Dr. Reef Karim: The Victim Mentality Epidemic and Path to Vulnerability

In this podcast, I am speaking with Dr. Reef Karim, a leading expert in human behavior, who has dedicated his life to educating, entertaining, and helping people understand themselves better. Dr. Karim is a double board certified psychiatrist, addiction medicine physician, relationship expert, writer, speaker (with recurring appearances on Oprah, Dr. Oz, CNN, Larry King Live, Dr. Phil, Anderson Cooper, and many others), comedic host, and media personality.  We will discuss the "victim mindset" and how it appears to be rapidly spreading in the younger generations across the Western world, the difference between victimhood and vulnerability, conformism vs. authenticity/courage, healing from trauma, self-sabotaging behavior, and how to grow into the fullest expression of your own capacities and authentic self. 

Did you know that, in the United States alone, one in two women and one in four men over the age of 50 will have a fracture due to osteoporosis?  And if this happens to be a hip fracture, 24% will die within a year due to complications, while an even higher percentage will never be independent again.  The most unfortunate part is that conventional doctors typically just prescribe vitamin D, calcium, and maybe a non-specific form of exercise…then immediately put you on medication without examining root causes. In this episode, Margie Bissinger, a physical therapist with over 25 years of experience treating osteoporosis, reveals the real culprits behind the bone density epidemic, including sugar, gluten sensitivity and gut inflammation, proton-pump inhibitors like Nexium and Prilosec, corticosteroids, antidepressants, stress and cortisol, and sedentary behavior. Listen to the full episode to get all of Margie's actionable information to avoid or even begin reversing osteoporosis. This episode was initially released in March 2023  

Dr. Izabella Wentz is a renowned pharmacist focused on thyroid health. In this episode, she reveals a shocking pattern: about 90% of people with Hashimoto's have alterations in how much cortisol they release throughout the day.  They struggle with brain fog, chronic fatigue, and sleep issues—tired all day, wired at night—even when they're on thyroid medications. She's discovered something fascinating about "adrenal fatigue" that challenges both the old naturopathic model and the skeptics.  Your adrenals aren't damaged or lazy…they're perfectly capable of producing hormones. "Adrenal fatigue" is an intelligent adaptive response where your body down-regulates cortisol production to protect itself from chronic stress, essentially saying, "This is unrealistic, we can't pump out high amounts of cortisol all the time." After being forced to find solutions during years of severe sleep deprivation with her son, Dr. Wentz developed a 4-week protocol that has now helped thousands of people. By week two, people report their anxiety dropping from an 8 to a 2. By week four, their libido returns and they feel transformed, all without hormones, complicated testing, or bags full of supplements.  

In this episode, Dr. Bonnie Kaplan shares a statistic that should stop everyone in their tracks: 50% of people will be diagnosed with a mental disorder at some point in their lifetime. When she was a kid in the 1950s, that rate was 1% or less. As a professor emeritus at the University of Calgary and co-author of The Better Brain, Dr. Kaplan has spent decades researching what went wrong. She shares the case of "Andrew," a 10-year-old with childhood psychosis who recovered on micronutrients when six months of psychiatric care failed…yet his doctor refused to try it with other patients because "it's not part of clinical practice guidelines." This episode was initially released in July 2022

This interview took place on a historic day: the FDA removed the black box warning for HRT (hormone replacement therapy) after 20 years. My guest, Dr. Mariza Snyder, author of The Perimenopause Revolution, explains why this matters and why women have been suffering needlessly for decades while doctors dismissed their symptoms as "just aging" or "just stress." Perimenopause is the 4 to 10-year transition where hormones wildly fluctuate before menopause, and Dr. Snyder calls it "the window of vulnerability." She uses a powerful metaphor: imagine estrogen as your brain's master CEO who shows up like clockwork from 9 AM to 6 PM for 30 years. Then, suddenly, without warning, it shows up at 2 PM one day and leaves at 11 PM, then shows up at 6 AM the next day and leaves at 11 AM. Your brain scrambles trying to regulate energy, neurotransmitters, sleep, mood, and cravings. The most compelling insight of our conversation is a Mayo Clinic study that found 84% of menopausal women don't seek care. Why? Because they feel judged in the doctor's office.  Dr. Snyder wrote her book as the roadmap she desperately needed when she started her own perimenopause journey, connecting symptoms to future health outcomes and providing practical solutions beyond just "you're getting older."  

In this episode with Dr. John Lieurance, he drops a bombshell in the first few minutes: "I take hundreds of milligrams [of melatonin] every night, and I've gone through months and months of taking it religiously."  While most melatonin supplements contain a dose of 0.3 to 3 milligrams, Dr. Lieurance has 30 years of clinical experience and, during our conversation, shares his unorthodox but largely research-backed views on melatonin, methylene blue, and mitochondrial health. As one of the world's leading clinical experts on melatonin and methylene blue, Dr. Lieurance reveals findings that most people have never heard, including why melatonin is an amazing adaptogen and how it even prevents the Warburg effect that powers cancer cells. The second half of our conversation explores methylene blue, the original compound that inspired the term "magic bullet." Dr. Lieurance explains how this brilliant blue salt was discovered while searching for a malaria cure, how it increases mitochondrial function by an average of 30%, and why it acts as both a prooxidant and antioxidant. Most fascinating is the synergy with red light therapy…methylene blue absorbs 660-nanometer photons, supports cytochrome C oxidase, and creates powerful antimicrobial effects. He shares clinical dosing protocols, debunks FDA warnings, and explains why higher doses are more effective than the micro-doses commonly recommended. In this podcast, Dr. Lieurance and I discuss: His personal health journey and why he takes hundreds of milligrams of melatonin every night, while maintaining high testosterone levels, directly contradicting Andrew Huberman's warnings based on flawed rodent studies Melatonin studies that used up to 150,000 milligrams with zero toxicity found, yet recent claims suggest melatonin is toxic to kids, with little research to support it The fact that your gut produces 400 times more melatonin than the pineal gland! Every single cell produces its own melatonin within the mitochondria, a discovery that only emerged in the last couple years, completely reframing melatonin's importance The biological reason why you can take large amounts of melatonin for extended periods and stop the next day without suppression of natural production The connection between melatonin, hormesis, and your mitochondria How high-dose melatonin protects you from sun damage The interesting story of methylene blue, the original "magic bullet" discovered while curing malaria How methylene blue increases mitochondrial function by 30% on average  

In this episode, Dr. Chris Masterjohn cuts through the noise with his refreshingly practical approach to nutrition for your mitochondria. He exposes supplement industry myths and explains why your mitochondria need more than just CoQ10 and alpha-lipoic acid. Plus, his insights into how your brain regulates energy metabolism will completely shift how you think about fatigue. Whether you're dealing with chronic exhaustion or just want to optimize your energy, this conversation delivers actionable wisdom—Dr. Masterjohn even shares his favorite "superfood cocktail." Get ready to question everything you thought you knew about mitochondrial nutrition! This episode was initially released in Sept 2023  

What if curing cancer and heart disease wouldn't actually extend human lifespan by much? It sounds crazy, but this concept opens the door to my conversation with Dr. Greg Kelly, Director of Product Development at Neurohacker Collective and author of Shape Shift.  The reason is simpler than you think: most people would still die in their mid-80s from accumulated cellular damage and "dying of old age," i.e., multi-organ failure from decades of cellular aging. Dr. Kelly brings a unique perspective, having served as a Navy officer before becoming a naturopathic physician and spending two decades in the trenches of longevity research. He shares a fascinating personal story about repaying his massive sleep debt from his military years—sleeping 12 hours a night for weeks until his chronically cold hands suddenly became warm. His insights on why catching up on sleep often makes us feel more tired will completely reframe how you think about recovery. This conversation goes deep into cellular senescence ("zombie cells" that accumulate as we age), the gut microbiome's role in longevity, why melatonin supplements are often misused, and which nootropics actually work.  Dr. Kelly explains the "last straw" model of stress that will change how you view your health, and why chasing individual diseases instead of focusing on cellular aging is like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This episode was initially released in July 2023

In this episode, I am speaking with Dr. Dale Bredesen about the root causes of cognitive decline and how to prevent and reverse them.

What if your mitochondria aren't broken, but rather stuck in defense mode? What if chronic illness isn't about damaged cells, but about cells that can't sense safety anymore? Dr. Eric Gordon has spent over 40 years in the trenches of complex chronic illness, working with thousands of patients who didn't fit into conventional medicine's boxes. He's one of the deepest thinkers in functional medicine and an original voice who has witnessed and worked through every health fad out there. In this conversation, he explains why mitochondrial support sometimes backfires, why your body gets stuck in chronic illness patterns like a "neurotic loop," and most importantly, how to give your cells the safety signals they need to heal.