SS 153 – Indur Athlete Testing

Grant and Heavey are joined today by Brandt Beal from GetIndur.com as they discuss how blood testing can actually help people achieve their health goals. They tackle the difference between regular blood testing vs.Indur’s blood testing. Brandt gives a general overview of how their process looks like if you decide that you want to have a better understanding of what’s going on inside your body and how you can optimize your health.

 

[01:31] Fake Alcohol, Fake Weeds, and Fat-Free Ice Creams

 

Grant mentions this article about getting wasted without hangovers. Thanks to ethanol!

 

A professor of Neurpsychopharmacology in London has created new chemicals that mimic the effect of alcohol on the brain without any of the side effects. No hangovers. No problems with coordination, and non-addictive.

 

A similar story to this is this synthetic marijuana that has been made. They call it bath salts. Now Grant has a valid point. What’s going to happen when people drink fake booze?

 

Heavey recalls a fat-free ice cream that he and his wife, Nicole, were big on at one time. The ice cream was made with sugar alcohol so it was low-calorie too. They shared it and called it a night, and as Heavey was halfway through his 10-minute drive all the way home, the sugar alcohol was messing with his bowels. He barely made it home and in fact, almost shit in his pants.

 

Have you also heard of this new ice cream, Halo Top? Available in pints, it has become the bestselling ice cream in America, Grant says. It’s full of those sugar alcohols. Heavey clarifies though that there’s only some of the sugar alcohols that cause the GI distress. Secondly, it comes in small containers

 

[05:45] About Get Indur

 

According to Heavey, Get Indur helps people get healthy which in turn helps them get fit. This begins with blood testing and telling clients what they need to do in regards to exercise, food, and supplements to better reach their goals. However, blood testing and analysis is primarily what they do.

 

Developed for about two years now, Get Indur came out in beta testing in May 2017 and has been going ever since.

 

[07:03] Is Brandt a Doctor?

 

Brandt is not a doctor and it’s one of the things that most people find so strange. They expect the majority of their team to be physicians or having clinical background. At the end of the day, he calls himself a serial entrepreneur with a passion for health and fitness, but they do work with about 50 doctors.

 

[08:17] The Difference with Blood Exams When Doing a Physical Exam

 

Brandt points out that when you go to your physical, they do run blood tests. However, they don’t necessarily run the types of tests that need to be run to help someone “biopath” their body.

 

In regular physical exams, they’re going to check your prostate when you’re over 40 – run some blood markers and test you for things like glucose, cholesterol, triglycerides, good cholesterol, bad cholesterol. They’ll do a comprehensive metabolic panel so they’ll look at your liver and kidney function, but that’s just about as in depth as those blood tests will go.

 

They call this test a Health and Wellness check. The reason why they don’t run these tests is that insurance companies find the type of tests companies like these as exploratory and unnecessary, and therefore, they’re denied of coverage.  The patient is left with an outrageous bill that pisses them off and which the doctor doesn’t necessarily care for.

 

During a regular physical, they test your blood but only a basic diagnostic check. They don’t tell you what to change, how to exercise, or how to eat differently.

 

First, they’re not normally asking the questions or finding out what your goals are. Also, the types of test they run aren’t typically giving you any insight into what you need to do to biopath your body.

 

[10:22] How INDUR Works

 

Brandt walks us through their process. First, people are being led to four core panels – the Basic Diagnostic Check (all systems check), Perform Panel (for the weekend warrior athlete), Transform Panel (for weight loss or weight gain), and the Peak Panel for crazy health enthusiasts and competitive athletes.

 

In their Peak Panel, they look at 98 different biomarkers. They also take very specific markers based off of someone’s goals. For example, if one has a hard time losing stomach fat in spite of working out all the time, they’ll look into things like insulin, glucose, testosterone, leptin, estradiol, or cortisol.

 

Usually, they have a feature on their site where the visitor takes a 12-question assessment and based on the answers given, they’re able to recommend a specific panel for that individual.

 

[14:00] When Their Physicians Come In

 

When the results come back, they explain how the process works. They’re found nationwide except for New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island due to regulatory issues. Once they purchase the panel from the site, they send them a piece of paper and can take it into any Quest Diagnostics located nationwide. They then scan that and it tells the phlebotomist exactly what they need to draw.

 

When they get the results back, all results are reviewed by the physician. They look for pertinent important medical issues. In certain cases where they see things like if someone looks like they’re at risk like for example, someone with dangerously high blood sugar levels, they’re going to call the client and tell them they need to see their primary care physician as soon as possible.

 

After that portion, it goes through their artificial intelligence system that runs different algorithms based on information collected in the profile. Brandt assures that their clients are going through a pretty extensive profiling. Additionally, they’re also going to use information from other people, and research until they can create specific recommendations you can implement to optimize your blood levels.

 

For the most part, it’s automated although you may also choose to get a consult with a practitioner to help walk you through and answer specific questions.

 

[16:20] Common Irregular Biomarker Trends

 

Because they’re able to collect different sets of information which noone else out there does, they are becoming a data warehouse of all good health information.

 

For example, every person that has come though on a ketogenic diet has some of the best lipid profiles (cholesterol, triglycerides). This goes to support that fats have really gotten a bad rap because there’s proof.

 

Blood sugar is another issue they see. They see blood sugar and insulin resistance as being a very big deal with men and women. In women, they see estrogen-dominance in women in their 20s. This could be the reason it has been nearly impossible for them to lose weight or reach their fitness goals.

 

They’re collecting information from these trends and building that information back into their recommendations.

 

[18:20] Recommendation for Estrogen-Dominance in Women

 

Brandt explains that if a woman goes into the doctor’s office and has her estrogen and progesterone tested, they could come back within normal range and the practitioner would not think anything of it.

 

At INDUR, they’ve built a proprietary algorithm that creates a ratio between those too so they can look at how much progesterone she has to offset the side effects of estrogen. In men and women, progesterone offsets the negative side effects of estrogen. There’s a lot of men with low progesterone levels as well that people don’t even think about.

 

If a female comes in with high estrogen levels, they’re going to recommend a certain supplement that helps the body metabolizes the estrogen .Other recommendations include getting progesterone cream or capsule supplementation to raise progesterone levels to offset the side effects of the estrogen; in some cases, taking magnesium and zinc. Once the balance has been restored, Brandt describes the person would feel dramatically different. Acne would be gone as well as the stomach bloating in about 70% of the females that come through their platform.

 

[21:10] Diet Recommendations

 

Brandt says that the majority of their recommendations are nutrition-based. They tell people what types of food they should be eating and what types of diet they should be on. Supplementation is important in some cases but they’re more into giving nutritional and lifestyle recommendations.

 

[22:30] When Prescription Drug Is Given

 

In certain cases, they may ask their clients to see their primary care physician. However, they’re launching a platform called Indur MD, where clients are able to connect with one of their physicians and they’re going to do a teleconference or a video conference with their client. In some cases, they will prescribe medications or fine tune specific supplementation advice that is really unique that their system doesn’t pick up on.

 

Considering how rigorous the regulatory environment for telemedicine is, they’re currently licensed in 37 states and it’s  expecting to increase that to 43 by early next year. They’re getting started with the treatments for issues like hair loss, birth control, erectile dysfunction, hormone replacement therapy, and dermatology. They will continue to build up on this over time.

 

[25:15] Pricing of INDUR Panels

 

Their prices range from $275 to $700. Compared to normal doctor visits, a client can actually get some blood work done which consists of six tests and his out of pocket cost amounting to $700. This is a substantial difference.

 

In Brandt’s case, Brandt went to the doctor and asked for blood tests to be done. They weren’t covered by insurance and the bill he got was $2,500 for fifteen blood tests.

 

[27:00] Fine Tuning Optimal Ranges

 

Brandt cites one thing unique about their company that people don’t appreciate enough is that they would actually go in and fine tune those optimal ranges. The lab ranges found on the lab results are just the normal population.

 

Heavey adds that most lab ranges in your lab results is based on a statistical distribution of the population the lab is measuring. So it’s not anything about health but the averages of the people. Unfortunately, the average of people in the U.S. is not something to aspire for.

 

For example, if your glucose is >100, you’re considered pre-diabetic. When Brandt walked in several years ago and he had a 99 for glucose. Since he fell within that normal range, the doctor didn’t say anything about it. But their platform says that the optimal glucose level for a person should be between 70 and 85. That’s a huge difference!

 

Thus, their biomarkers are going to shrink what that actual optimal range is or should be, down to a very specific range of numbers so it’s very individualized to each person.

 

[29:52] Re-testing Biomarkers and Charting Your Progress

 

What they recommend is to do a full panel every six months. So if, for example, a panel comes back showing eight or nine biomarkers that are less than optimal, their system will give them an opportunity to purchase those tests a la carte, at a later time. Although it’s easy to spot check things, they would still recommend an overall Full Systems Check every six months.

 

Brandt adds that what so many people don’t realize is that blood testing will eliminate the guesswork. It helps them understand exactly how much they need to eat or the types of food they need to eat, what are the causes, etc. Instead of guessing, they can provide them with a scientific approach and tell them spot on exactly what’s going on inside the body.

 

[32:30] What Makes INDUR Different from Competitors

 

Brandt prides on their ability take a much deeper dive into hormones. Their competitors don’t look at estrogen dominance in females. They don’t do a lot with hormones. At INDUR, they have a much broader selection of tests you can run. This helps people optimize a broader range of goals and be more thorough. Their panels, their numbers of tests, their cost – their whole value structure – are focused on trying to get people as much value as they can.

 

Basically, the recommendations and their sheer number of biomarkers set them apart. Not to mention, the telemedicine platform they’re using.

 

[33:50} Is INDUR for You?

 

Indur caters to that person who wants to truly take health into their own hands and wants to do it at their convenience. They believe that people need to treat the causes, not the symptoms. The problem with our healthcare system today is doctors are so quick to prescribe drugs for things as simple as a person with difficulty sleeping; instead of trying to figure out what’s causing it. Because whatever is causing that is probably having a cascading effect and affecting the person in other areas that they may or may not be aware of.

 

Grant sees the importance of this considering that having been diagnosed with hypothyroidism, Brandon advised him to find the underlying cause, which is a lot of stuff Brandt is also talking about. Lastly, he points out how athletes who try to get every little bit out of their performance are going to get benefit from this. Even to the average Joe  with health issues or just trying to get healthy can benefit just as much.

 

[36:14] Bridging the Gap to a Healthy Life

 

Brandt talks about this seven-time Ironman champion talking with their client who has estrogen dominance and an insulin resistance issue that causes her to not lose weight. When Brandt built the company, he just wanted to build it as a solution for anyone coming to the table. The stay-at-home mom or that competitive athlete trying to gain as much performance from their body as it could should benefit from their program.

Links:

www.getindur.com

Quest Diagnostics