Marla Miller 0:35

Welcome back to open-minded healing. Today we're going to be diving into ways we can protect our largest organ, which is our skin, from damage. This is a layered conversation that goes deeper than using creams or lotions and also delves into the way that our skin barrier protects other organs in our body as well. My guest today, Dr. Dusan Saeic, will be sharing his expertise on evidence-based skin aging and providing specific actions you can take to protect this vital organ. Welcome, Dr. Saich.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 1:12

Thank you so much for having me Marla. It's a pleasure to be here. And uh I love that you say it skin is an actual organ. So many people miss it. They think it's a vanity organ. They want it to look good. But I can't wait to delve into what it actually means and how not only is it showing signs sometimes of internal aging, but it can actually affect the internal aging as well.

Marla Miller 1:30

Yeah, I think that is very interesting. And until we had talked about it prior, I wasn't even thinking of it so much in that manner. Like I kind of mentioned, we think of it in cosmetic terms and just what kind of skin products can we use and how can we protect our skin from the sun? So you've been a dermatologist, right? But what got you delving deeper into the skin as an organ and not just checking people for sun damage or skin cancer?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 2:03

Really, it seems from my work before becoming a dermatologist. I worked as a molecular immunologist. My area of expertise was also the skin and mucosa. That's where we functioned it. So I saw early on that it's all connected, you know, and and treating an inflammation in the skin can propagate to, first of all, lymph nodes. And I mean, this is why skin cancer spreads in the first place. But we looked into what about inflammation, what about regular sun damage? And my own turning point came when I became the patient. So it was like a full circle. So I had my own skin cancer, and uh, because of the things I did before I was a dermatologist. So, like many, many of us, I grew up in the 70s and 80s, and sunscreen wasn't a thing then. We didn't really care about the skin. We thought sun exposure was the best thing on the planet. I had so many blistering sunburns, and my mom sort of said the same thing for my hands here when I work out. They're like, oh, this is your skin becoming more resilient. You're gonna have the world's best skin. And then when I got into dermatology, I realized, oh my gosh, I'm a ticking time bomb. And can I do something to actually reverse that damage? And then, of course, you know, when you become a patient, it becomes very personal. And so I've did a full dive, you know, use my full PhD, use my dermatology to really say, hey, what's in the literature? It didn't sit well with me that this was permanent damage. And the more I went down that rabbit hole, the more I started learning about things, like, for example, there's these mice exposed to what we would get as humans in a cumulative, you know, yearly, lifelong sort of exposure. And what they found was that these mice not only had more sun damage and more skin cancer, they actually got more dementia. They were performing mazes more poorly, their hearts, recall, memory were working worse. And when they found a certain type of cell from the skin called a zombie cell or a senescent skin cell, and they were able to specifically target that, all of that reversed. So then the question became do we have something similar in humans? And in fact, the UK Biobank, which is a registry, which means anytime your doctor sort of says, okay, this is what happened, we're able to link it and see what else is associated. And they saw the same thing. Too much sun exposure also led to higher incidence of more cardiac meds, more dementia. So again, it outlines that it's not just in mice. There could be a signal there that's happening too, that these, you know, damaged cells, whether it's cancer or actually zombie cells that can lead to pigmentation, can actually spread that negative message to your internal organs.

Marla Miller 4:24

Wow, that is so interesting. That research, that's incredible. So you got very interested in this topic because you had your own scare with skin cancer. So, how did you end up addressing that?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 4:37

Well, the first thing is if you don't measure it, you don't know what you're treating. And so what we found was the only thing that's measured in skincare truly is sunscreen. So we have SPF, so you know if you're getting an SPF 50, you know you're going to be protected. If you're getting an SPF four, you know, okay, maybe I'm not really getting fully protected. But in terms of skincare in general, it's all vanity cosmetics, as you said. So vitamin C, a lot of marketing companies know the catchphrases. They know 10% L-scorbic acid, they know they'll tell you the right pH, they tell you that it's properly formulated. And a little known hidden secret in the industry is that I can take one bottle that's truly tested and says it's 10% LScorbic acid. I can take literally a drop and put it in my second product and can also write on the package 10% L-scorbic acid because it was sourced from, you know, and I don't even have to show that on the label. I could just have it somewhere buried internally that was sourced from. And because there's no regulation, you don't know what you're getting. And so for me, it was frustrating because I thought, okay, I had my skin cancer, I'm gonna rub my game, I'm gonna start using vitamin C, I'm gonna start using retinol. And when I did, when I started testing, you know, one, the formulations, we took it to the lab and started testing to see what's in there, it didn't add up. So there's something called the PAOT test now that can actually hold your skin care and specifically vitamin C accountable. So that, you know, it if you go to your dermatologist and say, I want to make sure my vitamin C is actually accountable, they can run this test and they can see is it actually working for your skin? And if not, you can actually get the proper tools you need. So, really, it was that lack of accountability that I discovered that we don't have much out there. It's all based on just looking good. And like if you look at this wall behind me, if there's mold behind it, you can't see because it looks great because it's nicely painted. So that was my question. I know the damage is underneath. How do we then visualize this? And that was the focus of my career subsequently is how do we validate it through high-resolution cameras, tests like the PAOT test. There's a really cool test out of learned in England called Skin Life Analytics that can actually test the damage to your mitochondria. And we think this is one of the best ways of tracking long-term sun damage.

Marla Miller 6:45

Well, I had not heard of that, the PAOT test. So, what exactly is that?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 6:51

Yeah, it's the power of antioxidant test. So it tells you how well your antioxidant is working, and it's a cool test that actually is very non-invasive. It's um similar to what you get uh when you're testing your heart and they put little electrodes. So this is also an electrode, you can put it on different parts of your skin and can tell you the redox balance. So reactive oxygen species, I don't know if you've heard of that term before.

Marla Miller 7:15

I've heard of it, but I couldn't explain it.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 7:17

Yeah, most people can. It's a buzzword, right? So that's to me is very frustrating. That's in our cosmetic industry. People hear about it, but they don't really actually know what it means. So the best way to think about it is if we look at water, it's H2O, two hydrogens and an oxygen. Hydrogen peroxide, most people know you don't want to drink that because it's very toxic to us. The only difference between water and hydrogen peroxide is that extra oxygen. So we have H2O and we have H2O2. So that extra oxygen is actually really toxic when it's inappropriately delivered. And what happens when we get sun damage or pollution even? Not only do we get DNA to be fragmented and damaged, which can eventually turn into cancer, but you're also producing these reactive oxygen species, basically hydrogen peroxide on your skin, that also damages your skin and leads to faster aging, more pigmentation, more redness, and potentially more skin cancer. So this is a tool that can actually test the balance between this and then also when you put your uh vitamin C on or any other antioxidant, can actually tell you how protected you are. So when you go out into the pollution, when you go out into the sun, or at least you know if you're getting protection or not.

Marla Miller 8:27

So this test, do you do it before and after? I mean, before like the sunscreen, are you putting the vitamin C product on your face? Is it showing what your skin contains before that, like the balance and then after? Exactly.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 8:44

No, exactly. So, yeah, so you want to get a baseline. So there's different levels. So it can tell you, are you very critical? You've had a lot of damage and you're critical, or you're doing okay. Very few people do amazing. So, you know, most of us are gonna be kind of in this bottom third. So if you come to your dermatologist and you say, Well, I want to see one, how good is my skin at that redux balance? This will tell you. And then two, it'll tell you what products are actually agreeing to your skin. So we we're doing some research that we're gonna publish very soon that shows us that everybody responds differently. There are some people that are lucky enough that they'll respond to, you know, budget vitamin C's that are not formulated very well. There's only maybe five to 10% of those people. And then there's people that need the proper validation, the proper formulation. And it's a time curve. So if this is your baseline here, what ends up happening for most antioxidants, it takes about two hours for you to get the maximal, and then it lasts for like three, four hours, and then it starts coming back down, right? So, what we know with this test is we can actually test your skin and see which products can read to the most rapid upregulation of the things so that you know, okay, I'm gonna go in the sun for the next four hours. What can I do in addition to sunscreen to further protect myself? And speaking of sunscreen, we found was that sunscreen is not enough. We know we block about 98% of that damage, but that 2% that still gets through can still activate your reactive oxygen species, can still activate your inflammation. So, in addition to sunscreen, what else are we doing to really help your skin protect itself from that damage? So, my goal is I want your skin to be vitally protected and accountably protected so that we know what you're actually getting and you're not just getting gimmicks through marketing.

Marla Miller 10:21

Well, that would be such an amazing test to have, to have that knowledge. So I'll definitely have to look into that. And what are the other tests that are available now that people can do to monitor their skin or their sunscreen or products like that?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 10:38

Yeah, so there's a bunch of products out there. The most common one that most clinics may have, at least advanced clinics, is high-resolution multi-spectral photography. So things like Vizia, Eve Lab, Vectra. So those are the most common ones, the most popular ones. And the benefit of those is they can see below the surface. So they'll use like a UV camera and see how much sunspots are underneath that you don't see with the eye. They can use cross-polarized photography again to see how much damage there is that we're seeing. They can use other like red filter, brown filter, gray filter that can also tell us how much damage is happening underneath. So that's the most common one. And then the other one that I talked about, like skin life analytics, that just came out. These are brand new things. So they just came on the market. They've been more research focused up until now. But again, I'm a researcher, so I wanted to sort of bring it forward. And so you're going to be seeing it. We're seeing it now at the big shows, like AMWC, which is the American big conference for all things skin and aesthetics and monitoring. And then also the MCAS, which is the global conference for, again, looking at the latest technologies and developments in skin health and skin care. And what we're seeing finally is that a lot of us are shifting towards true longevity of the skin, but also pairing, and we're finding out that if we keep our organs inside happy, if we're eating the Mediterranean diet, if we're sleeping well, if we're exercising, we can also boost that skin resiliency. So there are some really cool tests you can do. DNA markers like true diagnostic, for example, offers your susceptibility. So some patients actually have very low vitamin C receptors. So even if you're putting vitamin C on, it's not going to do anything. So again, it's one of those things where you need that validation and accountability and really bring it on a personal level. Because right now, you know, I can tell you sort of the standard, we call it the ABCs, the vitamin A retinol, the vitamin B, like a B5 or an isinamide, and then vitamin C. That along with sunscreen is kind of the core four pillars that we used to say. But like I said, we're starting to find out these diagnostic tools saying, like, hey, you don't have good retinol receptors. For you, the retinol is not going to work, or you have a very strong retinol receptors. You don't need something super powerful like a tretinoin because it's binding on really quickly. So a little bit of retinol will go a long way. And so that's really where we're moving towards. Those are the tools we have at our disposal now to be able to guide us on our own individual level. And I think it becomes very important for people that have used these ABCs for maybe three, four, five months and they haven't noticed the difference. Now we finally have a why and we have a way of saying, okay, let's pair something with you that actually works. And rather than just doing the ABCs, maybe we can look at the full alphabet and we're switching towards longevity. And now we know that there's what we call the 12 hallmarks of aging, which all individually can contribute to aging, disease, skin cancer. And it depends on you individually. You know, numbers one, seven, and twelve might be out of order, whereas for me it might be two, four, and eight. So unless you do the testing, you're not going to know and you're just going to be guessing.

Marla Miller 13:42

Yeah, it's a very good point that everyone is so individual. You know, in any kind of testing, you can't just put a blanket statement on everybody or say everyone needs vitamin D. Like it depends what your level is and how much you're absorbing. So I think that's a really good point you brought up. So those tests you're talking about, are they available commonly now?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 14:05

They're brand new. So it depends on the adoption. Most clinics are not going to have them, but the clinics are going to bring on what patients are asking for. So if patients are asking and saying, hey, I heard about this cool test on a podcast, for example, they're going to bring it to their dermatologist or their plastic surgeon or their doctor or their spa that's treating them. And so there's going to be that market-driven demand. So unless people are asking, there's not going to be that development. And who's to say that these are the best tests that are available? Again, the more we talk about skin is not just the vanity organ, but really something that can affect and reflect our health. It's a two-way mirror, not just, you know, something that tells us how healthy we are inside, but it can actually affect our internal organs. Until we have that, then no, it's not going to be widespread, unfortunately.

Marla Miller 14:49

Yeah. I had something done, but this was years ago. So I'm sure they have advanced technology, but even then it kind of horrified me to see what was really below my skin, you know, the damage from years of being out in the sun when I was younger. So when people discover what their issues are, they see how much damage or the balance is off, or they're not absorbing the vitamin C. What is the next step for them? Like how can they correct these things? And can they correct them?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 15:23

Well, in the last four or five years, we've really had an explosion in longevity-based skincare and looking at really the root cause of what's causing that. So now for the first time, just in the last four or five years, we actually do. One of the best ways to reverse, especially the damage you were seeing on those cameras, is actually a blade of laser therapy. So carbon dioxide laser, for example, or erbium laser, a blade of fractional lasers. Uh, we used to do just for beauty, tightening, wrinkles, but we now know conclusively with a randomized controlled trial that was done in 2021 out of Dayton University, that we can decrease future skin cancer by up to over 90% over three-year period. So again, finding out that DNA damage, one, through that skin life analytics tool that tells us the mitochondrial damage, and then going in and doing that resurfacing is right now the gold standard. The rush now is because CO2 laser has a lot of downtime, is can we develop something, you know, less invasive, less downtime that can give us the same result? So what we're seeing is fraxal, for example, it's a fractionated non-ablative laser, much less downtime. The data right now shows that the cancer reduction is about 50%. So not quite as good as 90%. So what if we pair it with longevity-based skincare? We're actively doing these studies in our clinic right now. We know what the molecules are that cause the CO2 to get that regenerative balance to get rid of the zombie cells, to get rid of the pre-cancerous cells, and then get the skin cells to be healthy. We know the signals that are involved. So now our question is can we use skincare with like a gentler laser like Fraxel to really get you up to that 90%? And we're seeing some really good initial results. Now you need to replicate, you need to reproduce, because in science, it's it's all about validation rather than you know seeing a one-off and saying, oh wow, you know, I saw a comment, it must mean that the earth is ending tomorrow. No, we have to make sure it's reproducible, validated, and that it makes sense and that it's repeatable across the wide variety of patients. So even though a lot of us as humans are unique, you know, there are certain things that 90% of us can benefit from. So sleep, water, exercise. Yes, we're all unique and we may need different balances of that, but all those things help us. And so we're taking that same principle of how can we induce, you know, stimulation or control damage to wake up those cells to respond more beautifully and like de-age them because we know what happens with aging. And that's part of the skin resilience and skin cancer, is that as we age, we we see more and more of it because the system breaks down. So, how can we keep that system alive and online longer?

Marla Miller 17:55

Yeah. Well, I do want to talk a little bit more about the CO2 laser because that is becoming more and more popular. I've seen a lot about it in the past four months. You know, people posting images online and everything. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? Maybe the process and the downtime. When you talk about downtime, what are you specifically talking about?

unknown 18:19

Yeah.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 18:19

So when CO2 laser first became a thing, aesthetically, anyways, in the early 2000s, mid-2000s, we had like an ablative, fully ablative. The downtime would be like four to six weeks. So you were a burn victim and we had to control it. And then what we discovered is that we can actually fractionate it, meaning if you think of the original lasers as a power wash where you have just the beam coming through and it's basically cutting everything in its path. If we put a shower head on it, we can actually fractionate that beam and so that it's little tiny dots. So we're not removing the full skin, we're just damaging it enough to induce a signal. Now, to your point, it is becoming very popular because we're coming full circle. We went from very aggressive to like, okay, can we do something non-aggressive and get similar things like fraxal, like I said, to now just in the last four years, seeing that we can do a true signal that's actually molecularly makes your skin look younger, not just looks younger, but functions younger. And then we got that cancer signal where it's going by 90%. So I think that's why you're seeing that resurgence of CO2. That, you know, this control damage, it's not a true injury, it's a signal, just like when you're exercising, if you're lifting heavy weights, you're gonna build muscle. If we're damaging in a heavy, controlled way, we're gonna build better resiliency. So it really depends on the depth of it. So, generally speaking, we want to go up to 600 microns under the skin. That's kind of the critical baseline for true skin health and de-aging and preventing skin cancer. They have a really cool study out of Queensland University in Australia where they actually looked at what happens molecularly underneath the skin when they deliver the CO2 laser, and they found that mutation. So we all think, you know, skin cancer, the teaching is one, two, three mutations, and okay, you got skin cancer. No, no, no, it's hundreds. So if we look at per megabase pair, like small amounts of DNA, there's hundreds of mutations there, right? And we think pre-cancer starts happening around that hundred mark. What they did was when they did that laser at around the 600 micron mark, you reverse that damage by over 50%. So we actually are seeing mutations, the things that lead to skin cancer, the things that lead to aging actually reverse and disappear. So it's a deep level thing. But again, we need that 600 micron. And the reason for that, another study came out maybe about three, four months ago showing that there's two foci of damage. So we have the top, the epithelial cells, and then we have the dermis. So we need to get to the 600 micron here in the dermis, below the epithelial cells. Why? Because there's a little pool of zombie cells. Even if we clear these and your skin looks great, these start sending something called senescence associated secretory phenotype that remutates these cells up above. So that's why that 600 micron, if we get to that depth, your recovery is going to be bad for about three days. You're gonna be swollen, your eyes might be shut, you're gonna have little bits of bleeding on your pillow for the first two, three days. But then the recovery is pretty fast, especially with advanced skincare. So skincare that has actual DNA repair enzymes built right in and peptides like copper tripeptide that can speed up that healing. We can add exosomes, platelet-rich plasma, lots of things to speed up the healing. So for most patients, it's about six, seven days where they're downtime. And by day seven, it's almost a light switch. They come in, and I usually bring my patients in on day seven, and they're like, You should have seen me yesterday was really red, but today I'm like, I know that's why I brought you on day seven, not day six. So we've really gone away from those big, big down times where we were like four or six weeks to now about a week, you know, two, three days are gonna be really bad. It's not painful, it just looks really bad. And I'm sure you've seen it on Instagram, as you mentioned, like the influencers, whoever's doing it, they're like, Hey, like they look like Deadpool, I call it, or at my age, Freddie Krueger, you know, they're they're really burnt and they do look like a burn victim, but they're talking, you know, you don't see their eyes that you don't see signals of pain because it's it's it's not, it's controlled. We have that controlled injury. We're trying to get to around 600. The main issue is a lot of practitioners are now switching to like cold laser or mini CO2, where it's really not hitting that 600. So I don't know if there's a point in getting a CO2 if you're just doing a light resurface, right? So we're still investigating. Maybe there's a point if you're combining it, like I said, with DNA repair enzymes, and we're doing those actual studies right now in our clinic.

Marla Miller 22:31

Well, that's good to know the difference between all those different things. Like you said, the mini CO2 until you have something that's also supporting it to make it more effective, there may be no reason to pay out that money or spend that time. So the CO2 that requires anesthesia, right?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 22:51

It does. I mean, it's not a pleasant procedure. And generally speaking, most people don't need to be given generalized anesthesia. We have lots of tools. So from numbing to injectable anesthesia, where we focus on areas that are more painful, sort of around here, around here.

Marla Miller 23:06

You're pointing to your eyes and you're just above the eyes.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 23:09

So yeah, here there's a bunch of nerves that are sort of concentrated. So we want to sort of anesthetize again. There's a bundle of nerves that are in that area. So we want to just like sprinkle it a little bit in there, and then also through here, and then around the lip area, and then on the nose. So if we sort of calm those areas, most people do really well. They sort of say zero to two out of ten in pain, and we're going along, they're nothing, nothing, nothing. I mean, if you watch, we often show our CO2 procedures on my Instagram account. You'll see most people are just, you know, happy, they're talking to me, and then all of a sudden there'll be one spot that they're like, oh, you know, and we stop for a second. So it'll be like a brief six, seven out of ten, and then it goes back to being nothing. So that's one step. And then we also have Pronox or Penthox, these are inhalable anesthesia that we can do that keeps you awake. You can drive right afterwards. They wear off in like five to 10 minutes after we're done. And they have a little bit of an amnesia effect so that you sort of forget how bad it was. So it's great for that aspect. And then finally, we have, you know, pills that you can take, things like Adavant or like morphine diluted. It just depends on the person's sensitivity, allergies. We go through that in the consultation. So generally, most patients are quite comfortable. But yeah, no, we've seen a resurgence in the number of people doing it. It's a popular procedure for those who have had a lot of sun damage and want not just the beauty, but also the skin health.

Marla Miller 24:27

Well, I think that's fantastic that you can do something like that to address the cancer and pre-cancer. So when people do have that skin cancer, is that something they can do after a diagnosis or like you have skin cancer on your face, they can use that procedure, or by then they need surgery removing the tissue?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 24:46

Depends on the type of cancer, you know. So if it's a melanoma, you know, it's no question you have to do a surgery, right? And we also have less data on melanoma just because it's so rare. There hasn't been enough people treated with melanoma. And it's also actually pretty rare for you to develop a melanoma on your face. So that's one. And number two, for basal cells, you know, sometimes if they're superficial, we can do photodynamic therapy, we can do cryosurgery, we can do chemotherapy to prevent it if people really don't want surgery. But surgery is still the gold standard. But to me, it's like saying, hey, I saw a dandelion and some of the little fluffy things, it's not perfect anymore. It's no longer that yellow dandelion. It's because it's got the white rim of stuff. There's other dandelions that are waiting to happen. So now we've gone away from focusing on just that one skin cancer. Let's address the whole field. So just like we don't want to pluck, we say we need to treat the whole before they come up in the skin cancer world. It's a better and ideal if we can pre-treat it with some technology. And currently, laser therapy is really the only one that gives you that 90% protection. So I also tell patients 90% is not 100. And there are some people that are what we call non-responders, where something's off with their genetics, maybe they have a genetic mutation that just makes them more predisposed, or maybe they're on immunosuppressants already, or they're on an organ transplant. But even in those patients, we do see a significant reduction in, you know, a large number of studies now. This is not one signal. Like I said, we have it in randomized controlled trials, we have it all over the world. So this has been the biggest change, I think, in just the last four years. And we finally have the option of telling patients more than sorry, 70s and 80s, this is, you know, for us, skin damage, sun damage used to be a forever damage, just like the microplastics. So that used to be, I'm like, I sorry, I mean, I'll I'll try and support you and I'll catch the cancers. But to now actually being able to say, hey, we can reverse that damage, we can make you better, we can have less skin cancer. And oh, by the way, you're gonna look younger. I mean, people that can and have the ability to withstand uh downtime, it's a game changer.

Marla Miller 26:44

Yeah, that's fantastic. So exciting. So I do want to talk about also the sunscreens and the whole fear behind sunscreens because of the chemicals in them. And how are you helping people manage that? What do you think the best solution is?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 27:03

Uh you know, it's a tricky one because I mean, if somebody comes in with fear, you know, you try and do your best to manage it. And for me, it's all about the science. And does it translate into actual potential disease? Now, when it comes to sunscreens, there is a signal we're not fully aware of with certain ones like avozenzone, oxybenzone, homosalate, octocryline, right? Those are the biggest ones where we're like, uh, there is something maybe we see it in mice, but we've seen this 20 years ago as well in Europe. It's just that FDA actually did a study about two, three years ago, their own study, and this is the standard in science. Like every country, every jurisdiction has to do their own study before they make a mandate, right? So the Europeans already did this 20 years ago, and they said, ah, you know, there's something in mice and stuff, this leeches in from your skin into your body more. But we've never seen really end-organ effects. So the biggest fear is with it not being toxic in terms of cancer. The biggest fear is does it disrupt my hormone system? You know, and then by disrupting my hormones, am I more prone to other things like breast cancer, GI cancer, those types of things? So at the doses that we use, we don't really see that. Like we don't see an actual spike there. The one thing we do see, um, there is a study showing that in the boys and girls that are sort of pre-pubescent and they've used those sunscreens with those chemicals, the girls do have earlier puberty and boys have later puberty. Now, the studies themselves and the authors of them say that they're flawed because there's many other things within it that they couldn't fully exclude. You know, more processed foods, more microplastics. So is it sunscreen? Is it microplastics? Is it the bad diet? We still fully don't know. So, what I tell my patients, I'm like, listen, if if you're stuck and it's UV index is above six, or it's like 10 or higher, and you only have a bottle with those ingredients, I'm personally gonna use this, right? We make our own skincare. My sunscreen has zinc and titanium, like the natural mineral-based ones. But for me, if you have the chemical or you have nothing and UV index is super high, put it on. I'm gonna put it on, right? So, again, the toxicity is the dose, right? So we have to think about the dose is the toxicity. Even too much water is gonna be toxic. You can die from just drinking enough water without electrolytes. And cases like this have happened. So I get people get very passionate about sunscreen. So I'm like, you know, if you're worried about it, just skip it. There's so many options out there that I guarantee you you'll find a sunscreen that's right for you, that doesn't have the ingredients you don't want, that can deliver the stuff, you know. So, yeah, use zinc, you know, pure zinc, you're gonna leave a bit of a white cast. If not, then there are formulations that can help it, but they're gonna be a little bit more pricey because they're aesthetic to hide that white cast. But yeah, I mean, it's still the best anti-aging thing we have out there. It's still the best thing. We have actually validated data that it reduces skin cancer. So it's really all about listening to the patient, you know, validating their fears and saying, listen, I'm not here to really sell you anything. My goal is to give you options, you know. So sunscreen's one, if you're afraid, you know, stay out of the sun, cover up hats, minimize your exposure in the high UV index from 10 a.m. to like 2, 3 p.m., right? Check your weather app and see when the UA index is high. And then maybe use supportive stuff. Like I said, DNA repair enzymes. We have really good data that just creams containing DNA repair enzymes can also decrease precancer skin cancer by up to 30, 40 percent. We also have our own research that we've done with uh four other clinics showing like an adeptogenic molecules like green tea, niacinamide, can also reduce precancer by about 40%, right? So again, maybe that's another thing. And then if you're thinking of adding lasers and stuff like that, maybe your diet, there's cool studies not in humans, but in mice, that if you eat like a Mediterranean diet and a proper nutrient-dense diet, then maybe that can also slow it down. So it's really about giving patients goals. But if if they had to pick one thing, I mean, a sunscreen is still the best thing, and there's so many formulations out there that you know it will help you find one that works for you.

Marla Miller 31:03

Well, that was very well said, and it kind of calms my fears about it or issues regarding the chemicals. And like you said, there are some sunscreens out there I know of, and I've been using one, but it's more zinc in it.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 31:18

So yeah, zinc is the way to go. I don't know if you saw the report out of Australia that to mislabeled how much SPF was on the sunscreen. There was a big expose, it was a third-party test that took standard popular sunscreens out of Australia and then said, is this really an SPF 50? And they found I think was more than 50% of them were completely off. One was it said on the bottle it was SPF 50, but it was SPF 4. Oh.

Marla Miller 31:45

So so how do you pick and choose if it's not labeled correctly? Or is SPF 50 really that much better than SPF 35? Or does it really last so much longer?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 31:57

I love that you asked that. So yes and no, right? So most people assume SPF 50, SPF 30, or let's say SPF 60 and SPF 30, you assume like just it's human nature to assume that one is double, better, you know, twice as good. Well, if we look at the maximum protection we can get from any sunscreen, because there's a formula of you know what we can do, how much protection there is. So anything above SPF 50, you get 98% protection. Okay. Like SPF 15 is like 95.5%. So you're only getting like two, three percent extra protection from SPF 15 all the way to SPF you know 50 and above. So that's the issue there is that it's not directly in terms of the actual minimal erythema dose, it's not double. And that's what the test is just how long does it take for it to turn into slight redness? So that's the only real measuring stick. That doesn't tell you about DNA damage, that doesn't tell you about cellular stress, that doesn't tell you about reactive oxygen species. So, no, SPF 50 is not better. The only issue we see though, and there's trials on this, is that if it is a higher SPF, you're more likely to use it properly. Because most people to cover your face, just your face, you need two fingertips. Okay. So if you're using less than that, most people are, you're not getting that protection. If we're talking face and neck, you need kind of two full fingers to cover that whole area, right? Those are the fingertip units. So for that reason, sometimes maybe SPF 50 is better because if you're using less than that, I encourage not to. I don't want this to be like a permission to do it. But if you're using less, then you might be able to get away with it longer. Because the reason people burn is they're not putting on enough.

Marla Miller 33:38

Well, let's talk about the skin as the organ that's also protecting our other organs. And what do you mean by that exactly?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 33:47

So there was a really cool study done in mice where they gave them UV exposure and they followed them around and they wanted to see what happens to these mice. So do they just get skin cancers or is there anything else that happens? And what they found was that DNA damage leads to creation of these zombie cells. So they're called senescent cells in science peak, but they secrete these just like a zombie would, they secrete these messages that start infecting other cells around them. And then the cells, just like if you and I are now talking and a zombie literally walked into our room right now, we probably wouldn't continue our discussion here. We'd look for ways to run. So it starts affecting other cells. So they start also clamping down, shutting down, and going into like, uh-oh, we're on self-destruct mode. I gotta either hide or I gotta do something else. And what we found is those zombie cells can actually leave the skin and start getting into your blood and getting into the other organs. And if there's enough of them, you're gonna start getting heart damage, you're gonna start getting brain damage, and you're gonna start getting dementia, heart disease. And that's what they saw in mice. The cool thing is they have medications like satinib and physetin that specifically target these zombie cells. And when they injected these mice with dementia, with heart disease, with rapid aging, with arthritis, it all went back to normal. So it was super cool. So we thought, is this just in mice? We can't really ethically test in humans this same thing. But what we found, like I said, they have a UK biobank. And so the UK is very good at keeping everything in a database. So whenever something gets entered in your doctor's office, they keep it. So in the future, if a researcher is like, hmm, let me think of a question. Are people that are using, I don't know, this toothpaste more likely to get this disease? You know, and that's when you sometimes hear those types of news in the research, is they were able to look at those charts, to go back in time, sort of and look what happened over the last, you know, 10, 15, 20 years. Is there a signal? And they can say that. So they did that for people that have had a lot of sun exposure, and they found the same thing. People that have had a lot of sun exposure, a lot of sun damage, actually had more dementia, poorer memory, had more heart-related disease, were on more cardiac meds. Okay. But on the other end of the spectrum, and I think this is another change we're seeing in the clinic and in dermatology, the people that had too little sun were also experiencing those same things. So we're starting to see a shift now that maybe again is sort of the Goldilocks zone, because very few things in the world are, you know, very black and white. And it's never really like you want to be one extreme or the other. It's always okay, how do I navigate the middle? And so what we're seeing is that yeah, people that truly hide from the sun have lower vitamin D, have all-cause mortality increased, have higher incidences of cancer, right? If we start supplementing those people, the all-cause cancer decreases by 61%, right? So it's really how do you navigate that middle? And that was the main challenge for me having the skin cancer, because I used to be very outdoorsy. I am at my most zen and serene outside, you know. So having my own skin cancer and then having to hide, I went for about two, three years and things started falling apart. I got arthritis, I was more depressed, I didn't enjoy myself outside. I'm like, why am I here? But you're afraid, you know, you become a patient. You're like, well, I don't want another skin cancer. Like, I don't know if this is protecting me. And that's really where the mission changed of like, how do we validate? How do we test? How do we track? And that's where my mission changed to let's advance the diagnostics so then I can really tell where I'm at. I can know, okay, this is the UV damage on my weather app. After my exposure, after my vacation, I can see, okay, how much damage did I get? Oh, it was a little more than I wanted. Maybe I'm due for a CO2, or maybe it wasn't that much I can get away with a fraxal, or maybe I did a great job because I used my DNA repair serums. I used adaptogens like green teen, uh nicotinamide, and other skincare that can help nourish it. I ate really well. And guess what? I didn't do that much damage. It's all about giving back the control, and the only way to do it is through testing because you can only treat what you can see. So hopefully that answers your question, or if not, maybe opens us up some other ones.

Marla Miller 37:52

Yeah, no, that was a great explanation. And I hope more and more dermatologists are going to start implementing these kinds of tests and offering this type of information and solutions. Because I know that it's kind of a wide range still, I think, at this point, when you go into a dermatologist's office.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 38:11

Let me ask you a question. So let's say we have something that for sure we know listen, this works, this is great, there's no doubt about it. We have tons of randomized controlled trials. How long do you think that takes from okay? We saw it, but it was published in a research magazine in humans, not in mice, but in humans, before it becomes standard of care, and over 95% of doctors are now recommending it. How many years do you think that takes?

Marla Miller 38:35

Well, I'm guessing like 10 years or something. I'm guessing there's the early adopters, like in marketing, they say, and then the late adopters, and that's a whole range of time in between. I would be at that office, but by the time it's standard practice, what would it be?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 38:52

It's a very good guess. Most people say it's you know, five, seven years. 17 years, that's the average before everybody's recommending it. It's 17 years, right? So, I mean, I get it. You want to make sure it's repeatable. There's also information doubles like every six months, right? So, how do you stay on top of all of that? So, for a general practitioner, family medicine doctor, or general dermatologist that's just in the trenches and cutting out skin cancers and not looking at the latest and the greatest, but just doing you know CMEs, continuing medical education enough to keep them in practice, because we, as physicians, we need to kind of keep up with the research. So, because of all these constraints, time, energy, everything, you know, it does take 15 to 20 years, right? So the best you can do is advocate, ask for yourself, is this the right thing? So, for me, for things like CO2 laser, in a way, it was a no-brainer. At the very worst, maybe you don't get as much protection. But I mean, you came in here because you wanted to look younger anyway. So, if we're picking, do you want this treatment or that treatment? And they're both equivalent in terms of how beautiful you're gonna look, but this one might actually have a little bit more data and true health and prevention, let's do that one. And then that also gives us more data. You know, the early adopters are also beta testers, sadly, in a way, because the the main thing for mainstream is we want to see what we call phase four data. Because for research, we're very selective. So, for example, if you came to my research side and said, listen, I have a lot of skin cancers, can you do the CO2 for your study? You might have what we call exclusion criteria. So if you have diabetes, for example, number one, I'm like, nope, I'm not doing it because you might mess my study up. I need to keep the people looking as similar as possible. So we take all the variables out of the equation. There's a lot of things we exclude. If somebody has frequent infections, if somebody has immunosuppression, if somebody has allergies to lidocaine and can't tolerate the pain, you're excluded. We're not going to count you. Once the data is established, once we have phase three, once we have randomized control trials, then we can say, okay, this is a validated thing. There's good research on it. Then we start collecting all kinds of people. And that's where a phase four, what we call real-world evidence comes in, where we're like, okay, let's see what's in the real world. Because we only selected about 10% of the population, the healthy population. Now let's try and expand it to 90% of the population and see if that signal holds true. So that's kind of where we're at. And that's why also partially takes a long time for this to be fully accepted by the late adopters, like you said, because they want to see, does it work for everybody before I start recommending it? I don't want to recommend it to you know 82-year-old grandma here because the average life expectancy is 82 for a female in the US. Is it worthwhile? I don't know. But if that 82-year-old female, and I have lots of them in my practice, I have a couple, one's 82 and one's 84. They're still portaging. They're like taking their canoe. I'm like, you're portaging? You're taking canoes across like lakes at it. How did you do that? And then two, like, how do I do that? And then three, let's not get let's not avoid therapies for you because you're age, because you're functioning like a 60-year-old.

Marla Miller 41:51

Yeah, and I just saw someone, she was 80 something, but she's running triathlon. So yeah, exactly. Don't treat people by their age, treat them by their condition and how sprightly they are.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 42:04

Exactly. Exactly. And we're seeing a lot more of that. The skincare for me, I love skin because it's such a window, you know, and we're seeing that okay, if we really regenerate and rejuvenate the skin, it can really be a lot healthier. I think we're really at a breakthrough of where we can really truly slow down aging because we know it's those 12 hallmarks. And there's tests, for example, the Dundee pace. It's one of the most validated tests for aging. It actually tells us how much junk is on your DNA and on your cells because aging, large part of it is just accumulating junk and garbage, and your cells just can't function anymore. So just imagine one backpack, second, third, fourth, all of a sudden I have 300 pounds on my back, and it doesn't matter that I'm young and healthy. I just can't carry that weight. So we're seeing this is what we call epigenetic changes. So methylation, glycation, glycosylation, all of those things happen in our cells. But what we're seeing, because we've been doing that for the skin and we're keeping it young, but we started asking, what if we do that internally? And there's a really cool research that's called Novo Slabs out of MITA and Harvard. And so they have this vitamin supplement that's got all these natural botanical extracts, a little bit of actually lithium, which is very important. But their goal was okay, let's target those 12 hallmarks of aging. And what they're seeing is people are reversing their age and they actually have this true diagnostic Olympics where you can say, hey, I'm aging 20 years younger than an average person. So not quite mainstream yet, but I think just like, for example, we have the GLP one, like Ozempic, Manjaro, Vigovi, all of those things. If you told me or any doctor that what we're seeing is possible five, 10 years ago, we say, no way, because we had things like successenda contrav, and we're like, yeah, like I don't know, you might lose two, three pounds, but you're gonna be suffering with nausea and then anal leakage and stuff. So I don't think it's worth it. So to go from that to now this new generation of GLP ones, I think we're five to 10 years away from really truly slowing down aging. Like never in our life have we seen so many 45-year-olds like LeBron James is turning 41 and he's playing NBA and he's still amazing at it. We're gonna start seeing more and more of it, I think. And I wouldn't be surprised in the next 10 years we see 50-year-old world-class athletes.

Marla Miller 44:12

I agree with you. I think there's going to be so many advancements coming rapidly now. So, I mean, even I feel like in the past year, I've heard of so many different science backed modalities that are showing so much incredible promise.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 44:29

But again, it's it's that testing, it's that validation, it's tracking, it's seeing okay, does it work for you? How is your blood? Because if you're treating blind, it's a Pandora's box. And I'm seeing the flip side because there's so much buzz on it, I'm seeing all these kids now injecting these weird peptides from China. And I don't know what's in there, you know. There was an independent expose on that stuff too, and showed that 50% were either contaminated when they did third-party testing in these longevity peptides and stuff. 50% were either contaminated with lead higher than the actual US FDA administered safe levels, or that they had completely the wrong peptide. So I don't know what you're getting, right? So again, unless you're measuring outcomes, I think there's going to be this temptation to take back control. And I love that patients are taking back their own health, but do it responsibly, find a legit source, make sure it's the right product because there's so many scams now out there. Because whenever there's hype, sadly there's going to be marketing and scams that are going to take advantage of that. So really it's safeguarding yourself against that as well.

Marla Miller 45:29

Yeah, definitely not just going online and grabbing whatever we've heard about because the same type of supplement can be created in so many different ways with fillers or with fake stuff thrown in or whatever it is. So yeah, I agree. It's so important to do your research and get it from a really reliable source.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 45:49

Yeah, absolutely.

Marla Miller 45:51

Well, is there any other thing related to the skin that you're seeing and you're helping people with, other than skin cancer and and we talked about it, yeah, affecting other organs?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 46:04

Yeah, the one thing we're seeing, I mean, again, speaking, I guess, in a segue of the peptides and GLP1s, we're seeing GLP one working so well internally, but visually, because it decreases that fat, people are coming to our clinic and saying, I look like 20 years older now, because that superficial fat loss makes them look gone. So now, how do we help support that? How do we help rebuild that lost fat strategically in just areas like your face so that you don't look older? I mean, initially people like it because they're like, oh, I'm looking skinny. But after about a month or two, they're like, that gets old quickly. I enjoyed it initially, but now, yeah, I look older. So there's a lot of regenerative medicine that's coming out there. So we have things like high frequency ultrasound, for example, has been shown to help lift that sagging skin and also rebuild the structure. And then there's what we call biostimulatory fillers. So they're not fillers, but we we sprinkle on some of this biostimulatory material underneath the skin that can wake up the cells, help them connect with each other. Because again, when you have that rapid fat loss, the cells lose connection with each other. So they can't communicate and they don't know what to build. So by providing them with these scaffolds, they're able to rebuild quickly. So now we have lots of research on that that we can help them age well externally and visually, because that's important to people. It can really impact your wet mental health if when you look in the mirror and you don't see how you feel inside. So it's really trying to match that internal and external as well, that's becoming the foray as well.

Marla Miller 47:26

Yeah, I'm glad you addressed that because I know a lot of people, when they lose weight, that's the first place they notice it, is in their face. You know, people have different parts of the body that lose weight first, but it it's the gauntness that starts to bother people. So yeah, that's good to take into account and address. And also, like you said, when you look in the mirror, even if you don't care what anyone else thinks about the way you look, but you look in the mirror and you're you know, constantly lifting up your face and you're thinking about it every day. And that does affect the way you present yourself to the world and your mood, I guess. And I'm sure it's also signaling different parts of your body, you know, it's signaling the cells in your body, how you're feeling and affecting it.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 48:19

It really does. Yeah, no, you're right. And we have some really cool data again out of mice. So we know, for example, if we give mice Botox, one of the things we do with Botox is that, you know, when you're frowning, like, you know, frowning a lot, it does really send signals that are feedback loops. So me frowning, just the act of frowning. And I've been really, as of late, getting into positive thinking and manifesting and just, you know, allowing that frequency and vibration to kind of control your mood and life. There's definitely something to be said scientifically because we know when mice get stressed or angry or fearful, they flex certain muscles on their face as well. And when we relax those things, their depression goes away, they're able to complete mazes faster. So they just become these mice that are much more happy, you know. So we don't think they look in the mirror and say, Oh wow, I'm a really good looking mouse. We think it's that feedback loop, like you said. So if you're sad and you're kind of scrunching down, if we take that stimulus away where you go to scrunch down and you're like, Oh, I can't. And then again, the world looks at you too. And I'm sure the other mice are probably looking at them and saying, Why is that mouse so angry at me? And now if you're not, they're like, Oh, hey, hey, buddy, how's it going? And it's the same. We present this mirror to society, you know, and and we call it all kinds of mean things, like resting this face, you know, you're like, Oh, I'm happy. What do you mean? I wasn't that, and sometimes you don't even know until somebody comes up and tells you, they're like, Are you mad at me? Or why do you have this face? Were you mad? You're like, No, I was just thinking, I don't know. And then when you kind of reverse that, we're seeing the same in humans. We are seeing mood scores go up, we are seeing more social interaction scores go up. And and then again, that's a big part of longevity. Everybody forgets to talk about. We focus on VO2 max, grip strength, we focus on you know eating healthy and sleeping and exercise, and those are very important. But do you know what the number one thing for longevity is? What? Social interaction. If you have so strong social bonds and you're integrated within your society, if we look at we have the six, or now the six, we have the five blue zones across the world. The number one thing, it's not the food, you know, people, people in Italy, coffee and biscotti for breakfast, and then pasta for dinner. That's as far from Mediterranean diet as possible. That's like pure sugar. But if we look at the region in Italy where they're living super long, they eat that, but it's the social, they have the strongest social bonds, right? Same for Icarus, Greece, same for Costa Rica, same for for Loma Linda, California. They all have those social bonds, and it's cool because I said five initially, but there's now six. Singapore was able to achieve the world's first engineered longevity zone, you know, where they said, okay, let's make good food, good social structure, let's give people ability to be interconnected. And they're now able to have a lot of uh centenarians, people living over a hundred because they manufactured it, right? So I think again, it all comes together, you know. So if you're mad and sad and people are perceiving you as older, you might start withdrawing. And and I remember one of my patients, and this is actually written in the literature as well, the one number one reason people withdraw from activities, let's say you're in a Pilates class, right? You're in there and you think, hey, this is my group. I love these people. And then one day, this little young, you know, 20-something year old comes up and says, Oh my God, you remind me of my mom. And you're like, I thought we were the same peer group, you know? And and that hits people. And then you're like, Well, I thought, like, okay, well, I can't be, you know, now exercising with my son or daughter, like, oh my God, I thought we were the same peer group. And then you start withdrawing, right? So if we can keep the visual appearance and we can have that healthy and vibrance glow from us because our skin is healthy, again, it's gonna integrate us more or it's gonna make it easier to integrate within our social structure, and then we can keep doing the things that can keep us living longer.

Marla Miller 52:06

Yeah, that is so underestimated. Sometime, you know, the benefit of that. And you brought up a point that just happened recently. So my sister was out, and someone was noticing she was there and waved to her, and the other person said, Oh, she doesn't look too happy, or something like that. And and my sister was like, I had no idea, you know, but her face just kind of droops down a little bit. I mean, not any major thing, but it's just you don't know the expression you're giving off to people or how you're being perceived sometimes. And you're right, that can really affect the connection to other people. So the healthier our skin can be, the healthier our smile can be, and what we put out to the world that can only benefit us.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 53:01

Absolutely. And one of the things is yes, you know, the social interaction, we need that, but it's also signals that health and well-being. And one of the things that got me into initially just that looking and feeling good was actually my mom's story. She had breast cancer, went on chemo, wasn't doing well with it. And one of the happiest things for her was that when she I wasn't really doing a lot of cosmetics before then. And then when she got diagnosed in 2017, she's like, What can you do? Like, is there anything I can do for my skin? She tried all these creams, she's just like, I just look dull and lifeless. That was her thing because of the chemo. I look dull and lifeless, and I feel people are judging, and I can put a wig on to mask my hair, but people are constantly asking me, Are you okay? I don't want to be perceived as sick. Like, I'm going through this journey. I just want to live my life. And when I started doing these things that can stimulate her skin and regenerate the skin and make the skin more healthy appearing, she just took on a new life. So that has been one of my most rewarding aspects is to really, you know, help people see themselves for who they are. And if they have a chronic illness or chronic disease or cancer that's affecting it, to really bring some of that boost back. So at least when they look in the mirror, they're like, okay, you know what? Uh, I don't look as bad, or there's people worse off than me, or when they look at like even movies and stuff where they portray a typical cancer patient, they're like, Okay, you know what? Maybe I'm not doing as bad. Okay. And part of it is that placebo effect, but part of that is that manifesting and having positive thoughts and energy, if we can help boost that, that was sort of the breakthrough thing for me to really sort of help my mom along that journey. And then if I can help others, whether it's from cancer or just, you know, aging, because aging, if we look at aging, whether it's God, omnipotent aliens that don't age or something like that, everything about aging is a disease to me, you know? It's just because everybody gets it. How are you gonna call something a disease when everybody gets it? Right. But the withering, the loss of function, sallowing, the withering, just losing your identity through that. To me, I mean, yes, you want to age positively. I'm not anti-aging. I love, you know, I love that I'm almost 50. I don't want to go back to being 20, but if I can be the best version of myself, if I can slow down some of that deterioration process, the degradation, the descent, deflation, to me, it's so rewarding. And I know it gives me energy when I look up in the morning like, I feel good today. Oh, I'm happy to go to work, you know. I don't feel that old. When people say, Are you close to retirement? I'm like, if I keep feeling like this, I'm gonna work till I'm 90, 100. I don't know. I don't want to slow down, right? And whereas some of my friends that are now in their 50s as well, and my best friend, he's like, I'm five years out of retirement, and I feel that I want to retire. So I'm I don't know, man. Like, let's why? Like, let's let's get you feeling better because you're fifty, you're only 55. I think 55 should be the new 30, you know, and same for 70, 80 should be the new 40.

Marla Miller 55:44

Yeah. I think that shows you have a true mission here to not only help people survive different skin cancers, but to also rejuvenate people so they can truly live a full long life full of vitality and feel like they look the part. That's awesome.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 56:05

Yeah, that's the mission, you know, and I'm happy it's resonating that that's always been our mission and care. And like I said, I've seen it myself, and and one of the other things we didn't talk about is we know aging happens in big ways. We all assume it's sort of that, you know, you gradually decline. But the studies out of Stanford University just a couple of years ago showed that we get just like puberty, you go from being a child to being just this adult out of nowhere, it's the same with aging, and it happens on average at age 44, at age 60, and then again 78, you know. So again, if we can kind of I hate the word biohack, but if we can play with those genes, it's 180,000 genes that get activated, if we can just dampen them a little bit and extend that sort of resiliency and regeneration and just that longevity, it just makes me happy because I've seen it myself. I hit that first peak, you know, around age 44, like four or five years ago, that uh, you know, it wasn't fun. And and going on that journey to say, no, no, this isn't good enough. We have the science. How do we sort of help support it? And rather than just accepting it, is also I felt it. So if I can help others feel that, I've seen it with my mom. If others can feel that, then uh we can make the world a happier place.

Marla Miller 57:18

Yeah, that's really awesome. Well, where can people find you?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 57:23

We have a clinic in Toronto, we also have a clinic opening up in the Beverly Hills area in Brentwood, the Thriftkin Aesthetics. And soon also, we're working on a clinic near West Palm Beach in Florida. So those are going to be the places where we're operating. And then we also have a longevity-based skincare, just in my name, Saiish Skin Science, if people want to give it a try. So it's all about giving people options and strategies that can help them support healthy aging.

Marla Miller 57:49

Well, I'll definitely include links in the show notes so people can look you up. So you have a website?

Dr. Dusan Sajic 57:57

We do. One is called Derma Skin Institute. We're going to be changing it to because we're going to be calling it Sajic Skin Longevity. So that's going to be launching in about a month or so. And then we have our Sajic Skin, so S-A-J-I-C Skin.com. And then, of course, on Instagram. So just my first name, last name, MD, and Instagram. So I try to do as many of these types of engaging talks about pertinent topics and misconceptions and myths and also challenge the status quo at the same time.

Marla Miller 58:27

Yeah, well, I think what you're doing is really fantastic. So thank you so much for coming on and spreading this education and, like you said, busting some myths and giving people real resources to improve their skin health and their longevity.

Dr. Dusan Sajic 58:44

Absolutely. It's always my pleasure. And thank you for having me. And thank you for having such an awesome platform as well to allow people like myself to really, again, change the status quo and give people the information that can help them along their journey.