The Future of Bone & Muscle Health: Innovation, Prevention & Longevity with Gary Rhodes | HFYH #129

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:00)
Snap my fingers moment, when you trip over your little dog in the kitchen, and you break your head, a woman has a 30% chance of dying.

**Gary Rhodes** (0:07)
When does osteoporosis actually start? And it doesn't start when you're 65, it starts probably when you hit peak bone mass at 30 We can eliminate osteoporosis off the face of the earth, and it's by helping those that have got it now reverse it and prevent early death and independence, but really focusing on the proactive prevention, early detection screening.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (0:25)
Hi, I'm Dr. Vonda Wright, and this is HOT For Your Health. Join us for conversations on the bleeding edge of science, health and culture, as we bring you tech innovators, thought leaders and the movers and shakers who are transforming science fiction into your new health reality.
So welcome everybody back to HOT For Your Health, where we talk to innovators, change makers about some of the most amazing topics. And today, I'm talking to someone who shares my passion and love of bones. And we have partnered for a global outreach to reach every person listening and not listening, and who you share with your neighbors that bones are more than just the strong, silent type holding up your muscles. They are so much more and we're going to teach you how to build them. So, I'm so excited to have Gary Rhodes, who is the founder and CEO of Screen My Bones, and has been in business for many, many, many years in the fitness and wellness space, and partner with Powerplate, and a fascinating technology he uses to screen bones. So, Gary, thank you for joining me today.

**Gary Rhodes** (1:49)
Thank you. Thank you.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (1:51)
Where did your passion for bones come from?

**Gary Rhodes** (1:57)
Well, bones are not sexy, but my grandmother had osteoporosis. So, of course, that's where my journey began, is wanting to help my grandmother. Through looking at different types of technology, I was able to ultimately help my grandmother along that journey and ultimately reverse osteoporosis. So, that was the inception that led me on this next 10, 15-year journey to learning more about bones and how we can hopefully help more people.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (2:20)
You know what, it is our job, your and my job, to help people rethink bones, because you're right, nobody thinks about them. They're not sexy, unless it's Fashion Week in New York or London, and everybody's like, oh, look at my gorgeous cheekbones or my delicate wrist. Other than that, nobody thinks about the fact that they're not only the structural girders of our body, they're the mineral storehouse, they are master communicators. And let's be honest, I say this tongue in cheek, but without the bones that we care about so much, muscle is just a heap of metabolic tissues in the corner. I mean, it doesn't even have structure, right? So people have heard about osteoporosis, and they may have heard of a DEXA scan, which tells us bone mineral density, but that's not the whole story, is it, Gary?

**Gary Rhodes** (3:13)
No. I mean, DEXA scan obviously is the gold standard, and historically, DEXA has been kind of a reactive assessment. So if somebody breaks a bone, the limb generally gets sent for a DEXA. So obviously, with innovation and technology that's coming out, Echolight REMS technology is a fascinating technology that basically is ultrasound. There's no radiation. It's very quick. What it does is it measures the bone density like a DEXA, so it gives you a T score, gives you a Z score, somebody who would be your age, and then it also gives you a fragility score. What that is really is bone strength. It's the quality of the microarchitecture. If we can get that as an indicator along with a T score, we then have a more comprehensive predictive risk fracture analysis, giving somebody a whole picture. A great example would be somebody could have normal bone density and really low bone quality and be more of a risk fracture than somebody who has osteopenia but really good quality bone. I think it's crucially important that this technology is not just seen as a sideshow. This is a really incredible piece of technology that gives people a really good insight into the bone quality as well.

**Dr. Vonda Wright** (4:18)
So, you know, just as a little background for people wondering, well, you know, bone quality this, here's how it works with bones in the body. If my forearm, if you're on the video watching this, imagine I'm holding up my forearm and every time as a femur, the forearm with a bent wrist looks a little bit like a femur. Every time you take a step, the bones imperceptibly bend a little bit, right? Give a little bit and the body will lay down trabecular, which is the grid of tissue that you're measuring inside with ultrasound in the pathways of most stress and strain in the bone. So what you're saying is that we can actually assess how well our bends absorb the pressure of activity versus just how much mineral it has in it, which is what we get from a DEXA scan, right?