken incredibly incredible care of myself for ever since I was a child. When I turned 35, there were a bunch of problems that started happening. Mental acute and stamina started to slow down pretty dramatically. Started to gain weight, started to feel depressed. which are all completely counter to my personality. And so I went to my primary care physician and I said, doc, something is incredibly wrong with me. And he basically took some of my blood and he said, there's nothing wrong with you. He said, men of Middle Eastern descent start to age a little bit soon. So I'm gonna give you two things. I'm gonna give you some Viagra and I'm gonna give you an antidepressant because your mind's running a little bit too fast and I want you to go on your way. And I said, that's bullshit. Zero chance that is a good answer. And so I started kicking around the healthcare system for probably about a year until I met a group of hormone optimization and regenerative physicians that told me that I had the testosterone levels of an 80 year old man. So that was kind of like the first check mark. Went and got treated, completely changed my life. And then right around the same time, my father was unfortunately dying very slowly of a bunch of chronic diseases that were completely preventable. And then I'd also gone. through watching my mother go through menopause at 36 that was medically induced and seeing the horror it had caused in our lives because of it. She didn't know what she was going through. My father didn't know how to support her. I was 10 years old. I didn't know how to support her. And so when I started thinking about the next mission of my life, it was quite literally after I sold my last business, I want to help people live as long as they possibly can and have a tremendous amount of confidence when they do that. Saad (02:56.642) And so the easiest way to describe Hone is, we are the largest longevity company by revenue right now in the country. We take people, we basically say, what's happening in your life? Let's figure out how to assess and diagnose that, put you on the phone with a physician for 30 to 45 minutes, and then provide you with a really complex protocol of treatments that can include lifestyle, diet, medications, and then every 90 days, let's continue to treat you. and watch how your body's metabolizing it every single 90 days in perpetuity to basically give you exactly the kind of like health you're looking for. And so we're five and a half years in, we're 250 doctors over 40 states. Jamie (03:33.596) That's. Jamie (03:39.486) Wow. Yeah, that's pretty incredible. Yeah. First off, happy, happy birthday, right? Today's your birthday. Yeah. Thank you for joining us on your birthday. I'm 44 this year. I'm 44 right now. I turned 45 in two months. And we'll talk about that in a second, but that's 250. So do you have like his own health? Like all over the US is it global? Destinee Day (03:41.585) That's awesome. Saad (03:42.894) It's like. Yeah, yeah it is. Saad (04:02.382) So we're in 40 states, most of the US. There's certain places that we're not. Vermont, Nebraska, but in all of the big large metropolitan areas, we are present. Everything's virtual too, so all telehealth. Jamie (04:04.306) Mm-hmm. Jamie (04:17.421) excellent. So before we get into like some of the subject matter stuff, I I'm fascinated by this company. So one first question is, I once heard the statistic that in your 30s, that's like when your body's like at its peak health, like they the average summiter of Mount Everest is like 35. So it's like, is that true? Is that like do men and women like is that like the peak? Or is that like a point where I also heard like recently that 44 is like a fall off for men? Like are these like real things? Or is this just like words that we hear. Saad (04:51.374) I guess it depends upon the definition. Like when you say you're in the peak health of your life at 35, I'd probably argue probably 25. I think it is a true statement that when you hit your 40s, things start to slow down. There's also a very seminal point when they say like you hit 63 or 64, there's another really hard downhill movement as well too. The thing that is really interesting though right now that is unfortunate is that in your thirties, you naturally start, stop producing as much testosterone as you used to. So it's usually a percentage and a half to two percentage points per year. So that means from your thirties to your forties, you lose 15 to 20 % of your ability to naturally produce testosterone. That is then exacerbated by the fact that right now, 40 % of men over 35 suffer from hormonal imbalances and low testosterone. And that is primarily from what we believe are environmental factors. Jamie (05:47.198) Yeah. Okay, so that's what we're going to get into that too. Because the first question, I think we really want to ask you is something that has to do with the subject we've been studying. So, Desi and I have been talking about, a couple of weeks ago, we started talking about the Manosphere from Louis Theroux's documentary. And then we started getting into the subject matter that has happened to dominate my semester, which is looksmaxxing. I was just on a Canadian call-in show, like basically people curious about the subject entirely. So I guess the first question, I guess it's kind of a blunt question. It's like, why are men so obsessed with testosterone in general? And why is it such a content factory online? Saad (06:29.57) Man. Saad (06:34.478) There's like a phenomenon. I'm trying to think of the best way to answer that. Go to an everyday gym, right? When most guys go and work out and try putting a lot of muscle on, they think it's because they're gonna attract a lot more women. It's the opposite. You get way more dudes. Way more dudes are, you're out in public and you're with your girl and you're like, your girl's like, why are you staring at that dude's calves? And you're like, stop, stop. Jamie (06:37.487) Yeah, sure. Saad (07:01.346) There is an obsession with, there's a competitiveness about being the biggest, there's competitive about being the strongest, the fastest amongst men that I think is something that's so deeply ingrained in us that it's really difficult to kind of almost like program out. And so there's always this kind of feeling of like, that guy's bigger, they're better looking. And I think that drives a lot of kind of like, masculine competitiveness from what I've seen. And by the way, it's actually very similar in the workplace too. That guy's smarter, his brain operates faster. He can retain more information. How can I be more like him? And so I think there's this constant pull to figure out how you can replace something that you feel like there may be a slight bit of lack of in your life. And I think, you know, there are various reasons why that happens, right? There's emotional ones. I want people to notice me. There is, I want to feel empowered. And so I think like the testosterone thing in general, we have a men's and a women's business and the women's business actually overtook our men's business last month in terms of growth. And I spent a lot of time thinking about the differences between the two, like really consistently, because our experiences are completely different based upon men or women. And this is going to be like a really great summarization is the reason why our women customers are starting to perform better than our men is for one very simple reason. They read and they pay attention. They read the instructions versus the men don't read the instructions. Like literally one of the biggest insights of our business. Jamie (08:36.591) you Saad (08:42.23) Women are so much more introspective and they think more deeply. Men are kind of like blunt hammer and nail objects. Ooh, bigger, wanna be that. I'm just being serious. And it's like with women, you say, here's your protocol. Well, that's great. I got 15 questions for you. And when I'm about to start, I have another 15 questions for you. With men, you're like, here's the medication. Jamie (08:52.669) Now you're right. Destinee Day (08:53.13) Thank Saad (09:11.468) All right, cool. Where do I sign up? All right, I'll figure it out. Let me tell you how to use it. No, no, no, don't worry. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. I'll figure it out. And so there is just like two like completely different attitudes to Earth health from women and men. And with men, they very often look for like the easiest denominator to explain something. And it's like, bigger, smarter, stronger, testosterone. mean, testosterone is the thing everyone talks about. It's what men have more of than what women have. And so I think it's just become, we use the word testosterone like it's really a hormone when the reality is like testosterone is really a destination for a lot of men, like what they want to be. Jamie (09:51.708) wild. So now before we get into like some of the content stuff, I'm more of a technical question with the, the lack of testosterone does not hold someone back from still working out or like still becoming improving their health. Right? Is that like, is this just like, like when the guys online are constantly using this term, are they using it incorrectly? Like do they like you are right about the bluntness. That's why we less doesn't always talk about the term maxxing. It's a blunt suffix. Like it doesn't really mean much, but it's like, It's meant for people who don't need to read. just like, I'm just going to do, I'm going to max it out, know, without thinking about like, you know, there's steps, right? You know, you have to get there. There's like instruction manual to this. Saad (10:31.256) That is a true statement. Although I will say this. If you look at the looksmaxxing trends on Instagram and TikTok, whether it's a man or whether it's a woman, because it's important and because it's so granular, the instructions as to what's happening, the habits are fundamentally changing in society and people are becoming far more articulate and instructive on how to combine things or sequence them and stack them. in order to achieve something very specific. And I think that is a very real thing that is happening. And I'll draw some analogies to it. I was like deep into the bodybuilding community when I was in my late teens, early twenties. And in those communities, people are blatantly abusing steroids, right? And they don't just do one steroid, they do eight steroids that are stacked on top of each other and very carefully sequenced in weeks or days. in order to understand how to achieve the maximal effect. And so what you basically have seen is like this very concept of like early biohacking that is now permeated popular culture, of like punctuated by GLPs and peptides. And that is now just becoming kind of like an everyday lexicon of, I I live in New York city, the number of dudes and women too that are actively having this conversation. It is astounding. I was with... two women that are incredibly affluent in their 50s and 60s yesterday at a coffee shop talking about the business, incredibly intelligent. And these women had already been on peptides for 10 years and were giving me such detailed instructions on what their protocols are and how they're sequencing on and off them. So it is like a very real trend in society overall right now. Destinee Day (12:27.879) So I'm so curious. I know Jamie and I take a view of it from a very Manosphere vibe, but something you hear about, I hear about as a woman, but also you hear about in the Manosphere is exactly what you're talking about, these stacks. So I'm curious at what point do you see the stacks negatively impacting people's health and then needing the assistance from know, testosterone, where do you see that people are over abusing them? You know, I know that we see people like Clavicular online with his insane crazy situation, but, and no one's recommending that anyone microdoses methamphetamines, but you know, I'm just very curious where is there a line of what's healthy and then what's not. Saad (13:24.738) going to answer your question by telling you about what I do actually. And then I'm going to tell you how healthy I am. And then I'll tell you about where I think it's good, where I think it's bad, and if it's right for you, right? Destinee Day (13:42.141) Mm-hmm. Saad (13:44.15) And let's assume I'm on the further end of, of kind of like obsession and also too, because I run a business like this, like it's literally my passion is giving this thing I found back to other people because I think it's so wonderful. So I'm on hormones. I'm on multiple peptides. I have a, I've got a sauna and a cold plunge and a hyperbaric oxygen chamber in my home office. I do therapeutic phlebotomy. everything from red light, I do it. Anything that's interesting, I try it. Now I also, every 90 days have, I probably look at 500 to 600 biomarkers and I've got a group of four physicians that are constantly around me that look at all my health and we're constantly thinking about how can I get better? For me, the most interesting thing is not how do I look more muscular? But it is how do I actually reduce my biological age? But how do I make sure that as I scale this business and do all the things I want to do, be a great husband, we just had a daughter, be there and present for my daughter, how can I do all of those things at the highest cognitive level possible? It literally is like the number one KPI for my overall health. And so I could argue I'm obsessive about it, but everything that I have done, I promise you, like I index in my late twenties, athletically, biologically, cognitively. The most interesting thing that is happening over the past like six or seven months of my life is I've been able to figure out how to increase the amount of deep sleep and reduce the overall amount of sleep I need so I can get up at 4 45 every morning and just do it even harder. And so you could argue like that's obsessive and that sounds sick. But if you look at everything that's happening in my life, I mean, it's kind of working right now. It's also to be said, I do it in a very scientific way. I work with physicians. I work with Jamie (15:30.289) Mm-hmm. Saad (15:37.56) I don't buy peptides from RSO facilities online. I'm going to 503A compounders and I'm working with doctors and saying, this stuff works. I'm testing constantly. And also this didn't happen overnight. I've been probably, you know, really focused on my health in some shape or form for like 20 years too. And so it takes time to kind of learn where to push and where not to push. when I do something that's fringe, being with a physician that, and we understand like, hey, hey, this is kind of the line, like, full of statin gene therapy. I'd love to do it, but maybe drives growth in the wrong way. We're not exactly sure the way it operates longer term. So I decided not to do it. And so when you say what's bad, when a bodybuilder does like real stacks of steroids, when I'm doing testosterone through hone or I'm like, replacing the testosterone that's leaving my body, I do 50 milligrams a week, right? That's just a number, 50 milligrams a week. It's a real number. When a bodybuilder is trying to put on weight to be yoked so he can get ready for competition, he does between two and 4,000 milligrams for week very often, right? So like the scale and the scope is so much larger and to do that for a long period of time. And to do, you don't just do a single cycle, you do a cycle, you come off for three months, you do a cycle, you come off for three months, and you stack them for years, and then you throw things in like growth hormone, insulin, and it causes all kinds of other problems. That is like the dangerous side of it, like the real dangerous side. The other dangerous side is... The moment someone does their first peptide or when I'm, you when I talk to, I'm very lucky I get to hang out with a lot of younger people in the city. If we go to the gym, we hang out. They go get their, they get their advice from TikTok, Reddit, and then go buy RSO peptides from God knows where, and they're injecting themselves. And all of a sudden they're armchair scientists that are specialists. And you're like, okay, listen. And a lot of the stuff they say is like basement bro science. Saad (17:41.122) And they're trying to be real and they're trying to be right. And by the way, like it's great, but the reality is like, they're not talking about it from like a biologic or physiological perspective. They're just spouting off what they heard somewhere else. And so that's also dangerous too, because then you're misinforming the public about, and people around you about what's really healthy. And a lot of the times, especially when I go into saunas, the number of people... Jamie (17:54.929) Right. Saad (18:09.942) men and women just kind of like Reddit science. I'm like, listen, let me just tell you, this is actually not the way it works. This is probably a better way to think about it. But I think that'll also change as the education gets better and more qualified people get on social channels and their words get out further than kind of like just the people speaking about it and shooting from the side of their hip. I think the other thing that's dangerous though is Jamie (18:15.12) Mm-hmm. Saad (18:36.288) I will say that I have been very fortunate to do it from a place of health and control. I think a lot of people, you know, I just, we just had a daughter and my wife and I talk about this a lot. Like, what are we going to do to make sure that she doesn't have a, a body dysmorphia as she gets older? And I think that there are a lot of people in general right now that don't like themselves or the way they look. and they're willing to be very aggressive in a very short period of time to try to turn it all the way the other direction. And the reality is like, what people don't realize is actually just a little bit goes a really long way. And so sometimes people are impatient and they wanna just push the balance back further. Jamie (19:08.221) Right. Jamie (19:23.965) Yeah, you bring up such an important thing. I just had a daughter and a son. And so we were my wife and I had a long talks about like what it's like to raise children in this time, you know, so I want first I want to ask a question about the environment. But second is like, yeah, I think a lot of how we raise our kids and obviously, I'm new to this. I don't know. But it's about how we model that behavior. Right. So when you're like maxing out, you're doing something that's more intense and it shows that intensity is like the answer. Whereas like what I mean, you're a doctor. So you'd like know, like Saad (19:52.28) Hold on, I'm not a doctor. I'm not a doctor. Jamie (19:53.502) Oh, you're not a doctor. But you come from an area of high expertise. I mean, it sounds like it's not like a short amount of information here. Like Saad (20:01.806) I should have said that I probably have the knowledge of what many physicians may operate at. I decided not to go to med school or I should say drop out. But it has been a very large fascination of mine and I'm very lucky to surround myself with literally some of the best doctors in the country that I spend all my spare time. Jamie (20:21.351) Yeah, it's either regardless, it sounds like a responsible approach that is based in a reality. Whereas I feel like a lot of the, and this isn't to take it, to put down people who are like absorbing their information from online, because it's like a lot of people do that, but it's also like they're looking in the wrong places. And I don't think they truly understand that a lot of people that make this type of content are doing it for the hits, not for the health, you know? So how do you, Now, this is a question. In an age where the environment itself is changing these numbers, Like testosterone is dropping. First, that's first half of this question is, what does that mean when you're saying environmental aspects? I hear about this all the time. I hear about microplastics and all this other stuff. I don't know the answer, so I'm asking you. And the second half is, what do you do with a client that comes in with what I want to call misinformation? You know, like stuff like that. Saad (21:10.446) All right, so let's talk about the first one. So the way your body works is you have something called your hypothalamus and your pituitary. It's like almost like in between your ears, kind of a little bit further back from your eyes. And assume that your hypothalamus is like a temperature sensor for all the hormones in your body and your pituitary releases hormones into your body to help make changes based upon what this feels. So. As a man, you end up having LH or luteinizing hormone released from your pituitary. That luteinizing hormone goes down and tells your testes to produce testosterone. That testosterone then turns into three different molecules. turns into DHT, turns into estrogen, or should say, and it stays testosterone. Your hypothalamus senses how much of those hormones there are your body, and it modulates the amount of LH it is actually producing for the rest of your body. When you are in an environment full of environmental contaminants, specifically microplastics, they resemble estrogenic compounds, meaning they resemble a lot of estrogen. The way your body works is when you produce testosterone, it spills into right DHT or estrogen. If there's too much estrogen in your body, all of sudden your hypothalamus senses that and it says, wait, too much estrogen. That means there's too much testosterone probably being produced. let me reduce that LH signal that is actually being sent from your brain to your testes. And so just so happens, a lot of these contaminants, they resemble estrogenic compounds. Specifically in large urban areas, there's an even higher amount of environmental compounds and pollutants. And so when you look at the testosterone level of young men in those areas, and when I'll even say like 30, 40 and 50 year old men, it is significantly decreased. What is that number? Men 30 years ago had 26 % more testosterone, not in the US, globally. Now hold on, this number is an even bigger kicker. 30 years ago, three decades ago, men had 50 % more sperm, 50, 50, 50. And by the way, I'm not being hyperbolic. These are very much research-driven, evidence-based facts. And when I first heard about it, I thought it was incredibly conspiratorial in nature. But then as you start, Saad (23:29.324) really ingraining yourself in the science, you realize like, no, this is a real thing that's happening. Jamie (23:37.758) I'm sorry. It just seems like 30 years, like, it seems very rapid for that number to drop. So obviously the environment, things have changed. So now we're at a point where in those same 30 years, that identical time period from let's say the 1990s to the present, which is crazy that that's 30 years ago, we also have the rise of the influencer, of the health influencer, of bodybuilding.com, which was the first biggest site on the internet. And we talk a lot about how the reason it was successful, the internet has this base language of DIY improvement, self-improvement. So it fit into that model. And then as we go forward to like the more algorithmic feeds and content creation, now you have people who are like constructing these realities. Like we have a whole movements of people who basically tell stories. They're storytellers about health, but they don't really have like the knowledge you just said, like that was new to me. And so. Now when you meet somebody who's like basically given themselves the wrong information to themselves and are doing like the buying the peptides off the wrong markets, how do you course correct? Like how do you, what is that? Is that like a hone thing? Is that like, you, have you modeled that out as like a process or is that, is that common? Am I talking about like something that happens or is this like an aberration? Saad (24:53.582) So there are two very specific approaches for treatment. I'm probably simplifying. There's probably more than two approaches. But assume there's like the optimization-based approach, which is even if you have no clinical reason to take this medication, we're going to give it to you. This is the arguably, these are the looksmaxxers right now in society. Then there's the clinical approach, which is, you actually have a clinical reason to take this medication? I.e. do you have a healthcare problem? When we built Hone because we had to go raise institutional funding. The biggest problem was if you go build an optimization-based business, you can actually get yourself into a lot of regulatory trouble, a lot of it. So when we went in, we said one thing, and we said one thing, we have to live and die by it because when you're a VC-backed business, you want to grow at all costs. We said, what are our clinical guidelines? and let's stick to it. And the biggest one that we did that is arguably, I think, set the standard for a lot of places in the industry is we said, unless you have clinically low testosterone or what you call hypogonadal, we will not treat you. OK, so that's the first thing. So we have a patient tested. They come in, they get tested. If they're below a certain threshold, we are willing to treat them. They have a conversation with a physician. Now, after the conversation, most places just send the medication. Let me just get it to you. We actually do a second test that patients hate. And it's because we want a confirmatory analysis that they truly are low. There's not a law. You don't have to do this. The American Urological Association likes you to. Most physicians won't do that because it's just more work. Then when we prescribe the medications, we check against a national government database to make sure you are not getting it from anywhere else and trying to abuse the system. Then... Every 90 days, you've got to do another physician consult and another blood analysis to figure out how your body's doing so we can very carefully control it and make sure none of the side effects, which are very serious, are not accelerating in your body. And so when people come in to us, they're very much, yo, let me get some tea so I can get a swole. You're like, no, no, no. Well, that's not the business on there. By the way, there are those places online. You're more than free to get that if you want. Jamie (27:06.749) you Saad (27:12.952) high quality care that's gonna actually try figuring out how to get you into the normal to slightly optimal range so you feel the best, we're the right clinic for you. If you're just trying to get drugs on the internet, there are places that do that. That's not my business. And so now your question is, because technically, I don't know if you guys know this, technically peptides are illegal most of them. Hold on, don't know this. This is really interesting. Okay, so let's assume there's probably 2,000 3,000 different peptides that are kind of like very well known. They're more than that in your body. These are kind of just long chains of amino acids or proteins in your body. Of them, there's actually probably only 10 of them that are approved by the FDA. Okay, so those 10 we can count on our hands. Jamie (27:40.207) Mm-mm. Destinee Day (27:40.849) No. Saad (28:07.832) The GLPs, so you've got liraglutide, you've got smaglutide, you've got terzapotide. Then you've got sermorelin, which is a secreted tag, which tells your brain to naturally produce more growth hormone. That's meant for patients that have growth, or they have growth challenges when they're young. Then you've got tessamoralin, which is meant for lipodystrophies, for AIDS patients. They get this really thick layer of subcutaneous fat around their belly. It's meant specifically to help remove that using the same mechanism that Cermerelin does. There's PT-141 for sexual dysfunction. Saad (28:44.098) maybe there's six or seven. Those are like the ones that are coming off the top of my head, the ones that we prescribe. All the ones that you're hearing about, BPC 157, TB 500, ipamoralin, GHKCU, epedalone, they are all in what they call a category two list, which says that 503A compounding pharmacies are not allowed to actually create them. In July, there is a very big summit being held by the FDA where they will make a determination, can they take a large majority those and move them back to category one and make it legal for them to be produced again? By the way, there's another 50 of them that are never gonna make it on the category one list that are also being prescribed pretty regularly. So the bigger question is, how the hell has this proliferated in the country at such a fast pace Jamie (29:40.699) Yeah. Saad (29:43.202) with the understanding that one, on, doctors are prescribing the illegal ones and they're being sent out. That is kind of like one of the most interesting backdrops of this whole thing is that unregulated illegal drugs are made to everyone's houses and they're taken. Jamie (30:02.755) Okay. Saad (30:04.68) It's my modeling. Jamie (30:07.671) Yeah, a little. Destinee Day (30:09.021) Something that you've touched on a few times is all of the misinformation that's out in this industry. And I mean, I think that's where a lot of our younger generation is turning to things like looksmaxxing because it seems like an easy solution. But what would you recommend to people that are looking to to cut through all the fluff and where do you go to learn real credible information about things like this? Because obviously, Jamie and I spend a lot of time online, we spend a lot of time in the space and you just told us several things that we were unaware of. So I would just love to know what you do to cut through the fluff. Saad (30:59.182) I'm gonna say two things that are on diametrically opposing ends of advice. But they're two important things. Saad (31:13.216) On one hand, and it'll answer your question, Destinee, in it, on one hand, in order to truly practice longevity or kind of like what I do with my life, you do have to divorce yourself a little bit from traditional medical canon, and you have to be willing to test on yourself. And what I mean by that is that the paradigm shift that is happening right now is that physicians right now are prescribing more more medications off label. And if a patient is willing to kind of like test themselves alongside that physician, and you have to be willing to understand that if I give the red pill to you versus Jamie, might be the same red pill, your body may react to it completely differently than Jamie's does. And even though it's indicated for something completely different. And so it's really important that if you think something has medical credibility, or it is clinically relevant to you. If you try it with a physician, you can try it, it may not work and you've got to pull it back off. And a large part of the world that we're going into will be able to design our health. And that will involve you trying and removing a lot of things until you find the right stack that's the best for you. know, going back to your last question about what's unsafe, what's unsafe is taking 15 medications or 20 medications. What's really healthy is trying 15 or 20 medications over the course of time to find the three that really work the best for you. That's safe. That's the right thing to do. Cause also three that's sustainable. So now that's one hand of it, which is you have to be willing to test alongside physicians. The other side of it is. Saad (33:00.942) You have to be willing to do things in a very controlled fashion and not do things in kind of like a haphazard, I'm scrolling my phone and I just learned something new, so I got to try that kind of fashion, which is I think a lot of what I see happening right now is, hey, I heard this person say this thing that's opposing to this thing, so I'm going to take that advice better. And look, we have and are living in one of the most amazing moments in life right now, where whether it's Claude or chat, that's your best friend. You can have intelligent conversations. And so it's important to whatever it gives you back. Isn't always right. You have to learn how to question it. Like that's one of the most important skills is teaching yourself how to question it. Cause it will write it in a way that makes it feel like. Destinee Day (33:47.805) Mm-hmm. Jamie (33:51.346) Mm-hmm. Saad (33:56.864) you were brilliant and you were smart and it is right every time. And so when you ask the question, like, where do you go for information? It's, there is a culture of testing with the right medical professionals. That's important. I do believe that's like a hallmark of where we're going right now in society. I think you have to be very careful not to constantly just flip your beliefs based upon what you hear on a social channel. And you've got to be careful and develop the right, it's almost like a bullshit-ometer. Destinee Day (34:24.423) Mm-hmm. Saad (34:24.65) of who's real versus who's not. then Jamie, to your point, who's doing this to go viral versus who's actually credible medical professional that is saying something that makes sense also that isn't too politically biased, right? And then the other thing too is I really do believe this. Jamie (34:37.362) Mm-hmm. Saad (34:43.808) If this is important to you, and I think it should be, because there's nothing more important than your health, because it allows you to do so many other things in your life, you should figure out how to spend a couple extra bucks and go find the right professionals to work with. This is also important. And this is also a very emotionally unsatisfying answer. I'm going to say that as I say this. They are all in a spectrum of their understanding of the way that this world is moving right now. And so you have to be very, very careful about also taking advice for them. And you have to almost date around physicians until you find the right one that you believe is credible. I can, I can easily plug my business. We do a lot of that. There are a bunch of other businesses that are emerging right now, not to tell you exactly what's right, but to help you walk through that journey. If kind of like this culture is the one that you're running towards. And so I think that there is no one individual place. Cause even if you say, Hey, would I go to web MD? used to run. Jamie (35:31.228) Mm-hmm. Saad (35:39.414) marketing and marketing and sales for the largest WebMD competitor. And I'll tell you like that science is also outdated as well too. And they're running behind the times and they're running in a medical education system that's 10 years behind. And so it's really figuring out and curating the most credible voices in the room and working with physicians that understand that the culture you're moving towards is one of testing. Jamie (35:52.497) Mm-hmm. Jamie (36:04.773) This is what's wonderful about what you're saying is like, it's kind of the same work that has to go on when you're seeking a therapist. You know, can't just pick, they're not all matches, you know, like, so your body is looking for that too. It is one of those things that like we combat with, we've talked about on previous episodes here, which is about patients. know, sometimes you can't, combat a lot of this, requires like, not just trial and error, but the willingness to know that doesn't take, it takes a while. And like, I take your point really like firmly here because it's like now I think a fair amount of my friends are having children older, you know, which means that when they go, when my kids, yes, same. mean, like when my kids graduate high school, I'll be almost 60 at that point. You know, it's like, I don't wanna look like my dad at 60. Like, I wanna be like healthier than I am now to be very honest with you. So it's like, that means work. I know I do have faults as it is. Like I do have to like cut out like some of the vices that I have. And that takes work alone just to start that process before getting to the health process. But like, what I also find optimistic is not only like people being more curious about like health longevity, but I do find like new language is helpful. Like I want to ask about how your company deals with the idea of like women's health too. Like words like perimenopause I didn't even know like existed. And like, that's great for me to have conversations with my wife about her health and how she's aging through this. And like, that's super important that I think men. especially like men, like millennials, borderline gen X and stuff, they kind of are stuck in like the previous mindset that like older men or boomers had, which is just like male, female differentiation. And now it's kind of like, well, as we get older and co-raise children, health matters to everybody. And so how do you help men understand women's health, like as a co-relationship with this? Saad (37:56.258) mean, if I'm being really honest, we've probably done a poor job with helping men understand women's health because... Saad (38:06.574) we're so focused on helping men understand their health and they're so bad at understanding their health. By the way, that's also to be said, mean, women are far more in tune with their body, but we're also coming out of a very dark 25 year period. And what I mean by that is, you guys are familiar with the WHI study, Health Initiative. So let's just call it 25 years ago-ish. Destinee Day (38:12.871) Thanks. Jamie (38:29.202) Mm-mm. Destinee Day (38:29.757) Mm-mm. Saad (38:34.776) the Women's Health Initiative came out with a study that basically said that women who are on hormone replacement therapy get breast cancer. And if you look at the real data, there's a slight increase, but when you look at the entire proportion of it, It is, it was greatly mis-exaggerated. And the problem is that it became, the media took it, they ran with it. And the total number of women on HRT went from 25 % of the population to 4%. Three months ago, the FDA took the black box warning off and said, Hey, these studies were done in the wrong cross population of women. This is not a thing. I can't believe it, but we've had an entire generation of women that have gone through perimenopause and menopause without hormone replacement therapy. And if you very often don't take it before you're specific age in your 60s, it's not as effective and you don't get the same cardiac benefits. And now that the HRT black box warning came off, it has been an explosion of interest. And I would even argue it probably happened, the explosion of interest happened two and a half years ago when the New York Times first wrote the article debugging that study. And so I think what we see a lot of is women before, whenever you mentioned that they were in perimenopause or menopause, they were like, no. No, no, no, no, no, no. I don't even want to hear it. That is the worst thing in the world. I think now women are being like, all right, that's cool. Like that's probably what's happening. And these are the symptoms. By the way, I know it's completely treatable. Let's roll with it. Let's figure out how to fix it. And so I think those are lot of the conversations that we're dealing with is women finally actually feeling far more empowered than men, if I'm being perfectly honest. Men, when they have a problem, they come to you quietly and listen, I got this problem. No, like a wife and I, you're like, listen, I get it. Versus women are very specific. Hey, look, I've been tracking my cycles and instead of having them every 28 days, now I'm having them like every 56 days on top of a two, three days a week I'm having hot flashes. And I think it's perimenopause, or I think it's menopause. And so they come in far more informed than it's us. This is a really important insight too. Saad (40:51.288) The single most important thing if you describe a man versus a woman's experience on our site and what they go through, and we spend a lot of time with marketing exercises, is for women, it's validation. And for men, it's a solution. Which by the way, this is exactly how men and women think. Guys, solution, take it, go. Women, I've been trying to tell my doctor this for years, for years. And they have dismissed me and I feel so happy that you are validating what I'm going through. best way to characterize the two experiences. Destinee Day (41:25.405) I'm nodding my head through all of this because although I didn't know the name of the specific study, there are a lot of women in my life that are older that cited that study and were too afraid to do anything about it and suffered greatly. And then there were the rare one or two that decided that it was worth the risk at the time. And the difference between them is absolutely staggering. Saad (41:37.955) Yes. Destinee Day (41:55.525) And then it validates me, I'm 36, and now I get hit with all of the prepare for perimenopause stuff on social media, but you're right, it does give me a sense of calm, because often when I go to a doctor, I am not believed. I've had to fight for my health. For most of my life, I've had to fight through multiple specialists and tons of people. So you're right, women are searching for validation. And I do get a lot of crazy things sent to me by a variety of people online that are not believable. It's just crazy things. And so I'm constantly searching for what will validate me but is a real solution, not. not something that seems pseudoscience-y, which I do think maybe we've lost the ability to understand that discernment to a specific sense because we live in a world of social media where a lot of people do what Jamie and I do right now, which is have a conversation and it's very well put together, very well edited, very well marketed, and it's very difficult to understand branding. at the bottom of this. And ultimately, that's what I feel like these young people are going through online, right? They're trying to brand themselves and they're looking for the quickest way possible to do that. So I think you've both validated that it's about the journey. It's about the trial and error. It's not about the quick solution. Bone smashing is a massive thumbs down. Saad (43:35.758) So silly. Yeah. Yeah, it is silly. listen, I will say this too, and this is important, right? And Jamie, you hit the nail on the head. My wife and I talk about this all the time. I'm to be 65 when my daughter's getting out of high school. Like that, that's just such a crazy. My wife was also, you know, she's going to still turn 40 this year. She's an older mother. And I actually don't think I would have had the confidence to make a decision to go into parenthood so late unless I had a firm belief on the way medical technology is moving right now. I think that the thing that is also difficult to almost think about, and it's almost like gonna sound science fiction-y, but it is a reality of the world we live in, is, Destinee, I'll take it you, right? 36 years old. You'll probably live until you're 120 or 130. By the way, base case. Destinee Day (44:26.749) Mm-hmm. Saad (44:32.206) And so when you start to think that you're going to have 90 years ahead of you, probably 80 really good years, it like fundamentally takes the arc of your life that you drew in your mind and it, it alters it. And it's really hard to go through the mental exercise to realize you may have thought you're going to retire at 65. Crazy. That, that world just doesn't exist. I mean, it does not exist. And when you were 85 or 90, that's when you're to probably really start thinking about slowing down. And when you think about the elongation of total productive life that you will have, you then start thinking about what your career, the seasons of your life look like differently. And the people that have had kids a little bit later and are like deeply in this health world, they can see it and they actually forecast their lives in ways that are very untraditional, but will become the normal. And so I think we're living through a period where there are a lot of millennials that are just beginning to realize that that is a real thing. And I would even argue there are a lot of boomers that have been super healthy for their entire lives. And they're realizing that at 65, they have the ability to sprint faster than they could when they were in their 40s. And so I think it's a really exciting time that we're living through in our life. And the looksmaxxing part of it is, I'm gonna say it differently. It's the equivalent of what bodybuilders were doing to try to figure out the edges of where human performance lay. And all of what those kids are doing online and adults will eventually become what actually works in the future. They just happen to be showing it to us online and giving us access to what their journey looks like. Jamie (46:23.611) That's an ongoing thought of mine, which is because the internet is both cumulative and temporal. It's like, basically it's like the internet stays the same age, but the users get older. So as they go, they learn things that like are accumulating from previous people. that means like what we're learning now in the 2020s becomes our beta tests, know, we're testing like what's going on in the future. So that makes, that leads me to my last question here, which is like, what advice would you give young people? who are encountering content that they haven't yet even learned of home health or they haven't yet learned of like physicians or people that know how to even talk about testosterone or maybe it's even taboo amongst their like, their words. What advice would you give them to like enter this thought process of health and longevity knowing that their lives are going to be much longer than like previous generations? Saad (47:19.81) the first one's gonna seem kinda trite, education. spend the time over educating your students. You're gonna do things without a physician next to you because you may not necessarily be in a financial position or have access to them all the time when you're in your early 20s, 22, 23. You're gonna have a couple bucks in your pocket. You're watching what everyone's doing online and you're realizing that some people are really getting ahead and you're gonna wanna emulate where they are in life. Because you believe for some reason in your mind that if you look this way or if your waist is this skinny that you're gonna have this magical life. That's fine. That's what you're gonna believe. You've gotta figure out how to get there. The single most important thing is that when you make your choices to be as informed as possible. So it is looking on your social channels, looking at the... right versus left looksmaxxer on those channels, going to credible health professionals, listening to them as well too, and then using your intelligence to figure out where the educated guess is that you're going to, or the educated bet is you're going to take. Don't just do things because you saw something at 11:55 the night before and you're going to wake up at 4:40 the next morning and go live a completely different life. That's not Saad (48:43.074) Think very, be very thoughtful about the life that you're trying to construct. Put the pieces together, get on an Excel file. know like that's silly, but like literally like go to Claude, go build a Google sheet, write it all out. Think about the timeline. If you're doing that, at least you're putting thought into it rather than just my friend told me to go get read a true tried from this, illegal site in China or ordered it. And then I ordered my bacteriostatic, I actually didn't have bacteriostatic water. So I just use bottled water and mix them together. And now I'm injecting, don't do that. And I see a lot of that. Don't do that. Just be smart, be educated about what you're going to do. Jamie (49:31.077) Excellent. Thank you, Saad. This is really, I learned a lot. Halfway through this, texted Destinee. was like, this is mind blowing. So, and I guess that's what the best benefit of like you being the expert of this is. So I really appreciate your time today to share this with us because it's a, in the terms of like over saturation of media, this has been extremely helpful. Saad (49:50.552) Cool, yeah, I appreciated it. Destinee Day (49:53.913) Alright, I'm gonna hit stop on this.