Heart disease is still the leading killer in the world, and most people who face it are handed the same script. A prescription. A procedure. A follow-up in six months. What almost nobody gets is an explanation. Why did the artery narrow? Why did the blood pressure climb? Why did the calcium score come back high? The number gets managed. The cause never gets named.

That is why a growing number of people go looking for a different kind of heart doctor. They want someone who will investigate food, toxins, sleep, sunlight, movement, stress, infections, and environment before reaching for the prescription pad. Someone who treats abnormal labs as warning lights instead of the final answer. This is the work of holistic, integrative, and preventive heart doctors, and there are real clinicians across the country doing it well.

Below is a guide to twelve of them. Some are cardiologists in the strict sense, meaning physicians who completed cardiovascular fellowship training. Others are physicians in related specialties whose practices center on cardiovascular health. We separate the two groups on purpose, because that distinction matters when you are choosing who takes care of your heart.

How We Selected These Doctors

Full disclosure first, because you deserve it. Natural Heart Doctor created this list, and three of the clinicians named here are members of our own team. This is a curated guide, not an independently scored ranking, and the order below is not a ranking of quality. We put our own practice first because this is our guide and we want you to know exactly whose desk it came from. Judge the rest of it on the substance.

Here is what we looked for:

• Cardiovascular training and years of real clinical experience
• Verifiable professional credentials and active licensure
• A practice built on preventive, integrative, or functional approaches rather than prescription-first care
• Published work, teaching, books, or professional leadership in the field
• Availability to patients, and a clear clinical focus

We verified each practitioner against their own practice website and public records before publishing. Where a credential could not be confirmed, we left it out rather than repeat it.

Cardiologists: Physicians With Cardiovascular Fellowship Training

Dr. Jack Wolfson, DO, — Natural Heart Doctor, Scottsdale, Arizona

Board-certified cardiologist with more than twenty years in practice, including years inside the hospital system before leaving it in 2012. Certified through A4M in integrative and anti-aging medicine. Founder of Natural Heart Doctor and creator of the 100 Year Heart Method, which organizes care around Eat Well, Live Well, Think Well, and Test, Don’t Guess. Author of the Amazon bestseller The Paleo Cardiologist: The Natural Way to Heart Health. Practices Root Cause Cardiology, teaches it internationally, and sees patients by telemedicine and in Scottsdale. Second opinion consults are available.

Dr. Mimi Guarneri, MD, FACC, ABOIM — Pacific Pearl La Jolla, California

Board-certified in cardiovascular disease, internal medicine, nuclear cardiology, and integrative holistic medicine. She trained in cardiology at NYU and Scripps Clinic and spent years as an interventional cardiologist placing coronary stents before turning toward prevention and integrative care. Founding President of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine and co-founder of the Scripps Center for Integrative Medicine, which she led for roughly fifteen years. Author of The Heart Speaks. She now practices at Pacific Pearl La Jolla with a focus on prevention, advanced imaging, and mind-body medicine. Professional biography.

Dr. Joel Kahn, MD, FACC — Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity, Bingham Farms, Michigan

A practicing cardiologist since 1983 and one of the best-known voices for plant-based nutrition in cardiovascular medicine. Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University. Founder of the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity, where he combines conventional cardiology with prevention, advanced lipid testing, and lifestyle medicine. Author of several books including The Whole Heart Solution and Lipoprotein(a): The Heart’s Quiet Killer. We do not agree with Dr. Kahn on every dietary question, and he would say the same about us. We do agree that most heart disease is built by daily inputs and can be addressed the same way. Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity.

Dr. Cynthia Thaik, MD — Holistic Healing Heart Center, Los Angeles, California

Earned her medical degree at the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine, completed internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Deaconess and her cardiovascular disease fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, both Harvard-affiliated. Board certified in cardiovascular disease by the American Board of Internal Medicine. Assistant Clinical Professor at UCLA. Founder of the Holistic Healing Heart Center, where she blends conventional cardiology with nutrition, stress reduction, and lifestyle change. Author of Your Vibrant Heart. Practice website.

Dr. Mark R. Gordon, MD, FACC — Longevity Personalized, Carlsbad, California

Earned his medical degree and completed his cardiology fellowship at the University of Minnesota, then practiced invasive cardiology for roughly two decades before shifting his focus to prevention and longevity. Fellowship-trained through A4M in anti-aging and regenerative medicine, with additional training in advanced metabolic cardiovascular medicine at George Washington University. Founder of Longevity Personalized, a concierge preventive cardiology practice using advanced plaque imaging and metabolic testing. Longevity Personalized.

Dr. James C. Roberts, Jr., MD, FACC — Comprehensive Heart Care, Toledo, Ohio

More than forty years of cardiology practice, board certified in internal medicine and cardiology, with additional training in functional and metabolic medicine. He opened the EECP Center of Northwest Ohio in 1997 and has built a national reputation for taking on complex, advanced, and so-called inoperable cases using enhanced external counterpulsation alongside detailed nutritional and metabolic protocols. His long-running clinical writing at HeartFixer is one of the more detailed public records of integrative cardiovascular practice in the country. HeartFixer.

Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum, DO — New York, New York

Preventive cardiologist in private practice in New York City, trained in internal medicine and cardiology at Beth Israel Medical Center with fellowship training in preventive and non-invasive cardiology. She previously directed women’s heart programs at Lenox Hill Hospital, Mount Sinai Heart, and Beth Israel. Founder and CEO of Heart-Tech Health and its Adesso platform, built around women’s cardiovascular prevention. Author of Dr. Suzanne Steinbaum’s Heart Book and a longtime national spokesperson for women’s heart health. Professional website.

Dr. Anne-Marie Feyrer-Melk, MD — Optimal Heart Center and Body Lab, Scottsdale, Arizona

Earned her medical degree at the University of Wisconsin, completed internal medicine residency and a cardiovascular disease fellowship, and has been in practice since 1997. Founder of Optimal Heart Center and Body Lab, an all-inclusive concierge membership practice that does not bill insurance. Her focus is early detection and prevention, including advanced non-invasive plaque imaging and personalized nutrition. Optimal Heart Center.

Dr. Andrew Scott Rudin, MD — Natural Heart Doctor, Scottsdale, Arizona

Cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist with more than two decades of practice. He earned his medical degree at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, where he ranked first in his class, completed internal medicine residency and chief residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital, and completed fellowships in cardiology and electrophysiology at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. Board certified in cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology, with additional certification in nuclear cardiology and echocardiography. He has directed cardiac electrophysiology programs in multiple states and now works with Natural Heart Doctor, where his rhythm expertise is applied to patients with atrial fibrillation and palpitations who want the cause found rather than the symptom suppressed. Consult with Dr. Rudin.

Physicians in Related Specialties Focused on Cardiovascular Health

The three clinicians below are not cardiovascular fellowship-trained cardiologists, and we are not going to blur that line. They are physicians in other specialties whose clinical work centers on the heart and blood vessels. That is a legitimate and valuable role. It is simply a different one, and you should know which you are hiring.

Dr. Mark C. Houston, MD, MS, MSc — Nashville, Tennessee

An internist, not a cardiologist, and arguably the most influential clinician in the country on the root causes of high blood pressure. Board certified in internal medicine, certified as a hypertension specialist by the American Society of Hypertension, and certified in anti-aging medicine. He holds dual master’s degrees in human nutrition and in metabolic medicine and human nutrition. He founded the Hypertension Institute in Nashville in 1995 and directed it for thirty-one years until it closed in July 2026, and he taught at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine for more than two decades. He is the author of roughly nineteen books, including What Your Doctor May Not Tell You About Hypertension and Personalized and Precision Integrative Cardiovascular Medicine. His work on the nutritional and vascular biology of blood pressure shaped how a generation of integrative clinicians approaches the problem. Biography.

Dr. Decker Weiss, NMD — Weiss Heart and Longevity Clinic, Carefree, Arizona

A licensed naturopathic physician in Arizona, not a medical doctor or osteopathic physician, whose practice has focused on cardiovascular care for decades. He earned his naturopathic doctorate at what is now Sonoran University of Health Sciences and completed hospital-based cardiology training in the Arizona Heart Institute system, a path no naturopathic physician had taken before him. He practices at the Weiss Heart and Longevity Clinic in Carefree, Arizona, and has taught natural approaches to cardiovascular disease internationally. Practice website.

Dr. Lauren Lattanza, NMD — Natural Heart Doctor, Scottsdale, Arizona

A licensed naturopathic physician, not a cardiologist, who works alongside Dr. Wolfson at Natural Heart Doctor. She earned her doctorate at the Southwest College of Naturopathic Medicine in Tempe, Arizona, where she served as class president all four years and earned her class’s Outstanding Leadership Award. Her clinical focus is cardiometabolic and digestive health, with particular attention to women’s cardiovascular risk, nutrition, and the gut-heart connection. She is fluent in Spanish and spent her training years volunteering in Phoenix community clinics. Second opinion consults with Dr. Lattanza.

How to Verify Any Doctor’s Credentials Yourself

Do not take our word for any of this, and do not take a practice website’s word either. Credentials expire, certifications lapse, and marketing copy drifts. Two free public tools let you check for yourself in about two minutes:

• Certification Matters, run by the American Board of Medical Specialties, confirms whether a physician currently holds ABMS board certification and in which specialty.
• The Federation of State Medical Boards consumer guide points you to your state medical board and to DocInfo, where you can check licensure status and disciplinary history.

Naturopathic physicians are licensed by separate state boards, so check the naturopathic board in the relevant state rather than the medical board. Ask any doctor directly what they are board certified in and when it was last renewed. A good one will answer without flinching.

What the Research Actually Says About Prevention-First Cardiology

This is not fringe thinking. The American Society for Preventive Cardiology published a clinical practice statement defining preventive cardiology as a distinct subspecialty covering primordial, primary, and secondary prevention, and stated plainly that progress against cardiovascular death has been driven largely by prevention rather than rescue (German et al., American Journal of Preventive Cardiology, 2022).

In the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, a review of lifestyle modification in heart failure made a point worth reading twice: clinicians tend to focus on drug and device therapy and often fail to capitalize on significant opportunities to prevent or treat the disease through lifestyle change (Aggarwal et al., JACC, 2018). That is the gap Root Cause Cardiology exists to close.

And in 2025 the American Heart Association issued a scientific statement on delivering behavioral interventions for cardiovascular disease prevention outside of clinical settings entirely, in churches, barbershops, and community organizations, because the drug-and-procedure model was never going to reach far enough on its own (Tabak et al., Circulation, 2025). Citations above are indexed in PubMed: 10.1016/j.ajpc.2022.100432, 10.1016/j.jacc.2018.08.2160, 10.1161/CIR.0000000000001349.

The mainstream is slowly arriving at what root-cause doctors have been saying for years. The body does not fail because it lacks pharmaceuticals. It fails because of too much bad stuff and not enough good stuff.

What to Look for When You Choose

Credentials get a doctor onto a list like this one. They do not tell you whether that doctor will actually find your problem. When you make the call, listen for whether the conversation starts with your numbers or with your life. A root-cause doctor wants to know what you eat, how you sleep, what your home was built out of, whether it has ever had water damage, what your teeth look like, how much sun you get, who you love, and what you are afraid of. Then they test. Then they build a plan and retest to see whether it worked.

Testing without action is wasted money, and action without follow-up testing is guesswork. If a doctor orders a panel and never explains how the results change your plan, you have paid for a number, not for care. Test, don’t guess, and then close the loop.

The Bottom Line

Holistic cardiology is not a rejection of modern medicine. It is an expansion of it. Every clinician on this list uses the tools that earn their place, and every one of them refuses to stop at the prescription. Pharma last, not first.

The diagnosis is not the root cause. The number is not the root cause. Your heart was built by what you have been exposed to and what you have been missing, and it can be rebuilt the same way. That is what the 100 Year Heart Method is for, and it is what our advanced testing is designed to uncover.

If you are ready to stop guessing about your heart, book your free Discovery Call with the Natural Heart Doctor team and find out what is actually driving your risk.

Cheers to Your 100 Year Heart.