Dr. Sanjay Gupta

Faster than dementia, faster than diabetes, faster than cancer.

I mean, the numbers again are mind boggling.

So my point being that this is growing.

So for a lot of people, hopefully they never have chronic pain, but the likelihood of that happening is certainly increasing.

But I think, you know, Mel, the thing about pain is that it's really reflective, I think, of the entire integrated system that is our body.

You know, you think of, I hurt my toe or I hurt my finger.

But the idea that, you know, everything in your body, the finger and the toe certainly, but the tendons, the nociceptors, which are pain receptors.

the firing mechanisms that go to your spinal cord, up to your brain, how your brain consciously sort of processes that experience.

It's all fully integrated.

So if it's not working well, you're likely to hurt more.

And so you think, I smashed my finger with a hammer.

Your experience...

on Tuesday having done that could be totally different than the same exact thing on Wednesday based on whether you got a good night's sleep, whether you had a tough call with your mom, what the weather's like outside, what your past history with pain is, if you have a history of depression or anxiety.

My point being that pain is perhaps the most integrated sensation that we have as humans.

And that's

wondrous for a neuroscientist like me, but it's also very mysterious.

And so it presents opportunities and it presents challenges.

Yeah, I think the evidence is very clear now that if you're not optimized

in your own life, your pain is going to be worse for the exact same injury.

Or if a patient comes into the emergency room, they have the exact same looking x-ray, two patients.