Dr. Carlon M. Colker (June 21, 1965) M. D., FACN (born June 21, 1965) is an American physician, celebrity doctor, author, reality TV star, public speaker, health and wellness industry consultant, and controversial media figure best known for establishing and popularizing the culture of optimal wellness. He is the Chief Executive Officer and Medical Director of Peak Wellness, Inc., with centers in Greenwich, Connecticut and Beverly Hills, California. His practice specialties include internal medicine, sports medicine, and nutrition. He is an attending physician at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, and Greenwich Hospital, in Connecticut.
Born to parents of Russian Jewish and Lithuanian descent. His parents were artists. As a winner of the Guggenheim Fellowship, his father Edward Colker was a graduate of NYU, a noted lithographer, and maker of rare hand-bound books. His mother, Elaine Galen, was an ivy league graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and herself a noted abstract painter. As a child, Carlon Colker grew up around the diversity of his parent’s art world while being exposed to their penchant for healthy living, organic foods, and vitamin supplements. His family travelled considerably during his upbringing, which afforded him considerable multicultural exposure.
He competed in a number of sports and was a junior league boxer up until his 16th birthday when he sustained a double epigastric hernia during a fight. The injury necessitated surgical repair and put him on the rehabilitative track of structured exercise and weight lifting. This experience led him to competitive bodybuilding where he participated in a number of competitions including the NPO Mr. Apollo, NPC Mr. Long Island, NPC Mr. Metropolitan and East Coast Regional Bodybuilding Championships. After decades in the sport, his well published writings, coaching, and philosophies went on to help many professional bodybuilders, including 8-time Mr. Olympia Ronnie Coleman and 6-time Mr. Olympia Dorian Yates, who openly acknowledge Colker’s influence. With his interest in weightlifting grew an equal passion for mixed martial arts (MMA) in which, to this day, he continues to perform. In fact, as a fitness expert and Shamrock Certfied MMA Instructor, Carlon Colker is known for having trained, treated, and/or advised many of the greatest UFC champions including "Rampage" Quinton Jackson, Georges St-Pierre, Mark Coleman, "The Natural" Randy Couture, Ken Shamrock and Frank Shamrock.
In tandem with his physical pursuits, he enrolled in the pre-medical track at Manhattanville College in Purchase, New York. He attended on a partial academic scholarship taking a full load of classes while also working full-time as a personal trainer, along with other various jobs. In the late 1980s utilizing a corporate subsidy in the form of a grant from the Nestle Corporation, he helped design and build the first wellness program on the east coast called Healthworks . Along with a partner, in January 1993 he established Peak Physique, Inc., a personal training institute in Greenwich, CT. There he designed and established a corporate wellness program sponsored by Poland Spring Corporation. He graduated early from the baccalaureate pre-med track at Manhattanville with three areas of study including biology, philosophy, and English writing. Thereafter he entered medical school at Sackler School of Medicine where he functioned as class president and received his medical degree in May 1993 earning honors in medicine, surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology. In June 1996 he completed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in Manhattan.
His first job as a physician out of residency in August 1996 was on Park Avenue at Park Avenue Medical and Nutrition. Thereafter in September 1996 was employed at Affiliated Physicians in the North Tower of the World Trade Center. In January 1996 he established Peak Wellness, Inc. in order to provide truly integrative medical services that went beyond just traditional medical care and also included diet and nutrition guidance, physical therapy and injury rehabilitation, exercise testing and physical performance optimizing, as well as preventive medicine and anti-aging. In 1997 while building his practice, he functioned as a medical intensive care unit attending physician, emergency room attending physician, and hospitalist at St. Joseph’s Medical Center in Stamford, CT. He also worked as an internal medicine intensive care unit physician and outpatient clinic teaching attending at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, CT. Currently he maintains staff privileges as a physician at both Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, CT and Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City. In tandem with his considerable work as a clinician was his pivotal work as a clinical researcher for some of the largest dietary supplement companies in the world.
With more than 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications he is often credited with having single-handedly legitimized some of the biggest products in the dietary supplement industry which, prior to his important work, were nearly bereft of substantive scientific support; This fact has made him one of the most oft cited commercially referenced researchers in the world.
He has been a staunch proponent that if you get to your body early enough, everything you need to heal yourself can be found in nature. Though he freely admits that his own extensive utilization of pharmaceutical drugs in his years of inpatient and emergency room medicine has undeniably saved lives, he believes that most all outpatient drugs are designed and targeted to only maintain a person with their disease and not truly cure them. Beyond his theory that we can take control of our health by living right and fortifying our bodies with specific naturally occurring nutrients, he believes that naturally occurring substances are what really cure disease. At his philosophical extreme, he believes that since most every disease is by itself “naturally occurring”, so must be the cure even if it lay as yet undiscovered before us.
Perhaps his most controversial tenet is his belief that our access to natural elements in the form of dietary supplements is the single most precious tool we have as free people to access nature and thus determine our own health, find our own cures, and prevent illness and disease from killing us. With this controversial view, coupled with his equally controversial research, he has not been without a firestorm of challengers and detractors. In July 2003 he was invited to testify in front of the United States Congress for his role as key researcher of some of the dietary supplement industries most successful ephedra-containing products . In addition to presenting his clinical research and opinions in support of the findings of forensic expert Michael Baden, M.D., he challenged the notion that MLB pitcher Steve Bechler’s tragic heatstroke death was a result of taking ephedra. While this position earned him positive recognition in Michael Fillon’s book Ephedra Fact or Fiction and Mike Ellis’ book The Metabolife Story, it also drew the ire of personal injury attorneys. These attorneys in conjunction with their media connections presented criticisms of his claims. Despite his usual actions in a study for Cytodyne Inc. on their product Xenadrine RFA-1, with the resultant findings being previously upheld as competent and reliable in a Utah federal court by Judge Dale Kimbel, in 2004 the tide turned. Judge Ronald Styn in San Diego came to a different conclusion. In his decision he specifically attacked the researcher’s credibility including Colker in the text of his decision. The result was an awarding of $12.5 million to the plaintiffs. The decision was successfully challenged and eventually completely vacated on appeal. But Styn’s allegations fuelled legal problems for Colker. Because of this bad press and his research on products for other companies like Muscletech, Inc., he was named in a subsequent 11 lawsuits including major cases in West Virginia, Illinois, and Missouri. Personal injury attorneys alleged that he falsified data and hid side-effects. After numerous depositions, including one in a Missouri case that lasted for two days, along with over 30,000 pages of documents produced, the plaintiffs withdrew their allegations. He was exonerated as the personal injury attorneys dropped him from every suit. To date, not a single case has ever been adjudicated against him.
Carlon Colker is a consultant in health and fitness and has worked with governments, large health systems, and private companies. He is also credited with training and motivating some of the biggest names in sports including dozens of world champion elite professional and Olympic athletes and celebrities. Colker is also a long time columnist and contributing editor for Muscular Development, and has appeared repeatedly in such health magazines as Muscle & Fitness, Ironman, Mind & Power, Body, Runner’s World, Walking, Let’s Live, Self Magazine, Strive, Men’s Health, Men’s Fitness, and Cosmopolitan. has authored over 160 popular press articles and columns and has published a number of books on wellness matters. As a familiar person in the field of medicine, nutrition, and fitness, he has been a regular guest medical correspondent on Fox News Channel’s Fox & Friends. Offering his expert opinion and advice, he has appeared on such shows as ESPN Outside the Lines, NBC’s Health Segment, Court TV, Bloomberg, Good Morning America, and ABC’s World News Tonight. He has also been interviewed on national television over a variety of topics from the serious to the not-so-serious by everyone from Barbara Walters and Katie Couric to Jenny Jones, Montel Williams, and Roseanne Barr. As Shaquille O’Neal’s physician and trainer, he currently battles childhood obesity on ABC’s Shaq's Big Challenge.
Quotations
"We're not just helping kids lose weight ... we're saving lives." ... Dr. Carlon Colker
"This isn't about competing with anybody else ... it's about competing with yourself." ... Dr. Carlon Colker
Similarly, teamed up with supermodel Christie Brinkley, Colker is spearheading the charge for Microsoft and Xbox 360 to get kids and families active and healthy.
American Medical Associations Physician Recognition Award — Awarded March 1, 2004.American Medical Associations Physician Recognition Award — Awarded March 1, 2001.American Medical Associations Physician Recognition Award — Awarded April 1, 1998.Appointment to Committee on Quality Improvement overseeing Beth Israel Medical Center (North and South Divisions), St. Luke’s Hospital, Roosevelt Hospital, and Kings Highway Medical Center...February 1999.Election: Fellow, American College of Nutrition...May 2001Certified: Advanced Cardiac Life Support, American Heart AssociationCertified: Advanced Trauma Life Support, American College of SurgeonsCertified: Basic Life Support, American Heart AssociationCertified Team Physician, American College of Sports MedicineCertified: First Aid, American Heart AssociationCertified: Volunteer Army Medic Assistant, IDF, Chemical Warfare Division, Gulf War, Tel-Aviv, Israel
