You’ve probably never seen a doctor’s office quite like this before. That’s because your doctor doesn’t define health care quite like Dr. Halland does. His integrative approach includes cryotherapy, infrared saunas, IV therapy, and light therapy, in addition to the more traditional components of patient care. He incorporates NADs, exosomes, and stem cells. He has put everything he needs to care for the health of his patients under one roof and has, in the process, built the doctor’s office of tomorrow.

In this deep dive, you will learn …

Introduction and vision for the future of medical treatment (0:31)

• Dr. Halland had always focused on pain management and has recently shifted to peak performance and longevity
• Health care vs sick care – what is health care really supposed to be?
• The future is regenerative medicine
• His process for assessing new patients
• His approach to treatments

The paradigm shift and interest in NADs (6:02)

• People interested in anti-aging are getting younger and younger
• How this recognition was the impetus for his new clinic
• People are looking for things like IVs and IVs with NAD in them
• NADs are the most critical element in mitochondrial function
• Introducing NADs into the body can have a profound impact
• An NAD IV is a 2 1/2 – 6 hour drip
• Stem cells can also be added to the drip

Having everything under one roof (16:33)

• For the patient there is benefit to having everything in one place
• You need to have the right people, the right infrastructure, and the knowledge of how to combine the different treatments and what is right for what patient
• There is no miracle mixture to cure someone, but knowing the right combination and the right order in which these treatments need to be done is essential

Impact Health and its mission (21:02)

• Helping the patient by providing everything they need in one place
• Create an atmosphere that creates community
• Anti-aging plus biohacking plus conventional medical services
• Developing an individualized action plan for patients who want improved health and wellness

Dr. Halland’s recommendations for longevity (26:28)

• Cryotherapy/cold plunge
• Diet optimization and taking care of your gut
• Infrared light and saunas
• Supplementation
• Stem cell therapy (more costly)
• Exosome therapy (more costly)
• PEMF
• IV therapies (with NAD is more costly)

What’s next for Impact Health (40:11)

• Opens in NYC in 2019
• Hopes to open around the same time in either Florida or California
• Incorporate the model into existing doctor’s offices
• Educate the public and demonstrate that this is what health care truly looks like

Full Transcript

Saad Alam: 00:00

I’m incredibly excited. I am here at Dr. Halland Chen’s place, and he is one of the nation’s foremost leading authorities on regenerative medicine. And, what I’m even more excited about, is he has been working on a concept that is going to revolutionize the way that we actually approach wellness in New York City, and he’s gonna open up the lid and just give us a little bit about that.

Saad Alam: 00:22

And you actually go by Dr. Halland, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 00:24

Yeah, that’s correct.

Saad Alam: 00:25

Well Dr. Halland, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for letting us be here.

Dr. Halland Chen: 00:28

No problem, thanks for visiting.

Saad Alam: 00:29

Yeah. And tell us a little bit about yourself.

Dr. Halland Chen: 00:31

Sure. So, my name’s Dr. Halland, I’m a double board certified physician, I have a background in interventional pain management, but I also have a background in physiatry, which essentially is sports medicine.

Dr. Halland Chen: 00:42

So, a large part of my practice focuses on people with pain or actually even complex medical illnesses now. And then, I’ve more recently actually focused on very heavily on longevity and peak performance. And that’s just because I’ve been working a lot with athletes, you know, people from NFL, UFC, PGA, and really what’s interesting about them is that it’s actually a lot harder to get them to heal faster, right, because they’re already at a very high level.

Dr. Halland Chen: 01:06

And so, I have a background in regenerative medicine, I’ve been doing research in it for several years now, publishing papers. What I learned from what world is actually very interesting because I could apply it to people who have let’s say chronic knee pain, arthritis, low back pain, shoulder pain. And so, that really led me into this whole journey of wanting to do something more, because most commonly we’re in the business of thinking healthcare is actually making people better, but it’s really the business of sick care. And healthcare is actually what I really love, which is actually helping somebody who’s hopefully relatively healthy, getting them to the next level. Or let’s say helping a peak performer or athlete recover faster and have less downtime.

Dr. Halland Chen: 01:44

So, my background has been quite varied in the sense that it’s not a traditional interventional pain management, I’ve done that for many years. It’s really actually how can I not only get you out of pain, how can I help you heal faster? And then not only that, how can I help you live a healthier, happier, stronger, better life? And then that’s when you get into the topic of longevity.

Saad Alam: 02:04

So tell me, when you say you’re working with people to extend longevity and to help peak performance, what does that exactly mean?

Dr. Halland Chen: 02:10

Yeah, that’s a great question because the whole term biohacking kinda gets thrown around a lot. And so, I always say aging is a function of several things, but one: inflammation, so help people decrease inflammation. Two: help people recover or heal faster. Three: sort of regenerative medicine, right? And that’s actually really where I think the future is, is usually in combination of regenerative medicine techniques, which include either stem cells, and then on top of that, things that boost your immune system. So that’s actually a really important component I work on, how to help people have a strong immune system.

Dr. Halland Chen: 02:42

And then the fourth component really is just, what are you doing for your sleep? So that’s actually something I’m really interested in as well, is helping people sleep better. And not just really the quantity of sleep, we actually wanna know how much deep sleep are you getting versus how much REM are you getting, versus light sleep. So these are all things that just in the whole what I call biohacking space, it’s kind of a circle. It’s not really this whole thing, you do this one thing and you’re gonna be a peak performer, or if I take this one supplement, I’m gonna be, you know, I’ll have more anti-aging properties. It’s really combining everything under one circle, one roof, and as a whole plan for somebody.

Saad Alam: 03:19

So let’s say someone like me comes into your practice and I say, “Hey look, Dr. Halland, I’m feeling all out of whack right now. I feel like I’m getting a little bit older.” How would you even go about assessing that?

Dr. Halland Chen: 03:30

Yeah. I mean, so the first thing to do is just a comprehensive lab testing, right? Just make sure there’s nothing metabolic going on. So, let’s say we do all the standard workup, we workup your endocrine system, we workup your basic lab panel, find out if there’s anything medically, you know, abnormal. Assuming everything’s relatively normal, and let’s say that if you’re relatively younger, or even slightly older, we’ll get your hormone levels. That’s something that people equate to anti-aging. I get asked that question a lot, you know, how about testosterone and growth hormone supplementation? Sure.

Dr. Halland Chen: 03:59

Those are kinda standard things that have been around for literally decades, right? But that’s actually just one component of this, right? And so, when you look at regenerative medicine or anti-aging as a whole, someone like you who is probably is very healthy and actually pretty athletic, what is the next level? And so, that’s kinda why I’ve worked a lot with athletes, because for them it’s actually getting someone at that level to heal faster or recover sooner is actually a lot harder, right, versus helping someone who’s maybe never gone to the gym, they’re gonna have massive gains.

Dr. Halland Chen: 04:29

So, for someone like you we would do, number one: we would work you up, find out if there’s anything metabolically going on with you. Number two: we can actually put you through what I call a program, right? And then there’s different types of programs. Do you want sort of this longevity program? Do you want this sort of I wanna be a peak performer program? Do you wanna know how to let’s say sleep better? So, there’s a few things that we could target. So, I’d actually take a very detailed questionnaire to kinda find out what your interest is and then from there we create a customized plan.

Dr. Halland Chen: 04:56

And so, customized plans can vary for everybody, but let’s just kinda give a general plan. One: I wanna decrease inflammation in your system. So that’s always gonna help you feel better. So do things either through IV drips or through certain bio-hack techniques that could decrease your inflammation such as photo therapy, cold therapy, those are really nice starters. Two: focus on your nutrition, right? If you’re allergic to certain things that you may not know about or optimize your diet, because the third component is also working with a fitness program, so there’s certain trainers that I like to work with. Then we create sort of programs that combine all these three steps.

Dr. Halland Chen: 05:34

And then the fourth step is, look regenerative medicine. People always wonder, when can I start? That’s kinda almost like the Botox question, right? I’ve worked with clients a long time in the past, when women are like, “When should I start Botox?” It’s kinda like, well, when do you want a wrinkle to not happen, right? So, aging’s the sort of same thing, right? When is a perfect time to stop aging or when is a perfect time to focus on longevity and anti-aging? It’s kinda really when you’re ready for it.

Dr. Halland Chen: 06:02

What we’ve seen though is, it’s younger and younger. It’s the person who’s necessarily in their 60’s or 70’s who say, “I wanna do anti-aging now.” Some of those guys have kind of come to terms with their mortality. But some of them are like, “I’m doing great, I’d like to extend my life and live longer.” So, I think that’s the new thing now, right? Because a lot of people are actually very health conscious. If you look at how insurance works, it’s really, everyone calls it healthcare, it’s actually really sick care, right? Most of the doctors out there are in the business of sick care. You have something wrong with you, we give you a drug or we try to do surgery. That’s not my philosophy. But I’m in the business of actually really healthcare or wellness care.

Dr. Halland Chen: 06:40

And so, that’s why for me the actual paradigm shift was actually to build a whole comprehensive center that’s actually focused on wellness, not just on some intervention that I can do. I mean I’m very good at that, and usually that’s when someone has a particular injury or there’s something that there is medically complex that I have to fix. But really at the end of the day it’s about creating a community focused on wellness and that’s where I think the longevity components start stacking upon each other.

Saad Alam: 07:04

Before we jump into what you’re doing next, which is incredibly exciting, tell me about what do you do right now really well in your practice?

Dr. Halland Chen: 07:12

Yeah. So, what I focus really well now are basically injuries or pretty much chronic inflammation type scenarios. So, I focus on knees, shoulders, hips and lower back pain. Those are things I focus on really well on, and then likewise I do a lot of IV systemic therapy. So, one of the things I’m very well known for is IVNAD, that stands for, Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, so lot of news and buzzing around on that topic, because you know seems very popular, there’s a lot of other companies now making oral supplements. We have our own version that’s actually a sublingual, that rapidly dissolves and has higher bioavailability.

Dr. Halland Chen: 07:49

So, NAD has kinda become these really hot topic which I’ve been pretty poplar for, because I work with a lot of guys who originally started using it for detox. And so, when you Google this, you may find it, “Oh, this is for detox from alcohol or opiates,” but on the flip side, a lot of research was done on it and they found out they had a lot of anti-inflammatory properties, it actually helped the body recover faster, it can help the immune system, essentially powers every cell in your body. So, without NAD, you actually wouldn’t be actually alive.

Dr. Halland Chen: 08:17

So, that’s something I focus very heavily on now, because it’s a really great longevity technique and intervention.

Saad Alam: 08:23

So, just explain to us real quickly, why NAD is so important, what specific, what kind of mitochondrial functions-

Dr. Halland Chen: 08:29

Correct.

Saad Alam: 08:30

Does it actually impact and what happens over the course of time?

Dr. Halland Chen: 08:32

Correct. So basically NAD’s, the most critical element in basically mitochondrial function, so every cell has a mitochondria, and as we probably remember from biology, the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. So, you’re basically always using NAD for every single process throughout your day. But essentially, you can never exceed your production versus your intake. So, for an example, if you metabolize one molecule of alcohol, it actually required two molecules of NAD. So, every time you have a glass of wine or maybe you’re going out drinking on a Friday night, it’s almost impossible to ever keep up.

Dr. Halland Chen: 09:06

Now, the younger we are, let’s say we are in our 20’s, you’ll actually have the capability to maybe ramp up production, and you’re fit and you have the ability to produce more. But as we get older, around your 60’s and 70’s, you’re actually more than 50% less than your actual total reserve. It’s actually probably lower for you than some people, ’cause one out of four people are actually clinically depleted. So, even if you’re younger or older, you’re already just depleted.

Dr. Halland Chen: 09:30

So, that’s why there you see so many profound effects when you give NAD to someone, and if they have that profound effect, it’s mostly they were actually deficient. So, that’s kinda why it’s so interesting and it can affect people on a cognitive level, it can affect them on a sleep level. I’ve seen many people who actually just with one treatment of an NAD IV session over several hours, amazingly improves their sleep. It can affect them on concentration, right? So, all these things that NAD provides for you, it’s so profound because it’s actually a fundamental molecule that your body needs. Pretty much like oxygen. You can’t really live without air or without NAD. Those are the two critical things.

Saad Alam: 10:07

And so, you focus and one of your specialties is NAD an IV drip essentially.

Dr. Halland Chen: 10:13

Right. IV drips. Yeah. So, I’ve been doing a lot of that for now, a number of years. And then in addition to NAD with IV drips, I do NAD with also stem cell therapy or regenerative medicine therapy, so whether or not you’re injecting somebody into their joints or other areas, there’s also system regenerative medicine techniques that are available out there, that can help the body recover faster. Well, you can combine that with also some of the special techniques that I do, where I some NAD combos, you actually get a magnified effect.

Saad Alam: 10:42

Tell me about that, what is the actual administration there look like?

Dr. Halland Chen: 10:45

So, typically NAD, if it’s done correctly … So, there’s a lot of people doing NAD out there, and so, the first thing I always ask, “Well, how long did it take?” And they’re like, “Oh I did it in 30 minutes.” Usually that’s a warning sign, right? It’s not that it’s bad medicine, it’s usually not a strong enough dose, ’cause if you’ve ever had an NAD drip that’s very strong … Actually there’s two things actually, if it’s high level of purity. So, if it’s a very pure molecule of NAD, you’re gonna feel it. Two: you can’t really absorb that NAD that quickly without feeling some side effects of either feeling your heart’s racing, your stomach turns, and all these other sort of side effects that would make people almost feel sick. But that’s actually pretty normal ’cause NAD again, it affects your body on a very profound level.

Dr. Halland Chen: 11:30

So, the whole process really is a slow drip. So, you start a typical IV, the NAD drips anywhere from two and a half hours up to maybe six hours or more, right? It could even be an eight hour drip, depending what we’re doing. I mean I’ve dealt with people who are very sick, they maybe want me to detox them from alcohol or opiates or other medications or drugs, to people who are peak performers and have had NAD regularly, who are very healthy, and you can drip somebody like that in an hour, maybe less. There’s certain people out there who even do fast push NAD’s and if you’re up for it and you can handle the whole passing out part maybe or not feeling so hot for that moment, that’s possible too.

Dr. Halland Chen: 12:09

So, there’s variation. I would like to say the more common and standard way, it’s usually a two and a half hour drip. And then whatever you wanna stack on top of that. And so, what I really focus on is how do I stack different technologies? And how do I combine the best of the best out there? And that’s what I think makes me very unique in the market is that I’m always working with a lot of the leaders and I also travel a lot internationally, so I learn along the way. I think in the regenerative medicine world, it’s a constant learning game. Everyone’s always trying to do one next thing that’s innovative, and so, it’s always being, how do you be innovative, at the same point how do you make sure you’re compliant, right? ‘Cause obviously we have certain rules in the US that we have to comply by, and so, that’s really where I really dial it in.

Saad Alam: 12:52

Tell us more specifically, so let’s say you’re doing an NAD drip, you can stack stem cells on top of that, what else can you put on top of it, and what does it target?

Dr. Halland Chen: 13:01

Right. So, I guess it really depends what’s the person coming in for, right? So let’s just pretend you’re coming in for sleep, right? ‘Cause sleep’s kind of a big problem, right? Nobody really talks about it, they just assume, “I don’t sleep enough or I need to sleep more,” but it’s a little bit more complex than that. So, if it’s a sleep protocol, maybe you would just have someone come in for three, four days in a row to reset that circadian rhythm, and then after that it’s probably usually about a two to four hour drip, and then you can kinda decrease it as they go further.

Dr. Halland Chen: 13:29

Let’s say this person also wanted to have more recovery because they’re an athlete, and you wanna give them something regenerative on top of that, you could give them some regenerative formulations IV that could promote A, the immune system, can help their own body mobilize stem cells, and then the third component is actually decrease inflammation. So, that’s what I call maybe sorta this sleep protocol recovery protocol.

Dr. Halland Chen: 13:51

Let’s say you’re somebody with low back pain, you can start off with injecting the spine with a regenerative medicine product, either like a placenta matrix, amniotic growth factors. You can put that in the area with also PRP, it’s a nice little combo. And then you give someone NAD on top of that, right? And so, you actually just are enhancing the result, right? Because if you’re giving the body more energy, right, you’re fueling the mitochondria, the whole body’s actually able to process things better.

Saad Alam: 14:17

If someone comes in for a treatment like that, how is it different than just doing, we’ll call it stem cells by itself and combining everything, what kind of acceleration are you seeing?

Dr. Halland Chen: 14:30

So, when you’re combining stack therapy, so in our example we’ve been talking about NAD a lot, but it’s actually a little bit more than that, right? So, let’s say, let’s treat a knee. Let’s say we’re doing a regenerative medicine procedure for a knee where you’re putting something in there like a product called Lipogems. I did a lot of research work with them, and we’re actually able to show some improvement in knee functions, not just some, a lot, from pain scores to mobility to even some things on MRI where you can actually see some tissue coming back.

Dr. Halland Chen: 14:57

So, things have been used as monotherapy for years, right? Now if you combine a thing like NAD for example in this particular use case, you may actually see an acceleration in timeline or you may see an acceleration and actually improvement of range and motion. But it’s not even just with NAD alone, you could combine with a good rehabilitation program, right? So, combining certain things like PEMF, combining things like shockwave, stimulating the body to have more circulation. I’m a very big fan of cold therapy, so either you could do cryotherapy or I’m a big fan of cold plunge, and then even Wim Hof stuff.

Dr. Halland Chen: 15:31

So, I would say if you were to do things in an idea setup, you would do actually just more than that. I kinda consider NAD as sort of your baseline layer. It’s priming the body, getting the body ready to basically heal, fight inflammation, boost the immune system. You add the second layer, which is a regenerative medicine, give the body sort of the building blocks to do things. And then the next layer would be doing adjunctive therapies. Things that make the body more hearty to heal, boost the immune system, give the body strength. And these are things that could either enhance sleep, right, more deep sleep specifically. Two: things like cryotherapy, infrared, shockwave, PMF, things that are all related to maybe enhancing the whole process.

Dr. Halland Chen: 16:16

So, there’s many layers to sort of a protocol. And so, I think that’s probably more important that just let’s say, “I’m gonna give you this drip and you’re gonna get better because of that.” It’s really understanding how these things work together with what the patient particularly needs.

Saad Alam: 16:33

Are you ever stacking things like … So, I met a physician the other night, he’s using GAINSwave as well as PRP and exosomes, to improve efficacy depending upon what the actual ailment is-

Dr. Halland Chen: 16:46

Sure.

Saad Alam: 16:46

For someone coming in. Are you looking at things that deeply and tailoring it that much to the individual or are you saying, “These are the three different therapies that I have, this is what I’m offering right now.”

Dr. Halland Chen: 16:58

Yeah. I think that’s all part of the protocols, right? So, I love exosomes, I think exosomes is actually a very cutting edge technology that’s probably gonna be even more and more in the news these days. It really depends on what you’ll use it for.

Dr. Halland Chen: 17:11

So, for example, PRP, exosomes and GAINSwave, that’s usually probably a P-Shot Protocol, right?

Saad Alam: 17:17

That’s exactly what it was.

Dr. Halland Chen: 17:18

So, that’s what that’s used for. So, that’s a specific algorithm for that. Now, will that guy benefit by doing cryo, infrared and all this other? So sure, he’ll definitely benefit from that, right? And will that guy benefit from actually doing a certain cardio program, fitness program, and combining with the right type of diet, absolutely. So, I would say everything that I really do is algorithm based. I mean really all of medicine is algorithms, and the people who kinda know the best, or get the best results, actually just know all the algorithms, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 17:48

And so, I think what really makes it different is that you actually have to have the right facility, the right tools, the right maybe even partnerships with people. And so, for me, I’m very collaborative, I like to work with experts in the industry, and then on the other side of things, that I briefly alluded to, is I wanna make a whole, like a facility that’s essentially like a Soho house for wellness. Everything’s under one roof because in order to really actually do everything that I just described, you actually required quite a bit of square footage, so you need a good footprint. B, you have to actually have the right infrastructure to support or that, and then the third component is you have to know how to actually combine it, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 18:25

It’s like baking a cake, if you put the icing on first and then start baking it, your cake’s kinda ruined. And that’s kinda what medicine is sometimes. We just throw an antibiotic or do surgery and you’re like, “Wait a minute guys, we probably shouldn’t have cut that knee open, we probably could have done a few things before we baked this cake, right?” So in this case they baked your knee, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 18:44

So, that’s what we’re trying to avoid now and I think more and more people are aware of these things. They don’t wanna get surgery right away. They wanna try things that will help prolong the life of their knee. And I even tell people, a lot of expectations in the stem cell world is like, “Is this gonna cure me?” Right? And that question happens often because the expectation for stem cells as being the miracle answer is like, there’s so much hope in it, and I think we’re not there yet, but what I do like to say is that, it may not cure you, but if we can prolong your surgery, five years, seven years, eight years from now, I’d rather have a knee replacement of the future than one of today.

Dr. Halland Chen: 19:22

And I have a patient who, you know, look, you don’t fix everything. She actually wants to do a hip replacement, I mean part of it was that I think, you know, it was about the right time for her because she had very, very severe hip pain when she saw me, so we were on the question if she’d benefit from it, but she wanted to try and did it, and so she’s getting surgery now, but this is seven years later. So, she’s gonna get a much better outcome now than back when she was thinking about it.

Dr. Halland Chen: 19:47

So, there’s always selection criteria. And I think stem cells is not this miracle answer, I think it’s really just part of the answer. But what I do think is part of the actual quote/unquote maybe ‘miracle’ answer or future answer is, how do you combine everything in the right sequence? And so, it’s like when even your doctor says, “You gotta eat right.” What does that mean, right? “You gotta work out.” What does that mean as well? I like to do what I call transformations. I personally did a transformation over four to six weeks where I lost 10 pounds of pure fat and I went from a 34 waistline to 29 and a half, but I didn’t lose muscle mass. So, what I did was I did a combo regenerative techniques where I cut and build at the same time. That’s actually technically really hard, but it wasn’t just because I went to the gym all the time, in fact I only went to the gym once a week, that’s all the time I had.

Dr. Halland Chen: 20:36

And I did a very simple cardio program and that was basically 30 minutes in the morning a certain way. So, anything done properly, and in our world we always wanna do things the best way the shortest amount of time, it’s really just working smart and not harder. And so, medicine’s I think hopefully gonna go that route where we’re doing smart medicine and we’re actually in the business of well care and not sick care.

Saad Alam: 20:59

So, tell me about this new thing you’re building in New York City.

Dr. Halland Chen: 21:02

So I call this Impact Health, and so, it’s called that because really it’s about impact, right? How do we impact peoples lives? And, the concept is actually broad enough where it’ll be in New York and then obviously I’m headquartered in Florida as well. And then eventually we’ll bring it out to the west coast, ’cause people are very wellness focused there.

Dr. Halland Chen: 21:20

But to give you a rough overview of it, the idea is everything under roof. So, if I were to recommend cryo for you, and infrared, and cold plunge plus a really good diet, plus let’s say regenerative medicine and some drip lounge, I mean you pretty much would have to go to three or four different locations in the city, and the compliance level goes down as complexity goes up, right? And so, if I’m gonna set you up to win as my patient or as my client, I want everything under one roof.

Dr. Halland Chen: 21:47

So, the idea is if you think about what a hotel represents, a very nice hotel, we kinda wanna create that atmosphere, because for us it’s really about creating community. I wanna create a community where, you know, when you go to doctor’s office, you’re kinda just like, “I wanna go there and I wanna leave.” This is actually you wanna come here, hang out, do some things like get some healthy drinks like juice drinks, smoothies, maybe meet the chef and you could even do meal planning with them so you can have food for the whole week, right? That removes a big logistic. You could have your fitness plan, and that’s kinda what we call your sort of your outline of things that you would do anyways.

Dr. Halland Chen: 22:22

But because you’re already there, you can come get your IV drips, right? Everyone needs some supplementation, maybe some NAD, if your body’s feeling a little bit weak. And then you can likewise do your cryo-therapy, your infrared, a cold plunge. And then let’s say depending on what track you are, you say, “I wanna extend my life, I wanna focus on longevity, or I’m recovering from low back pain, or I’m a weekend warrior and I travel a lot, is there anything you can do for my jet lag and sleep?” It gives you a basis. So, what we do is, everything’s under one roof, you don’t have to travel to multiple locations to get everything that you wanted, and everything’s under supervised medical care.

Dr. Halland Chen: 22:57

So, that’s the difference. The spin is that we’re now focused on your medical component, so not just anti-aging, bio-hacking, it’s that plus medical. So, I would provide the medical care supervision and then likewise we’ll have other medical professionals in there who can likewise cater to you. So, it’s very concierge, right? But the idea is that, once we sort of standardize a lot of these protocols, it goes from not only concierge, it becomes for everybody. Eventually we’ll have things where other people can sign up maybe remotely, do an online program and create things where we can analyze some of your stats remotely.

Dr. Halland Chen: 23:30

I don’t know if you noticed, but I have all these different sensors. This is an Oura Ring for sleep tracking, this is a Fitbit which is very popular, and then this is even a Whoop Band, right? And so, this actually tracks a lot of parameters. So, it’s not because it’s convenient, it’s for actually really getting good measures, because all these things measure something a little bit differently, but we can start triaging data points, no different than your question about what would you do for sort of this GAINSwave plus exosomes and pure P-Protocol, I’ll be able to triage you a lot faster and better based on what your numbers are.

Dr. Halland Chen: 24:03

And so, there’s a saying, you can’t manage what you don’t measure. So, we’re gonna be measuring a lot of things for you, and that’s where I think this is about well care now, because now we know where you are and now we know what to change and not only that, a lot of this stuff is new, right? I mean there’s a ton of people who will look at their Fitbit reading and if you happen to have an Oura Ring which, you know, it’s getting more and more popular, what do you do when your Fitbit watch says, “Hey, you slept seven hours, congratulations. You got 20 minutes of deep sleep,” that’s not good. And you woke up a lot. There’s really no action plan.

Dr. Halland Chen: 24:37

So, the idea is that we’re actually gonna give you action plans to take and we’ll fine tune it, and maybe we’ll get it right the first time, everybody’s super unique and different, but there’s really no protocol, “Hey I want deep sleep today.” I mean if there’s a pill for it, there would be one, right? But really the pill’s called Ambien, and Ambien’s just this thing to just make you pass out, but it’s not really this thing to like, “Oh let me enhance your deep sleep and recovery,” otherwise everyone would take Ambien the whole time.

Saad Alam: 25:03

So, this is really the beginning. I mean this is amazing, right? It’s like the real beginning of personalized care and you’re taking multiple data points, you’re diving in deep and you’re saying, “Based upon my previous experience, I’m gonna cater a plan too that is 100% gonna optimize you or whatever it is that you’re looking for at a whole another level.”

Dr. Halland Chen: 25:21

Correct, yeah. And that’s where medicine’s going, I mean if we kinda even look how things evolved in society right now, everything is going more custom and personalized, right? And so, out of all things that you can customize and personalize, why is your healthcare not like that? The thing that matters the most is being healthy, but we have a one size fits all approach, and it’s really not that. I wouldn’t say it’s medical’s fault, it’s just was never designed from the ground up. The ground up was like, patient has a problem, fix the problem. Most people don’t really look at you when you’re relatively healthy, but being relatively healthy is actually what you wanna be and how do you get even healthier?

Dr. Halland Chen: 25:58

And that’s the paradox that people really don’t think about, because both you and I are probably very healthy to a degree, but there’s always something that can be better, right? I can definitely maybe improve my sleep more. Or maybe I could increase my recovery time. Maybe I can get my body fat under a certain percentage. There’s something that I think we can always work on, like telomeres for example, that’s something that we’re also diving into. Look, there’s certain people who wanna have telomeres of a 25 year old, and that’s great.

Saad Alam: 26:27

Sign me up.

Dr. Halland Chen: 26:28

Why wouldn’t you, because it means our DNA is going to replicate properly, it means it’s gonna be protected, it means you’ll have a long life to live. And if you read, a lot of these things are being published. I mean the first person to live to 125, 130, has already been born. That’s pretty profound if you think of it, maybe they’re 25 years old right now, and they have another 100 years of their life. So, if you think about that, we’re living longer, what is that gonna be like? Do you want the last 20, 30, maybe 40 years of your life being relatively uncomfortable and not feeling good or arthritic? Or do you want it to be like you can live life to the fullest? And I think that’s what people are starting to realize, it’s like being 50 and 60 is actually … Imagine if you’re living to 120, and you’re 60 years old. You got another 60 years left.

Saad Alam: 27:15

We have a friend that’s 52 years old, sold multiple companies, he swears he’s gonna live to 150, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 27:23

I believe it.

Saad Alam: 27:24

And so, he says … And he’s so into this entire world, I mean 100% following every protocol that’s out there. Best practice, they’re launching a company. He says, “Imagine if you’re 52, and you’re financially successful, you believe you’re gonna live to 150, it’s like being 18 years old with all the knowledge in the world, and you have an entire lifetime ahead of you.” And it just fundamentally forces you to start thinking about how you perceive life very differently.

Saad Alam: 27:51

I mean most people are kinda packing it up by 50, and the reality is, no you have another 50, 70 years to sprint at full speed, that’s very exciting.

Dr. Halland Chen: 28:00

Yeah. And it brings up a lot of interesting questions too. Let’s say you live to 140, right? Let’s say 120 ’cause that’s a little bit easier for us to imagine, what happened if you didn’t save enough for retirement and you actually still have to work? How many people do you see working in their 70’s and enjoying it or having the energy, maybe the mental capacity, the ability to do these things? You actually do have to think about longevity, because if you’re 70 years old, and you didn’t save enough money where you can basically have enough income for the next 50 years, there’s a fundamental problem, right? And not everyone has kids that will support them, and even if you have kids, maybe they may not opt to support you.

Dr. Halland Chen: 28:42

So, I think the idea of actually being able to take care of yourself and number one: your health is the key. And so, that’s what I think … And I’m not saying longevity’s that’s the reason why you should do it, but look, it’s either one of the two things. How does retirement look? Or how does life when you still have the ability to be passionate about things you wanna enjoy, whether it’s work, play, family time, anything, hobbies. You wanna have the ability to do it.

Saad Alam: 29:08

So, you know the best techniques out there, you’ve studied everything. If you had to say there were three things someone had to do to maintain themselves in peak performance or get them there at the age of 40, what are those three things?

Dr. Halland Chen: 29:23

Right.

Saad Alam: 29:23

And I would say, I’m gonna even complicate this, what are three things that are very low cost?

Dr. Halland Chen: 29:29

Right.

Saad Alam: 29:29

And what are three things that are probably a little bit more costly?

Dr. Halland Chen: 29:32

Okay. So, three cost effective things that people can do, you know, I’m a big fan of things that people can do right away, or are relatively easy to execute. So, my top favorite is cold therapy, right? I’m a big fan of cryo, cold plunge and obviously that got very popular by Wim Hof. And so, these are things you can do, whether it’s a cold shower, you know, 30 seconds in the morning, or if you wanna go further out and just have a bathtub and put a little bit of ice in there, maybe a bag or two, that’s a great way. And it’s not a competition, you don’t have to do it for five minutes, you can do it till the point where you just feel comfortable. And there’s a whole breathing technique to that as well.

Dr. Halland Chen: 30:09

So, I would say a combination of cold plunge and breathing techniques, that’s very easy to do.

Saad Alam: 30:14

What does that do specifically for you, at the highest level?

Dr. Halland Chen: 30:17

Right. At the highest level, I mean really it boosts your immune system. I mean I think that’s one component of it, it builds a certain level of resilience in your body. For me, I’m kinda used to walking around New York City in the winter time without a jacket. I did the training, I actually flew to Poland, I trained with Wim Hof, and so, it was kind of a really interesting experience. That’s just something that I really carry with me, whether it’s I’m working out or something that I’m doing at home, it’s not like the cold’s, “Oh hey, let’s just do it because it’s fun,” I mean it does require focus. But it is a great longevity thing, right? ‘Cause it boosts the immune system, it makes the body very resilient, and there’s a level of centeredness that goes into it.

Dr. Halland Chen: 30:57

So, the cold is actually a little bit more than just like, “Okay, I can do it, I’m mentally tough.” There’s actually a lot of physiological things happening, and there’s a good amount of research especially being published by the Wim Hof team that’s coming out. So, I would say cold’s my number one thing you can do.

Dr. Halland Chen: 31:15

I mean obviously from a bio-hacking technique, I think optimizing your diet, I think that’s something that people really underplay how much your gut influences your health, right? So, your microbiome, so I think understanding your microbiome, understanding your food allergies, and optimizing that would be a very important thing to do, since it’s something you do at least three times a day.

Dr. Halland Chen: 31:37

The third component, I mean I think, I’m a big fan of infrared and saunas, I think that’s really good for the body. I mean I do that after I actually run in the morning, and that’s something that’s pretty convenient whether it’s a infrared sauna, or just a hot sauna, or even steam. I think those are three things that are really easy to do, and they’re usually built into something that you’re already doing.

Dr. Halland Chen: 31:59

In terms of … And really maybe a fourth component, I know you asked for three, but just general supplementation, I mean I think people who are relatively younger don’t really focus too much on supplements, but there are so many type of supplements out there, and it gets confusing. So, obviously that’s the whole idea of what I even wanted to do with patients, is personalized medicine. We’ll test you, we’ll find out where you’re deficient and we’ll optimize it, right? So, supplements can go from anything from any D supplements to all these peptides now that people are into, and from everything that you can ingest in a pill format or maybe via food.

Dr. Halland Chen: 32:33

So, I would add a fourth one only because it really just ties into a little bit of nutrition, but it’s slightly separate. On the more what I call customized end, and maybe there’s a little bit more of a cost associated with it, I mean obviously regenerative medicine. So anything regenerative that you can do is gonna boost your longevity, your ability to recover, so typically IV regenerative medicine, if we’re talking systemic health. And that can range from things that you may find through stem cells, right? That’s very popular, people sometimes go overseas or to Panama or Mexico for that. There’s obviously various flavors you can do.

Dr. Halland Chen: 33:07

Here in the US they are very similar, like a plasma technology, so you probably heard of the Ambrosia Project which is a Peter Thiel thing, and so, that’s where you’re using plasma of young blood and giving it to someone who’s older. So, there’s a lot of regenerative properties in that. And then obviously exosome therapy, IV exosomes is actually not a stem cell, it’s actually a growth factor. And so, they’re very potent and they actually can do quite a number of incredible things for the body in terms of essentially telling the body to, “Hey, let’s heal,” and giving that extra boost to do that.

Dr. Halland Chen: 33:38

So, that’s on the very high end, obviously systemic regenerative medicine. The second thing that I would say is probably more complex is, using more advanced modality things. I guess it depends if we’re talking about just longevity and anti-aging, or more so recovery from an injury, right? So, things like that would be, again I would always say something that you can inject into a joint, which has a regenerative nature, and then likewise even doing certain therapies like PEMF, shockwave, PRP and whatnot. That’s kinda in that same wheel house, so I’m obviously probably gonna be leaning towards regenerative because I view that as sort of the apex of healing, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 34:19

And then the third component is really IV therapies. And IV therapies can range from relatively cost efficient, but then some can be pretty expensive, like NAD for a day session is, I would say not relatively cheap but not relatively that bad considering the benefits that you get from it. So, doing a monthly IV NAD can have profound effects for you.

Saad Alam: 34:39

And only once a month you’re saying?

Dr. Halland Chen: 34:41

Yeah. I mean it depends what your needs are. If you’re recovering from certain things then you need it a little bit more. We’ve seen people use NAD for people who have difficulty with memory, or maybe their thought process is a little bit slower. We’ve seen NAD have profound effects for that. And there’s some really research coming out on it also. If someone needs major detox, that’s something that’s a little bit longer. They do a 10 day process, right, continuous to kinda detox the body and they become boom, hits that hard reset. And then they come monthly maybe for two days per month for maybe in the next three to four months.

Dr. Halland Chen: 35:15

So, everyone’s a little bit different, but I would say NAD is probably easily my top three. And that’s something anybody can do, right? The regenerative medicine, you may or may not need it, obviously if you want it, that’s sort of that extra, it’s that next level. So I would say those two are the next level.

Dr. Halland Chen: 35:34

And then really again kinda back to the fourth component, really the fourth component which, I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily expensive, it’s just technically logistically timing expensive, right? How do you get a guy to do cold plunge, plus infrared, plus maybe combining that with a good physio program? That would be what I call my fourth wheel, or the magic combination of it. And it’s not costly individually, it’s just very logistically costly. But again, that’s one of the reasons why I wanted to build the center is that I want everyone to have access to this and it was easy, right? But that’s the hard part, we don’t really have these things.

Dr. Halland Chen: 36:11

But I would say to get access to those three things at the same time in one session would be very valuable.

Saad Alam: 36:18

So you think that someone could come into Impact Health, four hours, be in and out, and get everything?

Dr. Halland Chen: 36:24

Not even. You can come in for an hour and a half. So, maybe if you were … ‘Cause that’s the whole idea. If you wanted to try to mimic your normal routine, let’s just assume you go to the gym for an hour, and hour and change, you could come in, do your workout, have the kitchen prepare a very catered meal towards you that’s for your whole gut sensitivities or things that you know will be good for you, go ahead and do your IV drip afterwards, do a three minute ice bath, go to the infrared sauna, come out get a shower, you’re in and out in 90 minutes. I mean who wouldn’t wanna do that?

Dr. Halland Chen: 36:57

I’d replace my workout with that if I can do that every day.

Saad Alam: 36:59

Sign me up. Yeah. I’ve been religiously using a sauna for 18 years, almost every day or so. And I believe wholeheartedly it’s been one of the single most important things for me staying younger and feeling good. And I haven’t used one for the past month, because I’m in between gyms, and I 100% can feel the difference.

Dr. Halland Chen: 37:20

Yeah, you feel it. I mean when I was traveling for a conference, six days, it was pretty intensive till like 2:00 AM or later in the morning, it’s like I couldn’t really get the morning run in, right, ’cause I’m going to bed pretty late. It’s like I felt it. And the idea is that also I kinda view this whole longevity thing as a journey with, as a community. So imagine with what you did, and you could set it up where you can do this with friends or people who are like-minded. You really build that following where it’s actually impacting you even more on a deeper level, because now you’re doing it together.

Dr. Halland Chen: 37:51

And I think that’s also one of the reasons why Impact Health is really a place you come and stay. It’s not like a Starbucks, maybe you might not stay for five hours, but look, you come in for your session, you build that relationship with your provider or the person who kinda medically supervises it, probably will be me or some of my care extender providers, and then likewise you’ll meet people who you might see regularly, and then you build this not only this bond with these people, but you guys get to exchange, “Hey, what’s been working for you? This is what’s been helping me.”

Dr. Halland Chen: 38:20

I would say in the future of what we call bio-hacking and whatnot, there’s not like this whole, “Hey, I’m trying to make my life live longer now,” people just usually tell you what’s wrong with them. The dialogue’s not like, “Hey, I crushed it on sleep today. I got 50% deep sleep, I’m doing amazing.” And that’s what’s wrong I think in healthcare. We don’t celebrate being healthy, right? And then the other part that’s wrong is that we expect to be healthy without running the miles. You have to run the miles, both figuratively and literally, you have to run the miles to make this happen.

Saad Alam: 38:55

So, you’re actually really well known in the longevity field, and if I recall you did something on HBO as well too, right?

Dr. Halland Chen: 39:01

Yeah, that’s correct. So, I filmed a segment with Vice, and the actually title of the episode is called, Engineering Immortality. It actually covered a great amount of content, they had Craig Venter, who was the first person to sequence his entire genome. And they had a segment on me, where I basically discuss what can you do from a very medicine standpoint to essentially either live longer or be healthier? So, that whole episode was really profound because it actually really I think brought to the public, what can you do to help maybe someone with knee pain or perhaps back pain?

Dr. Halland Chen: 39:30

And then I even talked a little bit about IV NAD, right? And so, this was quite a little bit of time ago, I think almost two years ago now, where you are actually talking about this in a very broad sense, but kinda what we’re doing we’re diving a little bit deeper, you know, for people how are really interested in the science. And the science continues to evolve. I mean I think the HBO thing was amazing because it really captured a wider audience, but I think as people are now becoming more and more informed through the internet, through Facebook, through Instagram, you’re really actually getting a whole bunch of people who are interested. And now it’s how do we navigate this space? How to create educational content.

Saad Alam: 40:06

Yeah. This is very exciting. So, when can we expect Impact Health to open its doors?

Dr. Halland Chen: 40:11

So, Impact Health is gonna open in 2019, here in New York City, and then likewise we’ll probably either do a parallel play in Florida and/or California as well. So, we’re gonna have what I call the Showcase Office start up first, and then after that Showcase Office, we’re gonna set a main headquarters office. So, something very large and encompassing, but the Showcase will have kind of the best of the best under one roof, and then we’ll expand that into a larger headquarters.

Dr. Halland Chen: 40:38

And then later on Impact Health actually can be something that could be essentially brought in to other practices, or at least some of our protocols and techniques. So, the idea is to really just how do we make this accessible for everybody, right? ‘Cause a lot of people might think bio-hacking is only for a certain type of people or, “I’m not an athlete, I’m not gonna think about bio-hacking.” It’s really for everybody. And think bio-hacking gives that connotation that it might be only for a typical crowd that’s really into it, but I think if you actually care about your diet and you wanna be fit or you wanna have more energy or feel more focused, that’s you, you’re one of us. You meaning, like you care about healthcare and not sick care.

Dr. Halland Chen: 41:17

And that’s kinda why I wanna differentiate it. It was even called Impact Health because it’s not about bio-hacking, that’s one component of it. It’s really about, “How do I live better? How do I live well?” And I always say, usually people fall in usually one of five categories or so, five or less. It’s about inflammation, it’s about energy, focus, sleep, and being happy. If any of those five things resonate with you, you’re most likely somebody who could benefit from seeing someone like us.

Saad Alam: 41:44

Wonderful, wonderful. Dr. Halland. Where can people find you?

Dr. Halland Chen: 41:49

They can find me online, obviously I’m on Instagram, Dr. Halland, so D-R-H-A-L-L-A-N-D. And we also have a website right now called impacthealthteam.com.

Saad Alam: 41:58

All right. Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for having us and we’re excited to see what comes.

Dr. Halland Chen: 42:03

Absolutely. Happy to have you here.