Episode 1
The Future of Health with Dr. Julie Chen
“Integrative medicine helps us pull patients back from the cliff before their health deteriorates further.
Key Takeaways
- The Value of Early Intervention: Addressing health issues in their early stages can prevent long-term complications and improve patient outcomes.
- Listening to Patients: Dr. Chen’s approach emphasizes the importance of validating patients’ experiences and using their insights to guide diagnosis and treatment.
- The Future of Longevity Medicine: Precision medicine, driven by genomic insights and a systems-based approach, is poised to revolutionize healthcare.
Quotable Moments
- “People often feel the disease before it shows up on labs. Listening to patients is the key to understanding their health.”
- “Integrative medicine helps us pull patients back from the cliff before their health deteriorates further.”
- “Longevity precision medicine is the future, and Human Longevity is paving the way for a global, unified approach.”
In a recent podcast episode, Dr. Julie Chen, an integrative internal medicine specialist and advocate for precision medicine, shared her journey into the world of integrative care and her role at Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI). With a career spanning primary care, wellness innovation, and corporate health programs, Dr. Chen offers a holistic perspective on the intersection of traditional and integrative medicine.
A Journey into Integrative Medicine
Dr. Chen’s path to integrative internal medicine was anything but linear. Starting her career in conventional medicine, she noticed a critical gap in addressing early-stage health issues. “If patients experience fatigue, hair loss, or general malaise but their labs come back normal, traditional medicine often concludes that everything is fine,” she explained.
Dr. Chen believes that patients often sense disease before it manifests in test results. Her approach focuses on listening deeply to patients, asking the right questions, and using diagnostics not just to confirm suspicions but to tailor effective, evidence-based interventions.
This commitment to proactive care led her to pursue a fellowship in integrative medicine. Her philosophy is grounded in addressing health issues early, likening it to fixing a “leaky faucet” before it overflows into a more significant problem
Bridging Gaps with Innovation
Throughout her career, Dr. Chen has collaborated with companies focused on empowering individuals through tools and products designed to enhance self-care. From direct-to-consumer health solutions to corporate wellness programs in Silicon Valley, her work underscores the importance of a holistic approach to health.
Her 15 years running an integrative internal medicine practice in the Bay Area further cemented her dedication to treating the whole person. “Integrative medicine allows us to provide care for motivated patients who want to take control of their health,” she shared.
Joining Human Longevity, Inc.
Dr. Chen’s transition to Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI) marked a pivotal moment in her career. At HLI, she focuses on advancing precision medicine through genomics and whole-systems approaches to longevity care. “Longevity precision medicine has to be the wave of the future,” Dr. Chen emphasized.
HLI’s innovative approach combines cutting-edge research and technology to create a global, unified model for personalized health. Dr. Chen believes this democratized approach to longevity care has the potential to transform how we address aging and chronic diseases on a global scale.
Dr. Julie Chen’s work exemplifies the transformative power of integrative and precision medicine. Her dedication to bridging traditional care with innovative solutions inspires a new vision for healthcare—one where proactive, patient-centered care takes center stage.
Stay tuned for more insights as we continue to explore groundbreaking advancements in medicine and health innovation!
Transcript
00:00
Dafne Canales
Welcome to our podcast, Dr. Chen.
00:02
Dr. Julie Chen
Thank you for having me, Daphne. I’m really excited to be here today.
00:08
Dafne Canales
And you have such a great and interesting background. Tell us a little bit about what brought you to your current role.
00:14
Dr. Julie Chen
Sure. So I kind of ended up integrative internal medicine in a roundabout way, as a lot of us probably can relate to. We kind of have different paths in our lives as we get to where we are. And I do think there’s a component of being really true to yourself and your path then ultimately leads you to where you should go. And so I had a lot of different other specialties that I was also very interested in because medicine as a whole is very interesting to me. But I did end up falling into integrative internal medicine, primarily because when I actually first started coming out of internal medicine, I was doing work with patients and primary care and I realized that conventional medicine, and I think it is great.
00:56
Dr. Julie Chen
Conventional medicine, don’t get me wrong, is amazing if you’ve been in a car accident, if you need a surgery, it’s not. There’s nothing better than that. And I wouldn’t recommend supplements for. I would definitely Recommend conventional, like ER care and surgery, etc. But I did notice that there’s a gap in conventional medicine of those kind of early stage disease scenarios where let’s say a patient has fatigue and they don’t feel really well and they’re losing their hair, but all of their labs actually come back normal. I think a lot of the times in conventional medicine they may then say, oh, the person is fine. But I, you know, I am a big proponent in believing in what the patient says. Like people who really know their body, sometimes they’ll actually feel the disease before the disease shows up on labs.
01:40
Dr. Julie Chen
And so I’ve always had a really strong belief that you should listen to the patient. And if you listen correctly and ask the right questions, most of the time they’ll get you actually to the right diagnosis. Simply getting them to really talk about what’s happening almost even 80% of the time, 90% of the time. So. And then we do a lot of the testing to confirm it. Now you might say, if that’s the case, why bother doing the testing? Because, you know, you might know it based on just what they’re saying. But what we really find out is that people have an idea of what they have, and then we do need the testing to actually understand the depth of what it is and truly confirm what it is so that the future steps in therapy actually make sense.
02:19
Dr. Julie Chen
And we understand the pros and cons, whether it’s truly worthwhile to go down those paths. So I do think it’s a hand in hand kind of thing. So when I first started doing medicine, I noticed that a lot of people actually can fall in that, what I call watershed scenario. And so because of that, I actually ended up doing a fellowship integrative medicine to really understand, to kind of really be able to provide the care for patients who are a very motivated about their health and they need guidance and help with that. And then be also to have the tools and understanding so that if someone isn’t fully ill yet, if they’re at the cliff, how do I then help pull them back from the cliff so that they can end up feeling and being healthy?
02:58
Dr. Julie Chen
I like to usually use this term called the leaky faucet. It’s almost like helping someone with a disease that’s starting and they’re like a leaky faucet. You know, a lot of conventional medicine will wait until it overflows and it’s obvious, but we actually want to start to work on it when it’s leaky faucet because it’s easier to fix and pull them back. So that’s ultimately where I ended up integrative internal medicine. Actually for years, because of my personal passion in this, I’ve worked with a lot of companies, mostly focused on products that empower people to have the tools to actually have the ability to care for themselves and to have the ability and the tools to understand what they’re supposed to do. And then when they know what they’re supposed to do, actually have the tools to go do it.
03:39
Dr. Julie Chen
So a lot of these companies I’ve worked with over time have been direct to consumers or companies where they’ve created products for people so that they can use it and help themselves. More of a whole problem attacking with a whole solutions option for them. And then I also worked a lot with companies that actually are focused on like wellness. So for example, in Silicon Valley, where I live, I helped a lot of companies start their corporate wellness program. So my career is really kind of smattered in that. And then I also had my own integrative internal medicine practice actually in the Bay area for over 15 years.
04:13
Dr. Julie Chen
And so when human longevity actually reached out to me, because I had been working with tech companies as well as corporate wellness programs and my own company and also product development and supplements and things like that. Just a lot of tools, as I mentioned, to help with people. So when they reached out to me and they said, would you like enjoying human longevity? I did my due diligence, I looked into it and I think at the time, you know, for me to really leave what I was doing to come here took a lot.
04:38
Dr. Julie Chen
And the reason I came here is because human longevity has the capability to really take this kind of whole systems approach, longevity precision medicine, to the point where it could be international and that we can have a more unified approach to this at some point in the future and have the enough research as well as the bandwidth to be able to create a democratic version of this kind of medicine. So to me, ultimately, longevity, genomic precision medicine has to be the wave of the future. And I’ve always, you know, believed in that. And human longevity was a way for me to get there. And so I happily joined HLI and that was over three years, almost about three years ago now.
05:18
Dr. Julie Chen
And it’s been such an amazing ride because I think working in a company where everyone believes in that and is passionate about it and are willing to put a lot of time and energy and everything on the line to get there, it’s very awe inspiring. Inspiring to be around a bunch of people like that.
05:35
Dafne Canales
Yeah, it is. It’s such a, it’s such an innovative company. It’s been around for a long time and doing amazing things.
