Conventionally trained cardiologist turned holistic practitioner, Dr. Jack Wolfson shares his journey and philosophies about natural health. In this episode, he takes the hot seat in an interview on Boundless Body Radio to discuss the importance of eating, living, and thinking well to achieve true health. He dives deep into controversial topics of big corporations influencing nutritional guidelines, medical treatment, and why they don’t want you to get better. Full of truth and wisdom about health, Dr. Jack Wolfson gives a great interview that will have you rethinking our systems and what we were taught.

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Bonus Episode: Dr. Jack Wolfson’s Interview On Boundless Body Radio With Casey Ruff

In this episode, we have another amazing guest to introduce to you. Dr. Jack Wolfson is a board-certified cardiologist who uses nutrition, lifestyle and supplements to prevent and treat heart disease. He completed a 4-year Medical degree, a 3-year internal medicine residency and a 3-year cardiology fellowship. He served as the chief fellow of his cardiology program, managing other cardiology trainees and has taught many medical doctors and practitioners from all over the world. Dr. Wolfson then joined the largest cardiology group in the state of Arizona and spent ten years as a hospital-based cardiologist performing angiograms, pacemakers and other cardiac procedures.

In 2012, Dr. Wilson founded Natural Heart Doctor to offer patients the ultimate and holistic heart care. Recognized as one of the top holistic medical practitioners in the world, Dr. Wolfson has appeared on many major news stations and newspapers along with hundreds of appearances at live events, podcasts and online interviews. His first book, The Paleo Cardiologist: The Natural Way To Heart Health is an Amazon bestseller. He is also a contributing author to The Textbook of Integrative Cardiology. Doctor Jack Wolfson, what an absolute honor it is to welcome you to the show.

Thank you so much. It’s a pleasure to speak with you. We got so much to talk about. The world’s a sick place and cardiovascular disease is the number one killer so we got a lot to accomplish.

We can jump right in there. It’s so funny that all of these nutritional guidelines we have originated from dealing with the issues of heart disease. It’s been many years since we recognize that diet may play a role in heart disease. You would think we would be doing so much better at this point with heart disease when it’s still the number one killer of people in the world. It’s amazing.

As I know other guests you’ve had on, you have discussed where the information went wrong starting in the 1950s, ‘60s and ‘70s and how the guidelines were written to promote unhealthy foods, high carbohydrate foods, corn, wheat, soy and a lot of grain heavy diet. On what planet of delusion do you think the people who created the food pyramid that was living when they had a grain category that was bigger than the vegetable category?

Those are only guidelines that are influenced by big corporations. Unfortunately, it led us to the situation where we are. People often vilify meat consumption but the average meat consumption of Americans has gone down while heart disease has gone up. We got to dispel a lot of myths as it relates to nutrition and give people the truth.

You had to find the truth yourself and you did so in a very interesting way. To be able to tell your story of how you uncovered the truth, we have to go back a generation and talk about your father, who sounded like a wonderful man. Can you tell us how you first became interested in health through the journey of your father?

My father was a cardiologist. I became a cardiologist. I wanted to follow right in his footsteps. I always loved the physiology of the heart. Becoming a cardiologist took me ten years of training. I’m a few years on the job as a hospital-based cardiologist. I’m very successful financially. We get paid very well in that arena. I’m helping lots of people. I’m very busy with practice with the director of internal medicine, cardiology, cardiac rehab and all those accolades. As I was doing all that, I still saw a lot of sickness around me.

It’s very frustrating. The hospital is a revolving door. People come in. We tune them up, send them out and never seem to be getting anywhere, lots of pharmaceuticals and whatnot but the main impetus was my father’s sickness. My father was a brilliant man and cardiologist and my hero. He became sick with a diagnosis of a Parkinson’s-like illness called PSP or Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Eventually, he would be diagnosed at the Mayo Clinic. They said, “We have no idea why your father has this condition. We have no treatment for this condition.”

The god, spirit or whatever you believe, put me in the direct path of the woman who would become my wife. She is a doctor of chiropractic. I met her. It was a chance meeting and an introduction that put us together. Maybe not so much by chance. Nonetheless, we meet and she opens up my eyes to reality. Mayo Clinic has no idea why my father’s sick and dying. Here’s this 29-year-old chiropractor got all the reasons.

I listened very quickly. She’s smoking hot. I listened to what she had to say because she’s so beautiful but because it made perfect sense that if we eat, live and think a certain way, then that’s where true health is. We are not taught any of that in medical school. We are taught about pharmaceuticals and surgical procedures. All these things are great in an emergency or a trauma situation but they are horrible for prevention. They don’t work.

If we eat, live, and think a certain way, then that’s where true health is.

Soon thereafter, I would marry this woman. She would become my wife. I would leave the big medical practice in 2012 and start Natural Heart Doctor. Unfortunately, my father did not survive. He did not live. I was too early in my holistic career. He was too late in his sickness that I couldn’t make a change. His demise or death created the man and the physician that I am now.

It’s certainly such a tragic story but it is amazing that his legacy does get to continue to live on through you. I’ve always been curious, especially about people in the medical field like doctors, even more so a cardiologist, you listened very quickly to your wife and the things that she was saying but what was it like for you to be so well trained in the establishment in the medical system and find out that what you were told or taught wasn’t necessarily the best thing for prevention? That would be a tough pill to swallow.

Most medical doctors are very brilliant men and women who go into this profession to become cardiologists and medical doctors in general. We only know what we know. If I went on the job and I was being an apprentice for a plumber and a plumber would ask me to do something, I would look like crap because I know nothing about plumbing. The plumber may say, “This guy is crap.” I’m not crap. I’ve just never been trained in that. Medical doctors are not trained in causation. They’re trained in, “You have high blood pressure or abnormal cholesterol. Here’s your pill. You’ve got coronary artery disease. Here are your pharmaceuticals. Let’s do a stress test and a stent and bypass surgery.”

Ultimately, a lot of doctors are not going to listen to what is the truth about health and wellness because 1) Their entire career was spent learning something else. They’re not going to admit that was a wrong model to follow. Number 2) They’re financially incentivized to prescribe pharmaceuticals, see a lot of patients quickly and do these surgical procedures.

Number 3) The scrutiny of the medical boards and your colleagues. If you step out of the box as I did, I took a lot of stones from the people in my old cardiology group on a national and worldwide level of people who would say things about me and make complaints about me. That’s all part of the process. The more of us holistic practitioners tell the truth and shout from the rooftops, that’s how we’re going to change because pharmaceutical companies and the medical establishment that they control are very powerful. The truth has to be spoken. If we do, it’ll prevail.

I’m glad you brought that up because you were experiencing some pressure from people either above you or adjacent to you in what you were doing, saying that you’re not earning as much money as you were when you were doing more of these procedures and prescriptions.

When you’re in the big cardiology group, you’re incentivized to see patients and people very quickly. You’re incentivized to order tests and procedures. When you order stress tests, ultrasounds, angiograms and pacemakers, all of that is how the doctors get reimbursed. Yet my new patient consultations are 90 minutes long because we have to discover a lot of things.

In the traditional medical model, that visit was less than 10 minutes and then it was 90 minutes. You can’t practice insurance-based medicine or health when you’re a holistic practitioner. When you opt out of that, you typically don’t accept insurance, only because you have to be able to see people for a long period. None of that should be guided or limited by insurance companies.

You mentioned the difference between chronic care or care in an emergency. As you look back on the things that you were taught in the procedures you were doing before, what are maybe 1 or 2 examples of things that you look back on and maybe cringe a little bit to think, “We probably did this in more cases than it was needed?”

Undoubtedly, stress testing is the number one thing that comes to mind. We order annual stress tests on people all the time and so do most cardiologists. There is no scientific value to that. All there is risk in twofold. Number 1) The radiation risk of doing a nuclear stress test. Number 2) The false positive rate. Let’s say a stress test is done and the test is abnormal and then it leads you to the next step. Maybe that’s an angiogram.

The angiogram maybe is normal but you put the person at risk of doing the angiogram when they didn’t need it. I could talk a lot about all of the mishaps and malpractice inside the cardiology realm. There’s a lot of it going on. It’s unfortunate that the people suffer. It is a revenue grab. There are so many examples of what conventional doctors are doing and there is no value to it.

That’s a strong statement to talk about, malpractice. We got the same answer from Dr. Thomas Seyfried, who’s at Boston University. He’s studying cancer. He talks about treating revenue and creating diseases. These diseases create revenue. If you tell somebody alternate advice and get them out of the system and get them healthy, they’re not generating revenue for everybody. That’s a huge problem.

That’s why nobody was upset when I left the conventional cardiology practice because I would espouse these truths very early on, certainly in my holistic career. Ultimately, it’s bad for business. Why don’t the Cleveland Clinic, the Mayo Clinic and all these big hospital institutions have big nutrition departments and preventive areas? They don’t because it doesn’t pay the bills. If someone tries to introduce that, then they will be quickly ushered out of that situation. That’s okay.

We’re going to circumvent all that. We’re going to talk like you and I are. We’re going to share this information, take it directly to the people and then the people are going to go back to their doctors and say, “I want a better approach. If you don’t have that, then I’m not going to be your patient.” Once that patient pool starts to shrink, as it already is for mainstream doctors, although there still are 330 million people in this country, the majority of whom are still very sick and do not understand health and wellness. We’re not getting rid of the medical doctors. I certainly see a day 10, 20 or 30 years down the road when this type of practice is commonplace.

That makes me optimistic. We talk about it all the time. The delta between the people that are getting healthier and finding this type of information versus the other people that are following all the standard devices, their health is deteriorating. It’s such a fast rate. That split between the two is growing and getting so wide. That’s what makes me optimistic as well. We’re going to be able to get this message out because, at some point, there are going to be so many people getting healthier by doing the opposite of what they’re told that’s going to carry this message forward.

Before we get into the pillars and things that you talked about, which I love and want to get into, tell us a little bit about the challenges. You open your clinic and started doing things a little bit differently. You did mention financials. That is a financially very different thing. I don’t blame any doctor for not staying in the medical field and generating money doing that because you need to put bread on the table. What were some of the challenges you faced early on with going your way?

As they say clichély, “We only go around once,” and the proverbial, “When I’m on my deathbed and I’m surrounded by my family and friends, what do I want them to know about me? I did it for the money. I didn’t like my career. I knew that what I was doing was wrong but I wanted to support everybody in this room the best that I could.” One could take that approach and that may be right for some people. It certainly was not right for me. I was making over $1 million a year as a conventional cardiologist. I say that not to brag but I say it because of how lucrative it is.

It’s embarrassing that I was making that kind of money doing the wrong thing. Ultimately, I would start over on September 1, 2012, with zero revenue. When we continue with our truth and we’re able to explain it clearly, then the people will come to us. When we’re doing the right thing, then the revenue tends to follow that. It’s easy for me to say because I am a cardiologist and people would see me as the ultimate cardiac authority, therefore, come to seek out my help.

When we continue with our truth and we’re able to explain it clearly, then the people will come to us. When we’re doing the right thing, the revenue follows.

Many people practice natural medicine and promote natural healthcare who are doing very well, opening up the eyes of people who are accountants, lawyers and people who drive a truck. The number one demographic that comes to see me is truck drivers. My ideal patient is a 62-year-old guy who drives a truck or maybe the woman who helps him or is married to him. I do think that we need to follow our path. When we follow our path, do it well and fully commit to it, then we will have all the fruits of that labor.

You eventually decided to create your three pillars in how you explained lifestyle changes to people. Can we go over each one of those three pillars and how you came up with each one? We can spend a little bit of time talking about each one. What are some of the primary principles?

It’s all based on the methodology or my thought processes, which are not unique to me necessarily. A lot of people talk about this but it’s like, “Eat well. Live well. Think well. We test, don’t guess.” We do the most advanced testing in the world to determine where people are at. There are a lot of different tests to make sure you’re on the right path like The Path To The 100-Year Heart. There are evidence-based supplements and these biohacking strategies like, “Should I get a sauna, a red light lamp, a vitamin D lamp, cold plunge, IV therapy or all these different devices?” All that is good.

From there, we can certainly break it down. The eat-well conversation is always debated and discussed first but it’s no more important than living or thinking well. We started with eat-well because that’s where people are having that conversation. For me, eating well surrounds several things. Number 1) No matter what diet we follow, always make it organic. Get the chemicals out of our food. If you’re a vegan, vegetarian, Mediterranean, paleo, keto or carnivore or if you’re on the chocolate chip cookie diet, make sure it’s organic. Get the chemicals out of your food. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not telling people to eat a lot of sugar and carbohydrates. Don’t do that.

Paleo nutrition is our hunter-gatherer lifestyle. How have our ancestors been eating since the dawn of human existence? We’ve been eating free-range grass-fed meats, wild seafood, eggs, avocados, coconuts and olives. We’ve been eating nuts and seeds, vegetables and fruit. As time went on, we had some amount of raw dairy. As time would go on, we would start to introduce grains into our diet, wheat, barley, rye, corn and soy. These were much later in the whole process. The way I like to focus at is always organic. I promote in thinking about this. It is not so much what I should not eat. If we push the foods that we should be eating, there’s not much room left over for junk.

It is not so much about what we should not eat. If we push the foods that we should be eating, there’s not much room left over for junk.

If we say, “I’m going to try and eat seafood every day or nose-to-tail animals. I’m going to eat meat and preferably organs at least several times a week. I’m going to eat eggs, avocados, coconuts and olives. I’m going to have vegetables and seasonal fruit in moderation. I’m going to eat some nuts and seeds.” There’s not much room for any other junk. I’ll wrap it up there to say that I’m always gluten-free. If people follow those tenets of organic, eat a lot of wild seafood, nose-to-tail, grass-fed, grass-finished, pasture-raised animals and then go gluten-free, that’s a fantastic start.

Ultimately, there is a lot of high-carb or low-carb type of story. I’m not opposed to eating more carbs in the summertime or more fruit and vegetables that are growing in the summertime. The wintertime tends to be more meat and seafood may be predicated and a time for potatoes, for example, and other grains like quinoa or even a little bit of wild rice. I do believe in some cyclical variation, carbs and sugar consumption. That’s why we make insulin. We make insulin to perform functions like that so if we do get in a lot of starchy carbs, we’re able to take and use that food for fuel. That’s okay.

I love the way that you put it like, “If you eat these things, there’s not going to be much other space.” You’re listing things that are satiating. You eat those things and you’re satisfied. It’s not that you couldn’t snack if you wanted but you don’t care. You go about your day and go do fun stuff. Go ski on a Waco paddleboard and use your time. I’m contrasting that. I decided to go to the American Heart Association website and see their dietary guidelines. I downloaded My Fitness Power or whatever.

I started punching in to hit the macros that they recommend and see all the meals and snacks that you would need to hit. It was 60% to 70% carbohydrates. All of the foods I was putting into this tracker, I was like, “If I tried to eat this, I would be starving. There’s no way I would be satiated.” I would want to snack on cookies and soda. I’m going to need to pick myself up throughout that entire day, contrasted with what you mentioned, all these satiating foods. You’re not just going to think about food. It’s so different.

The American Heart Association, the American College of Cardiology, the American Dietetic Association and the Diabetes Association are all owned by industry and corporations. They’re going to promote grain and processed dairy. That is well known for decades that that is what’s going on. Quite simply, you can go to the American Heart Association website and see the sponsors right there. You can open up the journal of the American College of Cardiology page after page. It is an advertisement for pharmaceuticals. It is a major problem. Life is to be enjoyed. There are certain sweets and things like that that we’re going to enjoy. Make sure you do it organically and get the chemicals out.

If you want to eat ice cream, then get organic ice cream or do homemade organic ice cream with raw cream, milk, eggs, vanilla and honey and put it in your ice cream maker. It doesn’t have to be some kind of processed garbage. I’m not sitting here promoting the eating of those but when you do eat them, make them the best of the best quality. I don’t want to argue too much about the food story but let’s dive into the living well, understanding that our ancestors went to sleep with the sundown, depending on where you at living on this planet.

Many people live in the Northern Hemisphere and higher latitudes. The sun is going down at 5:00, 5 30 or 6:00 PM. We should not be awake too much after that. The average time people go to sleep in the United States is after midnight. That’s a death sentence on so many different levels. The artificial lights that we’re exposed to have their set of problems. That’s well documented.

When we are awake at night, we’re typically eating unhealthy foods. We’re not watching a movie at 10:00 thinking, “Let’s have a broccoli salad.” We’re typically reaching for something unhealthy like potato chips, pretzels or ice cream. We want to get to sleep on time. We also want to get outside very often, understanding that our skin is a solar panel. It’s built to collect light.

There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes. Ideally, you get outside as often as you can with as much of your solar panel exposed. In doing so, you’re being physically active. You’re moving and you don’t have to go to lifetime fitness. You can do all this stuff in the comfort of your home and also outside. That’s the best and safest place to do that. In that living well, we talk about oral health, good dental care from a holistic dentist and chiropractic care from a qualified chiropractor to make sure your spine is in alignment and your autonomic nervous system is moving and balanced.

I want to mention this final thing as regards to living well and it is your environmental toxins. We all know about things like lead, mercury, aluminum and all those other toxic metals. We also mentioned EMF. We’re very aware of the damages and damages of cell phones, Wi-Fi, smart meters and all those things. We’ve got pesticides and plastics.

The list of chemicals goes on very long but I do want to make sure everybody is aware that the single most dangerous environmental toxin to anyone is when they live in a water-damaged home, office or building. That water damage has led to mold and mold micro toxicity, meaning the mold releases these toxins to insure its survival and how it impacts us. Let me say a couple more things about the mold. You may not see the water damage. Maybe you can see it in your shower, sink or toilet but it’s maybe under the sink of the shower or the toilet. It’s maybe in a crawl space or on a wall.

The mold wants to survive. It releases toxins to kill off other molds, bacteria, insects, viruses and certainly humans. The most common example of this is the mold penicillium produces a toxin that kills bacteria. You may know that as Penicillin. There is also a very well-known pharmaceutical called CellCept. CellCept is immunosuppressive. It suppresses your immune system. It is so effective at suppressing your immune system that pharmaceutical companies put it into a capsule. They give it to people who have organ transplants to prevent what’s called a rejection, where the new host of that organ rejects the organ so they take this product called CellCept.

CellCept is mycophenolate acid that comes from the mold. It’s so powerful and damaging to the immune system. Pharmaceutical companies use it as a drug. Those are a couple of examples of how ravaging the mold mycotoxins are. Whatever your health conditions or concerns are, please consider how mold can impact those illnesses.

We did one episode where we deep dive into EMS in particular. It’s such an interesting lifestyle thing to get into. You almost feel a resistance to it because it feels like there’s so little that you can do in a world where we live with cell phones and Wi-Fi everywhere. What practically can be done? I almost think the same way about mold. I feel like I’ve been resisting talking about it because I feel like, “It might be important but what do you do if there’s mold?” Is the only thing to do is move?

Regarding EMF, aluminum, mercury or even pesticides, none of those things are living entities. Led, mercury and EMF are not conscious in thinking, “I want to injure somebody in the vicinity. I’m led and I want to kill the person who swallowed me.” They don’t think that but mold does. Mold does not have the consciousness that humans do but mold is a survivor. Mold has been here since before humans were here. It knows how to survive. It’s very successful at that. There are things we can do about EMF. We can’t avoid it. There are things we can do about mold and we can’t avoid it but we can always work to limit those factors.

We can choose to turn off our Wi-Fi, not watch technology at night, put the phone on airplane mode or get rid of the smart meter. We can choose to move out of a big city where there are towers all over the place. We can make those choices. I’m not saying it’s easy. You and I both know that it’s not. There are a lot of other EMF mitigation strategies that people could do. There are silver canopies. You could put it around your bed. You could put paint on your wall that blocks EMF. There are a lot of things that you could do. As it relates to mold, some people’s homes are so damaged and they are symptomatic from it that the easiest short-term solution is to get out of the home while leaving all of your belongings, including your clothing inside.

Sometimes we’ve told people, “You’re so sick. Here’s what you’re going to not only do but you’re going to need some support to do it because you’re so brain fogged. You need help. What we’d like you to do is there’s a hotel. It’s got different environmental toxins in there, VOCs and all these outgassing things but at least it should not have much in the way of mold. You’re going to walk into that room, shower and there is going to be brand new clothing that you’re going to wear while you start the recovery process.” That’s one possibility.

The other would be maybe you’re not quite sick enough. You can stay in your home while you’re making these decisions, look to find where the mold is coming from and then have a quality company remediate it. It’s not easy. It’s time-consuming and expensive. It is by all definitions the rabbit hole of going down. It’s another Pandora’s box. It’s catastrophic.

What people like you and I can do is open up people’s eyes to the reality that no matter what your sickness is, it may be from mold and you’re best off finding out if you’re impacted. There are home tests and urine tests you can do on yourself. There are supplements you can take to bind down to these toxins. There are a lot of different possibilities that are there. I appreciate you letting me have the opportunity to talk about this. It’s easy to tell someone to take a pharmaceutical, eat more seafood and get better sleep or sunshine. Some of these other strategies can be more difficult but they’re important.

It doesn’t take away the truth. People can decide what they want to do with that information. Maybe moving isn’t the best thing to do now but they can keep it in the back of their minds and the situation changes in 6 months, 1 year or something. At least that way, they have the knowledge and the information to do with it, rather than just suffering needlessly.

One last question on the mold. Based on your experience, I don’t know if there’s any way you could ever prove this one way or another but the people that you’ve seen and everything you’ve learned about mold in particular, what percentage of people in America would you say, “This is a factor that is more significant than people think?” Are we talking about 1% or 50% of the population? How pervasive is mold a problem for people?

I don’t have any definitive literature. I can only tell you from my experience. If I had to put a number on it, I would probably say 80% to 90% of people are impacted by mold. It could be cardiovascular or brain disease, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, other movement disorders and tremors people have. It could be fertility issues, low libido, erectile dysfunction, gut disorders, skin disorders, rashes, brain fog, lethargy, weight gain or weight loss. Would you say that 80% to 90% of Americans have some kind of health condition? Everybody’s got their something.

If pretty much everybody has got some form of sickness, they would say, “It’s not a sickness. Occasionally, I get eczema. I’ve got a little bit of arthritis. I feel fatigued but everybody does. My blood pressure’s a little bit high.” We can make the case that mold is one of the contributing factors. When we do everything else, eat well, live well and think well, our symptoms are likely to improve but they typically will not be 100% improved. The improvement is usually not a long-lasting thing. It’s enlightening for me because mold ties it all together in the sense of why people are sick. You’ve had a lot of clients where it’s like, “I’m eating all the right foods. I’m doing all the things you’re telling me but I’m not getting better,” or their lab results are abnormal. It’s mold until proven otherwise.

I realized that was speculation on your part to give some numbers to that. That’s a much higher number than I would’ve expected. I appreciate you and all the learning you’ve done in that category. Let’s go to think well. Tell us a little bit about why thinking well is so important to be 1 of the 3 pillars that you talked about.

In medical school, in our training, we get zero, except for a short stint on a psychiatry rotation where it’s all about pharmaceuticals. I want people to understand that this was chapter five of my book called One Nation Under Prozac, where the answer is not Prozac in the sense of anger, anxiety, stress and depression, all markedly increase the risk of cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, strokes, atrial fibrillation, heart failure and death.

We want people to understand that they better get a handle and a hold on their emotional wellness and thought processes. That could be through a lot of different ways in different categories of thinking well that is important, spirituality, believing in God, either formalized religion or spirit that someone believes in it, having that spirituality, having a good community or connectedness where I feel I’ve got a lot of people around me who are like me, whom I can confide in and love me.

Another thing is self-acceptance, understanding that, “I’m doing my best in this crazy world. I’m a good person. I’m a valuable person.” Have that sense of well-being about yourself. There’s also a sense of security where people feel safe. Find your safety zone. Find where you are surrounded by whether it’s good people or you feel secure in your environment. That’s very important for mental health and wellness. Finally, that sense of purpose where it’s like, “This is what I am here to do. I am here in this form, on this planet to do something.”

It takes us back to the original thing about how conventional medicine can be very lucrative but if it’s not your purpose, you’ll never be fulfilled. If you’re not happy doing that, you could be making all the money in the world. If it’s not your purpose, you’ll never be happy and therefore, you’ll never be healthy. We want people to understand all those processes and different things, whether it’s yoga, meditation, Tai Chi, relaxing activities or breathing activities. All those things can help you inside of that thinking well process and deal with all the stress, anxiety and fear, especially the last few years have brought to us.

We mentioned community and connectedness. Social isolation, which has been prevalent forced upon us the amount of death and destruction that causes. We know from the literature in many studies, social isolation, people who are not around other people do not have good contacts or community. They die much younger than those of us who do have that sense of community. Continue to foster that. Frankly, social media can be a good way for a lot of people to foster that kind of community. You may not have people in your immediate area. You may not have friends and family but sometimes getting that connectedness to people online could be beneficial.

That is such an interesting and cool point. A lot of us in this world poo-poo on social media all the time. There are a lot of things wrong with social media but there is also some benefit. I love how practical you are with all kinds of different techniques and things that people can be doing. You mentioned yoga, breathing and meditation. Even things like journaling can help people. If they’re thinking, “I would love to have a sense of purpose. I would love to have a safety net of people around me who cared about me,” but maybe they don’t. I’m glad that you listed so many different things so people can pick, choose and see what works out best for them. Is that what you found in your experience as well?

We all know the problems with social media. With that being said, we’ve got a Facebook group for Natural Heart Doctor. We’ve got 10,000 people on there. We build that as a sense of community like, “Everybody is in here seeking natural heart health.” You can make friends here. We’ve done courses and group coaching programs. We have a lot of people who stay connected with these people for a very long time or are even still connected afterward.

In our office in Arizona, we invite people to come in and grab a couple of organic molds micro toxin-free coffee, use the Wi-Fi and have a paleo snack or none of it. Just come in and be around other like-minded people. Introduce yourself because the people across the room are very likely to be very similar to you. Establishing that kind of friendship is important.

It’s cool what happens in a group setting. If the group meets long enough, whether it is in person or online, it stops being something like, “Dr. Wolfson said this. I’ve got to do this because he said that.” It’s more like, “We’re all in this together. What worked for you? I went through this. Let me give you this advice.” Everybody starts naturally helping each other and being the ones giving good advice to people.

It’s not like a top-down thing. Everybody is in this together. I love that. It helps validate people and what they’re learning about low-carbohydrate living or whatever it is, eating a natural diet or a paleo diet. That can be very helpful. That’s great. I also want to talk to you, not just about the pillars but also something that you mentioned, testing, not guessing. Why is that so important? What are some of your very favorite tests that you like to do on your patients?

We can all talk about, “I’m eating well, living well and thinking well. Therefore, I’m doing good.” That’s where tests don’t guess come in because how do you know you’re not deficient in vitamins? For example, whether it’s a B1, B6, vitamin A, any of the vitamins or a mineral. How do you know you’re not deficient in copper, zinc or selenium? What are your Omega-3 levels? What are your CoQ10 and fatty acid levels? Look at markers of inflammation. There are so many different areas we can go with this.

What are your levels of mold mycotoxins? What are your environmental toxins, pesticides and leaky gut? What about gluten and food sensitivities? The beauty of it is there are a lot of companies that are doing it the right way. We’re getting a lot of information on people and then using that to guide other things inside of eating well, living well and thinking well and using that to guide evidence-based supplements.

With a cardiologist, most people would ask you about a standard lipid profile. If somebody is getting a standard lipid profile, this is very inexpensive. They’re looking at a few metrics at the doctor’s office. Do you find any value in a standard lipid profile or should people be going for more in-depth and exotic tests?

In standard testing for the standard lipid panel, total cholesterol is not a very useful value whatsoever. We’ve known that since the 1970s. Even total LDL and HDL do not provide a lot of value. We can calculate ratios with some of that information that can be useful. We can also look at triglycerides and say, “For every bit of elevation, triglycerides are up so does cardiovascular risk.” Much more important than standard lipids would be the markers of inflammation. Your lipids may appear normal on that standard test but you have a lot of inflammation such as hs-CRP, Phospholipase A2 or oxidative stress like oxidized LDL, myeloperoxidase and lipid peroxides.

If all that’s going on, we need to continue to figure out why. What’s different about me and holistic practitioners is that instead of reaching for statin drugs, aspirin or other pharmaceuticals, we want to know why. Why does someone have these lipid abnormalities, inflammation, elevated homocysteine and Lp(a)? What could we do about that? In short, I’m testing hundreds of different parameters on people to give them an insight as to where they’re at, make changes, test what needs to be tested down the road, see how we did and make sure we’re on track for the 100-Year Heart.

Are any other tests that you run that aren’t blood-based? Do you do any other physical testing on people? Any value in that?

There are a lot of different tests that are out there. I’m against CT scans. A lot of people get coronary CT or EBCT scans. I’m against radiation-based testing. We do a salivary nitric oxide test strip. EKG and ultrasounds have value but we do urine, stool and salivary testing and lots of different things that can be done. We do a lot of hormonal analysis and optimizing hormones. There are a lot of different strategies for that.

We don’t run to give somebody testosterone or maybe some new peptide therapy or anything like that until we get them on the eat well, live well and think well. We test and don’t guess. We optimize the foundation first. There’s a time for some of these other strategies, whether it’s hormones, peptides, ozone, hyperbaric or sauna, cold thermogenesis and some of these other biohacking techniques.

Regarding supplementation, without the testing, we don’t know where people are specifically deficient. In speculation in your experience, what are your top favorite supplements for most people? Regardless of whether they are getting advanced testing or not, what do you think most people could benefit from supplementing in their diet?

We have a supplement that’s a grass-fed, grass-finished American bison product. It’s a liver-heart complex. A lot of people don’t want to eat the organs but we can sneak the organs based on taking a capsule. People don’t want to eat the food. They have that option. That’s foundational. The liver and heart are the two most nutrient-dense things. There’s nothing more nutrient-dense than the liver. No kale, chard or oatmeal even is in the same stratosphere as what’s inside a healthy animal’s liver. We like that. Also, probiotics and some of the shake mixes contain whey protein, which is good.

Certain things help to increase nitric oxide levels, that therefore improves circulation and blood pressure. That can be things like beetroot powder or amino acids, L-arginine, L-citrulline and L-taurine. From a lipid standpoint, there are things like berberine, curcumin and ginger. That can be a nice natural way to optimize a lipid panel. There are natural blood thinners. Fortunately, in our toolbox, there are hundreds, if not thousands of different supplement choices that could be beneficial. If we can use tests, don’t guess to dial that in, that’s always going to be a benefit.

You already mentioned getting exposure to the sun and that’s one of our best primary ways to get vitamin D synthesis in our bodies, which is so important. Most of us who live through COVID understood that vitamin D was brought up a lot as something very important. Where are you with vitamin D supplementation? Do you feel like that’s as effective if people don’t have the option to get outside or if it’s like us being in the Northern Hemisphere and a state where you can’t even generate that much vitamin D in the sun of these latitudes? Do you believe in supplementing vitamin D in those situations?

I’m not a huge vitamin D supplementer. Most people should know that if you supplement D, you got to supplement vitamin K, specifically K2. It keeps calcium in the bones and out of the arteries. We test people’s K2 levels. It is a very useful test. Regarding vitamin D supplementation, I like to get it from nature. Number 1) We’d get it from the sun and it’s easy to do in the summertime. In the wintertime, it’s not easy and most people are at latitudes where they get no vitamin D production whatsoever. For those people, we tell them to take a lot of vacations, “I’m not going to move or take a lot of vacations. What else do you get for me?” When you eat animal products, seafood, nose-to-tail beef or bison, chicken, eggs and even raw dairy products, you get a lot of vitamin D from that.

You get it from food sources. You can’t get vitamin D from plants. You got to get it from animal products, then also you can get a vitamin D from a lamp. That’s another good strategy for people. There’s a company that sells that as well and that’s an available vitamin D lamp. We live in the mountains of Colorado. I do all the things I said and I typically use a vitamin D lamp.

Vitamin D as a supplement inside of a multivitamin is okay in the situation where you are feeling acutely ill or you feel like you’re getting some kind of a virus or something that’s impacting your immune system. Vitamin D can be one of those supplements to assist and quickly ramp it up. We know from African children with measles that vitamin D supplementation in that population who was deficient was markedly beneficial for those people and also vitamin A, which lowered mortality by 85%.

During this whole conversation, I keep thinking back to something Nina Teicholz says in her book, The Big Fat Surprise, where it’s like, “We shifted our diets and lifestyles centuries ago for one problem.” That was heart disease. We changed our entire dietary recommendations. Our lifestyle shifted. We changed everything to address that one thing and it didn’t work.

Everything that you’re describing can address heart health that will work and it does so many other wonderful things. You’re going to be lean, lose weight, maintain muscle mass, be strong and have healthy bones, gut and skin. Do you ever reflect on how amazing it is that once we have the right inputs into the body, how easily it can heal, self-correct and be good for so many different things, not just heart health?

Medical doctors are good at labels. “This person has liver disease, brain disease, cancer, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune disease, asthma or allergies,” and so on. The reality is they’re all from the same causes. They’re from violations of eat well, live well and think well. That is our best strategy to avoid sickness and heal from sickness. Health will never be found in a prescription bottle or at a tip of a needle. It’s going to be found by giving your body what it needs and taking away what it doesn’t. That’s our success plan.

You cannot find health in a prescription bottle or at the tip of a needle. It is found by giving your body what it needs and taking away what it doesn’t.

I hear the genetics conversation a lot and the medical doctors even like to say, “It’s your genetics. It’s in your family history.” Our genetics are perfect until we screw them up. Manmade foods and toxins are what screw it up. Also, manmade thought processes and traumas that happened to us are what damage the body. Don’t blame it on your genetics. “My mother had this.” You have this like your mother because you eat and live as your mother did but if you went back many generations, they did not have these health ailments.

This has been an awesome conversation. Is there anything that you are planning on or preparing for in the future, something that gets you excited?

I’ve got my event coming up in February 2023. For me, every month is Heart Month but February is nationally recognized as Heart Month. We’ve got an online event coming up called Your Path to a 100 Year Heart. I interview about 35 different experts in that field. People who are connected to us on social media, on our email list or even people like yourself are certainly welcome to help us promote getting the truth out there. The truth is going to win the day. The more people we get involved with and learn, the more the good guys win.

Where can people go so that they can find and connect with you and your work and also, get those resources that you talked about?

FreeHeartBook.com is a great place to start to get a copy of my Amazon bestselling book. Our website is Natural Heart Doctor. That’s where you can find us. You can google me and find some interesting things. Typically, those of us holistic practitioners who’ve been around for a while, we’ve got certainly a lot of positive and negative things said about us but as long as people are talking about us, that’s the key.

I get Twitter comments all the time where it’s like, “At least you’re saying something, I appreciate it, even if it’s not the nicest thing to say.” Dr. Jack Wolfson, to be able to do what you did, be trained in the way that you were to witness tragedy in your family. To be able to take that and continue your father’s legacy and help people in a different way than the system is teaching is marvelous. Thank you very much for everything that you have gone through. Thank you for what you’re doing and for taking the time to be on our show. We appreciate you.

Thank you so much, Casey.

This has been another episode of the show.

Important Links

• Natural Heart Doctor
• The Paleo Cardiologist: The Natural Way To Heart Health
• Dr. Thomas Seyfried – Past Episode
• The Big Fat Surprise
• Natural Heart Doctor – Facebook Group
• Your Path to a 100 Year Heart
• https://www.MyBoundlessBody.com
• https://www.YouTube.com/channel/UCJopILpyhMAMqQpsGGiOyCA
• https://Shop.NaturalHeartDoctor.com/collections/Tests

About Dr. Jack Wolfson

Jack Wolfson D.O., F.A.C.C., is a board-certified cardiologist who uses nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements to prevent and treat heart disease. He completed a 4-year medical degree, 3-year internal medicine residency and, 3-year cardiology fellowship. He served as the Chief Fellow of his cardiology program, managing all of the other cardiology trainees.

Dr. Wolfson then joined the largest cardiology group in the state of Arizona and spent 10 years as a hospital-based cardiologist performing angiograms, pacemakers, and other cardiac procedures. He was the Chairman of Medicine, Director of Cardiology and, Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation.

He was selected by his peers as one of the Arizona “Top Docs” in 2011.

In 2012, Dr. Wolfson founded Natural Heart Doctor to offer patients the ultimate in holistic heart care. People worldwide consult with Dr. Wolfson, traveling to Arizona or virtually for natural heart care.

Dr. Wolfson has appeared on every major news station and major newspaper along with hundreds of appearances at live events, podcasts, and online interviews. He has taught medical doctors and practitioners from all over the world.

Dr. Wolfson was recognized as one of the Top 50 Holistic Medical Practitioners.

The Paleo Cardiologist, The Natural Way to Heart Health is the first book by Dr. Wolfson and is an Amazon best-seller. He is also a contributing author to The Textbook of Integrative Cardiology.