Ep 504: Why Inflammation and Oxidative Stress Are Better Measures of Cardiovascular Health Than Cholesterol – With Dr. Jack Wolfson

Curious about your heart health? In this episode, we hear from Dr. Jack Wolfson, a board-certified cardiologist and founder of Natural Heart Doctor. After years as a conventional cardiologist, Dr. Wolfson transitioned to functional medicine and now focuses on holistic, “root cause” cardiovascular care. He shares valuable insights on heart health, the importance of understanding cholesterol, inflammation, and the unique challenges women face in cardiovascular disease.

Guest Bio: Dr. Jack Wolfson, D.O., F.A.C.C., is recognized as one of the Top 50 Functional Medicine Doctors and a Phoenix Top Doc. Trained as a conventional cardiologist, Dr. Wolfson practiced for 16 years before embracing functional medicine, inspired by his wife, Heather Reed, D.C., a chiropractor. He has authored best-selling books and appeared on major media outlets like Fox News, CNN, and The Washington Examiner. He opened Natural Heart Doctor in 2012 to offer holistic cardiovascular care and promote a lifestyle for a healthy heart and brain that can last 100 years.

Resources Mentioned:

• Visit NaturalHeartDoctor.com to learn more about holistic heart care and lifestyle strategies.

---

This episode is a must-listen for anyone wanting to explore functional approaches to heart health and learn practical steps for improving cardiovascular wellness.

Our Partners

Podcast Transcript

1:42 – Dr. Wolfson’s backstory

4:54 – Broken Heart Syndrome / Takotsubo cardiomyopathy / SCAD

8:42 – What has caused the SCAD increase?

10:44 – Difference in experience between naturopathic and mainstream medical treatment of patient with SCAD

12:23 – Things  you can look for to monitor you cardiovascular health

15:15 – Where is the line between “I don’t feel right” and when you should go to the ER?

16:58 – Conventional medicine patient experience

19:52 – Cholesterol and statin drugs

24:01 – High calcium patients

26:41 – Energy medicine

29:50 – Classic medical doctor training summary

30:30 – Reducing inflammation

34:08 – 4S strategy

35:05 – Where to find Dr. Wolfson

---

[Preview] JACK: You said question everything.

And that is not only for us as physicians

to ask questions, but for the individual

who’s listening to this,

question everything going on around us.

JACK: Some pharmaceuticals for cardiac issues,

whether it’s high blood pressure,

cholesterol, porn, or a disease, AFib,

you’re not gonna live long.

You’re just, you’re not gonna make it.

[Intro] Welcome to the Health Fix podcast

where health junkies get their weekly fix of tips,

tools, and techniques to have limitless energy,

sharp minds and fit physiques for life.

Hey, health junkies.

On this episode of the health fix podcast, I’m interviewing Dr.

Jack Wolfson.

He is a conventionally trained cardiologist and he practiced for 16 years

in the conventional medicine realm till he turned over to becoming a functional

medicine doctor and has been for the last 12 years.

He’s actually one of the top 50 functional medicine docs in the US.

And he has a lot to say about the practice of cardiology.

And he’s all about educating on the 100 year heart,

and brain, and the lifestyle it takes to get there.

So let’s introduce you to Dr. Jack Wolfson.

JANNINE: Dr. Jack Wolfson, welcome to The Health Fix podcast.

DR. WOLFSON: Thank you so much, Dr. Jannine.

It’s a pleasure to be on.

I’ve been a fan of yours and I know for years

and I know that we’ve exchanged patients over the years

and continue to support each other.

just love the stuff that you’re doing,

love the naturopathic community.

We employ a couple of naturopathic docs

at natural heart doctor.

And again, you would get a school down in Arizona.

And I bet you mentor students for years and years

and years from that school.

So it’s an honor to be on.

Thank you.

JANNINE: Well, my pleasure.

And definitely so many questions, so many things.

But first and foremost with all of my podcasts,

I always ask, why color theology?

What drew you to it?

What let you up about it?

What, what, what is it?

DR. WOLFSON: Well, you know, my father was a cardiologist.

And so I like to say that I was born into the cardiology world

or the medical matrix, if you will.

So I’m in my mother’s womb and I’m listening

to conversations about cardiology stuff, right?

You know, with blood pressure,

valvular heart disease, heart attacks, strokes.

So really from a young age, that’s the stuff that I heard.

And of course I just, my father was my hero.

I wanted to be just like my father

and that’s exactly what I did.

So after four years of undergrad,

I went through 10 years of medical training,

eventually to wind up as a cardiologist,

a board certified cardiologist,

moved out to Arizona from Chicago in 2002

to join the biggest cardiology group in the state.

And I would stay there for 10 years.

But as my career was taking off in 2002, right,

you know, all the patients, all the money,

all the success, all these things going on,

things were not going so well for my father.

My father in his mid 50s was diagnosed with depression,

just totally out of the blue.

And then that would morph into more of like a movement disorder

problem, Parkinsonianism.

And then eventually we would take him to the Mayo Clinic.

And the Mayo Clinic would diagnose him with something

called progressive supranuclear palsy or PSP.

And it’s somewhat of Parkinson’s,

but there’s no treatment for it and there was no cause.

They’d said, we have no idea why your father is sick and dying,

but he will continue to be sick and progress

and he will die within three years on average.

Well, simultaneously and serendipitously,

I was introduced to a young woman,

29 year old chiropractor.

And on our first get together,

she proceeded to tell me exactly all the reasons

why my father was sick and dying.

From the foodier, the lifestyle, Chicago based cardiologist,

took this neurotoxin called Lipitor, drank too much alcohol.

All these various things that we now talk

about, right? And understand, I didn’t understand at the time in late 2004. Well, what she said

made total sense. I started to change my personal life, my because I was living the same lifestyle,

my medical practice life. And eventually I would leave that big group. I would marry

that woman. Now we’ve got four children. And as I told you before we recorded six goats,

18 chickens, two cats and a dog. So it’s been quite the quite the journey. But I will

I’ll wrap it up with this. My father’s loss and demise will not go in vain. It created the man,

the physician that I am today. And for that, I’m thankful to God. I’m thankful to my father

for all those gifts.

JANNINE: It’s powerful when we have experiences like that. And then we somehow meet someone that’s going to

help us to the next level. That’s awesome. Now, of course, I surveyed some folks before the podcast

and wanted to see, okay, what do you guys want to know about cardiology? What do you want to know?

What are the hot topics? And one of the biggest things we started talking about before we hit

record is women, their hearts and hormones and how that kind of plays out. But one of the things

you mentioned was, was broken heart syndrome, something that I’ve heard blurbs of, but not dove

dove much into it. So please tell us a little bit about that so we can we can understand what this is and why it’s

hitting 40 to six year old women were stressed.

DR. WOLFSON: Yeah, you know, it’s, you know, we all debate the food part of the story, right? Like what should we, what should we

not eat? How much of it should we eat? We talk about different lifestyle things and how important sleep and sunshine and

physical activity. Yeah, but but we forget about the think well part of the story of eat well, live well, think well. And

think well is all about the people and certainly women who are stressed, anxious, depressed,

feel socially isolated in many cases, worry, fear, which I believe that mainstream wants us to

feel. They want us under chronic stress because as you know, when you’re under chronic stress and

you’re watching the television, they’re selling you more stress and then boom, they want to sell

your Prozac, you know, in the commercial that comes up next.

But there are specific concerns that are medical diagnoses for women, right?

So women, for example, age, you know, group 40 to 60, they fit typically though, fall

into this diagnosis of broken heart syndrome, professionally known as Takasubo cardiomyopathy.

It’s a Japanese word that whatever doesn’t really matter.

The root of the world, what matters is that women who are under stress, and especially

this acutely stressful event, maybe an argument with a spouse or the loss of a loved one,

or an argument with a boss or loss of a job or something with your child, this stressful

event that leads to a heart attack.

But it’s not the classic heart attack.

So we go in there with catheters, we take pictures during an angiogram, and there’s no

blockage.

There’s no coronary artery disease that seems,

so it’s not typical.

It is likely a spasm,

what we’re like the artery just clamps down,

leading to a massive heart attack,

and even women dying in this scenario,

or maybe this stress generates a clock phenomenon.

So now you get a blood clot in the artery

that leads to this heart attack under a stressful situation.

So, Takasubo cardiomyopathy is one particular thing.

Now, what to do about it obviously is to do all the things

that you and I talk about all the time, right?

So, you know, eat the right foods,

live the right lifestyle, think the right thoughts,

try our best to avoid these acutely stressful situations,

although of course, that’s not easy to do.

But I think if we’re the healthiest version

of ourselves, we can prevent those things.

So that’s Takasubo cardiomyopathy.

The other thing I want to bring out too is this diagnosis of SCAD, a spontaneous coronary

artery dissection.

One of my patients has been on, you know, Dr. Oz, like several times talking about this

and awareness of this.

And this is again where a woman for many different reasons, but sometimes under acute stress,

they will have a shearing of the blood vessel.

So basically the blood vessel terrors or dissects leading to a massive heart attack and all

kind of complications from it.

women or something. I think all these numbers are going up for all the reasons that we know.

We just live in a more toxic, polluted, stressful, unhealthy planet than we ever have before.

And we’re going to see more of these things, not less.

JANNINE: Yeah. Do you think, I mean, I know this is a loaded question because it’s where the society

we live in. But do you think the vaccines had something to do with the SCAD increase,

or do you think it’s more toxicity or kind of a combination or hard to pinpoint?

DR. WOLFSON: Well, I mean, I will say this.

I mean, that’s a pretty big loaded question, Dr. Jannine, for early in the podcast.

I appreciate it because I love it.

You know, listen, we view everything through what we call the “100-year heart method.”

And I know you’re doing the same thing, right?

You may call it something different, but it’s just about the eat well, the live well, the

think well.

And living well is about avoiding chemicals, and it’s about avoiding prescription drugs

and all the toxins that we talk about.

So some injectable pharmaceutical is a toxin.

And what that does to the population in general, what it does to the individual, we have no

clue.

Certainly not to the individual.

Now as it relates to the population, yeah, we’ve seen lots of cases of myocarditis,

cardiac rhythm disorders, heart attacks.

Somebody can come along and say, well, you know, we saw a lot of things from COVID, you

know, itself.

there’s a lot of questions I always err on the side of giving the body what it

needs, taking away what it doesn’t. Now if you say if we inject the COVID

shot that generates an immune response by generating this is the alleged

mechanism, right, generating trillions of these spike protein particles that now

the immune system will recognize what does that mean to our health in general

when you have this incredible immunostimulation.

What does it mean that you’re producing antibodies,

not only despite protein, but possibly to actin,

or myosin, or other proteins that are found inside

of a blood vessel, inside of the media,

the muscular tissue, for example,

or anything really in that area.

The answer is anything is possible,

and time will tell how much damage was in fact done.

hopefully the truth will come out.

But certainly if I’m someone who has a SCAD,

I would look at, was a vaccine involved.

But looking at the lens of kind of anything

that would happen at that time, maybe it was an antibiotic

that they took at that time.

Maybe it was some kind of life experience,

stressful experience.

Maybe they put a cell phone tower on top of your roof,

or you got a smart meter, or you got new furniture,

new paint, new flooring, maybe water damage in the home,

you get a flood and then two weeks later you get a SCAD event.

That’s the beauty of what you and I do is that we take that super duper in-depth history

to determine what happens.

What happens in the medical world when you come in with a SCAD event or a Takasubo-Kardam

apathy is you get pharmaceuticals.

That’s all that you get in their world.

You don’t get any inquiring into why.

you learn the why, then hopefully you can prevent another event because SCAT is often

recurrent.

JANNINE: And that, I’m so glad you mentioned that.

That’s kind of where I’m going there with all of the push for subsequent boosters and

things of that nature.

I’m starting to really help folks question things, question everything.

And while it may be hard to pinpoint something, at least like you mentioned, do we have a

new smart meter?

Thinking about everything in your environment that could also be a pattern that could help

to identify things so important.

Now, when people are thinking about their cardiovascular

health, what are some of the things, you know,

I’ve seen your labs, like you guys,

he does an amazing job with the labs.

It’s very good, very detailed,

like a very good overall check.

Now, what other types of things can folks be looking for

on their own to monitor their own cardiovascular health?

What kind of things do you educate on?

DR. WOLFSON: Well, you know, we all talk about, you know, cholesterol.

cholesterol has been discussed for 50 plus years,

has been vilified for that many years,

and cholesterol is a molecule to be celebrated.

There’s no LDL is not bad and HDL is not good.

I mean, LDL is a purpose, HDL is a purpose.

That’s all pharmaceutical companies speak.

And let me use this quick interlude here to say,

just to repeat what you said before.

You said question everything.

And that is not only for us as physicians to ask questions,

but for the individual who’s listening to this,

question everything going on around us.

We should question everything,

and we always want the freedom to question everything,

because the freedom to question that

as it relates to, yes, censorship,

whether it’s on social media,

or the freedom to ask these questions

amongst our friends and our peers and our family.

Like let’s have these discussions because,

I mean, again, the inquiring about all this stuff

is absolutely paramount.

So quick answer to what you asked.

“I think the most important thing are markers

of inflammation and oxidative stress.”

And there’s a beautiful oxidative stress test

you could do at home, right?

It’s a urine test.

You can check for lipid broxides and urine.

Love that particular test.

And because ultimately, if your lipids are abnormal,

If your inflammatory markers are abnormal,

your oxidative stress markers are abnormal,

your homocysteine’s abnormal,

your hormones are abnormal,

your thyroid’s abnormal, right?

We wanna know why, we wanna know why they’re abnormal,

and then we wanna fix the why,

and then when we fix the why,

things miraculously resolve,

which is pretty darn cool, so.

JANNINE: It so is.

So what I’m hearing you say is,

look at the markers of inflammation and start there.

Now, if someone, you know, one of the things you had mentioned

is folks who come to the ER, especially women,

will go to the ER and say, “Just don’t feel right.”

And I’ll hear this a lot from women.

I just don’t feel good in my body anymore.

I just don’t feel right.

Now, of course, in my office,

we’re checking all the markers.

Do you think, okay, what’s going on?

But in someone that say they haven’t had

any inflammation markers checked,

nobody’s been really monitoring

maybe their primary care doctor did an EKG in the office

and 10 years ago and said they were fine.

What kind of just don’t feel right?

Would you say equates go to the ER

versus get in touch with natural heart doctor?

You know, how do folks want to differentiate

those kinds of things?

DR. WOLFSON: Well, the one thing that I talk to people about, right,

is whenever they’re complaints is like,

there’s safety in time.

There is safety in time.

So if someone said to you, right, Dr. Jannine,

they’re like, you know, Dr. Krause,

I’ve had this headache.

It’s been going on for like five years.

You think it’s a brain tumor.

And you’re like, I don’t think it’s a brain tumor.

It’s been going on for five years.

Like if it was a tumor, you know,

we would know about it already.

So when someone says, I don’t feel right or something,

I got fatigue, low energy.

And it’s been going on for, you know,

for weeks and more and stuff like that.

I think then we can, yeah, take a pack of peg

and then figure it out.

But I think for these situations where the woman in general

is feeling pretty good or whatever,

like a sudden change, as you know,

then that kind of kicks it up a level as far as,

what’s going on.

But I think what’s historically happened

is that this woman shows up in the emergency room,

or even in our office.

But again, they show up in the emergency room

and they’re like, I just don’t feel right.

And then they get neglected, they get pushed to the side.

They don’t look at what’s going on from a cardiac standpoint.

The medical doctors, mostly men of course,

are trained at looking at what’s called levine sign

with that hand over the chest or fist over the chest,

this pressure in the chest, sweaty, arm pain, neck pain,

nauseous.

Sometimes women don’t fit that mold as classically

as the men do and I think again,

it just really highlights the importance of,

as you and I both learned in our medical training,

is taking a very detailed thorough history,

which the medical doctors don’t have much time to do.

They’ve got these super short office visits

and certain bullets that they have to hit.

And when I did this for many years,

when a person walks through the door

of our examination consultation room,

we’re thinking about how do we get this person out

as fast as possible?

So we try and identify what their most pressing issue is.

and then identify what kind of pharmaceutical or test

that we can order on that person in order to expedite

the whole process because we’ve got a waiting room

full of insurance-based people.

Now you get over to our side over here and it’s like,

hey, this is where real health lives.

This is where sickness lives over there

and continued sickness lives over there.

I mean, one thing I love to say too, Dr. Janine is that,

life expectancy in the United States for men is about 75

and women, it’s about 78.

Like that’s horrible and that’s horrific.

I’m not gonna talk about you and your age,

but I’m 53 and my father died at 63

and I’ve got young children, I don’t wanna die.

So this whole idea of 75 for the average male,

like that’s not good, I don’t want that.

That’s not good enough.

We’re the home of the 100-year hearts

and we’re not gonna achieve it inside

of the medical community when it’s not.

JANNINE: Absolutely not, absolutely not.

And yeah, the older you get, the closer you get

to what the average lifespan is, the more you’re like,

or at least my case, I’m like, okay,

what else can I do? What else can I do?

Now, of course, the cholesterol conundrum does come up

with a lot of folks, as we get older,

cholesterol does seem to tend to go higher

and folks can be completely fit.

They can be working out, you know, five, six days a week.

They can be eating impeccably

and still the cholesterol just doesn’t budge.

And of course, for a lot of folks,

have maybe me and then they’ll have a primary care doc and a primary care doc’s on them.

Like you got to start, you got to start a stat and you got to start a stat and then

they’re coming to me and going like, what’s my, what’s my alternative?

And so I would love to hear from you because I heard you mentioned neurotoxin lipator

with dad.

[Advertisement] Hey, health  junkies.

Struggling with sleep as a former insomniac, I can relate.

Devin Burke is a pal of mine.

He has the Sleep Science Academy.

been on my podcast twice and we’ve talked a lot about how to work on sleep naturally,

without supplements, without medications. Devon’s program really does work with you to help you

understand what is going on in your brain and body when it comes to sleep. And as a listener of

the HealthFix podcast, he’s given us a code for 10% off of his program, DRJ10. So if you’re

interested use that. I highly recommend his program. So let’s get back to the podcast.

JANNINE: But we’ve got folks out there saying like microdosing of, you know, the different

cholesterol meds, the statins, and then microdosing, the zettias and things. And we have

resources that’s beneficial. But at the same time, are we doing more harm than good in these

situations? So I would love to hear your take on this. 

DR. WOLFSON: Yeah. So as it relates to the data on

micro-dosing of pharmaceuticals, there really is not much data or science on that whatsoever.

These people are experimenting outside of the guidelines, which I’m all good because I’m

totally outside of the guidelines, if you will. The guidelines are written by pharmaceutical

companies. But the idea of taking small dose of statin or is that a my but I’m totally against,

I’m just anti-pharmaceutical. They just do not have a role for any way, shape or form in my

patients. I would never take it myself. One thing that statin drugs do, let’s talk about many things.

So they inhibit the production of cholesterol. That obviously we know cholesterol levels drop,

LDL levels drop precipitously. They also interfere with the production of CoQ10. CoQ10 is in the

mitochondria, electron transport chain, cellular energy, cellular water. Critically important,

we need CoQ10. So they interfere with that. They also interfere with something called

Hema, Hema is a protein compound that is found in the fourth cytochrome in the

electron transport chain. So they interfere with that. So now you’re making less cellular energy

on a statin drug. Another thing that they inhibit is something called dolocal. Dolocal

is a steroid like hormone that is found in the substantia nigra of the midbrain. So when you

decrease the production of dolocal and you is no longer present in the substantia nigra of the

the midbrain, maybe you get more risk of Parkinson’s and Parkinson’s disorders like my father’s

PSP. And that is in the literature in many studies. So, yeah, I’m not, I’m not taking

any statin drugs. And the reality is, is that statin drugs at their best in secondary prevention

decrease heart attack risk on an annual basis, say 3% to 2.5%. So if you want 3% versus 2.5%,

if you’re like, Oh, I’m cool with that. Okay, right. But the world where you and I operate Dr.

Jannine is we operate in the 0% heart attack risk group. So a lot of talking heads in the media,

again, it’s just a way that I roll. I’m not prescribed a statin drug in over 10 years. I’m not going to

as that of my, I think, is garbage. PCSK9 inhibitors like Repatha and others are totally

experimental. And actually the biggest study that was produced on those was done five years ago,

was produced and was in the New England Journal of Medicine where they looked at a Repatha.

And what they found is that the Repatha group did have less heart attacks than strokes by a little

bit, but it’s interesting that more people died in the rapathic group. You don’t hear too much about

that. It wasn’t statistically significant, but tell that to the 18 extra people who died in the

rapathic group. So yeah, let me finally again, cholesterol is critical. We can’t live without.

It’s all of our hormones, all of our digestion. I mean, all the women out there who are talking

about hormone replacement and stuff like that. I mean, where do you think the hormones come from?

estrogen progesterone testosterone, they come from cholesterol. And if you lower the level

artificially, you’re going to be sorry. Cholesterol, of course, makes our vitamin D, the sun hits

cholesterol, turns it into vitamin D. It’s where our digestion, all of our cells have

events called cell membrane loaded with cholesterol. So yeah, I mean, it’s a molecule to be celebrated

and not vilified. JANNINE: And so basically what I tell folks when we look at this is we’re treating

labs really. We’re not treating the person, we’re treating the labs and we’re like, oh,

look, looky here, we’ve got the cholesterol down mission accomplished. But in the end,

yeah, if I’m going for a two percent, it doesn’t make sense. And I totally understand that the

I always say it wrong. The PSK 9s, Repatha, those kind of things. Those ones, I’ve had some cases

and so I’d love to hear your take. This is me asking. No one in my community asked about this

is I’ve got a couple of patients with really high calcium scores and we’re told that they

had to be in either a high dose cholesterol med or do a PSK9.

And what have you traditionally done with really high calcium scores and folks who are

super fit?

Let’s put it in the boxing category, pre UFC kind of fighter kind of status.

What would you do with this case just for folks who might be listening going, I have

a really high calcium score.

DR. WOLFSON: Yeah.

So, you know, as far as calcium scores are concerned,

I’m not a big fan of the test, to say the least.

I don’t like radiation, I believe radiation.

It’s one of the things that killed my father

as a cardiologist, of course.

Now, somebody would say, well,

the radiation’s not that much.

It’s like the same as flying from here to Tokyo,

like radiation exposure.

And I would say, well, I’m not flying from here to Tokyo.

If I did, if I was flying there, I would have a reason.

Like, I wanna go see like some museum

or some Buddhist temple or something like that.

Like, I would have a reason to go to Tokyo.

and therefore I would understand the risks and benefits.

What is the benefit of doing a calcium scan?

Okay, now you identified that you got the worst

calcium score in the world.

Now what are we gonna do, Dr. Jannine, right?

Are we gonna put that person on the statin?

PCSK9, I’m not, somebody else may.

Calcium scores reflect what’s been going on for a lifetime,

including in utero, including actually before conception.

Before conception, the behaviors that were going on

in our mother and our father impact how we are as adults.

So that being said, again, the calcium score reflects

what’s been going on for years.

What reflects what’s going on right now

are markers of inflammation oxidative stress.

If you have inflammation oxidative stress,

you better figure out why.

And it’s not because you have a statin deficiency

or a rapathic deficiency.

That’s the best strategy.

That’s how I would look at that.

But again, there’s so much that’s out there.

I tend to be the biggest purist.

I know that you’re in alignment with all these things.

And again, like where there are a lot of natural doctors

out there that recommend CT scans.

There’s a lot of natural doctors that will spot

use the pharmaceuticals.

I just think that, listen, God bless the men and women

who work in emergency rooms and trauma centers.

For sure.

But when it comes to the prevention,

the treatment and reversal of chronic disease,

it’s not gonna be in a pill bottle,

it’s not gonna be injectable,

it’s not gonna be found in the medical community

at this point in time.

JANNINE: Well, heartedly agree.

That being said, of course, I wanna dive

into the other side of medicine

that isn’t as popular,

but hopefully it’s gonna gain some popularity.

Talking about energy medicine,

talking about the energy of the heart,

the electrical capacity, you know, things like heart math, those types of things for stress.

What is kind of, how are you helping folks to work on changing their thoughts, right?

How are you working on the stress side of things with natural heart doctor?

What kind of things do you guys recommend folks so that we can change over to, let’s

call it the light side of medicine?

DR. WOLFSON: Yeah, and I talk about, you know, chapter five of my book, it’s called, you know, One Nation

under Prozac. And what we do there is we highlight all of the evidence that says that stress essentially

is bad, stress, anger, anxiety, depression, social isolation, how they are linked to

increase risk of cardiovascular disease, childhood trauma, markedly higher risk of cardiovascular

disease, PTSD, markedly higher risk. You know, do you need to throw this back out, you know,

with you again, like what happens after someone gets a medical diagnosis? Like what is the

PTSD related to the fact that I’ve already had a heart attack, I’ve already had a stroke,

I’ve had a spreecancerous lesion, I’ve got this, I mean again, like that’s gotta be,

there’s gotta be something that we need to unpack from there. I recognize my limitations,

that’s for sure, so I love to refer people out for professional help and all those different things

to just to get them identified. Like hey, I’m not the worldwide expert as it relates to

you know, stress reduction techniques, and even some of these biohacking things, as you mentioned

and heart math, brain tap and other things

that could be helpful.

The purpose of me really is to say,

hey, you need to get out there in this arena.

We do have other coaches and stuff like that on our team

that we help with those certain things.

Try and point people in the right direction

to the right research.

One thing I did a quick video on yesterday

is it relates to just an acute stress reliever

which is alternate nostril breathing.

Whenever I do that, and as an example,

I go through that whole sequence of doing that.

I find that I personally, right?

I just get taken down a few pegs

as far as my stress level is concerned.

But it’s an area that people really need to delve into,

but it all plays in together.

So when you’re eating well, you deal with stress better.

When you’re getting appropriate sleep and sunshine

and physical activity and chiropractic care,

staying away from toxins, holistic dentistry,

when you’re doing all those things,

you tend to deal with stress that much better,

becoming that optimal version of you.

But it’s a big area that the medical doctors get zero training

and I’ll even go back to my psych rotation.

My psych rotation was a one month inpatient

in downtown inner city Chicago.

psychiatric rotation where it was all about mega dose pharmaceuticals. It wasn’t like,

I’m sigmund Freud and lay down on the couch and tell me about your mother. Like that wasn’t that.

It was all, you know, and that’s the way the medical doctors are trained. And we’re trained,

like, you know, 50 year old woman comes in, you know, I just don’t feel right. You know,

I still have a lot of energy and, you know, things aren’t going to get no zest for life. And we’re

we’re like, boom prescription, you know, here’s, here’s this new one, new one, new one, new one,

new one. And the, I mean, that’s, it’s a multi multi multi billion dollar industry. And it’s a failure.

So again, I appreciate the opportunity to be on here to talk to, you know, you know, people and I’ll share this certainly with my entire tribe because people need to hear this message.

And it’s a, it’s, it truly is life or death.

JANNINE: Absolutely absolutely. So being the subject of life or death and the connection to inflammation

and inflammation, all that kind of concept, what are some of your go-to’s in terms of helping

people reduce their inflammation just to give folks a sense of where they maybe could start

looking and doing some research, getting familiar with these kind of things?

DR. WOLFSON: Well, you’re up in the Seattle Tacoma area, right?

And when I think about the Pacific Northwest,

I think about seafood.

I think about wild salmon.

I think about clams oyster shrimp, lobster crab.

Like I think about the best seafood available.

And that is one penultimate way to lower inflammation.

Seafood is the number one healthiest food

in the entire world.

After that, we want to reach for organs like bison liver, bison heart, things like that,

I think are paramount.

As it relates to inflammation, sunshine lowers inflammation, sleep lowers inflammation,

physical activity movement does, avoiding the toxins that cause inflammation, detoxification,

detoxification strategies, supplements in that arena that help with detoxification, gut

healing.

I think it’s interesting that the way that I’ve used it.

I met my wife in 2004, she said, “It’s about the gut, about the gut, about the gut.”

And I said, “What’s about the gut?

Like what are you talking about?

What does the gut have to do with the heart?”

I mean, they’re totally, totally separate systems.

And she’s like, “No, knucklehead.

They’re not separate systems.

They’re totally intertwined.

Like everything in the body isn’t intertwined.”

I mean, I mean, Jannine, this is where I was coming from.

So as it relates to these environmental toxins, mold, micro toxins, bacterial toxins, things

from water damage building mold from food and then everything else plastic

phthalates parabens, BPA’s, VOCs, pesticides. They destroyed the gut microbiome

leading to intestinal hyperpermeability leaky gut. These things enter the body

immune system activation inflammation,

aux stress death. That’s just the way that it goes. That’s the whole system.

So in that sense, yeah, like what are the supplements we can use to help, you

repair the gut, right? So is it is it probiotics? The answer is yes. Is it things like, you know,

butyrid, calmag, things to immunoglobulins to quiet down gut inflammation. And that’s kind of,

again, like, you know, we eat well, live well, think, well, do the testing that’s necessary.

And then those evidence-based supplements are just that. They’re evidence-based. They’re going to

work, you and I have seen it in the literature. We’ve seen it in our patients, and they’re going to

work, but you know, the heart access, the gut brain access, it’s everything, you know, and

it’s a beautiful thing. It’s very empowering. I mean, you know, from where I came from, like,

to wake up to this epiphany moment and like, wow, there’s just so much that we can do.

I think one thing where we can struggle with them, maybe we’re even our patients struggle with,

is that there’s so much that we can do, right? The conventional cardiologist is super simple.

“Oh, hi, you know, Mr. Jones, your cholesterol’s high.

“Take this stat and draw a buy.

“Get a stress test on your way out.”

Like, that’s what happens, and it’s a 22nd visit.

Now, in the world where you and I work,

it’s like there’s a thousand different biohacking strategies.

Oh, I heard on this podcast about red light.

I heard about cold plunge.

I heard about sauna.

I heard about H-pot.

I heard about ozone.

I heard about methylene blue.

Like, you know, it’s never ending, which is good.

But again, we always just go back

those foundation things. Let me tell you another term I like. It’s like the 4S strategy. Ready?

Sleep, sunshine, seafood, and then I’ll throw in what we’ll call sexercise. So it gives me that

extra S. It points out that intimacy is very important. And then the fact that I create this

quote, one, two of the word sex and exercise into sex.

So, it makes sure that we include physical activity and movement with that as well.

But I think you hit those foundational things and you’re going to be, you’re going to be

in a good place.

JANNINE: Oh my goodness.

Love it.

People pay more attention when the word sex is involved.

So there you have it.

So Dr. Wilson, you’ve told us a lot of stuff.

You’ve given us a lot of good nuggets.

I would love for folks to hear more about natural heart doctor because it sounds like

like basically everything you just gave us

is probably what’s going on there

in terms of looking at foundations and moving forward.

So let’s give folks an idea of how they can find you,

where they can find you,

and how they can jump in and get a consult

with you or one of the docs at Natural Health.

DR. WOLFSON: Yeah, for sure, listen.

I mean, if you have cardiovascular concerns,

feel free to give us a call

the  website iss naturalheartdoctor.com

or all over social media, same place.

I think that sometimes a lot of what we do

is we give this third opinion.

So it’s like you’re working with Dr. Jannine

and she’s talking about one way,

your traditional medical doctor says another,

maybe we could be the tiebreaker,

but warning, we’re gonna fight on the side

of Dr. Jannine is where that’s gonna roll.

But because again, that’s our expertise.

I spent 16 years as a conventional cardiologist

and now 12 years in my own practice of natural heart doctors.

So I’ve seen both sides, which I think makes my perspective

very interesting and hopefully respected to people.

But if you’re on multiple pharm–

essentially, if you’re on pharmaceuticals

for cardiac issues, whether it’s high blood pressure,

cholesterol, coronary disease or A fib,

you’re not going to live long.

You’re not going to make it.

It’s in the literature.

It’s common sense.

You’re not going to make it.

And if you want to make it, if you want the 100-year hearts,

100-year lifestyle, 100-year brain,

you better work with natural health care practitioners.

JANNINE: Well said, well said, well, Dr. Wilson, thank you so much for

coming on and sharing all of your great wisdom with us. I am

excited to send this podcast out. Thanks again.

DR. WOLFSON: Appreciate it. Thank you.

[Outro] Hey, fellow health junkie. Thanks for listening to the

health fix podcast. If you enjoy tuning in, please help

support me to get the word out about the podcast, subscribe,

great and review and just get that word out.

Thanks again for listening.

[MUSIC]