277 Chronic Pain, Mobility and Healthy Aging: The Muscle-Longevity Connection with Stacey Roberts
Growing Older Living Younger: About longevity, wellness, healthspan,
Release Date: 07/20/2026
Growing Older Living Younger: About longevity, wellness, healthspan,
What happens when a medical tradition thousands of years old meets 21st-century wearable technology? In this solo episode of Growing Older Living Younger, Dr. Gillian Lockitch explores that question through her personal experience with the Watch2Care smartwatch, a wearable that tracks contemporary physiological data while presenting its findings through a Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) framework. As a Western-trained physician and medical biochemist, Dr. Gillian was intrigued—but also skeptical—when her watch displayed unfamiliar scores associated with the TCM concepts of...
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Welcome to Season 5 of Growing Older Living Younger, and a new way of exploring what it means to grow older while continuing to live younger. In this solo episode, Dr. Gillian Lockitch introduces a new themed format designed to move beyond individual topics and create a clearer pathway from information to action. Season 5 will explore healthy aging through three interconnected themes: Ageless Brain, Ageless Body and Ageless Living. Each series will look more deeply at one major dimension of healthy aging, bringing together different experts, perspectives and areas of science while asking...
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oes an increase in forgetfulness or increasing "senior moments" imply developing dementia? One of the greatest fears associated with growing older is losing memory, cognitive ability and ultimately independence. But dementia is not a single disease, and not every change in memory or thinking represents irreversible neurodegeneration. In this episode of Growing Older Living Younger, Dr. Gillian Lockitch welcomes Dr. Brad Montagne, a functional medicine practitioner, educator, author and host of the podcast Your Health Reclaimed. Brad begins by describing a personal...
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Is it possible to eat nourishing whole foods without letting grocery costs overwhelm your budget? Grocery industry insider and author Carol Ann Kates joins Dr. Gillian Lockitch to share practical ways to plan meals, shop sales, select produce, understand labels, and store food so less goes to waste. Their conversation offers useful ideas for smaller households as well as families. Rising prices and confusing product claims can make a healthy grocery trip feel expensive and complicated. A thoughtful plan can help you bring home only food you will enjoy and use. For people who want to stay...
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What if ingredients that can enrich a healthy lifestyle are already growing in your garden, waiting at the farmers’ market, or sitting in your spice cupboard? Too often, eating for longevity is framed as a list of restrictions, a mindset that can drain pleasure from food and make healthy choices feel difficult to sustain. or healthy longevity, nourishment must be practical enough for daily life and enjoyable enough to continue. Fresh ingredients, seasonal variety, herbs, plants, and mindful attention to what works for your own body can help make the kitchen a place of creativity...
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Could difficulty hearing conversations today affect your brain health, independence and quality of life in the years ahead? Hearing loss is often treated as a minor inconvenience of growing older, yet it can affect communication, relationships, social connection, confidence and independence. In this episode, Dr. Gillian Lockitch speaks with hearing-health advocate and author Robert “Bob” Keefer, MD, about the association between hearing loss and cognitive decline, why so many people delay seeking help for hearing deficits and what questions to ask before choosing a hearing-care provider....
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Health care professionals emphasize optimizing cholesterol, blood sugar and hormone levels and from that assessing biological age. These measurements can provide useful information, but do they tell us whether the body is still resilient, adaptable and capable of recovering from illness, injury or stress? In this episode, Dr. Gillian Lockitch and Dr. Sean Fletch explore the difference between moving a laboratory number into the desired range, and addressing the upstream conditions that caused it to change. Dr. Fletch reframes healthspan as more than the number of years lived...
info_outlineGrowing Older Living Younger: About longevity, wellness, healthspan,
What does a physician-scientist actually do each day to support her own healthy aging? This is a question Dr. Gillian Lockitch hears often. Her answer is not a prescription, a shopping list or a collection of fashionable biohacks. Healthy longevity is personal: our genetics, health histories, medications, priorities and goals differ, so the most useful routine is one designed for the individual. In this solo episode, Dr. Gillian organizes her approach around the seven pillars of healthy longevity described in her book, Growing Older, Living Younger. She explains how epigenetics offers a more...
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Could retirement actually become the beginning of your most meaningful work? In this personal solo episode, Dr. Gillian Lockitch shares how spinal surgery, ballroom dancing, entrepreneurship and podcasting transformed her understanding of healthy longevity. You’ll discover why curiosity, consistency and a renewed sense of purpose can help you remain mentally sharp, physically engaged and excited about the future at any age. For most of her professional life, Dr. Gillian Lockitch was a physician, medical biochemist, researcher, university professor and department head. She expected...
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What helps people stay active, strong, and independent as they age—luck, genetics, or habits built years earlier? In this episode of Growing Older Living Younger, Dr. Gillian Lockitch speaks with Carl Daikeler, co-founder and CEO of BODi, about why healthy longevity is rooted in consistency: regular movement, supportive nutrition, and the discipline to care for your body before a health crisis forces the issue. Carl shares his personal story of discovering a congenital heart block at age 59, receiving a pacemaker, and using that experience to deepen his commitment to healthspan...
info_outlineIs chronic pain really an inevitable part of aging—or could it be a warning sign that deeper imbalances are affecting your healthspan, mobility, and quality of life? In this episode of Growing Older Living Younger, Dr. Gillian Lockitch speaks with physical therapist, registered nurse, educator, and functional wellness expert,Stacey Roberts, about the root causes of chronic pain and why conventional treatments often focus on symptom relief instead of true healing. Stacey explains how chronic inflammation, food sensitivities, hormone imbalance, gut health issues, biomechanics, and lifestyle factors can all contribute to persistent pain and reduced function. Listeners will learn how a personalized, root-cause approach may help reduce pain naturally, restore mobility, improve resilience, and support healthy aging and longevity.
Stacey Roberts is the Founder of New You Health and Wellness and creator of The Pain-Free Formula. She is a licensed Physical Therapist, Registered Nurse, educator, and functional wellness practitioner with more than 30 years of clinical experience. Her work spans orthopaedics, sports medicine, chronic pain, pelvic health, women’s health, and functional wellness. Stacey specializes in uncovering the root causes of chronic pain through an integrative approach that includes biomechanics, nutrition, hormone balance, gut health, and lifestyle medicine. Her current mission is to help people reduce inflammation, improve mobility, and reclaim quality of life without relying solely on medications, injections, or surgery. She is also the host of The Pain-Free Formula Podcast and the author of multiple books on women’s health and hormones.
Episode Timeline
00:00 – Welcome and introduction
03:54 – Stacey’s journey from physical therapy to functional medicine
05:00 – Discovering the connection between gluten sensitivity and chronic pain
10:27 – Why pain is a protective signal rather than the enemy
15:07 – Muscle cramps, nutrient deficiencies, hormones, and gut health
17:52 – Optimizing versus personalizing nutrition for pain relief
18:44 – Food sensitivity testing and unexpected inflammatory triggers
23:03 – The story behind The Pain-Free Formula
26:11 – Hidden risks of long-term NSAID and pain medication use
27:10 – The gut-joint connection and holistic pain management
30:46 – First steps for people who feel they have tried everything
32:57 – Key takeaways for reclaiming health, mobility, and independence
Connect with Stacey Roberts
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacey-roberts-pt-rn-mba-msn-6a26997
https://www.youtube.com/@newyouhealthandwellness2178
The Pain-Free Formula (Book)
The Pain-Free Formula Podcast
Connect with Your Host, Dr. Gillian Lockitch
Email: [email protected]
Email me for complimentary iintroduction to Growing Older Living Younger
website: https://www.askdrgill.com/