#315 - Can We Treat Disease Through the Nervous System? | Dr. Kevin Tracey & Mike Haney

<p>Most of NextLevel starts with a measurement problem: we can see more biology than ever, but we still have to figure out what to do with it. Bioelectronic medicine flips that sequence. We already know how to send electrical signals into the nervous system to change biology, including an FDA-approved vagus nerve treatment for rheumatoid arthritis, even though we still can’t map or read most of the individual nerve fibers carrying those signals.</p><p><br></p><p>Mike Haney talks with Dr. Kevin Tracey, a pioneer of neuroimmunology and bioelectronic medicine, about what becomes possible when nerves become a therapeutic target. The opportunity is not simply vagus nerve stimulation, but learning which signals control specific organs, then building systems that can read and write them. That is still some distance away, and Tracey separates it from looser claims about vagal tone and vagus nerve hacks.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>Free course: Improve your metabolic health</strong></p><p>Get our free email course on how glucose, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and measurement can help you build habits that support better energy and long-term health: <a href="https://www.levels.com/partner/multimedia?utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=link&utm_content=nextlevel&partner=Tracey" target="_blank" rel="ugc noopener noreferrer">https://levels.link/wnl</a></p><p><br></p><p><strong>What We Cover:</strong></p><ul><li>Why the vagus nerve is not one wire</li><li>How one minute a day became an FDA-approved rheumatoid arthritis treatment</li><li>Why a nerve target can be more precise than a drug</li><li>Why mapping the vagus fiber by fiber is only beginning</li><li>Why CRP and cytokines are not a true inflammation readout</li><li>What HRV, breathing, humming, and cold plunges can and cannot show</li></ul><p><br></p><p><strong>🎙️ About the Guest:</strong></p><p>Dr. Kevin Tracey is a neurosurgeon, scientist, and President and CEO of the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research. His work helped establish how the vagus nerve regulates inflammation and helped launch bioelectronic medicine. He is also co-founder of SetPoint Medical and author of The Great Nerve.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>📍What Dr. Kevin Tracey &amp; Mike Haney discussed:</strong></p><ul><li>00:00 - A nerve can treat one organ. A pill cannot</li><li>04:43 - The vagus nerve is 160,000 fibers, not one wire</li><li>07:53 - Why the first fiber-by-fiber map of the human vagus is only months old</li><li>10:29 - FDA-approved vagus ner