EP 614: How Simple Lab Tests Can Crack Your "Metabolic Code" and Prevent Disease with Ray Solano of PD Labs

In this segment, Donna Lee is joined by Ray Solano of PD Labs, a nationally licensed compounding pharmacy that specializes in helping patients manage chronic health conditions. PD Labs goes beyond your typical pharmacy by blending prescription drugs with natural medicines to customize them for each patient. Today, Ray explains how he helps his patients crack their own "Metabolic Code." With just a few lab tests, PD Labs can predict future health problems and suggest interventions to help patients take control of their health. To learn more about this groundbreaking approach to preventative medicine, visit them online or call 512-219-0724 today.

Voted top Men's Health Podcast, Sex Therapy Podcast, and Prostate Cancer Podcast by FeedSpot

Dr. Mistry is a board-certified urologist and has been treating patients in the Austin and Greater Williamson County area since he started his private practice in 2007.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:09

Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Show with Dr. Mystery and Donna Lee.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Welcome

Speaker 3: 0:19

To the Armor Men's Health Show. This is Donna Lee and Dr. Mysteries stepped away for a segment or two, and when that happens, we have a very special guest. Every time today we're having one of my favorites. But before I introduce you, remember to reach out to our guest or to me when you want, at armor men's health.com. You can submit your questions there. We have a new website that's really pretty and shiny, and Dr. Mysteries is exceptionally cute on that website, so check that out. Our website, again, armor mens health.com. You can check out our podcast wherever you listen to free podcasts, and we are all about educating people and one of my favorite human beings on the planet is with us today. Aw, you're so kind to be here, Ray. It's Ray Solana with PD Labs. Thank you Ray for being here.

Speaker 4: 0:55

Well, thanks for having me.

Speaker 3: 0:57

I think you are just a treasure trove of knowledge and interesting things to talk about and I just couldn't wait to have you back on the show.

Speaker 4: 1:04

Well, sometimes you just push the button and all of a sudden just words keep on coming out.

Speaker 3: 1:08

<laugh>, I love that. We talked a lot offline, like I met with you at your amazing facility last or two weeks ago, or three weeks ago. So you're in Austin, Texas or Cedar Park, Texas and you's building a new facility.

Speaker 4: 1:18

That's right. We're building an amazing site. Just came from it. It's gonna be a 7,500 square foot facility. Wow. That's gonna have a state-of-the-art, I, I would call it a wellness clinic. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> that will be able to type the new area of medicine is lifestyle medicine. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> that really makes people have the best that they can be. It could be athletes, it could be people with some chronic conditions mm-hmm.<affirmative> and be able to marry that with specialty compounding pharmacy. So a combination of both of my performance health.com will be the website. So it'll be an experience. Wow. A lifestyle medicine. And this is the new trend in medicine. People want to take responsibility for their own health. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> and they're really not relying on others. And this is, uh, huge area in medicine. Guess what? Cedar Park's gonna have a fantastic

Speaker 3: 2:03

Location. Mm. Cedar park's the place to be. That's right. So this is what happened in my life. I was watching TikTok Ray, I told you I'm addicted to TikTok. I watched somebody's TikTok about mitochondria and I was like, what's mitochondria? And then I just happened to stumble upon Dr. Maryanne Kingston's podcast, it's called The Better Life with Dr. Pinkston. And I know you're part of her show. And so I was so intrigued. So I listened to the whole podcast about mitochondria and the, the cardiologist's name again. We talked about

Speaker 4: 2:26

That. Dr. Anthony Capasso.

Speaker 3: 2:28

That's right. And so I was checking him out. I checked out the supplement that you have as well that he talked about called Mito Blast. I met with you. I started taking it and I, I don't know, I maybe you gave me a sugar pill, but I feel really good. And so I thought we'd talk about what is mitochondria to start with. How do supplements work? Like the mito mito blast. So tell me what mitochondria is.

Speaker 4: 2:47

Was that why you were jogging around the office here? That's

Speaker 3: 2:50

Why I was like 14. Follow me. Right. Come over here. Right.

Speaker 4: 2:53

<laugh>. That's what happened. Well, you know, the people don't understand. Dr. Capasso came up with a formula that helps people overcome their lifestyle, changes that tremendous amount of stress that they've occurred or whether they've gone through like he was going through medical school or people are going through, sometimes its even through college or uh, events. People go through it's very stressful health issues. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, what happens is the body regulates the replication of these energies, uh, powerhouses called mitochondria. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So these are like little spark plugs that they're the source of this energy. ADP is the, one of the enzymes that's is important for people to understand is if these mitochondria, these energy sources are not rebuilding mm-hmm.<affirmative> and not replicating, people get tired. And so they're constantly being, have to be renewed and you have to use soup super foods to really be able to nourish them. So you put together a formula that has those super foods and they're in pharmaceutical grade formulas, but actually the quantities that are relevant, that dosage instead of just small, you would find in the health food store, this is really the strength that you need for mitochondria to rebuild. And so that's why you saw the effect, right. Without the stimulatory effects. You just, the foundation, you felt better. You felt just normal. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And that's what people need to understand. You've got to feed that mitochondria daily mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And so this is the reason why people just don't eat right. They do things to their body that they shouldn't. Right. And is this is a way to overcome that normal so that people can understand why it's important. This is how you're supposed to feel. How's

Speaker 3: 4:29

That? Right? Yeah. And that's a nice change cuz I, you know, I'm typically usually pretty tired, but, uh, Dr is it Capasso? Yes. Dr. Capasso mentioned in that podcast, mitochondria is one of the very few things that you can rebuild. That's right. And that really struck, struck me. I was like, oh, that's right. And then he kind of compared it to things you can't rebuild. Like if you really have some sort of inflammatory disease or some sort of ailment that you cannot fix, but you can just kind of put band-aids on fix. He said you can actually repair your mitochondria.

Speaker 4: 4:55

That's right. And you, you got mitochondria in nerve cells and, and muscle cells and, and it's so important that the body requires these key nutrients that are in there. And also if people have high blood sugar levels mm-hmm.<affirmative>, guess what? It's gonna down-regulate mitochondria replication. Mm-hmm. And so this is the reason why we control blood sugar levels and we have other, other key nutrients that really, uh, upregulate mitochondria, uh, uh, duplication. And that's what you want to be able to do. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And if you down, if you don't have enough mitochondria in your muscles, well then you're going to, you know, peter out after a certain workout or if you go to workout and then all of a sudden you're on a couch for, for three days. That's what happens sometimes. Oh, that makes sense. People just have no stores. Uh, so it's, they're not re you know, they go on a trip or they go on, on, on a, on a vacation and then there's, they're tired for a week. Right. Because you're not resilient enough. Oh. So all these things, your body's able to, uh, stop the lions and tigers for that moment. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but then you're just tired, you're wiped out.

Speaker 3: 6:01

Okay. Well that makes sense. My husband's 56, 57. He is pretty healthy. And he was working in the garage yesterday for hours and hour. Well, hour, like two hours. But then he came in and he was spent and he was just done. And I was like, how do we fix that<laugh>? That seems like you're, you're missing something in No. Your

Speaker 4: 6:18

Daily element. It was the, uh, Astros game.<laugh>, and then the, and then the football game. Come on. That's true. I like that. It was a good excuse. Oh, true. I'm really tired.

Speaker 3: 6:26

The Cowboys, I think were playing.

Speaker 4: 6:28

That's cowboys.<laugh>

Speaker 3: 6:29

Got depressed, I guess<laugh> and they must have lost. That's why he was sad all day.<laugh>. So tell me about, so the mito blast that you have at your pharmacy Right. That I started taking. It's got some green tea in it. And I remember you told me, um, if you have trouble sleeping, don't take it at night. Right. So I take it in the morning and you said something funny. It made me laugh at it, but it stuck with me. You said, uh, people just tend to get things done

Speaker 4: 6:52

<laugh>. That's right.

Speaker 3: 6:53

I was like, I'm looking forward to getting things done. And I just, I do feel really pretty awesome,

Speaker 4: 6:58

Lauren. Well, you, you're, you have the, uh, the will to fit to do a, a very difficult task. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And that's the people, because it works on the brain because you feel like the task is not gonna be so huge that you can't finish it. Right. So that's, that's the part you get, you know, people go, what is in this here? I just, uh, I'm able to function.

Speaker 3: 7:18

Right. What are the ingredient, do you remember? I can Google it. The ingredients for

Speaker 4: 7:22

Myoblasts, you know, it's a proprietary blend of mm-hmm.<affirmative> alpha ketoglutarate alpha lipoic acid, and, uh, huge amounts of, of magnesium. Vitamin C, all the, the cornucopia of about, uh, 11 different nutrients that are all worked synergistically together. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, that's what the beauty of it, you know, when you take'em individually, that's great, but you have to have the correct quantities of each mm-hmm.<affirmative> and the correct amounts of each that come together as the fuel to start that mitochondria for upregulation. But, and a little bit of the green tea extract has a little bit of a stimulatory of the caffeine mm-hmm.<affirmative> that uh, people can get the, the start for it. But it's not the, the caffeine that you would find in, uh, in other products that are can be a little bit tire, you know, after a while you get really tired. Right. But the good thing you still slept. That's good. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 8:14

I sleep at least a little bit, but, uh, so with these types of supplements, I call them physician grade and Dr. Mystery laughs at me, but I feel like it's physician grade because physicians are supporting it. Uh, Dr. Pinkston talks a lot about this one and she doesn't have any, you know, dog in that fight, but she, that she thinks it's a really good product. I know that we talk a lot too about supplements and fillers. So a lot of these supplements that you just get at Walmart or h heb, they might have a whole bunch of fillers and you just don't know what you're taking.

Speaker 4: 8:41

Well that, that is exactly right. There are two different grades of supplements. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, there's the active, uh, ingredients mm-hmm.<affirmative> that the body sees, uh, that doesn't have to break down further. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So the active components, so these have the active ingredients as opposed to the, the ingredients that are not the active active forms. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, the active forms are usually sold as a pharmaceutical, uh, formulation because they cost more. The ingredients are probably 30% more for the retail or, but you're not going to sell these for$10 on the internet. So there's Yeah. There's a cost basis for it. You get what you pay for

Speaker 3: 9:26

Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. That's true. And it's not super cheap, but it's just sure. Seems to be worth it.<laugh> so.

Speaker 4: 9:31

Well it's a lot cheaper than pharmaceutical drugs. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 9:34

Oh that's true. And pharmaceutical drugs are probably just gonna make the problem worse and kind of bandaid the situation. Uh, but I'm so excited to talk about mitochondria. Um, we're gonna go take a little quick break on K L B J and we're gonna come back. But what I wanted to talk about next was kind of what we've talked about a few times offline. Uh, your partner, you have a partner, James Lavell. That's right. And we're gonna discuss the metabolic co code. And I think that that's gonna be super entertaining cuz we've talked about that briefly before, but I wanted to, wanted our listeners to know more about it as well.

Speaker 4: 10:06

That's exciting.

Speaker 3: 10:07

Well, good. Well hang in there everybody. We're going to just go to really quick commercial break here on News Radio, k l bj and you can check out our podcast again wherever you listen to free podcasts. Um, our website is armor men's health.com and we're in Round Rock, north Austin, south Austin and Dripping Springs, Texas. And you could submit your questions if you have any for Ray Solano, uh, you can send them to armor men's health.com. There's a little submit question option at the top Right. And thank you so much and we'll be right back. Welcome back to the Armor Men's Health Show. I have continued guest here, Ray Solano with PD Labs. Ray, you're a pharmacist, right? That's right. You have been a pharmacist for about

Speaker 4: 10:41

Forever.

Speaker 3: 10:41

Forever In, in the Cedar Park area.<laugh> used to be on a Klbj show.

Speaker 4: 10:46

That's right. With 10 years. Uh, we started out, uh, and let's Get Healthy was on another network and then, uh, healthy Choices. That's right. Uh, that we did with Kenny Ro Myer and for many, many years.

Speaker 3: 10:58

That's right. That's awesome. Well, it's, it's like full circle, right? That's right. We just have you right back on the show here.

Speaker 4: 11:03

We started out with Patrick Choon for some of those listeners that may remember Uhoh Patrick was started the show. And so I was a guest toast there. And then we ended up taking over that hour and Wow. We did a, we have a number of many years Kenny.

Speaker 3: 11:16

Oh wow. That's good. And Kenny's still on K day. That's right, that's right. That's right. Now I think he has a show on, on Sundays. I think he does. Awesome. Well welcome back. Everybody listening. You can send your questions if you have one. Of course you will. After you hear all this amazing information to Ray Solano, he's a pharmacist in the Cedar Park area. His, uh, lab, his pharmacy is called PD Labs. What does PD stand for?

Speaker 4: 11:36

Uh, prescription dispensing labs. Okay. It's a nationally licensed specialty pharmacy compounding pharmacy. It deals in chronic conditions, but this really the fusion of prescription medications with natural medicines as well mm-hmm.<affirmative>. And we come up with some unique patented formulas for mold and Lyme conditions, uh, erectile dysfunction as well. And many times we're fine for special conditions like, uh, Peyronie's disease mm-hmm.<affirmative> and Planters Fibromatosis, the, these unique, uh, conditions that nobody really has an answer for. Right. So we ended up, we have that, those, some of those specialty compounds that make a huge difference in people's

Speaker 3: 12:14

Health. That's right. If you're not familiar with compounding pharmacy, uh, I used to, my previous company I worked with before had a compound pharmacy. Oh really? So I tell people, you know, how you can get something, a medication, a pharmaceutical medication and five milligram, 10 mil milligram or 20 milligram compound pharmacy can really customize the medication because not everybody fits in that 5, 10, 20.

Speaker 4: 12:33

That's right. Imagine

Speaker 3: 12:33

That. I know right?<laugh>. That's why we have more than three pairs of size of jeans, but not medications. But if you need a customized compound medication, of course talk to your, your provider, your medical physician. But Ray Solano is the magician that makes the compound medications all work together.

Speaker 4: 12:48

Well, we do specifically, we've got a, a big group of people up in Cedar Park that have been doing this for many, many years and they have a unique talent to be able to take insoluble products mm-hmm.<affirmative> and make delivering to children, adults, and seniors or in combinations of off-label drugs that have been around for 20 or 30 years. And the combination together makes a more, it makes it a complete beneficial effect. Like naltrexone in a low dose. It hasn't a tremendously different effect than high dose. High dose for opioid overdoses. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> in low dose, it stops pain and it stops the autoimmune dysfunction sometimes 20 or 30 times less dosage. Wow. So we're finding that many times drugs in a different dosage form different therapeutic effect. So, which is great cuz they're cheaper and they're just less side effects. So that's the beauty of the chemistry and also being able to work with clinicians to come up with new approaches to medi old medications, which are very safe. Perfect.

Speaker 3: 13:45

Well, we wanted to talk about your, I feel like this is your baby metabolic code and that is, um, also the, the website metabolic code.com. And the person featured on that is James Lavell. Um, but I wanted you to kind of explain to us what is metabolic code? What's your relationship with James Lavell? How did this all

Speaker 4: 14:01

Start? Jim Lavell is the founder. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> of metabolic code and metabolic code is a cornerstone of lifestyle medicine, which we call is being able to understand the trends that are going on in your health and also the trends going on in your lab test. So to pre predict where you're going to be 10 years from now, can you imagine that? Wow. For instance, I did it myself about two years ago and I realized I was on my way to being diabetic. Wow. I was on my way to high blood pressure in con in congestive heart failure. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, how's that one for? This is what your life is gonna be like at 75 if you continue on with your lifestyle choices. Oh my.

Speaker 3: 14:39

So there's a predictor.

Speaker 4: 14:40

There's a predictor. Okay. So, and I'm going, wait a minute, how do we do this? It's just labs. So when you overlay all these trends that are going on, all the different, uh, labs that you have, you see things are going higher mm-hmm.<affirmative> or something is, is some markers are going, uh, uh, are getting lower. And so these trends and a special algorithm are very important to understand predictive and in the way that you make some choices in your lifestyle. The way you answer some questions you can make, have a track record of how to change your life and also where do you start. Hmm. And so this is what we want people to understand, that you can take responsibility for your health. You can make some changes now that make a huge difference of what, you know, people say, well they got cancer, let's say for instance, or they got diabetes. We didn't say that. You just woke up one day and had it. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it started metabolically about 10 years ago.

Speaker 3: 15:34

You worked hard to get that diabetes, you

Speaker 4: 15:36

Worked real hard and it's not gonna happen overnight. I mean if you just, if you especially you do a lot with men and if they would just look at down and see that, that uh, that belly that they have is an estrogen, metabolic, toxic soup depot<laugh>. Right.<laugh>, maybe they will, but,

Speaker 3: 15:55

But put a whole perspective on it.<laugh>. But

Speaker 4: 15:56

But you think about it, it is much different that your body is always trying to fix itself. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, it will do whatever it can to make those labs look good. Mm-hmm. But you may be 20 or 30 pounds where more than you're supposed to cuz your body is pushing all this excess blood sugar and putting some of these x xeno toxins somewhere else. So it's really important to listen to your body mm-hmm.<affirmative> and be able to have a framework or a a a template you can work on. And that's what the metabolic code does and gives you a 35 page report. It says this is where your health is today and this is some areas that you gotta work on and they can bring it to your practitioner, anybody and say this is what, uh, this, this group, uh, has been able to do. And Jim Zal has spent his probably over 20 years developing patient outcomes and he's got an amazing database of what works. And this is what we're finding a a making a huge difference in people's lives.

Speaker 3: 16:53

Is it a blood test? Well what are the labs?

Speaker 4: 16:57

The labs you take the Yes, it is just standard labs. Oh, okay. Okay. Gotcha. But but many labs, most of the time you find out many of your insurance companies only authorize a certain level of tests that are covered. What we find is that the other tests that people just sometimes don't measure mm-hmm.<affirmative> Okay. Are so critical. But sometimes they're an out-of-pocket cost for a couple hundred dollars for, you can have a labs that are tremendously more important than some of the basics. However, the basics have a lot of information. Right. Okay. But you just have to be able to analyze them. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, because many times the normal ranges, which you've known is, is an ar not normal for you. It's an arbitrary range.

Speaker 3: 17:41

Right.

Speaker 4: 17:42

Right. It's a theoretical range. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> it really doesn't mean much. So, but if you strip that away and get rid of the normal, well what is this level supposed to be at that is indicative of disease. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I think that's, if you look at people's blood sugar levels of fasting, blood sugar levels mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I think the marker is when you should be about 85. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>. Okay. Uh, is the, the norm to slow down the aging process. For most people it's 90 to 105. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> is then you're just when you get diabetes, but guess what, it's too late mm-hmm.<affirmative>. So we don't wanna wait that long. So that's why we want to do is preventative medicine take responsibility for your health now and how do you slow the aging process. Mm-hmm.<affirmative> isn't that nice? I

Speaker 3: 18:27

Like, I love that idea. Let's let's slow it down for sure. Um, I like to compare that cuz when I started getting my hormones done at our clinic at urology specialist, Leah Nora Brown's my provider, but we were looking at my testosterone for example, and on the piece of paper the range was, you know, low to normal to high and mine was a little high. And she said, well that's high on the piece of paper, but is it high for you? So let's see how you feel at this level. So we bumped, you know, we bumped up my testosterone, we got it to the right level, she got me on the right progesterone on the right, estrogen. Like everything works out. That's right. Something, you know, harmoniously and what my labs might be, they might be different for someone else's. Um, but they're, you know, a little higher than what it might be for your testosterone. Like, it just depends on the patient. Right. It really does. So that's what it sounds like to me. Um, it's similar to what y'all are

Speaker 4: 19:13

Also promoted. Well you have to, you have to overlay that with blood sugar levels. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, you have to over it with gut inflammation and you have to overlay that with other markers, uh, that are able to coordinate together. And guess what, when you got 10 minutes in a practitioner's office, you can't figure all that out. Right.

Speaker 3: 19:31

That's true. And insurance loves to not pay us

Speaker 4: 19:34

<laugh>, but there's no, you don't get prevention D visits. Yeah. Prevention visits are not reimbursable. Right.

Speaker 3: 19:41

<laugh> insurance wants to keep you sick. That might be a little controversial, but that's my opinion. I didn't say that. You did not say that. I said that. I I think they wanna keep you sick so they can just keep you down, keep your

Speaker 4: 19:51

Your mind down. Well, I, I think it's really, people will spend a lot of, you see financial shows, so saving money for their retirement, but I think you should invest with your health first. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, because I think that's the best, uh, payback you can ever have. Oh,

Speaker 3: 20:04

For sure. Can you imagine, wouldn't it be great to, to look at that predictor that you're talking about and how your health's gonna be in 10 years to know that you're actually gonna get there. That's right. And you're not just looking at some papers. But, um,

Speaker 4: 20:14

I even told Carl Stewart that I said, you should put that on your show too.<laugh>, where your money is investing your health first.

Speaker 3: 20:20

Well that's funny. Carl Stewart knows so, so now we do too. So metabolic code was the website. That's right. Metabolic code.com.

Speaker 4: 20:27

Mel metabolic code.com. And you can look up on James LaVall, you'll see all the books he's written in 25 books and you'll find a wealth of information that's mostly free. How's that?

Speaker 3: 20:37

Awesome. We love free. Awesome. If you have any questions for Ray, just reach out to us at armor men's health.com. Thank you so much for being on the show

Speaker 4: 20:44

Again. Well great. Anytime. Yeah.

Speaker 3: 20:45

We'll have you back very soon. Awesome. Thanks Ray.

Speaker 1: 20:48

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