Meet the Levels Advisors
The Levels Advisors include key thought leaders, clinicians, and researchers in metabolic health.
Ben Bikman, PhD
Benjamin Bikman, PhD, is the author of Why We Get Sick, which makes the case for insulin resistance and metabolic dysfunction as the underlying cause of many of our modern health problems. He earned his Ph.D. in Bioenergetics and was a postdoctoral fellow with the Duke-National University of Singapore in metabolic disorders.
Currently, his professional focus as a scientist and associate professor (Brigham Young University) is to better understand the role of elevated insulin in regulating obesity and diabetes, including the relevance of ketones in mitochondrial function.
Dom D'Agostino, PhD
Dominic D'Agostino, PhD, is a tenured Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology and Physiology at the University of South Florida Morsani College of Medicine. He runs the website Keto Nutrition and has been on more than 200 podcasts talking about metabolic health.
He is also a Research Scientist at the Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC). His laboratory develops and tests metabolic-based strategies for targeting CNS oxygen toxicity (seizures), epilepsy, neurodegenerative diseases, brain cancer, and metastatic cancer.
The main focus of his lab over the last 12 years has been investigating the anticonvulsant and neuroprotective mechanism of the ketogenic diet and ketone metabolite supplementation. This approach can be used to treat a wide variety of pathologies linked pathophysiologically to metabolic dysregulation. Other areas of interest include researching metabolic-based drugs for cancer.
He was a research investigator and crew member on NASA's Extreme Environment Mission Operation (NEEMO 22) and has a personal interest in environmental medicine and methods to enhance safety and physiological resilience in extreme environments. His research is supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR), Department of Defense (DoD), private organizations, and foundations.
Sara Szal Gottfried, MD
Dr. Sara Szal Gottfried is a physician-scientist who graduated from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed residency at the University of California at San Francisco. Over the past two decades, Dr. Gottfried has seen more than 25,000 patients and specializes in identifying the underlying cause of her patients' conditions to achieve true and lasting health transformations, not just symptom management. She is more likely to assess a patient's multi-omic profile together with next-generation biomarkers and then prescribe a personalized protocol, using primarily nutrition and lifestyle (occasionally drugs) plus other proven interventions to optimize the gene/environment interface. Her focus is executive health and elite athlete care. For nearly every patient, she designs an N-of-1 trial to provide rapid information on whether the personalized plan will improve outcomes. It's not one method fits all. It's not disease-centered. It's a mission to transform healthcare, one patient at a time.
Dr. Gottfried is a global keynote speaker who practices evidence-based integrative, precision, and functional medicine. She is Clinical Assistant Professor in the Dept. of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences at Sidney Kimmel Medical College, Thomas Jefferson University, and Director of Precision Medicine at the Marcus Institute of Integrative Health. Dr. Gottfried's research focus is metabolic phenotyping. Her three New York Times bestselling books include The Hormone Cure, The Hormone Reset Diet, and Younger, and her new book, Women, Food and Hormones, is now available for preorder. Learn more here.
Robert Lustig, MD
Dr. Robert Lustig is Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics, Division of Endocrinology and Member of the Institute for Health Policy Studies at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He specializes in the field of neuroendocrinology, with an emphasis on the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. His research and clinical practice have focused on childhood obesity and diabetes. Dr. Lustig holds a Bachelor's in Science from MIT, a Doctorate in Medicine from Cornell University Medical College, and a Master's of Studies in Law from U.C. Hastings College of the Law.
Dr. Lustig has fostered a global discussion of metabolic health and nutrition, exposing and debunking some of the leading myths that underlie the current pandemic of diet-related disease. He believes the food industry, by pushing processed food loaded with sugar and devoid of fiber, has hacked our minds to pursue pleasure instead of happiness fostering today's epidemics of addiction and depression, and hacked our bodies to generate insulin resistance to foster our current diabetes pandemic. Yet by focusing on real food, we can beat the odds against sugar, processed food, obesity, and disease.
Casey Means, MD
Dr. Casey Means is a Stanford-trained physician and co-founder of Levels. Her mission is to maximize human potential and reverse the epidemic of preventable chronic disease by empowering individuals with tech-enabled tools that can inform smart, personalized, and sustainable dietary and lifestyle choices. Dr. Means's perspective has been recently featured in the New York Times, Men's Health, Forbes, Business Insider, Techcrunch, Entrepreneur Magazine, The Hill, Metabolism, Endocrine Today, and more. She has held research positions at the NIH, Stanford School of Medicine, and NYU. She is also the author of #1 New York Times best-seller "Good Energy: The Surprising Connection between Metabolism and Limitless Health."
David Perlmutter, MD
Dr. David Perlmutter is a Board-Certified Neurologist and five-time New York Times bestselling author. He serves on the Board of Directors and is a Fellow of the American College of Nutrition. He writes and speaks extensively about the impact of metabolic dysfunction on brain health and overall health.
Dr. Perlmutter received his M.D. degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine where he was awarded the Leonard G. Rowntree Research Award. He serves as a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease and has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals including Archives of Neurology, Neurosurgery, and The Journal of Applied Nutrition. In addition, he is a frequent lecturer at symposia sponsored by institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, Columbia University, Scripps Institute, New York University, and Harvard University and serves as an Associate Professor at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.
Dr. Perlmutter's books have been published in 32 languages and include the #1 New York Times bestseller Grain Brain, The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar, with over 1 million copies in print. Other New York Times bestsellers include Brain Maker, The Grain Brain Cookbook, The Grain Brain Whole Life _Plan, and Brain Wash, co-written with Austin Perlmutter, M.D. He is the editor of The Microbiome and the Brain, authored by top experts in the field and published in December 2019 by CRC Press.
Terry Wahls, MD
Dr. Terry Wahls is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Iowa where she conducts clinical trials. She is also a patient with secondary progressive multiple sclerosis, which had her using a tilt-recline wheelchair for four years. Dr. Wahls reversed the progression of her MS using a diet and lifestyle she designed specifically for her brain. She now pedals her bike to work each day.
She is the author of The Wahls Protocol: A Radical New Way to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions Using Paleo Principles, and the cookbook, The Wahls Protocol Cooking for Life: The Revolutionary Modern Paleo Plan to Treat All Chronic Autoimmune Conditions.
Dr. Wahls conducts clinical trials that test the effect of nutrition and lifestyle interventions to treat MS and other progressive health problems. She also teaches the public and medical community about the healing power of the Paleo diet and therapeutic lifestyle changes that restore health and vitality to our citizens. She hosts a Wahls Protocol Seminar every August, where anyone can learn how to implement the Wahls Protocol with ease and success.
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