The Truth About Visceral Fat vs Subcutaneous Fat | Dr. Sean O’Mara : 1505

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So you see this guy's belly button there? But he has all this disease inside of his abdomen that shows in the scan the corresponding amount of disease he has. Look what happened to President Biden. So this was him at 2020, and then him 2024. Look at that face. So right there, that's the influence of visceral fat. How much President Biden changed.

Dave Asprey

Your fat's in the wrong place. You might literally have fat in your liver, around your organs, and think you look great, and you do look great, but. But you might not feel as good as you could feel, and you're probably going to die earlier than you needed to. I am insanely ripped, and that's because I am low fat. In fact, I have the lowest body fat I've had in my life, around six and a half percent from a family of all obese people everywhere.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Cortisol accumulation leads to disease, and disease leads to declining performance. So really, people ask me, how do I get rid of visceral fat? I always bring it back to the microbiome, and I recommend doing it every week.

Dave Asprey

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Dr. Sean O'Mara

All right, Dave, well, long time coming. Been following you for years.

Dave Asprey

Thank you.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Super happy to be here. Talk about this subject, an important area and yeah, Pernuvo does a good job of imaging, providing me my biometrics and biomarkers. So I routinely send people there and I was very excited that you'd already been there. It makes it nice and easy to do this show and be able to look at those resources. So very, very happy with the quality of their imaging. They allow a very good resolution of these targets that almost nobody else is paying attention to. You go and get an MRI scan, they look at your joints, your shoulder, your knee, your brain. But I, I try to bring education on social media to increase the awareness of visceral fat, this inflammatory fat in abdomens, inflammatory fat around your heart that's associated with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. So heart attacks and strokes and then muscle fat. So, I mean, you, you mentioned you had low visceral fat, but the other thing I would tease the audience watching is that you also have very good muscles. So for your age, you have a nice muscle mass. And I, you know, I haven't played you in sports, but, you know, I'm getting the impression that you're no slouch. You're not just somebody who walks around with decent physique. Your MRI shows good muscle quality, a very low amount of visceral fat, a low amount of hard fat, and a low amount of fat within your muscles. And we took a look at them and, and you, you're correct. Those markers are dynamic, so they change. So I look forward to rescanning Dave Asprey and, and with some of the recommendations that, that I want to make to you today towards increasing your beneficial fat. So a lot of people think that fat is just fat, but there's the, the fat in your body really could be lumped into two categories. Fat that's just as ease and robs somebody of the quality of their lives and their health, their appearance and the performance. And then there's an area of fat that's just the opposite that actually provides, it improves your appearance, improves your performance. So superficial subcutaneous fat, which is a depot within the subcutaneous compartment is the one type of fat that, that you really want to, you really want to have.

Dave Asprey

So what you're saying is you want that layer right under the skin that gives you plump skin.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, that.

Dave Asprey

And that's good for longevity. And I notice I'm little too lean. I mean, my number says I should be at 9 to 10% and I'm at 6 or 7%. So putting that fat on has been really challenging. And I know you're listening is going, Dave, you're an. Because I can't get. I was a 300 pound guy who couldn't lose weight. I lose 20 pounds, gained 30 pounds my whole life. So this biohacking thing works. And I also have to share, just for the context of our conversation, my exercise Regimen has been 20 minutes a week for five years at upgrade labs. That's all I do for the muscle is I know how to eat. Yeah, I know how to Manage my hormones. It doesn't take much stimulation for it. I'd probably do a little bit more, but I'm on airplanes a lot.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, well, hey, you're doing good for that little bit. And pretty much I'll join. Join with you. I exercise about 15 minutes every three days, so I hardly exercise.

Dave Asprey

And you look great. You're 63. Got 10 years on me.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. So I think that's. And actually to be ancestral. Don't you think, Dave? That's what our ancestors did. I mean, they didn't go to the gym, they didn't do long workouts. What they did was they lived, they hunted, they fought. And it was brief, it was intense. It was the model we followed for the National Science Foundation. When we looked at visceral fat, we looked to animals, and that's how animals exercise. They have these brief, violent encounters. They're kind of life and death struggles. They're not members that, you know, go into some kind of a gym where they're working out every day for half hour, an hour, or every two days. They just live life. And so that's what we found when we studied for the National Science Foundation. Works the best to eliminate disease and also optimize muscle. Not only muscle mass, but muscle performance. So you could have muscle, but you also want to perform well. You want to walk well, you want to stand well, you want to be able to sit, you want to be able to get off the ground, you want to be able to climb a tree and look like a youthful, functional human being. All these other kind of aspects to living. But too often people go. They look at their performance based on how much weight, how many plates they have on a bench bar, and, you know, that kind of routine. But your quality of life really goes to your appearance, your performance. And so I work with people that want to be better influencers. You're an influencer. There's not a whole lot. I mean, you bore me to death if you came to me, because there's just not as much, other than your superficial subcutaneous fat, a lot to really change in you. You know, I can't give you the. The fear story, like, oh, my God, you're gonna drop dead because you have, you know, these excessive amounts. But here's the thing I would tell you. Everybody can improve, but you're a smart guy. You biohack. I'm gonna challenge you on air. You and I hopefully will meet again, but I would like to have a little contest. Okay, These are the best biomarkers. I don't own them. You know, it's heart fat, muscle fat and visceral fat along with superficial subcutaneous fat. Those are the only four things more

Dave Asprey

of the subcutaneous and less of the rest.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yes. You want. And specifically like, do you see this is all subcutaneous fat. And I'll take a screenshot. No, this isn't you. But see that black line?

Dave Asprey

Yeah.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So that black line. I'll take a screenshot. That black line is a membrane of piece of fascia called Scarpa's membrane. Now here's.

Dave Asprey

Is that in the pelvis?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yes. So this is actually sorted in the pelvis. So what it really is, is. I'll go back to that image is what it really is is the flanks kind of your love handle. So you see this guy's belly button there?

Dave Asprey

He's totally.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So probably right.

Dave Asprey

More ripped than I am.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. Very, very lean looking guy. But he has all this disease inside of his abdomen that shows in the scan the corresponding amount of disease he has.

Dave Asprey

But classical skinny fat guy.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

He is.

Dave Asprey

He looks like exactly right. Total model. But inside there's fat packed around the organs.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Exactly.

Dave Asprey

And I've been talking about this in my longevity book for years. I don't have that. But you can't tell because he looks like he's in slightly better shape than I am.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

He does. And so a lot of people when they come, think they're going to be in really good shape. They can have, you know, outward appearance that would suggest that they're very healthy. A six pack. But that, that fascia membrane separates good fat from bad fat. So just on the other side of that black line is deep subcutaneous fat, which is inflammatory, like visceral fat. So just to say you want subcutaneous fat is really not true. It's sort of like saying you want people around you. Nope. You want good people around you, but not bad people.

Dave Asprey

Neuroscientists. All right.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. So get the. Get more superficial succutaneous fat would be a good thing. You don't have a lot of deep subcutaneous fat. This guy has a little bit because of his visceral fat, which is surprising for a guy who's only 28.

Dave Asprey

Oh my God. So he's halfway and he's got muscle fat. Wow.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yep. I'm glad that you're talking about fat because it really not all fat is the same and you want to have beneficial fat. And for the women in the audience, fat is what makes. Gives you a pretty face. You know, Helen of Troy, the Face that launched a thousand ships. But it. It not only makes a woman look attractive, but it makes a man look more influential. And so I like to work with politicians now. It is amazing how they're embracing these biomarkers to become more influencers, more influential to America. And I'd never even thought about it. You know, I've been practicing medicine until this year. So now a large amount of my medical practice is exclusively devoted towards working with senior politicians who finally understand these biometrics. And why they want to get healthy is so that they can influence America and cut deals better. So it's fascinating.

Dave Asprey

You think they would cheat and just use filler.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

You think they achieve his fellow? I mean, well, because it goes. It goes way more. I call that the Earl shy paint job. So, you know, pay 100 bucks. I will pay in any car. You just prove a little bit, you know, on the outside, but when you. When your appearance changes on the outside because you're changing on the inside, you become more persuasive, you become more intelligent, you become more a better influencer. So I really love this space. In fact, I coined the term political medicine. So it's a type of medicine where you work with politicians to help them become better, healthier people. And also I go after them and say, look, you serve the people, and if you become more healthy, you're going to make better decisions. You in your life must have noticed that when you became more healthy, Dave, you became a better executive. You became more executive in your decisions, your execution. And so I'm able to persuade that. And I scan these leaders, show them where they have deficiencies, and they will correct it. So they're very motivated.

Dave Asprey

So they're going out, they're getting a pre nouveau, and then you're going through, and you're saying, well, here's where the fat is that you don't want. Here's where you need to put some fat. Not with surgery, but just with your behaviors. And then when they do that, they feel better. And you shared the things. And guys, if you don't have a prenupo scan, this isn't a sponsored prenuvo episode or anything like that. I fundamentally believe that there's four things that are likely to kill you. And if you want to live to at least 180, like me, don't die from one of those. And those four things are diabetes, which is a precursor to cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer's. And prenuvo can tell you if you've got about 500 different kinds of cancer starting and even some vascular disease. So in fact. Oh, and it'll look for fat in your muscles, which is a sign of diabetes. Right. So you get a advanced warning signal from it. And I've. I think it's been seven, eight years since I had my first one, when I still lived up in Canada, when I did that, because they were founded in Vancouver. So this is really critically important. It runs 2,500 bucks or so. And they'll tell you.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

I agree.

Dave Asprey

And some of those stories that came back after my first episode. Well, you probably see this in your clinical practice. You scan someone and you're going. You might want to go to the hospital right now. And Renewvo called me and said, dave, that episode saved 25 people's lives. These are people who signed up using code Dave. And they got a discount, which is why I do discount codes on the show. And I know a lot more people signed up than that, but those people had aneurysms about to blow. Cancer that was gonna take a month that they didn't know about. Highly dangerous cancer that was invisible. No symptoms. And so I feel like in the post, I was forced to be vaccinated. Era where soft tissue cancers are on the up and up once a year. Prenovo is non negotiable, especially if you're over 40. It's just how you do it. Cause you're gonna catch things early when it's just easy to get rid of it. Absolutely. And then you also get all of the Sean o' Mara political medicine things that say your fat's in the wrong place, and you might literally have fat in your liver, around your organs, and think you look great, and you do look great, but you might not feel as good as you could feel, and you're probably going to die earlier than you needed to, and that just seems like a waste. So I want you to be profoundly healthy, and I want you to win the least possible money in time. MRIs are very cool. So go to Prenova. Yeah.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Prenuva, I think, is great because they, they, they lead, I think, in the era of preventive medicine. They're all over the country. And I, I, you know, I have no financial interest in Purnuva, but I like that company a lot because they're trying to prevent people from having problems. Like you pointed out, the big problems. But they also, when you interpret it correctly, like for my biomarkers, fat around the heart, visceral fat, fat in the muscle, represent an opportunity for actually improving people. So recently, President Trump was in the news because he had repeated questions about his MRI scans the government does for senior executives and on the cabinet. And it was, you know, people went after him, were giving them a hard time about having the same. You know, some people actually went of Congressman Morrison went after him, saying there is no such thing as a preventive MRI scan. Well, I'm here to tell you I use a MRI scan preventively all the time and moreover, to optimize them. And I would like to see, you know, the president and our leadership optimizing their health. So.

Dave Asprey

Who said that there's no such thing?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Congressman Morrison. I mean, she's, she's smart. It's a woman. And she is a doctor, actually. So, like, I think she's an OB GYN. But, you know, to her, she's OB gone, really.

Dave Asprey

So she's a real MD. I thought it was like a PhD doctor.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No, she's a legitimate physician. But, you know, to her credit, Dave, they teach us this in medical school. They teach us, you know, MRIs are not preventive. We're only supposed to use them to look at joints. You know, somebody's got a bad back. And so the thought process of using technology to guide people to biohack is just not something that is ever entertained, much less promoted, because what would happen to the system? They'd actually utilize technology to improve human beings. And then what would we do with people that were formerly sick and are now healthy? So mris, I promote them. I think Pernuvo and other services like them that do preventive scans. And moreover, I would like to promote them for optimizing scans. And that's what you should be doing,

Dave Asprey

optimizing fertility and pregnancy. I've had so many OBs on the show and a fertility expert, Dr. Ann Chippy, was just on who's a leading environmental doctor in the country, and she does preventative MRI and all sorts of other studies before four people get pregnant so they can have better outcomes. That's the ultimate prevention there is. Having a healthy mom.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Oh, yeah.

Dave Asprey

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Dr. Sean O'Mara

In fact, we're getting ready to scan a young couple that are only 21. They're about to be married. They want to be the healthiest couple in the world. We're Going to do MRI scans on them early. We're going to follow their biomarkers, we're going to follow their pregnancy. They expect to get pregnant on their honeymoon and they probably will. They're pretty healthy. But it's the idea that you can take technology, use biomarkers. You've been living this your whole career. You know, you are really into the biohacking community. I biohack utilizing these MRI biometrics and biomarkers. It's, it's how we get the best results in the world. And take a look at this. I'll take a screenshot so we can capture it. But look at how much this guy's fat had had around his heart. So in his, in this MRI scan,

Dave Asprey

picture of two faces that look unrelated.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. So this is fat around the heart that this guy had. This is his face. And in one year, look how much he changed.

Dave Asprey

Let me show this about if the camera's going to get that. Yeah, if not so shocking on it.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So this is why politicians are doing this. It's why CEO executives are doing this. This is why people are run hedge funds. Because you, who would you rather have doing your life threatening surgery? Who do you want to have rescue? You head up the SWAT team that's going to come in and rescue. So the idea that you know you can improve your health also improves your, your appearance. The two are go hand in hand. You look better when you are better.

Dave Asprey

There's something else that happens. Tom Watson, who's a member of Parliament, he was the, the head of the resistance, I think they call it. Whatever the people who are not in power are. The UK system makes sense to. What do you call them?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, the majority.

Dave Asprey

And the opposition.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, opposition party.

Podcast Announcer

Yeah.

Dave Asprey

Not the resistance there, Tom.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

That's really political, Dave.

Dave Asprey

That's an American way of thinking. So Tom lost something like 80 pounds eating the way I talk about putting butter in his coffee, all the things. And so we got to be friends over that. And towards the end of it I said, so you know what's going on? And he said, we gotta fix nutrition and health in the uk. And he said, you know, because I was just full of fire and anger and all this stuff when I was fat, he goes, I think I might be too chill to be in politics. So he was just not unmotivated, but just, he wasn't angry all the time because he shed all the inflammation. And for me, the personality change that's happened from losing a hundred pounds and just not being an asshole most of the time. Although the neurofeedback that's here on site might play a little role in that. But really the personality shift, the stable energy so you can regulate your emotions. People don't put enough emphasis on that because it's hard to describe it.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No, it's real.

Dave Asprey

You've seen it in your pictures.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No, absolutely, Dave. I see it all the time. People's personality becomes more effective. It's not just chill, it's just more agreeable because people can maintain their passion, but they're a lot more open to considering ideas to figure out what is best. And so that's why I like directing my energy and effort towards trying to get politicians more healthy. It goes beyond just a political party system, it's to biology. You and I are biohackers into biology. And it's for Homo sapiens. It's not restricted to a type of personality or a type of position of human beings. Optimizing health applies to every single Homo sapien. But I'm just trying to whet your appetite for how if we could get our leadership more healthy, like what happened with this individual here, you improve their personality, they become more effective and they can serve humanity better. So I, I work with artists, I'd be interested in working with any singers. Somebody is a really top notch singer wants to sing longer. We can preserve not just political leadership, but we can preserve those that are in the performing arts so we can join more like I grew up liking Elton John and unfortunately Elton John doesn't sing as well and perform as well today as he used to. But had Elton John learned about optimizing this health, you and I, Dave and Sean would be able to, you know, listen to Elton John. It's just he's allowed to fall apart because the system let you fall apart to make money. All along the way and especially at

Dave Asprey

the end something else happens. And you've worked with leaders of countries and, and the group that I work with also has and I've worked with a lot of influential people. The more famous, the more powerful or the wealthier you are, the worse medical care you get at the end of life because they're so afraid that they'll make a mistake and get blamed and sued by your estate. So they, they literally killed Paul Allen. We could have stopped his sepsis with 25 different well known. But no, he died of sepsis because they were afraid to do the things that works because they weren't in the flowchart.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, so that's so true. And you know the world I used to be Involved. I was a concierge physician and would do all that. Now I'm, I'm a health optimizing physician, so I don't get involved in like primary care and concierge medicine. But the royal families would have stacks of medical records like this. And I'm going to look, I'm going to talk to the audience right now and say, those people die like dogs in stool. They're falling apart. They have to wipe them and clean it because they don't have somebody who's speaking truth to you. Sorry, King, this is the deal. Everybody's afraid to tell the emperor he has no clothes. You don't want, want that to happen. You got money, you say, tell me when I am naked, let me know what I got to do. Otherwise be ready just to fall apart. And I agree with you. I, I've taken care of very, you know, in excess of 50 billionaires and oftentimes as a concierge medicine physician, they just fall apart because yeah, for the same reasons they're afraid to be. Everybody doesn't want to try what's really going to work. They stay within conventional care standard of care. But if you really want to optimize, you got to figure out unconventional ways to really improve and track it. It's like KPI, Key performance indicators. That's how companies get better. Tracking the most important KPI and then secondly, knowing how to do it. And if you don't know how to tweak that KPI, you're never going to improve it.

Dave Asprey

There's another factor. With ultra high net worth clients that I've experienced, you don't have to do anything you don't want to do. Life gets built that way. I have a friend who's actually not a client and very, very wealthy and he yelled at his brother because his brother had someone tying his shoes for him. There's another part of the world where that's more common. He's like, brother, if you don't bend over and tie your own goddamn shoes, you're going to be a helpless old man. Like what? I've never heard of that before. Being from the US where we have slides anyway, why would you tie your shoes? But the whole point of this is if you're a billionaire, you're going to need accountability.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah.

Dave Asprey

So what we do is like, okay, here's what you got to do. And we had a call with a top CEO coach whose coaches fortune 100 people every two weeks and a community. So that basically it's not quite shame, but there's community pressure to do what you say.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

That's great.

Dave Asprey

It's the only way I can find to get these guys to do what they say they're going to do because they're too busy. I'm too busy. Heck, I need a coach.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. That's awesome. I, I've not heard of that happening before, but let me shake my hand because I love that idea.

Dave Asprey

I mean, you can't. As a doctor, you don't have the time. And you're not structured because you're a healer. Right. You're a problem solver. You're not structured to be an operations guy. Going, let's go through your two weekly results. Did you eat your meals and do your fast? Because it's, it's not what you're here for. Yeah, right. And you can try to make their assistant do it, but that doesn't work. So you need like an outside coach who's kind of got the. So are we going to shame ourselves today? And then, then you got them. But yeah, that motivation part is the hardest. It's called patient compliance. I mean, you know that you've learned that medical school. I just had to stumble into it.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. Well, we do it in our community. We have a community where people can speak true to one another. We use coaches that, that are charged with the responsibility to optimize people and tell them not what they want to hear, but what they, they need to hear.

Dave Asprey

You're doing something similar.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Okay.

Dave Asprey

Yeah. Tell me more.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, so we, you know, I actually have a vision that I think in the future, the most effective professionals that will optimize human beings will not be physicians. They're going to be biological coaches that teach people the, the important biological metrics to follow, giving them the very best strategies. And I think that's the way to do it. I, I've thought about it a long time. Physicians and providers are very expensive, but coaches really are what we rely on principally to speak. Speak truth to people and deliver that kind of guidance. I use my physicians to read MRI films and scans because they're very good at that and can do that, and you need a medical license. But when it comes to that interaction with clients and human beings, then I use a coach. And if you think about it, Dave, most of your interaction with physicians are anything other than coach. Like, they, they don't know how to coach. They just convey information and, and so they tell you something. But who really changes their life when they have an interaction with a physician? So I think that's. That points out a Real deficiency is just. So look for an emerging professional at some point in the future that comes out something between probably your personal trainer and a medical provider, like a physician who's going to be this biological coach that is going to really optimize the lives of people. So I'm excited to kind of work in that direction and try to develop that. Look, I kind of given up on the physicians. I mean, to be honest with you, they're arrogant. They don't want to know or learn that there's something that they need to be paying attention to other than what they were taught in medical school. And so they. It's. They just. Just give it the Heisman. They push it away.

Dave Asprey

It's tough to throw them all under the bus because most of my best friends are doctors, and there's a group of them that are so curious and so into healing, and none of them take insurance because they said, insurance destroyed my life as a physician. I couldn't do what I'm here to do. And so when they're saying, yeah, I'm expensive, you know, I only have so many hours in the day, but I make a difference, I find that there are some really amazing doctors, but they, being coaches, they don't want to call you to remind you to do stuff. They want to tell you one time as a source. So, years ago, I trained 1200 coaches in my protocols before the state of California. And I'm just gonna have to say this really politically correctly. Fuck you, State franchise board of California. They called me one day and said, you're running an unaccredited university because I trained 1200 people in how to be coaches within.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

That's awesome. Well, no, then I didn't hear this story.

Dave Asprey

Love it. Then what they said was, they said, so we want you to shut down operations for nine months. We're going to fine you $100,000 while we decide what we're going to let you do. And so I.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

For what?

Dave Asprey

I mean, they just decided of their own bureaucratic impetus that I was doing that. So I sent him my bankruptcy notice the next day for the company, and I reopened it in Canada, where they have no reach. And then everyone was happy. But, like, what? So it just. It just became a lot of work. And I thought about reopening a coaching certification because this is really precious knowledge. Are you certifying coaches?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

I'm going to be. I haven't started yet.

Dave Asprey

I don't have any hard plans. I just keep thinking as people are asking, but it. It was.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

It.

Dave Asprey

It's A worthy thing to do. It takes. It takes a lot of work, but I know Mark. Oh, yeah. Yep.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah.

Dave Asprey

It's been a while since I thought about that. Yeah. They were called bulletproof coaches and then we changed the name. Some kind of human performance something after the.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Well, thanks for being pioneer. And you've actually gone through and seen this. I've just been casually watching this take place for decades over a period of time. But you actually have cutting teeth. But I really will explore that because I think it's important. I think we need to move towards that direction. Coaching is important.

Dave Asprey

Ask me some questions if you want to after the show or text me.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah.

Dave Asprey

If anything I learned can be helpful for you. I want there to be, you know, tons of health coaching programs where we teach people how to be really effective health coaches. And it does not mean doing what the pharmaceutical flowcharts written by Big Pharma tell you to do. And I think most doctors are sick of that. Every one of them has some level of guilt over what happened during. During the pandemic. At least if they're looking at numbers, they are. And if they don't have some level of guilt, they're probably either deeply brainwashed or sociopaths, as we learned from Dr. Peter McCollough on the last episode.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, well, there's a lot of money that's been made in the healthcare system, conventional healthcare, and the insurance industry. So a lot of people are making decisions. Right, Dave? About what they should do based on insurance. So I think this is important to. To get out for the audience to be aware. The insurance health insurance industry will never get behind and endorse a product or a service that improves people. And here's why I say that is because they make their revenue based on the cost of insurance. And the cost of insurance goes up when you got lots of COVID lots of disease. And so they permit cholesterol discussions about blood lipids, because nobody listen again, nobody is improving their life, lowering their cholesterol and chasing blood lipids. Who do you know who's ever done that and said, it changed my whole life and I got all better. So the insurance company industry will get behind that. But anything that, like, really reverses disease and improves health, like getting rid of visceral fat, heart fat, muscle fat, they won't endorse it because then the prevalence of disease goes down, the cost of insurance will reverse. And a good example of this is what's happening in the automobile insurance industry. So you see driverless cars emerge, emerging, you will in the Future see automobile insurance going down to about 30 bucks a year because there won't be any accidents. The Geicos and all states and all the automobile industries are quickly trying to rewrite their new business plans to figure out what else they're going to go into. And when Google developed, you know, autonomous driverless car systems probably 15, 20 years ago, they went to the automobile industry and they studied and they said, well, no way will we endorse this because it's going to mean our demise. The same thing with healthcare industry. So I see all these people talking about, well, I want my insurance, you know, to pay for this. Why won't insurance. They're not in your camp, they want you sick, they want to make money, they don't want to optimize your health. So I'm not saying that that's a blanket rule, but as it's a fair generalization, I believe they have a conflict of interest as long as they make most of their revenue. I would speak to our leadership in our country and insurance commissions that are out there to look how you incentivize insurance companies and reward them with actually improving the health of people instead of just treating disease. People want to get better, they don't want to just treat disease. Yeah, I'm sure that's been your experience and you work with people throughout these decades you've been doing this.

Dave Asprey

Yeah. Most people don't wake up and say today I want to be healthy unless they're really sick. Today I want to feel really amazing. And that's what lights us up. During the day you can drink all the water you want and still be dehydrated because water is only part of the equation. You also need the right electrolytes to get that water into your cells so you won't be dehydrated. Element is an electrolyte drink that contains sodium, magnesium and potassium in the right ratios for your body. And they just came out with their new lemonade iced tea. It's their science backed electrolyte mix plus black tea extract light caffeine and calming L theanine from the tea plus hydration from the electrolytes. The result is smooth, lasting energy that you actually want to drink. Like all their other formulas, this one has no sugar, no artificial flavor flavors. Give it a try for yourself. Right now you can get a free 8 ounce sample pack of Element's most popular drink. Mix flavors with any purchase@drinkelement.com Dave find your favorite flavor or share it with a friend. That's drinkelement.com.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

dave, by the way, I need to thank you. Why I'm here because you had a huge influence on somebody. I won't share who their name was, but a follower of yours who followed all of you, this is going back into 2009, followed all your recommendations. They themselves got super healthy. And then I'm this fat, overweight ER physician and I run into this guy and he tells me about the then Paleo diet, eating fermented foods, going out and sprinting, getting sunshine, kind of the basic stuff that we did ancestrally. And, and so I do it just to lose weight. Well, at the time I had erectile dysfunction, I had a large prostate. I was waking up five times a night to pee. I had eczema all over my body, restless leg syndrome. So I kicked my legs all night long. Obstructive sleep apnea. So I snored and gasped for air so my wife couldn't get any sleep. And so I do what, you know, I learned about through this guy that you had said just to lose weight. And then one day I'm in my bathroom peeing like I used to pee when I was a teenager and every, all my medical problems had gone away and I was like so good. I was just absolutely astounded that I changed my, my diet, my lifestyle, and none of that was taught to me, Dave, in medical school. That was basically, you know, through your podcasting days and early on, way back when. And so I decided to become a researcher because, you know, Dave Asprey's ideas changed my life so much back then. And so I studied for seven years. We got funded by the National Science Foundation. We learned to study what not. We didn't really pay attention to what was out in science because those were humans. We went to nature because that's where animals live. Well, they have a longer health span, a better health span. And so we studied what they did and didn't do and we found out that it was this fat around their heart, fat in muscles, and fat within. The add in that was so different on MRI scans and we scanned almost 7,000Americans just shy of it. And we learned how to optimize. And that's, that's how I got here. That's how I became a passionate researcher.

Dave Asprey

Wow.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

It wouldn't have happened, Dave, if you hadn't done that.

Dave Asprey

Yeah, thanks. Genuinely, that, that makes me so happy, especially just the thought that you were open minded enough after having been at the top tier of, of medical practice. You know, you're, you're seeing very influential people, military Training, all this stuff just to be curious. Like, oh, yeah, it's a special. A special mindset.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Dude, you nailed it. I mean, I was, you know, signed to as an Augmentee to take care of, you know, the vice president and as a physician on active duty and President Clinton and Secretary, Secretary of State Colin Powell. But we, we reacted to problems. We didn't know how to prevent it. And let me bring it back to politics. If you just react to things like the White House medical unit is very, very capable, reacting to a heart attack, a stroke, a gunshot, you know, to the president or vice president. But during the time when I was, you know, providing that kind of care and assisting, I didn't work in the White House. I was what's called an Augmentee. I would help them. You know, they didn't have a robust preventive program. And let's just go back five years. Look what happened to President Biden. Why don't we. Don't we take care of our presidents to prevent that from happening? And he did so. But if you look, and we should, because I have his face. Take a look.

Dave Asprey

He's not the same human for when he started. In the end, it was, yeah, so

Dr. Sean O'Mara

this was him at 2020, President Trump, and then him 2024. Look at that face. So right there, that's the influence of visceral fat. How much President Biden changed. And so that is a big deal. So we wear our health in our face and the appearance of our body and our performance. He didn't just change his face. That man stopped talking the way he did when he. I'll. He beat Donald Trump in the first debate. I think he had an edge. It was close, but there was nothing close between those two when it came to debate. Their faces were different. And so that's why I do political medicine. That's why I do influence medicine. That's why I biologically optimize human beings. Because, Dave, if we spend our time reaching the most influential people, we can get this to spread more people. And so I think it's very interesting that we're working with influencers today. So, yeah, I think it's. It's. But by the way, look at their doctors. Look at the difference of the doctors who influenced them.

Dave Asprey

So who's the Simpsons character? This guy looks exactly like one of those. Like Ralph from Simpsons. Like, this is not a healthy looking doctor.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No.

Dave Asprey

Wow.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So that was a physician who's in a tough situation because he was in charge of President Biden's care when. During the Biden administration. But President Trump had a very good physician who was off the charts, super healthy. And then look how much our, our vice president has changed in one month.

Dave Asprey

Wow.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So he's in the news Cortisol. A lot of people are saying he's lost, he's lost weight through Ozempic, but he's gained weight and through February. Yeah, this is this February to March. So he was heavy here and now his face is later. So those are the dates right above it. So he's lost weight, lost disease. No, it's just one month. February to March.

Dave Asprey

Yeah. I'm sorry.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah. So a short period of time. I haven't looked at his face recently.

Dave Asprey

Yeah. But yeah, yeah.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Well, you know, if you got a lot of stress, it's going to show up in your face. And certainly our political leadership have a lot of stress. But, you know, you got a lot of executives that are following your show.

Dave Asprey

Oh, yeah.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

If you're heading up a company, you know, restless is the head that wears the crown at night. So, you know, people, you know, are important positions. They get stressed out, they get a lot of cortisol. Cortisol accumulation leads to disease and disease leads to declining performance. So really, people ask me, how do I get get rid of visceral fat? I always bring it back to the microbiome. So that's a really early area for us to, to explore and I think we need to teach about it in medical school. But the microbiome, for the sake of the, your audience, is the collection of living microbes that reside inside your, your gut bacteria, fungi, yeast, RKA viruses. They're, you know, about anywhere from 50 to 100 trillion. I think it's going to be more than 100 trillion that reside in you. We don't know what they are, we don't know what they do. But we're now seeing that people who take probiotics sometimes off Amazon actually lose their, their cravings for alcohol. They stop drinking, they stop becoming alcoholics. They actually lower their, their levels of elevated liver enzymes. So hepatitis is reversing. So I think a big area for us to, to look for in the future, Dave, is going to be better techniques to improve the microbiome. You see fecal microbiota transplants are starting to emerge and are taking place with the relaxation on the restrictions that were formerly in place. Case at the fda, there's a new sheriff in town. So I'm very excited to see what happens with FMTs in the future.

Dave Asprey

So I always thought it was weird that the FDA Thought it had jurisdiction over my.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

They do. They do.

Dave Asprey

It's okay. It's. It's legal to sell dirty underwear online in the state of Zoe Synthetic. Yeah, but I can't sell a bag of my poop to someone who wants to use it medically. By the way, you shouldn't use my poop. I have all the health problems, problems from when I was a kid. You know, I'm probably not a good donor. I'm a better recipient. But, like, how is that a medical thing that they can regulate? Is that even in there pervade?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Well, because studies have come out now and show that when FMTs are done for C. Difficile infection, that it also has cured. One third of the people that had an FMT were cured of their Crohn's. And so if you make an incurable disease go away from an fmt, you're starting to threat the establishment date.

Dave Asprey

I think I got the workaround. It just landed. What you do is you say, hey, fda, I have a fetish for not having Crohn's, and then you could put someone else's poop in your butt. Well, that might work fine. But if you say you're doing it to heal Crohn's, they literally will block you from doing it, let you die of bleeding through your butt by not letting you try something that is relatively low risk compared to what you have. And it is so unethical.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, it really is. I agree with you on that. I think you're going to see probably the offerings of FMTs outside of the country, offshore. I'm excited. If I had money, I would be investing in that medical capability. You know, we need to. In fact, you're the person to talk about. We need to identify the healthiest people in the world. And when we identify them, they would actually be suitable donors for fecal microbiotic transplants. And I think it's high time that we do that. I have been concentrating on trying to identify the biometrics and biomarkers who has the highest level of health. And so I think an FMT service in the future, a company has the potential very dramatically and very quickly instilling health, optimizing characteristics inside somebody's gastrointestinal tract. So be a great investment in the future FMTs, you know, to talk to is viome.

Dave Asprey

Do you know those guys?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

I don't know anybody within them, but I do know of them.

Dave Asprey

I was one of their first advisors, and I still am an investor from the first round.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Oh, introduce me to them.

Dave Asprey

Okay, I'd be happy to. They have 2 million samples of mitochondrial health, saliva and poop. So they've got the data set and if you take that with patient permission, whatever, and correlate it with all you know about the pre nouveau stuff you would have. Well, here's what the gut bacteria of people who have heart fat and liver fat look like. There's probably some magic to be learned and that's why the whole biohacking measurement of data. One thing is you gotta know what's working. But the human condition improves when we know, oh, this is what works for people who look like this and it doesn't work for people who look like that and looking like genetically or looking like bacteriologically or any other thing. So we're going to personalize everything based on this data from everyone. And that's a beautiful vision. Assuming government people and big pharma and other people who are clueless don't get in the way. And the cool thing is we have things called national borders. So you just leave and go do it and then come back?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, no, I think that's what's going to be happening. It's available today. I had my own microbiome sequence by the way. We're very early into it because we don't have everything sequenced but, but the company did it, sequenced me, didn't know who I was. They texted me and wanted to have their chief scientific officer wanted to talk to me and they, they told me I had the healthiest microbiome they'd ever seen. So studying these biomarkers get rid of fat around your heart, fat in your muscle, fat in your abdomen, optimize super superficial subcutaneous fat necessitates optimization of microbiome. So everything I do is to optimize my microbiome. I live intentionally to improve my microbiome. But that did catch me by surprise because I'm, you know, I was 62 when that sequencing was done. I'm 63 today. So for a 63 year old to have, you know, the highest microbiome sequence that they have seen and probably I think the single most reputable microbiome sequencing company in the, in the country, it's called 10 health, I was very, very impressed with there. They don't sell supplements, they just sell sequencing. So they're not motivated to tell you got this and that and they try to sell you supplements. So I think this space is very early. I, I'm very excited that you're an investor in viome. I think that's a wise investment and I think your investment is going to come back and, and pay you great dividends.

Dave Asprey

I certainly hope so. If not, it's, it's helped a lot of people and I, I want to get back to the heart fat thing. Who's the healthiest looking person you've ever seen? Who was actually unhealthy?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

I would say probably, you know, this, this guy here is one of the first because he's a military guy and pretty much everybody, you know, I mean

Dave Asprey

he looks like a model, like, good

Dr. Sean O'Mara

God, yeah, he's, he's very fit guy and he did well on a scan. So I mean on his performance tests in the military. But the point is what I find out when people get scanned, that they're not as healthy as they think. And so from the outside, now there are some clues a little bit, that face is a little bit inflamed for a 28 year old guy, a little puffy. So we can see. I can actually predict people's visceral fat usually pretty accurately when I look at their face, at least the influence of, of that particular fat. But you mentioned a term early on, skinny fat, and it's really legit. And researchers, we call them tofis, thin outside, fat inside. So when your ratio of most of your fat is concealed invisibly inside of you and you have very little of this fat outside, then it's problematic. And I will say this will be, you know, controversial for probably a lot of your followers, but I'm against a visible six pack. I recommend human beings have a layer, a thin layer of fat on the outside that diminishes the definition of an abdominis rectus muscularity on the anterior aspect of the abdomen. So you want a six pack, Dave, you just want to see it on an mri, not on the outside of the body. And so look at a woman. A woman, if you. Here's an interesting thing. Start looking at bikini photographs, okay? And if you're older, a woman, look at speed of photographs, look at the abdomens, you typically will see a healthier looking face. A more attractive looking face is when you don't have, as you don't have a paucity, you're not missing fat on your abdomen. You have a little bit down there, just a little thin coating. And if you look at your CrossFit community, women who want to have a six pack, like the dudes going into CrossFit, they end up having a masculine looking face and then they get a dude voice and so, and then Women sometimes will go get liposuction. They'll have their abdominal fat removed. It. They write me and they tell me that it made their face look less attractive. And it's fascinating how much the, this particular fat on your anterior aspect, your abdomen, plays a role in the appearance of your face and to your health. It actually reduces the amount of mortality associated with heart attacks, stroke, obesity, diabetes, cancer, and then neurodegenerative conditions. So you want this protective layer of fat on you. You don't want to have six pack. Before. When we were kids, in the earlier than the 1970s, bodybuilders didn't have six packs. They had them, but they had a layer of fat. And now with competition, you want to have no fat on the outside and you want to have huge definition to your muscles. And I'll be getting on the next show I'll be doing probably will be with Dr. Mike Israte.

Dave Asprey

Oh, yeah.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

And so Dr. Mike and I will be talking. He's graciously agreed to get scanned. He's a mad respect to Dr. Mike. Yeah, he's one of the, probably the most authority when it comes to bodybuilding. Yeah, but he's the scientist. He's a PhD and so we're going to have a show just like you and I will be talking about these biomarkers. He's the first bodybuilder that I'm aware of to get scanned.

Dave Asprey

So Dr. Mike is like the opposite of Biolane. He's a PhD and he's exceptionally competent and he's not a douchebag.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, no. Dr. Mike is a likable guy. He's intelligent. I'm very much looking forward to being on his show. And, and so we'll, we'll scan Dr. Mike. I'm also going to be scanning a guy who's a natural bodybuilder to take a look and see what difference, you know, enhancement does. Fascinating.

Dave Asprey

Is that gonna be on Dr. Mike's show?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No, we're gonna do it a subsequent show. It's Rob Sykes who runs, he's. He's the founder of. I think it's called Keto Brick. I think he does those, those bars. Rob's a really likable, nice guy. And so we're gonna. I'm looking forward to comparing the bodybuilder physiques from MRI between somebody who's all natural to somebody. Mike. Dr. Mike is, is freely admits to enhancing. Of course, we got the enhanced games out there, so there's a lot of discussion about enhancement.

Dave Asprey

I'm advising those Guys too.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

I love that. You know, it will be very interesting to make a comparison to see, you know, what the difference is from a scientific standpoint. I think it is very fascinating what's happening to science right now and all these different things to target and measure. So mad respect to Dr. Mike and Rob Sykes to, to represent the natural bodybuilding community. I'm super excited about biohackers in general that are interested in health, not just going through life and just, you know, trying to treat themselves, but looking to snatch everything they could possibly get biologically out of life.

Dave Asprey

That's what it's about. Now I want to snatch a little bit more of this subcutaneous fat here. So what's the recipe? If you want more fat under your skin, give me the quick.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, so what. What we have found increases superficial subcutaneous fat, is first of all optimizing your microbiome. So we recommend people optimize consuming fermented foods. I was recently featured in the Wall Street Journal article for getting the cabinet deed fermented foods. And, and, and so it's very interesting article that came out about that. So eating to be intentional. I call it the living diet, where you bring living food into your diet. So fermented foods and then cutting it out the same time from processed foods. So processed foods, bringing a lot of food preservatives which kill your microbiome.

Dave Asprey

I already do all that stuff. Okay. I don't have any subcutaneous.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

All right. So the other thing is doing the extended fasting. So lots of people are familiar with fasting from an intermittent standpoint, but Dave, you and I out badass hunting. 50,000 years ago, you and I were the alphas in front. Sometimes we'd bring home the meat, sometimes we didn't it and when we didn't bring home the meat, we didn't have anything to eat. Now, you and I would have known that when we eat the highest form of protein. Now, that's going to upset my vegan followers here. It's a superior level of protein. So we would have been, I think, emphasizing meat to get the best return, but we would have done something else. We would at least drink water. And when we drank water, the water back then was not chlorinated. It had living microbes in it. So we would go for periods of time where we wouldn't eat probably, you know, who's to say? It's all speculative. But I generally have my clients fasting about three, three solid days, 72 hours straight, and then eating four days. And I recommend Doing that every week. So fasting and feasting, and it's unbelievable how improves your superficial subcutaneous fat. They get rid of fat around the heart, they get r rid of fat in their abdomen, they get rid of fat in their muscle, they build muscle and they improve performance. So feasting, fasting, it's, it's a term that I use. I think it's incredibly important. You're, you're tough as Hades. You're a tough guy. You can do this. I tell people to ease into it because if you're acclimated eating, you know, pretty regularly, it can be very difficult. You run out of energy. But Dave, this is where I work out the most. When we hunted, we hunted on hungry empty bellies.

Dave Asprey

And using catecholamines to burn fast. Yeah, just burn fat when you do that. But why is it putting fat on, is that a cortisol excess?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Well, it puts on the beneficial fat. So again, back to this notion. Adiponectin, rich tissue. And so the fat goes in the superficial area, but it does not go around your heart, it doesn't go in your muscle. And so think about exercising. You want the most amount of blood flow to your muscles and body, your exercise.

Podcast Announcer

Right.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Our ancestors hunted on empty bellies. There was no blood going to their gut. There was no gastric steel where blood was diverted to the mesentery and what was exclusively available to your muscles. So we get high performers. So I will look at you, Dave, and say in the future, in our lifetime, because you and I are going to live a long time. You're going to see professional athletes playing games. They'll be required to be doing it in a fasted, prolonged, fasted state because they'll perform better. We track it. Reaction time is better, balance is better. Processing of information is better. So my own experience when I started doing this, extended fasting and particularly optimizing microbiome, you know, adding a certain species of microbes, kimchi. I could smell it 25ft away and it was burning my nose. When I would taste it, it felt like it was spiked, you know, so my taste improved, my smell improved, my hearing improved 25% on a hearing test in 24 hours, just by, you know, fast, in a fasted state, my, my heat sense capabilities improved. So when I took my shirt off in the sun, it felt like I had a sunburn. I, I grill meat. I've been grilling, eating meat for my whole life. I never used tools. I just would grab it with my bare hands and flip that meat with my bare Hands, but in a fasted state with certain probiotics on board. My hand can't get near the grill because my heat receptors are so up regulated. So. And my sense of touch. So when I shaved, yeah, you know, I've been, I'm 63. I've been shaving since I was like 16. I put hot water on my face. I don't use any cream, hot water. And I just shave with a blade. It felt when I touched like my, like I had like sand and then immediately like I had hoses growing out of my face. From the sensory perception upregulated. So fasting is probably one of the most extended fasting, most underutilized, undervalued natural strategies a human being can do. Because as you know, autophagy is a desirable state that you get into when you fast. And so I think it's going to help you restore. I'm going on record. I, I think it's going to help Dave restore his superficial subcutaneous fat. Look, he's kicking, he's kicking butt when it comes to his visceral fat, heart fat, muscle fat. And this would be one metric that I think he'd improve with fasting.

Dave Asprey

And so, and for the record, guys, if you read the bulletproof diet, I talked about fasting in there a lot. Then I read, then I wrote Fast this Way three books later because people were doing it to the point of excess and harming themselves and just doing stupid stuff.

Podcast Announcer

Stuff.

Dave Asprey

The fastest way was about longer fasts. You know, five days fasting in a cave and three day fasts and, and all that. But given that I moved to Austin and given how lean I am, I have not been doing anything other than intermittent fasting on some days. I haven't done a long fast in quite a while just because I'm on the road all the time and you know, 24 hours, whatever. But doing a three day fast is usually not in alignment with business dinners. I'm like, I don't care, care. I just see a lot of steak. So I'm gonna go back to my longer fasts and my concern was I'll get even leaner and I want to get leaner.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

No, I don't think you will. I, I noticed that people actually, studies show this, they preserve muscle mass. So you, you'll get leaner in your invisible obesity. So what little visceral fat you have, that little bit of fat you have around your heart, which is still problematic, I don't want to miss. It's pure disease.

Dave Asprey

The lowest you've seen in any influence

Dr. Sean O'Mara

and any, any social media influencer. You've got the lowest amount of visceral fat and heart fat that I've seen. I mean, legit. Very, very impressive, of course, and particularly for your age, you know, 53, you know, way, way lower. And you, you probably have 10, 15 years on, on other people. But this what I want to do. I want to go out social media scam more people, do more shows. But right now, Dave Asprey has got it. He's got the mantle. Okay. The anointing is on him. So. But yeah, I'd like to see what you do, you know, with improving your superficial subcutaneous fat that adiponectin. Rich, rich fat. I'll give you, I'll work with you. We'll do another show, we'll rescan you and we'll come back and talk talk about it and many other things.

Dave Asprey

Hey guys, if you wanted to get a hold of Sean, what's, what's the best URL?

Dr. Sean O'Mara

So my website, people that are interested in becoming the best influencer, best biological version themselves. Just my name, doctor for Dr. D R S E a N o M a r a dot com. Dr. Seanamer dot com or follow me if you want for free social media. Instagram, YouTube, X LinkedIn, TikTok, all @D R S E a n o M a r a dot com. Yeah, Ara. And there's note.com in my social media handles. So yeah, it's a good way to follow me and find out more information. I do lots of free content.

Dave Asprey

Okay. And while you're at it, go to Prenuvo P R-E-N-U-V-O.com and use code DAVE and get a pre nouveau scan. Because dying of something easy to prevent because you cut it early would just be sad. And as a side effect of that, you're going to get all of the metrics that Sean talked about around the fat, around, around your heart, how much fat's in your muscles, how much fat around your organs, and how much fat is under your skin in a healthy way versus a bad way. And these are nuances that most people don't talk about even in the world of biohacking. But they're valid, they're useful. And I find it a little bit relieving to know that it seems like this biohacking thing is working after 15 years of doing it and only doing 2 ounces at most of olive oil a day. I think excessive olive oil is not good for you. And eating tallow and butter and sheep's cheese every single freaking day. When I'm not fasting for almost 20 years. I guess maybe the cholesterol is going to get me.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

Yeah, you've done a good job, Dave. I'm indebted to you. So grateful that you do such great work so I wouldn't be here without you.

Dave Asprey

Well, keep helping a lot of people. I really like your take on things and the way you read your scans. So I'll see you back on the show when you I got more subcutaneous fat and if you can't see my abs as well. But I am younger and more resilient. I'll take that.

Dr. Sean O'Mara

All right, awesome.

Dave Asprey

See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast.

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