Calley Means & Casey Means, MD: Sibling co-authors of the book Good Energy. Calley is a former food and pharma lobbyist turned founder of Truemed; Casey is a Stanford-trained surgeon who left medicine and co-founded Levels, a continuous glucose monitor company. Both are leading voices in the Make America Healthy Again movement.
What this episode covers
Calley and Casey Means lay out their case that chronic disease in America is exploding because the food and pharmaceutical industries have captured the institutions of trust (NIH, FDA, medical schools, journals) that are supposed to protect public health. They trace the history from the 1909 Flexner report through the birth control pill, cigarette companies buying food companies, and high-fructose corn syrup engineered to override satiety. They frame nearly all chronic disease as downstream of metabolic dysfunction caused by ultra-processed food, pesticides, plastics and lifestyle, and argue it is reversible. Much of the conversation covers their work brokering the RFK Jr.-Trump alliance and the political fight over Ozempic, the farm bill, and incentive reform. They close on a spiritual call for individuals to reclaim health and treat the body as sacred.
Recommended on this episode
Good Energy
Casey Means and Calley Means
“oh of this book is amazing good energy is amazing the food you know”— Joe Rogan
The guest's own work
Good Energy
Casey Means and Calley Means
“if we could unencumber for the brain to be able to make energy properly make good energy properly that's why our book is called good energy”— Casey Means
Levels
Levels
“I'm also the co-founder of a company called levels which is part of this whole mission which is to basically Empower people we have democratized access to continuous glucose monitors”— Casey Means
Also referenced (named, not recommended)
The New Menopause
Mary Claire Haver
“this is why a book like the new menopause is like the number one book in the country for a while because women are desperate”— Casey Means
Nature Wants You to Be Fat
Richard Johnson
“Richard Johnson from un University of Colorado wrote Nature wants us to be fat and then David pearlmutter wrote drop acid”— Calley Means
Drop Acid
David Perlmutter
“and then David pearlmutter wrote um drop acid both books are about a molecule called uric acid which is unique to fructose metabolism”— Calley Means
Brain Energy
Chris Palmer
“Chris Palmer talks about this in such an amazing way in his book brain energy”— Casey Means
The End of Alzheimer's
Dale Bredesen
“an amazing book about Alzheimer's that just hasn't gotten as much attention as I think it should as Dale brison's book the end of Alzheimer's”— Casey Means
Eight Sleep
Eight Sleep
“get your eight sleep get your athletic greens get your you know gym membership uh talk to your doctor about it”— Calley Means
Athletic Greens (AG1)
AG1
“get your eight sleep get your athletic greens get your you know gym membership uh talk to your doctor about it”— Calley Means
Big reveals from this episode
- Calley describes helping engineer an NIH panel that downplayed opioid addiction and steering Coke money to the NAACP to call removing soda from food stamps racist.
- The 1909 Flexner report, written by John D. Rockefeller's personal lawyer, set the still-current standard that labels holistic health and nutrition pseudoscience.
- By 1990 the three largest M&A deals in history were cigarette companies (Philip Morris, RJR) buying food companies and applying tobacco science to engineer addictive food.
- Calley recounts the congressman who introduced the Ozempic obesity bill admitting he had never considered alternatives and did not know it was a lifetime drug.
- At a JP Morgan conference investors gave a standing ovation to a chart showing obesity rising alongside increased Ozempic prescriptions.
- Their mother's sudden death from pancreatic cancer 12 days after diagnosis inspired them to write Good Energy and evangelize metabolic health.
- Calley says he personally phoned RFK Jr. after the first Trump assassination attempt and helped broker the RFK-Trump alliance.
- Casey explains how Obamacare 'value-based care' got corrupted so doctors are rewarded for keeping patients on long-term medication rather than reversing disease.
Worth remembering
- 74% of Americans are overweight or obese and roughly 50% of adults have type 2 diabetes or pre-diabetes, up from 1% with diabetes in 1955.
- One in 36 US children now has autism, up from 1 in 150 in 2000, and 1 in 22 in California.
- About 8 billion metric tons of plastic have been produced since around 1907, and microplastics were found in 100% of placentas in one study.
- The US sprays 70 million pounds of atrazine per year, a pesticide banned in Europe that increases aromatase, converting testosterone to estrogen.
- Walking 7,000 steps a day can cut risk of obesity, type 2 diabetes and Alzheimer's by 40 to 60%, yet the average American walks 3,500 steps.
- The US allows about 10,000 chemicals in its food supply versus roughly 400 in Europe, via self-designated 'generally recognized as safe' status.
- 67% of children's calories now come from ultra-processed foods.
- High-fructose corn syrup exploits a bear-hibernation mechanism where fructose increases hunger rather than satiety to drive fat storage.
- The Ozempic bill could cost $1,600 per patient per month; Novo Nordisk became Europe's most valuable company on expectation of its passage.
- The average American kid spends less time outdoors than a maximum security prisoner.