Episode 325 — You CAN Biohack Autism
Guest: Nadia Elkhatib • Date: September 17, 2026
Episode Overview
Nadia Elkhatib is the host of the Biohacking Autism podcast and has spent more than two decades exploring ways to help her child thrive. In this conversation, she explains why parents need to take ownership of their child’s health strategy, use data to make better decisions, and look beyond symptoms to help the body function at its best.
About Nadia Elkhatib
Nadia Elkhatib is the host of Biohacking Autism, a podcast about real solutions for people with autism and the ones who love them. She holds a master's degree in computer science and spent her career in Silicon Valley tech, bringing that same engineer's mindset to raising her son with severe autism: measure, test, adjust, repeat. She is now building a private Biohacking Autism community where members get her ongoing research and current protocols, along with access to leading autism, longevity, and biohacking experts. Every episode of the show runs on two tracks: practical protocols for the person on the spectrum and healthspan and longevity for the moms, dads, and caregivers supporting them.
You’ll Discover
Why biohacking puts parents back in the driver's seat (5:33)
Why the buck ultimately stops with the parent (8:10)
Why it's time to stop chasing symptoms (12:03)
Why starting with what you can control matters (28:49)
Why you can't bypass caregiver health (57:56)
Full Transcript
Nadia Elkhatib 0:00
There's one step that nobody can can escape, and it's going to be education. So that's what I I really want to do in my podcast is educate people on all kinds of things, and this way they can make better educated decisions. But the second thing that is absolutely essential, and that you're doing, Len, is that you cannot cannot cannot bypass the caregiver health because you're not only the decision maker, but we're gonna need guys. We're gonna need your brain. We're gonna need your bodies to function properly. We're gonna need you to live longer and healthier. So that's why most of my episodes have a second track, which is caregiver health. So take care of yourself, feel better, and show up better.
Len Arcuri 0:42
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage, and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be. This podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is Autism Parenting Secrets, where you become the parent your child needs now. Hello and welcome. In your efforts to help your child thrive, you probably heard of the term biohacking, and most parents think that biohacking is about optimizing biology through nutrition changes, lifestyle changes, technology, and even a biomedical approach. But what if biohacking is actually much bigger than biology? What if it's really about helping you in terms of how you think, how you make decisions, how you care for yourself, and how you lead your child's journey. So today's guest is Nadia Elkatib. She's the host of the Biohacking Autism podcast, and Nadia holds a master's degree in computer science. And she's built her career developing technology solutions where systems thinking and engineering were central to her work, and for more than 20 years, she's applied that skill set and a very powerful mindset to helping her son Jimmy thrive. And she's been continually exploring functional medicine, root cause healing, and biohacking. And today, she helps families ask better questions, think more strategically and discover new ways to help both children and their caregivers thrive. The secret this week is you can biohack autism. Welcome, Nadia.
Nadia Elkhatib 2:33
Thank you so much, Len. It's great to be here today and have this wonderful conversation with you.
Len Arcuri 2:38
Absolutely. Well, I know you and I are very much aligned in so many ways, our journeys kind of started around the same time. So maybe just would might be a great place to start, Nadia, is with the terms I threw out initially. You know, parents hear these terms; they sound exciting. So whether it's you know something like going biomedical or doing a bio biomedical approach, or functional medicine, you know. Then you have this term biohacking, which is kind of unique and and kind of nuanced. So, can you talk a little bit about biohacking and what makes that different?
Nadia Elkhatib 3:14
So, yes, my son Jimmy is 21. So, as you said, I've been at it for a long time. He was diagnosed around two, and I went, you know, scorched earth on like trying to figure out what to do, and I just couldn't, just could not give up. And I thought if there's a problem, usually you can solve it. Most problems can be solved. You just need like a plan to get there. So I knew nothing about medicine at all. Being an engineer, I loved exact sciences, and medicine was the exact opposite. It was this black box to me. So I tried everything, and I tried to delegate a lot of my education knowledge, but also decision making to people who did this for a living. So the very first type of person that I met that did that were functional doctors. At the time, it was called Den doctors. Now it's Maps doctors, who are absolutely wonderful, and we've had a lot of progress. So Jimmy started talking when he was eight years old as a result of all these things that we've done, but there was no real roadmap, and also, depending on what practitioner we spoke with, we were going in a direction that was their specialty. So here's what the way I see functional medicine is that they're great at looking at the whole body approach to medicine. They're really great at trying to troubleshoot things, but we're still looking at specific specialties for each one of of these practitioners. So a practitioner would specialize in Lyme disease or in mold or both. Or in pens, pandas, or MCAS, or GI issues, gut dysbiosis, etc. So if you go see a specific doctor, they're most probably going to go down that route. Now, biohacking, the way I see it, puts the power, the knowledge, and the decision making back in your hands. So biohacking was started by somebody called Dave Asprey, who's the godfather of biohacking. He was also here in Silicon Valley. I live in Silicon Valley, and he's an engineer, and he was a tech entrepreneur who also, by the way, very openly says that he had autism. He still has, of course, some of the symptoms, and we talked about that very openly. He's absolutely wonderful, but basically, he applied his tech troubleshooting skills to his own biology. And part of the word biohacking is hacking, and hacking is usually getting things done quickly, finding shortcuts, and and that's okay. Sometimes, sometimes if we can get things done quickly or bite-sized, then it's wonderful. So, to me, the way I see biohacking is that it works wonderfully with the functional medicine world. Biohacking is your knowledge, your own data collection, knowing your data or your child's data, putting it all together, looking at it all together in one spot, and saying, "Oh, I'm seeing these patterns, I'm seeing these symptoms. Let's see what we can do to move things along as quick as possible with as little effort as possible, so that's basically how I see the difference. Once you have all of this, then the handshake happens with the functional doctor, the maps doctor, and then you can bring that to that doctor and say, "Here's what I see. Here's all my data. Here are the patterns I see, and like you said, here are my questions. Why is my TSH fine, but why is my reverse T3 so high? Why is my kid's anxiety going so high, but I'm also noticing that his estrogen is very low, his pregnenolone is very low? Is there a connection there, and and what can we do about it? So I see them working together, but biohacking is more empowering to the patient.
Len Arcuri 7:25
Yeah, I think that's a phenomenal way of describing it. And biohacking is something that, as the parent, totally within your control, you're driving that that ship, right? And and whereas functional medicine, which is phenomenal, is about finding a guide, some medical guide who has a maybe a functional medicine more systems approach, as opposed to conventional. And as you articulated, right, if you are fortunate enough to find a pediatrician, let's say with a functional medicine approach, somebody who's more like a maps doctor now, as you mentioned, those those individuals can be phenomenal, but they can differ wildly from person to person, depending on their specialty, depending on their area of focus. So you know, I think what you teed up underscores the idea that those individuals are members of the team, people on your team who advise you, and you want to choose the right one, but the overall game plan, what you're focusing on, how you're understanding your son-that is the parent's domain, and we can call it biohacking just to give to give an overall label to it. But it's much more 100% driven by the parent and their understanding of what's happening.
Nadia Elkhatib 8:39
My husband always asks me, asks me, is there someone that we can hire, a doctor that we can find that would take charge of everything? Is there a treatment that we could do that would be the silver bullet? And you're right, exactly, Len. What you said is that it does not exist. The buck stops with us. We are driving this bus, and we are in control of all of this, but finding the right members of your team is essential. Finding the right doctor or doctors, consultants, practitioners, coaches will help you in solving these problems or in even changing directions. But it still starts with you.
Len Arcuri 9:24
And I think that concept that it starts with you is a is a really underscores something you and I have talked about before. And I've had episodes specifically on this topic, which is simply that you, the parent, are the CEO, whether you want to be or not, the key is for you to play that role and to get equipped to play it well. Because, as Nadia articulated with her husband, I was in the same place where I just wanted someone desperately to tell me what to do to to to figure it out, and there is nobody you can have. Advisors, people who help you figure it out, but talk to me about what you, how you understand that term and what it means to be the CEO of Jimmy.
Nadia Elkhatib 10:08
So, and again, by the way, he's 21, right? So I've been at this for a long time, and I started the exact opposite at the beginning, where I found somebody that people raving about. I went there and I said, "What do I do? Just tell me what to do. And and then I just went in that direction. And now I'm doing the exact opposite. When someone asks me, "Who's your doctor? I say, "Oh my God, I have so many, and maybe not no one at the same time. And I've had to learn all of this not because it was my passion in life, just because I had to. So the way I do it now is I would say two, three parts. Part number one: data. You cannot bypass that data, and I'm still finding things. So I have all of Jimmy's data. I have all my data, everything, genetic tests, blood tests, all of our tests. But I also have all of our visit summaries. I take notes every time I go to a doctor. I take notes on granola, and I I name that file and I put it in Google Drive. And so I have all of our data together in one spot. That's the first step. Second step. I'm sorry, guys. I know that's the one people hate the most, but it's very hard to bypass it. You don't have to know as much as Len or as me, but you do have to be semi-educated on biology. Look, we have kids with autism. We we can't avoid that. So we do need to understand things, even if it's at a high level, because that's why it's called an educated decision. We have to be able to make educated decisions. Now, again, what I do is kind of yes, it's a lot. That's me. Hi, nice to meet you, Nadia. Goes all the way on everything and down rabbit holes, but I talk to some of these practitioners once a week, you know. And so what I'm doing now is that I am looking at this in a completely different way. This year, I would say, or year and a half, what I said is, if I remove the label from Jimmy, if it's just Jimmy, 21 years old, let's look at his biology. And then I've been for the past almost three years now in longevity groups, biohacking groups, and even some bodybuilding groups and peptide groups. And I'm the only representative of the autism community there. But I ask questions, and I try to understand how they do things, and I love that. And I do think that that is our light at the end of the tunnel. That is our missing piece, and it's also, by the way, the missing piece for things like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, because it's the exact same issue. We're just dealing with so many symptoms, and we're chasing all of these symptoms. We're chasing mold toxicity, and we're chasing Lyme, and we're chasing gut dysbiosis. But none of us are looking at the baseline of all of this, at the base of our health. How can we make our bodies do their job. How can we get our kids' bodies to do their job so the body can finally focus on building those brain pathways and turning on those mirror neurons and connecting with the outside world, including speech? How can we help their bodies fight those external insults, you know, fight those viruses and bacteria and mold toxicity, and be able to adapt to the world around us. So that is where where I'm going now. And bonus cherry on top is that I'm applying it to myself and to my husband also. So for my husband, I call his body the machine, and that's how I convinced him. I said, "Well, we have to take care of the machine because we have to live long enough to take care of him. He's younger than us. We have to live longer and to have health span as well. So it's been really amazing for the whole family overall, and we're seeing a lot of progress.
Len Arcuri 14:23
Fantastic. Well, you you touched on a lot of great points in terms of that CEO role, which again I know sounds businessy and the like, but again, there there's some phenomenal guides. But somebody's got to put it all together, and it's not daunting that that's you. I mean, that's the the privilege you have. That's the gift you have the opportunity as a parent to step into that role, which again, none of us maybe want that role initially, but there's nobody on the planet who's better equipped to be able to determine what's going to help your child the most, and so that CEO concept I think is so valuable, particularly. Because a CEO isn't the expert in every domain, they they they have certain talents and gifts, but they surround themselves with good advisors who don't tell them what to do. They advise, and the parent is the decider in chief. And I think that's where I know I didn't feel really qualified to be that decision maker. I desperately wanted someone to tell me what to do, and it took years before I eventually figured out what you figured out. Right, that nobody is going to play that role, but I do think where there's a commonality between biohacking and functional medicine, and then the unifying element is the concept of root cause, because a functional medicine provider, a maps doctor is going to help reveal what potential root causes to focus on for your child, and I think in your role as a parent, if you take a biohacking approach, it's about you unearthing the root causes, not just for your child, but across the board about what's happening with you, what's happening with the people who are surrounding your child? So this idea of addressing root cause causes is how you truly accelerate progress. Because otherwise, the whole autism complex-it's all about the symptoms, right? It's not a lot of people are really articulating the concept of root cause, which is where biohacking, I think, becomes so valuable.
Nadia Elkhatib 16:21
Absolutely. So I love the analogy of the CEO. Absolutely, you have board members, your advisors, you know, and that could be your spouse, that can be your friends, and a lot of times, honestly, for me, it's other autism parents that are going through the same thing, and we basically crowdsource our our efforts and our thinking and our brainstorming, and then yeah, you have your specialists, your sales specialists, your operation specialists, and those are going to be your practitioners, your functional practitioners. So if you, for example, find out that your child has mold toxicity, but also other issues, right? So you can decide where to start, or you could decide that before addressing something like that, you will address Dr. Neil Nathan's methodology of first looking at brain brain retraining, vagal toning, and MCAS. That's going to be again your decision, but you also might need to decide that okay, I might not treat the mold specifically, but I might work on my environment and remediate the mold, remove it, get air purifiers, you know, and and do all of that. So there's a lot of decisions to be made. And by the way, again, not an exact science, so you will make mistakes, and then you will pivot and change it, and make mistakes, and change it again. But the trick is going to be cumulative success. The goal is going to be to see cumulative success. You cannot keep going without any success at all. That means that this is not working, or maybe it's not the right time for this specific thing that you are doing right now. So, root causes absolutely essential. And by the way, of course, symptoms are also essential because if my kid is having crazy meltdowns and anxiety, I cannot ignore that while I'm working on the root cause. So, obviously, I do have a lot of things that I give him for his anxiety while I'm working on the root cause.
Len Arcuri 18:25
Yeah, it's it's just that those symptoms aren't the cause, right? They may seem like a big problem, and those symptoms are clues. They're things that you want to do something about. So there's nothing wrong with addressing those symptoms. The key is devoting some of your time, energy, and money and resources on unearthing the root causes behind those those symptoms, those behaviors. Let's say, and then addressing them. So that's where this root cause focus is so important. And it's very easy, particularly for parents who dive into this. It gets overwhelming rapidly because there's a infinite number of potential root causes to focus on. So, you know, you and I entered this around the same time. My son Rye, he's 19. Early on, the root cause to focus on was gut inflammation, right? Dysbiosis. That was a big area of focus, as well as toxicity, metals toxicity, etc. And but you know, over time, right? Mitochondrial dysfunction is a root cause. It goes on and on, and you alluded to it to it earlier because I know you understand all these potential root causes because you've dove into this and you've tried many options and many roads with Jimmy. But right now, you're seizing on a root cause that maybe isn't so prevalent. So you mentioned about metabolism. So I'll ask you a little bit more. Can you go deeper on that thinking? Because I think that's that area of focus. It's likely that most parents don't have it on their radar because they may be focusing perhaps on other root causes. And here's where what you said. If you have a functional medicine or a match practitioner who has a certain playbook and a way they do things, that could be useful if you guess right and your child's wrestling with those root causes that they can help with. But if they're not skilled with a root cause that's really relevant for you to focus on now for your child, you may be inadvertently missing the boat. So I'll hand it off to you to expand on that.
Nadia Elkhatib 20:23
Absolutely, exactly, because choosing that specific doctor means you are going down that route. And again, if that was your decision, then great. But if that happens by coincidence or by mistake, oh my God, so much wasted time. Okay, so the reason I'm looking at metabolic health is again because I went deep in the longevity groups and in the biohacking groups and the bodybuilding groups and something that kept coming back from what everybody was saying because I would bring up well how about Lyme how about mold toxicity they would always say the same thing they would say well the body is amazing the body is so complex and it's so capable. If you can allow your body to do its job, it will take care of those things. And that's why you could have mold in a house, and one person, like the one with autism, would completely be non-functional, and someone else might get some sniffles, but would be completely functional and totally fine. Why? It's adaptation and it's the body's ability to detox and to handle outside insults, right? Toxins. So when I dove deeper into how can I allow his body to do the job, because God knows I tried. It's too much. It's too complex again, not an exact science. On top of that, so there are many things that we don't even know. So I've been trying to do his body's job, but it would be great if he could do it on his own. So the very starting point for, by the way, anything, even weight loss. So if anybody asks a longevity group, a peptide group, a biohacking group. Well, how can I lose weight? Can I just take a GLP one? The answer will always be sure. Take a GLP, but it's going to be just a band aid. You first have to optimize your metabolism by optimizing your sex hormones, thyroid hormones, and your insulin resistance-three things, really three baseline things-but everything emerges from these three things. Everything: your metabolic rate, your hormones, your neurotransmitters, your lipids, which again, vicious cycle goes back to hormones also, and all of these things also control brain inflammation, right? So that's why even for Alzheimer's, right now we're looking for at a huge connection between Alzheimer's and menopause, and what happens in menopause, huge drop in hormones. There's a huge direct correlation that we're finding. Same thing with Alzheimer's and insulin resistance. We're calling Alzheimer's now type three diabetes. It doesn't look like a direct path, but that's only because there's like so many layers between this baseline and then the ensuing symptoms that we see as Alzheimer's, autism, diabetes, weight gain, right? So the first step I think should be even for children to look at these three things, measure them, watch them, find your patterns, and then and these are by the way, all very simple labs that you can get at LabCorp or Quest, and usually they're all covered by insurance. But we need to look at these things first, and then we need to try to fix them. We need to try to optimize these things, and I really believe that that's got to be the first step. And for me, with Jimmy, that is my first step with him.
Len Arcuri 24:00
Super. Well, no, I think it's a very novel way of looking at a particularly a very, very precise area of focus. And I'll just throw out two comments. One is that if you do the routine testing through Quest or LabCorp, you can get those values, and those values are reasonably accurate, as accurate as they can be. But the key is taking those values and not necessarily relying on the ranges that are provided by those testing companies, because the ranges of what's okay, what's optimal, what's not, those may be off. But the values themselves, you can really do something with that data, right? But it, but it may not just be looking at the ranges that they're saying are acceptable.
Nadia Elkhatib 24:44
Absolutely, because the quote-unquote normal ranges for LabCorp or Quest are based on not individuals are not really healthy. I think we should be shooting for our kids and for ourselves for optimal ranges. What numbers would make me optimal, healthy, strong, powerful, happy, great in my body? And that's going to be the same for me as it is for Jimmy. Not the same ranges, but I mean the same goal. And the goal is to be optimal, right? So, for example, as an example, again talking again about menopause because I'm 54, so obviously it's something that I'm working on, and that's been life changing for me when I worked on it. But if I look at sex hormones for women, the levels of testosterone are almost like optional. But guess what? Women have testosterone too, and men have estrogen, right? And so the normal ranges you will get in LabCorp or Quest are not what we should be looking at. That's when we bring in functional medicine, and functional medicine has been really, really good at documenting optimal ranges. So these are the ranges we need to be looking at for ourselves and for our kids, that is what we're shooting for: optimal ranges.
Len Arcuri 26:05
No, that's great. Thank you for clarifying that. And I guess the the second thing I wanted just to kind of elucidate a little bit more is this concept of root cause, and and the opportunity for a parent to make really good educated guesses on which root causes to focus on when, because the reality is you can't do 30 things at once well, and so if you if you can really discern what are the focus areas now for my child, there is a sequencing to this. You don't want to be focusing on some root cause unless the foundation's strong, and I think that's what's led you to say, well, the real first place to start is metabolism. And so, quickly, I'll throw out again. There's a lot of areas you can focus. You can focus on the buzzword these days, right? The last 510, years is about the microbiome. Focusing on the microbiome. Focusing on the gut. There's plenty of opportunity there for for many individuals. My son, his gut was a mess, and that was a key area of focus. So the microbiome, you can focus there, and if you have data that says that's worth focusing on, okay, that's worth listening to. But the micro, but the metabolism, what you're talking about, that's the metabolone. That's like an actual different level that you're focusing on. So which one's right or wrong? There is no such thing. It's really about can you get some data on your child to confirm that focusing on a particular root cause is is worth doing now? Because you could also focus on things like mitochondrial dysfunction, toxicity, as I mentioned before, but right now the key is getting that foundation in a really good place before you start focusing on more specific deficiencies, let's say, or toxicities. So, based on all the work that you're doing, you're really leaning towards the metabolome being the area of focus, and I had a guest on about a year and a half ago, Paniz Jasby, who actually has a test to to assess how healthy the metabolone is. And I know it's early in the development, but but you're saying even without an expensive test, perhaps just some baseline level markers can give you all you need.
Nadia Elkhatib 28:23
Absolutely, absolutely. And look, once you optimize this, then I think it's it's fine to go into more quote unquote aggressive treatments, right? And I think it's totally fine. But guess what? It's not it's not that easy to to optimize all of this. So even if I look back at Jimmy's labs from when he was a kid, right? So I have labs for him from when he was two years old onwards, and all those signals were right there. For example, his he was insulin resistant most of his life. He still is, and I'm working on it. But these are, by the way, also issues that can be worked on. There are solutions right now because it's not just autism specific; it's everybody specific. We're all insulin resistant, which is causing a lot of the the issues we're having. And the I would say while you're working on the metabolic stuff, I think there are a lot of other things you can do. Of course, you can start working on some of the other root causes, but here's one more that you could be doing, and that could be working on the environment of your kids. So even before working on gut dysbiosis, why not work on their diet, right? Why not work on making sure that your house is mold free, that you're not using plastics in cooking, you're not using seed oils. There's like so much that's in your control. So I would say the first step while you're working on the metabolic issues is also saying, well, what's in my control? You can't really control the school. Setting and what products they're using there, but you can control what's in the house. You can definitely do that. So yeah, I would say if you start there, and I would say also, frankly, I don't know with Jimmy if I had worked on his metabolic issues when he was little, we might not be having this conversation right now. I don't know. I just really believe that.
Len Arcuri 30:24
Yeah. No, I I can tell how sincere you are, and that's you know the the concern we have as parents always that we missed the boat, that we missed focusing on something that was really important, which is why you know really being very mindful and thoughtful about where you're focusing, again, it takes some effort. It takes putting yourself in that CEO position, but it it is so critical because you only have a certain amount of resources to expend, and and you again, I appreciate what you're saying. If you would have focused on metabolism earlier, how might that have played out? Sure, and I and I have the same concern with my son, where we focused on you know certain things, took our best guess, but there's some things I wish maybe we would have done earlier, and that and that's just part of the natural process here, which is why choosing what to focus on, focusing well, and then being able to pivot and course correct is so important.
Nadia Elkhatib 31:19
And that's why, frankly, I'm a little bit again. I'm going to use this word aggressive on on what I'm learning and what I'm discovering, and that's also, by the way, what took me to peptides and bio regulators, which I think in 10 years everybody's going to be using those. But the longevity world is not waiting, right? Talk about CEOs, though most of the tech billionaires are all on on these things. So that's going to be also huge for our kids because the peptides and bio regulators are really really gentle and they're more signals. It goes back to how hormones work too, and so I've been learning a lot about that too. So that's the other thing that I added as a layer with working on his metabolic stuff is also looking at what are the new, the new methodologies, the new things, all the neurotech. Right. I have a lot of neurotech here at home that I'm working on with him for first neurofeedback and building pathways, but also for retraining his nervous system, and then same thing with peptides. He's on a number of peptides. I'm on a number of peptides and bio regulators as well, and they've been really life changing. So there's there's going to be more. And now also I'm going to add a third layer real quick, and that's the geek in me talking. I think that AI is going to be amazing for our kids because with AI, a lot of this data is finally looked at at huge, huge scales, and I think that's going to be also another way of crowdsourcing solutions to what we've been looking for, so I'm very optimistic.
Len Arcuri 33:03
Agreed, agreed. I'm a data junkie. Also, the capabilities of AI to take that data, to take the data that you have from when Jimmy was two, and I have those binders as well with my son to piece things together. AI is phenomenal in terms of allowing us to to do that and to leverage what's happening with other people and kids. Ultimately, though, that CEO role can't be the role of AI, right? So that's where there's there's a way of using it and a way of really making sure that you're retaining, you know, that decision making because you as the CEO, it truly is not an exaggeration to say that that very well might be the most important element of of what you're doing to help your child thrive. You performing at your best to piece this together to figure out where to focus with your advisors, and how to course correct if something's not working, or how to stay the course and have more active patience to allow something to work. Your the way the parent navigates is so important, and so so I guess yeah that's where I'd ask you right now, Nadia. After so much time navigating this and learning and growing as you as you went along, what feels like the biggest challenge now for you in terms of piecing this together.
Nadia Elkhatib 34:24
Okay, my biggest obstacle, and again, you guys, Jimmy is 21, right? So it wasn't the case when he was younger, but he is extremely sensitive to everything, to everything. So I'll give you an example: B vitamins are a very important cofactor to almost all of our chemical reactions. So is magnesium. He's great with magnesium. I give him huge doses of magnesium and minerals. But B vitamins, I've tried even two drops, and it's three weeks of hell. Like really horrible anxiety, and he literally has to be at home for three weeks, and it's just a nightmare. So I am still hitting a lot of those obstacles, right? So because when I go again into those longevity worlds, most of them, yeah, would tell me, okay, make sure that he has enough of the B complexes, and I'm like, well, I I can't give him that, so I still have to navigate within Jimmy's specific restrictions. But I I do try to work around it, and I I'm still my goal would be to one day be able to give him all of these things. So I would say the biggest obstacles are that book behind you, right? The sensitive patient. He is a sensitive patient. His nervous system is completely dysregulated, and the nervous system. That's not going to be a pill or an injection or anything like that. It's going to be actual work, you know, like really breathing, meditation, neurofeedback, and all of that, and and teaching him how to control his nervous system. So that's been that's a big obstacle for him. I would say that's that's the biggest issue. And and of course, I mean, I think now I've solved it, but it it was really hard to be able to find the right practitioners that would be on board that would have enough, frankly, intellectual curiosity to tell me, you know, I don't know anything about peptides, but that's fascinating. Let me learn about it, or show me what you know about it, and let me go and research it some more. I do have a great team now, but it it took me a long time.
Len Arcuri 36:39
Great. Well, I appreciate you sharing that because, again, no matter where we are in this journey, just newly diagnosed or been at this two decades, like you and I, you know, there's always aspects of how we're navigating and things that feel hard or challenging or frustrating. So I appreciate you sharing some of that, and that's why I know when we we chatted a couple months ago, I had mentioned particularly about how I advise parents that a lot of it comes down to what you keep talking about measurement of where a parent is. And when I suggested that you take the initial assessment I use with with parents, you you were enthusiastically saying yes, which didn't surprise me, by the way, because you're a biohacker, you you want if there's friction, you want to know what it is so you can do something about it. So, so I know you took the initial assessment, and just for people listening, that's the starting point of the advisory work I do, and it's about 50 questions. It took me eight years to develop, but it really does give an indication of a parent and where they are in terms of like how equipped, how well are they are they navigating, and so none of us are running at 100% And so the key is to have precision as to what might be happening that's creating friction, that's making things perhaps harder than they need to be, because I think the way I look at it is, parents have so much power to influence what's happening with their child, but we can't control directly what's happening with our child. But we can influence it. But in terms of how are we showing up? We have 100% control over how we are showing up, so that you know the the superpower of curiosity as a parent is so important. Just like you said, that's a really key component of the right practitioner. They better be curious. They better be open. And so, in the spirit of that, Nadia, I know, took the assessment, and she's going to experience this advisory support. And you know I shared with her before we started what her total score was, where she is, and the way it works is that the score is from one to 100. There's no such thing as a bad score. It's about having clarity on where you are, and seeing more clearly where these opportunities may be to operate at an even higher level, and I know when I first received a diagnosis for my son, my score would have been abysmally low, and it's grown over 20 years, just like your score has grown over the last couple decades, Nadia. So, with your permission, can we talk about your high-level score and and what it might reveal?
Nadia Elkhatib 39:21
Please, I'm I'm an open book, and anything that could help me show up better, please. Oh my God, I absolutely welcome it.
Len Arcuri 39:30
Cool, yeah. So we'll go just high level, just to kind of give the listeners a sense of it. But let me just say, first of all, when my son was first diagnosed in those first two years, the last thing I would ever want to know is that I'm not navigating it as well as I could because you know you're just overwhelmed. You want to make great great decisions, so I wouldn't have been so open early on. And I appreciate parents who may not want to know, but but the really the reality is with clarity on how you're operating with the. Especially if it's quantified, it's amazing how quickly parents can go. If they happen to be overwhelmed and struggling, they can get to a great place of confidence and clarity quickly. And for dynamite seasoned parents like you operating at a high level, there is another level. You can continue to get stronger and stronger, and that's the exciting part of this. So, so yeah. So the score itself, I call it an all-in parent score, and and so basically with that, there's a total score, and it breaks into five categories. And you kind of touched on a lot of these. So the I have a tree analogy to explain this. So if you imagine yourself as a tree, there's five parts of the tree, and each of these categories corresponds to a certain part. So, so the mindset that someone has, which is everyone will nod saying yes, mindset super important. It's critical, and that's the trunk of the tree. That's your attitude. If you hear the tone, the the the when Nadia talks how she conveys things that is coming from a growth mindset perspective, and that mindset is absolutely key to have in place. And you're never done with it. You can always make that growth mindset bigger. But that but that's one category underneath the tree at the bottom, the roots of the tree; those are the beliefs we're holding, the stories we're telling ourselves, and that's below the surface. It's hidden from view. None of us are really walking around with great clarity of what beliefs we're holding. But I found that so much of the frustration, what feels heavy on this journey, is being generated from those beliefs. And the beautiful thing is, we can reprogram ourselves, and you'll appreciate that with your computer science background, right? Our programming, we are programmed, whether we want to recognize it or not. We have a belief system that's operating. So the key here is to reveal our stories, because once you do that, if there's a shift that you can make to something better. You can do that in a heartbeat. That's where a lot of what feels heavy can get immediately lifted if we really reprogram ourselves, which is not that difficult to do. But you need the data. You need to know what what the specific stories are that might be causing friction. When you talked about with Jimmy and what you're experiencing now with the B with the B12 and the B vitamins, right? So there may be something there that you can just kind of reveal that might make the situation feel less frustrating for you, right? So so it's opportunities like that that really kind of, especially if they accumulate, can create a lot of unnecessary friction. So that's just one example. But the beliefs and the stories that we tell ourselves are incredibly important. The third area is the environment. You've talked about that toxicity into home, whether it's in the air, food, water, toxic people. The environment is super important. That's the soil that surrounds the tree, and then the the branches of the tree. That's the knowledge we have and the actions we're taking. So that's where that comes in, and that's where most parents start. We just start doing a bunch of things, but doing the right things in the right order, particularly addressing root causes, is where that comes in, and then the final category is really the fruit of the tree, the vision that we have for our child, the vision we have for ourselves, channeling what where we want to go into goals that really kind of help us focus our efforts.
Len Arcuri 43:34
Goals sound like a business term, but goals are really important as you're you know taking action for your child, and and I loved what you said earlier when we talked about you touched on the idea of a vision. You don't have a vision for Jimmy that's okay. I hope he makes minor improvements. You have a big vision of what you're hoping for for him for yourself, and that goes back to biohacking, right? You're not going for better. You're going for optimal, and and that might seem unrealistic, but that shift really helps because it rules out a lot of paths that won't really get you there. So if you if you improve what you're aiming for, the the quality of what you do will go up.
Nadia Elkhatib 44:16
No, I absolutely love that because yes, I always say dream big, dream dream, and it's not being completely ridiculous in your thinking because if there's a path to this big dream, then it's feasible. That's it. That's what I always say. You have control over that. If a cell is dead, it's dead. But other than that, everything can be improved or changed. So no, I I love I love your analogy with the tree. It's amazing,
Len Arcuri 44:45
awesome. So yeah, so your tree is vibrant and strong. So in in this assessment, which is you know again, it's kind of like an ATEX score. It gives you a good quantified proxy. Is it a perfect score? No, but like so your total score based on your initial. Assessment coming in was an 80, so that's an 80 out of 100, which is a phenomenal score. I tend to think, while there's no bad score, it's all about a parent knowing where they are and can they increase that score? Because any amount of increasing the score vastly improves your ability to to be navigating confidently on the right things in the right order. Ultimately, this is how you help your child thrive. So your score of an 80 made perfect sense to me based on how long you've been at this and your curiosity. And so the only the the the point of having this is when you know your starting point and you know which of those five areas might be the biggest area of opportunity. That's how you can really go from wherever you are to a much more powerful place rapidly. So in your case, just looking at your sub scores, right, in those different areas, your your mindset was a 96, which is like a crazy high score, and again, you've you've cultivated that over years and years and years. The environment surrounding you know your your family, Jimmy, everyone that came in at an 83. Again, super high score. It just means there might be some opportunities to even more kind of curate even more healthful environment, the knowledge and actions that you have that that category that came in at a 78, which is a really strong score. And again, perhaps opportunities to tweak perhaps the strategy you have, because I think when we talked the other day, when I asked you what are your the main root causes you're focusing on, you said right. It came down to metabolism, and then you also mentioned about Dr. Neil Nathan and the concept of nervous system dysregulation. So you already have great clarity on focusing on those two root causes. Perhaps you can increase the number of actions you're doing to address those, or maybe there's a third root cause that might make sense to bring in, but that's where ultimately it's about having a plan you feel good about, and that means knowing what root causes you're focusing on, bring your all to it, and definitely not having 20 root causes that you're focusing on at once, because that's you know immediate recipe for overwhelm. And and again, there's just no way you can bring your your all to that many fronts.
Nadia Elkhatib 47:26
No, absolutely. I I think that's great, and you're saying this, and yeah, of course, ideas are popping in my brain. I I love that. I'm not surprised that that number was low, just because there's you're right. I mean, of course, the instinct would be there's 20 root causes. Be strong. Do all the 20. Like let's let's solve all of them. Let's just get this done. But yes, doing that would mean taking you know 10 steps forward and 20 back. So yes, I'm actually having to to hold back on that. And as far as the environment, you're right, and I'm sure you'll talk about the other piece of of self care. But for the environment, frankly, yes, absolutely. Again, talk about control, and and the environment doesn't have to be family members, and you cannot control how people help you or if they help you. But I guarantee you, every one of us can look around. Like I can look at Len. I know I can call you, and we can commiserate over something. And I know you will listen, and I know you will give me true, unbiased, friendly advice on on what you think I should do. Find find those people. I have those people, but yes, finding the time to actually socially hang out with them has been yeah sent to the back burner because it feels a little bit luxurious or you know a little bit selfish maybe so yeah absolutely
Len Arcuri 48:55
totally understood yeah so that environment piece who you surround yourself with and again that may mean just kind of spending less time with the people who may be in your family or in in your circle, and more time with people who who understand, who get it. So again, that that knowledge and actions and yours is a super strong strong scorer. And then the goals, the vision that came in at a 75, right? So that's in a really solid place. Maybe there's room upside there. It was really only the roots of the the tree, the beliefs where your your score came in at a 67. Does that mean you have lousy beliefs? No, but what the assessment told me is that, and and there's some very specific beliefs that were revealed in that assessment that are very likely candidates that they might be generating friction, and the beautiful thing is that with clarity of what those specific beliefs are, which we now have, it might just be about you shifting and telling yourself a slightly different story-not not 180 degree different story, not like a happy story, or you know. It's it's really about revealing what the story is, to see if you can tell yourself going forward a story that's actually more true, and that's where there's a huge unlock that comes. And again, there's no such thing as horrible beliefs, or I don't even believe in limiting beliefs. The only question is whether a belief you're holding is it supportive, is it serving you? Is it aligned to where you want to go? And is it aligned to the person you are now? That's the key question. And often, it doesn't take much for us to tell ourselves a better story. And even if we've held a belief for decades, we can literally change it and change our programming rapidly. And that's the exciting part of us.
Nadia Elkhatib 50:42
And you're right. Like I said, I'm an open book, and and I know why that number is so low. And I call this my visceral side or my animalistic side. And I try to work on it. And I know you have the methodology to chop this, but it takes a lot of my mind cycles, my energy cycle, my emotional cycle, and it's whenever I see Jimmy, I mean, it's almost impossible not to think. Oh my God, poor guy! It's so sad. His life is so tough. He doesn't have any chances in life. Life is hard as it is, but for someone with autism, you're already starting your life, you know, with none of those chances, and so that that's happening in the back of my mind all the time. Like I said, I'm very honest. I I know I shouldn't be thinking that, but I literally think it all the time. And then, of course there's the cousin of this thought that's following, and it's you know a little bit about what my dreams were for him, and you know I meet with other parents with typical kids who are complaining about getting into Stanford but not Harvard, and or you know finding it really sad that their kids are leaving the nest, that they're empty nesters, and I'm thinking, you know, yeah, it's it's just really, really sad. It's this parallel life that we're all leading that most people do not understand, and it's not their problem at all. But I think, as far as me, as the subject of your testing and coaching, I would say that's a very heavy weight that I carry all the time. I know my husband does too, and I know most most parents of kids with autism carry that as well. But yeah, it would be really nice to get rid of that because it takes a lot of my thinking cycles, and I need those for my strategy and my education.
Len Arcuri 52:44
Well, I I appreciate your openness, and again, I I just want to clarify, this is not about not having those emotions, and and and I love your honesty and what you're sharing now. So this is not about telling ourselves a happy story and negating reality. It's about just getting more tuned in to these specific stories we're telling ourselves, usually there are stories we're telling ourselves about our child. Sometimes, and more, more, more specifically for me personally, it was stories I was telling myself about myself. That ultimately, I'm the thing about our beliefs is we're always certain they're true, but the reality is, I was telling myself lots of stories that just were making everything so much harder. Which is why I feel so strongly that this process of revealing our stories is the key. It's not about changing these beliefs. You don't like, in other words, not you don't have to change any of your beliefs. But I'm, I'm just really grateful you're giving me the opportunity to help you reveal your beliefs because once you see them, you get to to decide what you want to continue to believe, and what maybe is now maybe you're ready for a reprogram, but it's not about forcing you to believe anything different. Again, it's just about revealing what's true for you now, and making sure that your operating system is running off of these beliefs that you feel are true, that you're excited about. And again, I know I've seen this time and time again with parents, and experienced it myself. The weight that we're feeling as parents who love our child and feel some heavy emotions sometimes. That weight we can lift that weight significantly by checking in on our programming. So that's why it's such a powerful and just it's it's a it's an opportunity I think that many parents miss. We'll have you back on in a couple months to be able to share maybe how things have shifted. But again, I really appreciate your openness.
Nadia Elkhatib 54:41
Yeah, let's do it. Oh my goodness, yes, please. I mean, I I think every parent would benefit from this, and I think that you're right. The reality is the reality. Our kids have autism, but that filter that we put on top of that reality, or the way we interpret it, and the the story itself. That we're in control of, so I'm excited to see what we're gonna do about me. Yep.
Len Arcuri 55:07
Well, you'll you'll get to decide. Everything's with your permission, and and I'm excited for what can unfold. And you mentioned Dave Asprey earlier on. I mean, when I left financial services to be able to serve parents in a certain way, and it's a little bit different than what I'm doing now. But I took Dave's, you know, bulletproof coaching program, which then became the Human Potential Institute. And I remember him saying to me, you know, he said it in front of like all the students there was the concept that as much as bulletproof coffee was like the big rage back then, and perhaps like the the biohack he's most familiar, most famous for, he says flat out that the greatest biohack you could do is personal advisory. Having a personal advisor, having a personal coach, which is why he created the bulletproof coaching program. So yeah, so when you think about biohacking and all these things you can do, having someone next to you who can help you see what you can't see, hold you accountable if that's needed. But again, just supporting you in your growth is such a powerful thing to have. You know, you think about golfers. You know, there's no professional golfer who doesn't have a caddy, somebody who's walking alongside them, like giving them information, helping them see what they can't see. If the if that golfer pulls out a five iron, then that caddy might be like, "Are you sure you might want to think about a seven iron? So the caddy doesn't make the decisions, but advises it more in real time, and that can be absolutely game changing because all the elite golfers or performers have advisors who do that work.
Nadia Elkhatib 56:48
I love that, and I definitely that's what I apply. I run everything by a lot of people, and you're right. Everybody will have a different opinion. You're the decision maker at the end of the day, but getting these ideas and brainstorming and and throwing ideas at other people, getting a different point of view, or maybe a more informed point of view, is is wonderful. You can control that again. That you can control. Do
Len Arcuri 57:16
it absolutely. Well, hey, if you if you listeners, if you like what you're hearing from Nadia, again, her her podcast is Dynamite Biohacking Autism, and I know which you've had some phenomenal guests. Anything you'd like to share with our listeners about your podcast, or even just if if you could bottom line the biohacking concept of something that they can really remember and keep in mind as they move forward, what would it be?
Nadia Elkhatib 57:41
Yeah. So what I would bottom line it is that there's one step that nobody can can escape, and it's going to be education. So that's what I I really want to do in my podcast is educate people on all kinds of things, and this way they can make better educated decisions. But the second thing that is absolutely essential, and that you're doing, Len, is that you cannot, cannot, cannot bypass the caregiver health, because you're not only the decision maker, but we're gonna need guys. We're gonna need your brain. We're gonna need your bodies to function properly. We're gonna need you to live longer and healthier. So that's why most of my episodes have a second track, which is caregiver health. So take care of yourself, feel better, and show up better.
Len Arcuri 58:28
No, I'm so glad you brought it back to that because it's the one thing that's so easy to discount. And I'm sure you, like myself, and and so many parents, right after you get that diagnosis, you're not self-caring anything, right? You're just 100% focused, but at some point you have to pull up and see. Okay, I can't totally disregard my health. That's not going to help anyone. And so I love in your episodes how you're you're always bringing it back to that. And I appreciate this dialog more than you know. And again, I really look forward to to walking alongside of you and continuing our dialog as we put our messages out there, and again, we'll have another episode in a couple months, and we can we can regroup.
Nadia Elkhatib 59:09
All right, can't wait. All
Len Arcuri 59:10
right, Nadia, thank you so much for your openness, your honesty, and and truly wishing the best for you and your entire family.
Nadia Elkhatib 59:16
Thank you, Len. You as well.
Len Arcuri 59:18
Your child needs you running on all cylinders now, and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one-on-one support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com
