Dr. Rick's Insights

For decades, we were told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. That logic came from somewhere—but not from biology. It came from factories and fields. Workers needed calories before long shifts of physical labor. The advice wasn’t wrong, but it was context-bound. Then the pendulum swung: intermittent fasting became gospel. Eat nothing until noon. Let your body burn fat. Then came the cortisol concern—fasting in the morning stresses the body, spikes adrenaline, harms the adrenals. So now the message is: eat within 30 minutes of waking or else. What if all of this is missing the...

You're not adapting. You're numbing. The Ice Bath Delusion Cold plunges hijacked the biohacking world with a simple promise: stress equals growth. Ice baths trigger acute stress responses—cortisol spikes, sympathetic overdrive, brown fat activation. The metrics look impressive. The suffering feels meaningful. Here's what they don't tell you: Every plunge burns sympathetic credit without building autonomic intelligence. You're not training resilience. You're training reactivity. The Breath-Hold Alternative Post-breath-hold recovery training does what cold exposure cannot: it builds coherent adaptation through precision feedback. Instead of shocking your system into submission, breath-holds teach you to read and modulate your terrain in real-time....

Breakthrough: How 734nm Infrared Light Therapy Can Stop Cancer Cell Growth Published: July 17, 2025 Recent advances in near-infrared light therapy, especially at the 734nm wavelength, are offering new hope in the fight against cancer. Rigorous studies show that specific light wavelengths can stop cancer cell growth, induce cellular senescence, and even selectively destroy tumors while sparing healthy cells. Below, you'll find a summary of the top scientific breakthroughs, each with direct links to authoritative sources for more information. Selective Senescence: 734nm Infrared Light Puts Cancer Cells to Sleep A groundbreaking peer-reviewed study found that 734 nm near-infrared light can induce...

Mitochondria, Eye Metrics, and Digital Self-Tracking: A Science-Driven Guide Why the Eye and Retina Are Core to Health Tracking The retina contains some of the highest densities of mitochondria found anywhere in the body, reflecting its immense energy requirements for visual processing, phototransduction, and cellular resilience123. Mitochondrial dysfunction in the retina is directly linked to common vision-threatening diseases, such as age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, and diabetic retinopathy145. This scientific foundation justifies using eye and retinal features as valuable, noninvasive biomarkers for systemic and cellular health. Avoiding Pseudoscience: What Is (and Isn’t) Measurable Supported Metrics: Pupil response, contrast sensitivity, scleral clarity,...