How Doctors Think explores health, performance, and longevity through clear, evidence-based conversations with clinicians, researchers, and other domain experts.
Hosted by Dmitry Sokolov, MD, the podcast examines how physiology, habits, and judgement shape real-world outcomes — especially in high-stakes areas such as productivity, surgery, recovery, metabolic health, and long-term performance.
It also explores uncertainty and the real-life problems faced by highly successful professionals in a rapidly changing world, shaped by accelerating AI and wider social and economic instability.
Average life expectancy in the UK has risen from roughly 50 years to over 80 in the last century. That is not a small thing. But the average person will spend their final 8 to 12 years living with significant functional limitation – unable to get off the floor unassisted, unable to carry their own shopping, unable to walk at a pace that would let them cross a road in the time the light gives them. Medicine has become extraordinarily good at keeping people alive. It has not yet become equivale...
17 Apr 2026
GLP-1 and GIP Agonists: The Panacea or The Curse
These drugs work. That needs to be said first, because what follows is going to be nuanced, and nuance is easily mistaken for scepticism. Semaglutide and tirzepatide produce weight loss at a scale no behavioural intervention has ever matched in clinical trials – 15 to 22 percent mean body weight reduction over 68 to 72 weeks. What is in dispute, and almost never discussed honestly, is what that weight loss is actually made of and what happens when you stop. In the STEP 1 body-composition subs...
17 Apr 2026
You Can Only Buy The Beginning
There is a pattern I see in patients who have just committed to changing their health. They arrive at the first consultation having already bought the coaching package, the wearable, the twelve-week programme. And they are relieved. That relief is the part worth paying attention to. The moment someone commits financially to a health intervention, the nervous system behaves as though the problem is already partly solved. Dopamine does not distinguish between actual progress and the anticipatio...
17 Apr 2026
Your Coffee Stopped Working Years Ago
Your morning coffee stopped working years ago. You adjusted so gradually that you never noticed the moment it stopped giving you something and started preventing you from losing something. That distinction – between a substance that enhances performance and one that prevents withdrawal – is one most professionals never examine. Caffeine's primary action is adenosine receptor antagonism. Adenosine accumulates during waking hours and produces the sensation of sleep pressure. Caffeine blocks the...
15 Mar 2026
Cancer Screening: What It Actually Catches – and What It Misses
Around 70% of cancer deaths come from cancers with no routine screening programme. The NHS-Galleri trial - 142,000 participants, the largest randomised trial of multi-cancer early detection ever conducted - recently reported its results. The headlines said it failed. This video walks through the screening architecture we already have, the technology behind multi-cancer blood testing, what the trial actually found, and why the honest clinical position is more nuanced than any headline can acc...
10 Mar 2026
Physician's Perspective: AI Doesn't Think. But do we?
A practising physician reflects on what a conversation with a language model revealed about the nature of professional expertise — and what remains when pattern recognition is no longer uniquely human.
1 Mar 2026
Why Success Suddenly Stops Feeling Meaningful
Many adults expect life to become psychologically stable after success. Yet a recurring experience appears in high-functioning professionals: achievement occurs, but meaning does not follow. The result is not classic burnout, depression, or anxiety, but a loss of perceived direction. In this video I discuss a pattern I repeatedly observe — success without trajectory — and why reaching long-pursued goals can unexpectedly destabilize motivation and identity. This is not a discussion of diagnosi...
22 Feb 2026
Why Your Doctor Says You’re Fine — But You Don’t Feel Fine
Many adults notice a subtle change in midlife: energy, recovery, and focus shift, yet medical tests remain normal. In this essay I explain why a competent physician may say “everything looks fine,” and why that statement can be technically correct while still leaving a person uncertain. The issue is not lack of care, but a difference between what diagnostic medicine is designed to answer and what people are actually trying to understand. This podcast discusses general patterns in medical reas...
1 Feb 2026
Minimize Surgery Downtime: Prehab | Rebecca Knackstedt, MD PhD
In Episode 1 of the Sokolov MD Podcast, plastic and reconstructive surgeon Rebecca Knackstedt, MD PhD, explains how prehabilitation improves surgical outcomes. We discuss protein dosing, immunonutrition, GLP-1 agonists, exercise, microbiome health, stress, and practical perioperative protocols to optimize recovery before surgery. 0:00:00 Intro 0:02:46 How Rebecca Developed Her Perioperative Care Framework. Clinical experience, evidence, and real-world patient management 0:05:06 What Is Preha...
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