178 | GUEST SERIES: Dr. Russell Jaffe's Vision for a Nature-Infused Healthcare Future - Inflammation Nation: Science Informed Wellness

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey everyone, welcome to the Funkbed Nation podcast.
I'm your host, dr SteveNosworthy.
The views and opinionsexpressed by my guests in this
podcast are not necessarilyconsistent with my own.
However, I do my best to berespectful of their views and
opinions as they express them,even if they differ from my own.

(00:24):
Now let's get to the podcast.
So today my guest is Dr RussellJaffe.
He's an MD-PhD.
He's trained as an internistand an immunologist.
He is double board certified inclinical pathology, with a
subspecialty certification inchemical pathology.
He's also a fellow of severaldifferent medical societies.

(00:45):
Dr Jaffe has helped advanceseveral adjunctive healthcare
approaches, including medicalacupuncture, traditional Chinese
medicine, certified clinicalnutrition, health coaching and
the use of predictive biomarkers.
Enabling primary proactiveprevention in clinical practice
is part of Dr Jaffe's mission tospeed the transition from sick

(01:06):
care to healthful caring inpolicy, practice and research,
with over 100 peer-reviewedpublications, invited chapters
and books.
Dr Jaffe speaks at continuingprofessional education
conferences and technologyinnovation forums.
Dr Jaffe is the director ofELISA, act Biotechnologies and
the nutraceutical company PERC.

(01:28):
He's also serving as thefounding fellow of the Health
Studies Collegium and he worksand lives in Virginia.
And before we get to theinterview, I have to say I just
had a wonderful time talking tosomebody who has such a broad
and varied background.
He quite often refers tohimself through the interview as
eclectic and his background iscertainly that, and I think that

(01:52):
you will find his insights andhis manner captivating and
engaging.
I hope you enjoy the interview.
I certainly enjoyed being partof that conversation.
Why don't we start with a bigwelcome?
I appreciate taking time out ofwhat I'm sure is a pretty busy
schedule for you, and one of thefirst things that I wanted to
start with Russell is I like togo very big picture and then

(02:15):
start to narrow down, and you'vegot a very interesting
background.
You're an MD, you're a PhD, andI'm sure that that probably
doesn't encompass all of yourexperience and expertise, but
I'm always interested in how andwhy people deviate from the
genesis point of their coreeducation to end up wherever it

(02:38):
is.
They are 10, 15, 20 years downthe road 20 years down the road.
So if you look back on yourcareer, what was the biggest
turning point?
Or let's say, what's the firstturning point where you started
to say I think I see somethingother than what I'm being taught
right now.
Let me go explore this and addit to the experience and the
knowledge that I've gathered sofar.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
Well, I was a young resident at the National
Institutes of Health, nih inBethesda, maryland.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
And.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
I heard that this guy named Quing Nguyen Wu put
needles into people and gotresults we could not get.
So I went to debunk him.
Oh, and that led to aseven-year apprenticeship in TCM
and acupuncture Veryinteresting.
So while I was continuing atthen the senior staff at NIH, I

(03:33):
was also in his training program, along with Patch Adams I don't
know if you remember Patch fromthe movie Patch Sure yeah, jim
Johnson who was his aide to camp, and just a few.
Just a few.
But Queen could see thatacupuncture in America was going
to become a profession, not ahobby.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
And this was?
What year was this Russell, oh?

Speaker 2 (03:57):
1973 to 1979.

Speaker 1 (04:00):
Okay, so this was very early in the.

Speaker 2 (04:03):
You asked me what was my turning point, and I think
Kling was the turning point.

Speaker 1 (04:07):
He was the turning point.
So, as you made the transitionfrom the Western medicine
mindset, which has its ownunique set of characteristics,
was it a mental culture shockfor you?
Oh, absolutely.
Was it a mental culture shockfor you?
Oh, absolutely.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
You can call it cognitive dissonance, because I
had been programmed and taughtthings that just were outdated
or just not true, or just trueby convention, because we
believe it.
When, as a student, I would askwhy?

(04:49):
Why I would be told to go studyfor an exam and that why would
come later.
But it never came.

Speaker 1 (04:56):
So did you start to question, then, either the
fundamental value of aconventional medicine mindset,
or did you still think, well,this has value.
It just doesn't tell the wholestory, no no, I consider myself
eclectic.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
I consider myself to be the integration of all my
experiences.
But, to be specific, I startedwith one medical school class
and then I put a PhD inbiochemistry in the middle and
so I taught my classmates.
I taught biochemistry as astudent teacher to the people

(05:33):
that I graduated with.
And a little curious note I wasthe first student at Boston
University, maybe in the country, to get three degrees on one
day.
So I got an A, B, an M, D and aPhD, so my parents could
finally go to a graduation.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Oh, good for you.
So if that chance meeting backin the early 70s was the
starting point of you shiftingyour mindset and how you think
about health and well-being, ifyou look at different stops
along the way between that pointof where you are now, what were

(06:13):
the I call them pivot points?
What were the pivot points thattook your studies and even
perhaps your practice off in adifferent direction that you
didn't expect?

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Well, near the end of my apprenticeship with Kling I
heard that there was DrRamamurti Mishra who had written
the textbook of yoga psychologyand commentaries on Patanjali's
sutras, and I had five years inyoga and Ayurveda with him.

Speaker 1 (06:43):
That was a shift.
Ayurveda with him, that was ashift, and it was a shift in the
sense.
Like you used the word eclecticjust a moment ago, it was a
shift in the sense of you maderoom in your mental framework
for something different andsomething new that seemed to
mesh with what you were alreadythinking and doing.
Is that correct?

Speaker 2 (07:03):
I knew early on that we didn't know too much and we
had to learn much, much more.

Speaker 1 (07:09):
So what do you think is?
What's the difference in howyou look at things?
Because I would imagine thatsome of your classmates and even
you know medical doctors ormedical students.
As they're getting ready tograduate now they're exposed to
different ways of thinking,different ways of doing, but
they don't all.

(07:29):
I would argue that not manyrespond the way that you did
with, you know, essentially openarms, even though your intent
going into that first encounterin the seventies, I came as a
skeptic and I saw the deficiencyin my knowledge, in my
abilities, and I wanted tocorrect that as much as possible

(07:50):
.
And what was it about thatpresentation that changed your
mind?
Was it a demonstration of himworking with a patient?
Was it just a discussion of thephilosophy of TCM?

Speaker 2 (08:03):
Oh, with regard to Quinn, and, by the way, the
first year he didn't look at meor speak to me, and in the
second year I could ask him whywas that true?
And he said if you can't stayaway, in other words, if I can
push you away, you'll drift away, but now that you're here we
can stop.

(08:24):
And he became more and morefascinating as I matriculated
through his world.
There is so much to be saidabout that.
I wisely making is that I wasopen and not closed.

(08:48):
Most medical, dental,chiropractic, naturopathic
doctors today are taught,programmed.
They are encouraged to neverask why, but just to say ah, the
professor knows, and I shallstudy and memorize and

(09:13):
eventually maybe I'll become aprofessor too or something, or a
practitioner.
But if you practice from yourPDA, if you practice based on
symptom reactive care, the wayconventional medicine is done in
our country and largely aroundthe world, right, unfortunately,

(09:37):
you will bury people at highcost, too young, with much
suffering.
That doesn't feel to me like ahealthcare system.
That feels to me like a sickcare system.

Speaker 1 (09:50):
Right, and maybe that's a good transition into um
, the, the white paper that youcoauthored back in 2000, where
you you did an overview of thestatus of healthcare at the time
, and it's kind of interestingthat the things that you wrote
24 years ago are things that arestill talked about today, right

(10:14):
.
So whatever future youenvisioned when you and your
colleagues wrote that paperabout the deficiencies of modern
healthcare, how much of that doyou think has changed?
How much has stayed the same?
And has it changed in the sensethat perhaps people like you
and me are now thinking anddoing things outside of the
system, but the system itself isstill fundamentally the same,

(10:36):
Like what's your take on wherewe are now compared to what your
?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
vision was when we are is the unfortunate result of
the Enlightenment movement.
Descartesian reductionismdominates today the thinking,
the philosophy and therefore thepractice of care.
That's a big mistake.

(10:59):
Define yes, we do havebiomechanical features, but life
is more than biomechanical and,unfortunately, in regard to
relationship or nutrition orattitude or environment or many,

(11:21):
many other topics that are alittle bit subtle but profoundly
important for the person infront of you, the individual, we
are still treating people likestatistics and we are making
statistics out of people, and Idon't practice statistics and I
don't want to become one youmentioned um decardian,

(11:47):
reductionist thinking.
Define that for the people whoare listening and and then tell
me what the antidote is the bestI can do at this because it's a
it's a big subject that is Ican do is it's imagine that our
universe, or the earth or you,are a watch.
There was a watchmaker.

(12:09):
We don't doubt there was awatchmaker.
The question is, is thewatchmaker still involved?
That means, is the universe afriendly place or a capricious
place?
I think most medical people areinured.
They are immersed in a way thatsays it's all over but the

(12:32):
shouting which means after theage of 40, you slip down the
slippery slope called aging.
Now aging is an illusion of toomuch bad and too little good,
and the oldest part of you isabout 10 years old and that's
your bones.
And any moment you start theprocess of renewal and

(12:54):
rebuilding your body, it doesWell.
If I can start with a90-year-old who's ailing and
failing and suffering and end upwith a 91-year-old who's
feeling vital and functioning asa 40-year-old, I think I've
helped him.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
So I want to know, I want to see if you agree with me
Through my observation, agreewith me Through my observation.
One of the places whereconventional medicine started to
go wrong, I think was probablyroughly in the 1980s and you
would know because you were inpractice at this point, but it
seemed to me that it wassomewhere around the 1980s.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
Let me interrupt for a moment.
Yeah, please.
I have never sent a bill as adoctor, I have never had a
private practice.
I have seen many colleagues andtheir clients to help them
understand my philosophy and myspecific plan, because if you
have a philosophy, that's fine,a specific plan that they are

(14:12):
inspired, motivated and informedto take one step at a time and
achieve remarkable results.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
So in a moment, I'd like you to maybe outline some
of those steps, and I know it'sprobably going to vary from
person to person.

Speaker 2 (14:20):
There are steps that are important for everyone and
there are the personalized stepsfor an individual.
Agreed, totally agreed.
I can certainly talk about howyou eat, drink, think and do in
relation to how you arerebuilding and renewing your
health or your inviting illness.

Speaker 1 (14:42):
Right, Right, you're inviting illness, right, right.
So back to the question that Iwant to pose to you about one of
the places where modernmedicine has gone wrong and
really gone into.
This reductionist approachseemed to me to be somewhere
around the 1980s, when, at thatpoint, or prior to that point,
it seemed like most medicaldoctors were GPs.

(15:05):
It was more rare to findsomeone who was a specialist.
Now, I know that you do havespecialties and subspecialties,
but was it somewhere around the1980s where it became the thing
to do for students to was awell-intended plan advocated by

(15:25):
friends of mine to manage caremore comprehensively and
personally.

Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, it became mangled care.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
And mangled, in the sense that doctors became
specialists and they lost theview of the big picture.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, today you have hospitalists that are in the
hospital only and not in thecommunity.
Community doctors who used tobe able to come into the
hospital are invited to stayaway if they don't have
privileges at that hospital,right?
Yes, things have become morefragmented.
Yes, things have become morefragmented.

(16:04):
Yes, things have become moresymptom reactive.
The average person of my age ison a dozen medications, half of
them for the side effects ofthe other half I am taking no
prescription medicines, but Itake a handful of supplements
every day, and what I eat isprimary.

(16:25):
But my supplement is necessaryin the 21st century because,
guess what?
The rents are going up and theceilings are coming down.

Speaker 1 (16:35):
As my grandmother used to say, and I think that
ultimately, the people that paythe price for how the medical
system has developed, say, sinceabout the 1980s or so, is that
now you have a bunch of doctorswith their you know too many
cooks in the kitchen, so tospeak, and each one is perhaps

(16:57):
very well versed in their ownspecialty, but again they've
lost the sight of the bigpicture, which seems to me that
that's where you've put most ofyour focus is stepping back to
see the big picture and seeingit not again from a disease
management standpoint, but Italk about crafting wellness
right.
Wellness, being healthy,doesn't happen on accident, and

(17:18):
there are too many things thatare somewhat inevitable, that
are going to somewhat inevitable, that are going to
down-regulate or impair yourability to respond.
And so could you, in simple oreven in complex terms, outline

(17:42):
what your health or healthcarephilosophy is, even starting
things like how would you definehealth or wellness?
Are they the same thing?
Are they different?
How are they connected?

Speaker 2 (17:50):
Health and wellness are intimately connected.
We can today, with fourself-assessments and eight
predictive biomarkers, measureyour functional and whether, in
regard to each of those testsmarkers, you're at your best

(18:11):
outcome personal goal value ornot.
And then we have a lifestyleprogram to get you to your best
outcome goal value, because 92%of your and my lifetime health
is due to lifestyle epigenetics,not genomics, not omics, and 8%

(18:33):
is transgenerational influencesand genetics.
And a footnote if you reallywant to optimize your nucleus
and DNA and RNA, then take a lotof antioxidants, buffering
minerals and cofactors.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Now, what's the science behind that?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Well, the science is actually ancient and recent.
The science goes back to theearly 20th century.
We had two schools of thoughtMagic bullets like antibiotics
and anti-this and anti-that, andwe had another philosophy At

(19:19):
the turn of the century, 1900,there were more eclectic, nature
cure-oriented physicians thanallopathic physicians.
Allopathic physicians looked atthis and looked around and they

(19:43):
decided they needed to do threethings Capture the AMA, make
the AMA the voice of Americanmedicine and fuel this with
synthetic magic compounds.
The other point of view wasthat nature, nurture and

(20:07):
wholeness matter, that you caneat and drink, think and do
yourself to health or to illness, and people like me have long
been in the camp of speed thetransition to healthful caring,

(20:29):
one little step at a time thatadds up to big benefits to your
health.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
I think there's almost an inherent conflict with
that attitude, which I think isthe right one, and the way that
society and culture hasdeveloped, because now we are
decades past the formation ofthe AMA, we're decades past the

(21:02):
introduction of the firstantibiotic.
We have decades and decades ofat least here in the US lots of
marketing, lots of lobbyingefforts and dollars being put
into our legislative process.
People are inundated with theidea that if you have XYZ

(21:23):
problems, ask your doctor ifthis drug is going to help you,
and so I see that the message isright, but I wonder about the
receptivity of the audience,about how willing they are to
hear that.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
I think people are willing to go by results and
things that make them feelbetter.
I will just mention in passingthat for many years the
president of the AMA was namedWilbur W-Y-L-B-U-R, and guess

(22:01):
what his brother did for aliving?
His brother was the chief ofstaff to the Ways and Means
Commission of the United StatesCongress and I was a young
physician walking the halls ofCapitol Hill advocating for more

(22:22):
scholarships and loans fornurses and doctors and
paraprofessionals.
I go by this door.
Now it's closed and I thinkthat's an unusual spelling.
Could they possibly be relatedby design?

(22:43):
If you have a few of yourpeople in the right places
whispering in the ears of theright people, you too can be
important.
You can be a lobbyist.
We now have so many lobbyiststhat they can actually rotate in

(23:06):
eight-hour intervals for everyelected person in Washington.
Wow, that's today.
Yeah, when I arrived inWashington, there were so few
lobbyists you couldn't find them, and they're called lobbyists
because they used to stand inthe lobby Stand in the lobby.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
I always wondered what that meant.
Yeah, that's what it means, andtherefore they could talk to
the people who are going in andout of those rooms that they
couldn't go in.
So not to turn the flavor ofthe conversation, but with the
new administration that's comingin and RFK Jr potentially being

(23:46):
in charge of the medicalestablishment by and large, are
you excited or cautious or waryof some of the things that he's
saying, the changes that hewants to enact, or do you look
at those things and say, well,it's about time?

Speaker 2 (24:04):
Well, you hear a lot of things.
Sure, you want to watch whathappens At the moment.
Many, many people have saidthis we could not do worse in

(24:24):
regard to our healthcareoutcomes in America Obesity and
all the cardiovascular andcardio, renal and cancer risks
and autoimmune risks that comeout of diabetes, nutritional
deprivations look at what theyserve in the hospital and the
stress of the medical caresystem.

(24:45):
Well, we calculate a minimum ofa million lives a year that you
could save at low cost and highvalue, simply by feeding people
nutritious food, by avoidingultra-processed foods, by
enjoying your relationships andlife.

(25:06):
I recommend laughing for atleast five minutes twice a day.
You don't have to laugh at acomedy.
This was chakra therapy fromPatch Adams actually but it
turns out your inner landscapeis greatly determined by your
outer behaviors.
So I live in a plastic-freeblue zone bubble.

(25:33):
I stay well hydrated, I getrestorative sleep, I move around
about 10,000 steps a day.
I move around about 10,000steps a day.
I live in a kind of paradiseand I want everyone to live in a

(25:53):
blue zone paradise.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
It's possible.
Do you mean one of their owncreating?

Speaker 2 (25:59):
Yes, blue zones are in general.
I'm talking about personal bluezones which are under our
control.
Right, I have a choice when Igo to the market.
I have a choice when I bringthings home.
Do I ever bring food home in aplastic, styrofoam or shrink

(26:21):
wrap container?
No, no, I buy Whole Foods.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
And by Whole Foods you don't mean the store.
Whole Foods, you mean no, no,no, no, you buy foods that are
Whole Foods.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
There is a chain called Whole Foods, God bless,
owned by Amazon.
But no, no, I'm talking aboutwhat Beatrice Trump Hunter, the
nutritionalist, taught me Shoparound the perimeter of the
market.
You might find food there.
Be very cautious of going upand down the aisles Right.
Stay well hydrated, buthydrated from a tap that

(27:01):
produces healthy water.
Millions and millions ofAmericans are getting toxins
from their tap, so I recommendmeasuring your tap.
Now we happen to have deep wellwater 300 foot down.
I have had plumbers come andsay can we take water from your
tap, from your house?

(27:31):
But then I like sparkling water, so I get Pellegrino or
Gerolsteiner or Apollinaris inglass, never in plastic.
We have documented what many ofus have hypothesized for some
time, which is that microplasticis a major health risk.
Our lifespan in America isdeclining.
The rest of the world iscontinuing to slowly increase.

(27:53):
There's something profoundlywrong with our system.

Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, and you pointed out and this is a statistic
that's been known for a longtime, but you pointed out in
that white paper that I wasreading that we spend more money
, much more money per capita, onhealth care compared to other
modern countries, yet we rankfar below all of them in our

(28:28):
health outcomes and the rates ofheart disease and diabetes and
cardio-diabetes, autoimmunedisease and so on.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Exactly In 1960, 6% of America's GDP went to
healthcare and 6% in Japan wentto healthcare.
And in Japan, what thegovernment decided is we're
going to give 6% to healthcareand we're going to let the
doctors figure out how to keeppeople healthy, and they have

(28:51):
among the healthiest people inthe world today.
In contrast, the Americansystem now devotes close to 20%
of our national wealth topatching people up and sending
them back into the fray.
Right.
$4 trillion this year, of whichat least $1 trillion could be

(29:19):
used to speed the transition tohealthful caring if we had new
priorities.
Every time there's an election,one side says we won and the
other side said, well, we lost.
And right now I am beinginundated by people who would

(29:45):
like to speed the transitionfrom sick care to health care
with a meat ax.
Imagine that I'm carrying goodnews and a meat ax and a meat
axe.
The good news might be receivedby people who were receptive to

(30:09):
that good news.
The meat axe is probably notthe way to undo the system.
So I'm glad to tell you that Ihave had the great good fortune
to be able to talk with peoplewho mattered, because I'm here

(30:29):
in Washington and some peoplewho matter are here in
Washington At an individuallevel.
They are almost all receptiveto my message, which is nature,
nurture and wholeness before,and physiology before
pharmacology.
Physiology, which meansepigenetic lifestyle before

(30:51):
prescriptions.
I haven't needed to write aprescription, except maybe for
desiccated thyroid, which Ioccasionally bridge people with.
I have not needed to write aprescription in the last 40
years.
Well, I give prescriptions, butthey're lifestyle prescriptions
.

Speaker 1 (31:12):
Sure Right Understood , so I want to make sure that
I'm not missing what you'resaying.
Are you telling us that, as apart of what we all hope is
going to be some of the changesin healthcare, are you going to
be part of the think tank or theprocess that starts to roll out

(31:33):
change and, if so, no changehappens in Washington decades
after it starts.

Speaker 2 (31:41):
Okay, yes, I have had the privilege of being on think
tanks, like with the RandInstitute and others, Bain
Financial and Bain Capital,McKinsey these are the people
who provide the lobbyists and Iwant to influence their behavior
.
Understood.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
Understood.
So back to what you were sayingabout changing how things are
done and how we think, and Ithink the answer is both.
But do you think that thegreatest point of impact will be
on creating the demand byhelping people understand like

(32:22):
the healthcare consumerunderstand your message and then
shift what they're looking forand how they think about health
and wellness?
Or do you think it's more abouttraining a new breed of doctors
that operate within arestructured system that changes
the priority?
Not change, but because I thinkwe still need to have an aspect

(32:45):
of disease management.

Speaker 2 (32:47):
Oh, no, no, no, no, you can't not treat disease, but
disease has a consequence.
Disease has a cause.
When I redress or reverse thecause, the symptom and the
consequence naturally goes away.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Would you say that in all cases or do you think that
there are?

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Let me tell you what Olga Worrell taught me.
Now.
Olga Worrell was probably thebest scientifically documented
laying-on-of-hands healer of the20th century.
She started the New Life Clinicin Baltimore, maryland, in 1953
.
Dr Robert Leichman continuesher work to this day.
What Olga said to me is thesoul can always be healed.

(33:39):
The body is another story.
Is another story If you say tome I have a multiple train wreck
person with multiplepathologies treated by multiple
medications, I would still saythat if you had the good fortune

(34:04):
to do for your parents or yourloved ones or your child what I
did for mine because we are notlow-risk people.
We are not.
I don't need to go into thedetails, but almost every family

(34:35):
knows that there are somefamily traits and risks and
maybe some opportunities andstrengths.
What we are seeing today is theconsequence of many years of a
very constrained system that isentirely unsustainable
economically.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
And that will require , maybe force change.

Speaker 2 (35:01):
Do you think the money is going to speak?

Speaker 1 (35:03):
I don't think the money is ever silent.
Well, my point is do you thinkthat the thing that will
ultimately force the change isimpending economic collapse due
to health care costs?

Speaker 2 (35:14):
Well, health care costs are increasing
unsustainably and they have beenfor a long time.
If you consider Medicare andMedicaid and want to make them
viable, you must must transitionto an epigenetic lifestyle
low-cost program.
But that transition becauseit's been so long delayed is not

(35:40):
going to be an easy one.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
Yeah, and that was going back to my First of all.
The old saying is somethinglike you can't turn the Queen
Mary quickly.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Oh no, that's right, very well said.
A big ship of state, a bigfragment of the society, of the
economy.
It's not going to changequickly, right.
But there are some exampleswhere promoting good health has
saved so much money that thereare companies following suit

(36:18):
because they want to make thatmuch money.
And I want good and well tocombine.

Speaker 1 (36:27):
So do you see it as a almost like a long-term
strategy that you must continueto try to change the system, but
knowing that's going to take alot of time and effort?
You're going to busy yourselfwith meeting individual people
where they are and helping thembuild that blue zone, that
personalized blue zone to livetheir life in.

Speaker 2 (36:51):
We have the Health Studies Collegium Foundation,
which has done most successfuloutcome study in type 1 diabetes
and type 2 diabetes andfibromyalgia.
We also have the PIH Academy,which trains colleagues in this
kind of health care, and I amdevoting a fragment of my time
to training health coachesBecause I think health coaches

(37:14):
will be as important aprofession as acupuncturists and
physical therapists.
Physical therapists because inany world that I live in, the
time of the doctor becomes veryprecious and what has resulted

(37:34):
is that most doctors only get tosee people for about 10 or 15
minutes, which is enough time tosay hello, write a prescription
and make some notes.
Right, I don't think that isgood air.
Yes, I am doing my best on anindividual basis and also on a

(37:58):
training basis to prepare thosewho are ready, for those who
want to speed a transition tohealthful caring, to know what
to do for them personally.
Sure, the health coach will goto the market with you, can show
you how to make over yourkitchen, bedroom, personal care,

(38:23):
relationships, environment.
There's a lot, one step at atime.
I didn't make this transitionin 20 minutes and I want to be
an example.
For example, I'm pointing to mygarden, because we don't have a

(38:44):
front yard but we have a15-year-old permaculture, food
forest and biodynamic garden andI go out and get parsley, sage,
rosemary and thyme from thegarden to add to whatever else
we're making making and actuallywhen I go out to the garden and

(39:10):
harvest the rosemary and comein with the rosemary I feel like
a little hero.
I enjoy doing that.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
Yeah, it feeds your soul apparently.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
My soul, and I think most people's soul, would be
nourished, would be nurtured, ifwe did a little bit more of
what we enjoy outside betterthan inside, because outdoor air
is always better than indoorair.
But with plants and aircleaners you can actually have

(39:40):
healthy air, healthy water,healthy activities.

Speaker 1 (39:50):
Healthy mindset.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
The mind and body are always in communion.
They're always in intimateconversation.
Your mind is listening to everythought you have, and if your
thought is oh my God, your bodyhears.
Oh my God.
If your thought is oh, I can,your body hears that too.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
And that's important.
Oh, it is for sure.
I remember when I was gettingready to start my career back in
the mid nineties um, the fieldof of neuro psycho, neuro
psychoimmunology, was pretty,pretty new at that point, right,
and it was an astonishing thingfor us to sit back and think,
like, how you think and how youfeel about things matters to

(40:41):
your immune system.
It has an impact on your immunesystem, and I would imagine
that if you could do a surveyand maybe this has been done,
but I'd be interested to hearyour observations I have my own
opinions, but I would venture tosay that if you looked at

(41:02):
nonagenarians, or people wholive to be 100, people who come
through really hard healthbattles and are victorious, I
would imagine that they tend tobe half glass full people rather
than glass half empty people.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Let me pick up on what you just said.
If you look at the averageperson from midlife until the
end, there's decline.
That is statistically true.
It's said, but true.
I have made a study of peoplewho reached midlife, were

(41:54):
healthy, got sick, got well andnever looked back.
My principal teacher ofmindfulness and meditation was
Bhante Dharmawara.
We had him 30 years, between 80and 110.
And when he was 106, mycolleagues at NIH were nice
enough to scan him from stem tostern and study him completely,
and I put all this data in frontof him.
He looked at it and he said 40is a good age.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Sense of humor too.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
He had a delicious, subtle sense of humor.
He meditated a lot.
Oh, what a surprise that thehead of the World Buddhist
Fellowship would meditate.
And I can mention that, after10,000 or more hours of
mindfulness practice, your brainchanges, of mindfulness

(42:47):
practice, your brain changes,and this can be documented in an
MRI, a non-invasive study byRichie Davidson at University of
Wisconsin and Mathieu Ricardwas the first person in that
machine and they had to tune itand they left him in there for
about four hours, I think, butfor a long time longer than
usual.

(43:10):
When he came out he said ah,I've had a mini retreat.
Have you ever been in an MRI?
I have.
Yes, they're loud.

Speaker 1 (43:16):
They are, yeah, and if?

Speaker 2 (43:21):
you're in head first.
It's not the most comfortablething.
Martha Herbert was nice enoughto scan me in her 17 machine and
I came out of it saying howcome it's uncomfortable to lay
there for so long.
And then I said to her I'mfeeling a little washed out and

(43:43):
any chance we could have someorange juice and vitamin C and
she had my nature's ascorbateimmediately gets it, gives it to
me.
I feel better.
I said has anyone else evercomplained about feeling washed
out from the stuff?
She says you're the firstperson who's conscious, who's
been in the machine.
Okay, I'm willing to be aguinea pig in a good cause.

(44:05):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah, Now, you had mentioned about 10 minutes ago
in the conversation about someassessments and you named eight
predictive biomarkers.
Some of your material that I'vestudied suggested six, so it
sounds like you've upgraded thatmodel.

Speaker 2 (44:25):
No, let me let me please clarify.
Start with fourself-assessments.
These are four measurements youmake on yourself, like your,
your digestive transit timebased on charcoal capsules.
Your urine pH in the morning,because that determines how much
magnesium and choline citrateyou need throughout the day.

(44:45):
Your hydration status can beeasily measured.
And the fourth one, oh yes, howmuch of nature's ascorbate does
it take to cleanse you?
Those are the fourself-assessments, the eight

(45:06):
predictive biomarkers, and I'mnot sure where the six came in,
but it's always been eight.

Speaker 1 (45:13):
Okay, I may have misread it, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (45:15):
No, no, no, no.
We will go back and correctanything we need to correct.
So, with regard to thepredictive biomarkers,
hemoglobin A1c should be 5%.
Hscrp, high sensitivityC-reactive protein should be
less than 0.5.
Homocysteine should be lessthan 6 in the plasma.

(45:38):
We used to recommend thelymphocyte response assay.
Right now we're automating thattechnology and we have a
microbiome challenge.
That is now the fourthbiomarker.
The fifth is vitamin D levels.
They should be 50 to 80, not 10to 20.
The sixth is omega-3 index.

(46:00):
Your omega-3 should be morethan 8%.
Mine was 13%.
So I called Bill Harris, whodeveloped the test, and I said
is 13 better than 8?
And he said it's bigger than 8.
I said I know it's larger than8.
Is it better?
He says we don't have enoughpeople up at your level to know.

(46:22):
We think so.
We think so, but this is mypoint.
I want to know the facts and ifwe don't know the answer, we
don't know the answer yet.
So hopefully more people willsupplement with EPA DHA that's
distilled under nitrogen,because if air oxygen gets to

(46:45):
the EPA DHA, that will damage it, becomes oxidized and there is
moots in the oil when you start.
But if you distill it undernitrogen correctly, you remove
the toxins.
So of course I want safersupplements, because I take
supplements on a daily basis andthen I don't think I mentioned.

(47:08):
But urine pH is also importantin the eight predictive
biomarkers because it determinesand tells you how much
magnesium and choline citrateyou need.
So eight predictive biomarkers,interpreted to their best
outcome goal value, don't evenlook at the laboratory range.

(47:29):
As a laboratorian, I can tellyou that that statistic probably
has little, if any, meaning foryou as an individual, and
there's a lot of reasons forthat.
But what I do is I fold thepaper over so that people don't
even look at the statisticalrange.
The paper over so that peopledon't even look at the
statistical range.
Our predictive biomarkers areavailable at drrusselljaffecom

(47:50):
this is an advertisement and onYouTube at Dr Russell Jaffe
channel, and we want you to knowwhat to test for yourself and
know what the best outcome goalvalue is.
Because while we're speedingthe transition from sick care to
health care, one person at atime, now is the time to take on

(48:10):
these self-assessments andfollow it with the predictive
biomarkers interpreted to bestoutcome goal value.

Speaker 1 (48:17):
It seems to me that and I love predictive biomarkers
and I like to look at them inmultiples and not singly and
individually it seems to me thatwith an approach like this,
anytime you identify a biomarkerthat's suboptimal, that leads

(48:38):
into some kind of a prescriptionit could be supplementation, it
could be lifestyle, it could bedietation, it could be
lifestyle, it could be dietchanges, etc.
Are you able to look at all ofthese as a group and come up
with some kind of like acomposite index, or is that type
of an approach not appropriate?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
No, no, no, you can easily take at least the eight
predictive biomarkers, if notwith the four self-assessments,
and calculate a functional age.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
And do you have a validated equation that does
that or a process that does that?

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Well, our interpretation does that and,
according to our best analysis,now we have to aggregate
thousands and thousands andthousands of data points.
It's a big project.

(49:38):
Right improve their predictivebiomarkers and on average, they
have gained 20 years of highvalue, low suffering, low cost
life.
So at least 20 years, maybemuch more.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
So again, I want to make sure that I'm hearing.
What you're saying is thattaking corrective measures to
improve the scores on theseassessments and biomarkers can
yield an increase in highquality life that may extend 20
years.

Speaker 2 (50:16):
At a minimum.
At a minimum every one of thesetests and we surveyed 100,000
lab tests that come down to theeight that cover all of
lifestyle and epigenetics.
And then are you at your goalvalue or not?
If you're at your goal valuefor hemoglobin A1c guess what?

(50:39):
You have a 99% chance of livingwell for 10 more years.
If your HSCRP is correct, ifyour homocysteine is healthy, if
your vitamin D level is healthy, if your omega-3 index is
healthy, if you judge thenatures of scorbate you take

(51:01):
based on your sea cleanse eachweek, if you check your urine pH
in the morning and adjust yourdoses of magnesium and choline
citrate accordingly, we can addat a minimum now this starting
with Americans, this is notstarting with people who are

(51:22):
already doing all of this.
I want people to do it andbenefit from it, whether they're
part of a study or not.
But Dean Ornish has done someelegant studies.
Ocean Robbins has done someinteresting anecdotal studies.
I have tried to contribute tothe literature we have over a
hundred published articles,review chapters and so forth to

(51:47):
attract colleagues, healthcoaches and anyone who wants to
live long and well.
And now is the time, I wouldsay.
When I started half a centuryago we knew from nothing.
Now we know that we know fromnothing and therefore we have to

(52:10):
rethink almost everything.
When it comes to personalizedprimary predictive practices and
protocols applicable toindividuals, my care gets very
up close and personal.

(52:31):
I don't have universal answersto universal questions.
I do know that science is atool and when you pervert that
tool, it is perverted, and whenyou just look at it honestly, it

(52:51):
is vastly helpful indetermining what you should
measure, to know how you'redoing and if you need to do
better, you can.

Speaker 1 (53:03):
You're doing, and if you need to do better, you can.
Mm-hmm, how often are youforced to significantly change
your clinical model, or is itmore, at this point, nuances and
tweaking?

Speaker 2 (53:22):
Oh, thanks for asking and tweaking, oh, thanks for
asking.
In the last 20 years there hasbeen an abundance of
confirmatory information and wehaven't needed to change much.
Why?
Because I started with theframe of reference that I wanted

(53:42):
to know but I did not know.
I knew enough to ask questions,I knew enough to show up and
practice, and I think it was theshowing up and practicing that
differentiated me from many ofmy colleagues, because it took
time and effort and some littlebit of resources to go around

(54:04):
and find the people thatmentored me into whoever
whatever I am today, and I'mglad to say that those who
follow these simple advices andcounselings they never look back
.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
Never look back.

Speaker 2 (54:23):
Yeah, and if that person happens to be important
or not, I don't care.
You want to have friends inhigh and low places, if possible
, sure.

Speaker 1 (54:34):
Okay, yeah, so you and I have spent close to an
hour now talking really moreabout the philosophy of health
and wellness and so on.
I know the topic you wanted totalk about was inflammation
being a repair deficit.
Do you still have time to gothrough that?
I would love to hear yourthoughts on it.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Oh, I do.
It's a good example ofeverything else we've just been
talking about.
Yeah, that's what I was hopingAn introduction to that
Inflammation.
Yeah, a term from pathology andI happen to be doubly board
certified in pathology but itassumes suffering.

(55:16):
There are five differentflavors to suffering.
I can say them in Latin,yiddish and English, and I don't
care.
You don't care.
No, I want to know if yourconnective tissue, your collagen
, elastin and glycosaminoglycansare being renewed or not, and I
can measure that.

(55:38):
I want to know whether yourliver is able to remove toxins
and whether your digestivetransit time is such that you
can eliminate those toxinsbefore they get reabsorbed.
I want to know whether you'rein a high repair mode in terms

(55:59):
of what you eat and drink, thinkand do.
What does that mean?
Of what you eat and drink,think and do.
What does that mean?
Well, I want you to have atleast 40 grams of unprocessed
fiber in the day, and theaverage American gets 10.
This means that you shouldsupplement with a raw,
multiple-form unprocessed fiberthat easily goes into any

(56:23):
smoothie or stew or soup orwhatever, because it's instantly
dissolvable, it is in nature,and I get 50 grams a day.
My ascorbate is determined bymy weekly sea cleanse.
A doctor colleague,cardiologist friend did a sea

(56:50):
cleanse and it was 18 grams anddid it the next week and it was
36 grams and I said, oh, you'rereaching plateau early.
It often goes up plateau early.
It often goes up.
The sea cleanse.
The amount of nature'sascorbate you need often goes up
for some weeks before reachinga plateau, which means you

(57:13):
needed to do repair and you wereovercoming the repair deficit
in your infrastructure, in yourcollagen, in your body and in
your mind.
In your body and in your mind.

(57:35):
I want you to breatheabdominally, gently, slowly and
deeply into your abdomen fiveminutes a day and practice a
mindfulness technique, whateveryou prefer from relaxation.
Response by Herb Benson to anyof many hatha yoga, prana yoga,
tai chi, feldenkrais I was MosheFeldenkrais' doctor.
Briefly, traeger techniqueRoger Toll comes by about once a

(57:59):
month and does a Traegersession with me.
That keeps me limber and youshould be able to stretch.
On a bad day I can only touchmy toes to the floor.
On a good day I can palm thefloor.
I just did this on a video andsome people were surprised that

(58:20):
at my age I was this limber,were surprised that at my age I
was this limber.
Well, at any age your spineshould be flexible and limber.
I don't think we have time forthe story, but Nada Brahmananda
taught me that you could renewyour vertebrae and discs.
He lived at one of Dr Mishra'sashrams, the one in San

(58:43):
Francisco, and since I'm so farinto it, I'll tell the story.
Sure, I had heard that he couldmake his vertebrae knock
together like castanets, andthat helped him renew the bones
and the joint tissue.
I go to him and I say can youdo this?

(59:04):
He says how will you knowWhatever I say?
How will you know?
Pause.
Then he says well, I'm giving aconcert, a tabla concert, at
Stanford on Sunday.
I'll leave my robe open.
You can sit behind me.
Not only did I hear thevertebrae, I saw the vertebrae,

(59:28):
his paraspinal muscles, whichare normally very fine and don't
really work terribly well,motivated.
It took him some time to getinto that state.
That's interesting.
He wasn't a sitar player, hewas a percussionist, a tabla

(59:51):
player.
He was clearly in an alteredstate of consciousness by choice
, and then I could see thevertebrae beginning to move.
I could see the musclesbeginning to move.
I heard, like castanets, thesesounds coming out of his back
and I said you can he says Iknow acquire that very rare gift

(01:00:29):
and ability.
He said at least 20 years.

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
But you'd be surprised what persistence can
do to further success.
You know, it makes me thinkbecause the like from our
perspective.
We don't have volitionalcontrol over the intrinsic
spinal muscles which would bethe ones to move the vertebrae.
And that's my point, because itmakes me think of those people
you know, born perhaps withoutarms and hands, and what they

(01:00:55):
can do with their feet and theirtoes If you train it enough.
I mean, that just blows my mind.

Speaker 2 (01:01:03):
Me too.
Train it enough.
I mean, that just blows my mind, me too.
And if you haven't seen them,look online.
You can see handicapped peopledoing things that are truly
remarkable because theypracticed.
Yes, the human body is muchmore forgiving, much more
renewing than we had everimagined because we've assumed

(01:01:25):
you just sit in a chair for toomany hours a day.
If you do sit in a chairbecause I do too at least five
minutes an hour, you should getup and stretch and look around
and hydrate and converse andchuckle if you can, and then
that undoes much of the harm ofsitting.
Sitting today is the newsmoking.

(01:01:46):
Right, we know this.
Nobody seems to disagreeanymore, except the chair
manufacturers, maybe, buteveryone seems to have caught on
.
That sitting is the new smoking, but how do you undo that?
Right, that sitting is the newsmoking, but how do you undo

(01:02:07):
that?
Right?
We specialize in what to do toundo the harm.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
So that it doesn't accumulate within you.
So your position oninflammation as a repair deficit
.
You mentioned repair just amoment ago.
When I sent an email to you Itossed out an idea.
My take on this would be thatyou can have a sudden increase
or demand on the repair processand overwhelm a normal

(01:02:33):
functioning system, or you canhave a repair deficit because
it's deficient despite nothaving unusual exposure to
things that demand extra repaircapacity.
Am I right on that or how wouldI fine-tune that perspective?
Let me reframe it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:52):
Sure, assuming you have too much sugar stuck on
your cells.
Assuming you have repairdeficit.
Assuming your vitamin D isgoing to be continuing low.
Assuming your ascorbate intakeisn't based on your C-cleansed
need.
Assuming your urine pH does nottell you how much magnesium and

(01:03:15):
choline citrate to take.
Oh and, if you do all thosethings, we have seen repair in
the most significant autoimmuneconditions.
And now I'll just tell you onelittle anecdote which I was

(01:03:35):
peripherally involved with.
But this was a man named NormanCousins.
He was a very famous editor.
He developed ankylosingspondylitis, which is a very
painful autoimmune condition,and he was treated at NIH and
all the therapies failed and hisdoctor, jeffrey Herzig, found
out about linus poling andvitamin C and wanted to give him

(01:03:56):
ascorbate bivane at theclinical center.
The IRB of the NIH turned itdown as too risky.
That was interesting and so he,jeffrey, checked Norman out of
the NIH and checked him into theHay-Adams Hotel where he
watched reruns of Candid Cameraand laughed and got infusions of

(01:04:20):
vitamin C and came back to lifenot just came alive, came back
to vigorous life.
And he actually went on tostart a multidisciplinary
program at UCLA which I to alittle extent helped with,
because he and I agreed that weneeded more multidisciplinary

(01:04:49):
and I agreed that we needed moremultidisciplinary, not more
narrow specialists we neededpeople who could see across
boundaries, right, right, so doyou think like in a case like
that, did you have documentableevidence of change of the
ankylosing spondylitis lesions,or?
was that the same thing?

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
on x-ray but function was better.

Speaker 2 (01:05:07):
Please understand, this was the 1970s.
Okay, we could document by CTscan and others that all his
vertebrae were eroding andswollen and inflamed.

(01:05:27):
Today we would hopefully havebetter, earlier measures.
What we knew was that he wasdying and then he was alive.
At that point we were justhappy with the result, right
yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:46):
Yeah, and that's really my.
My point is is that I seeclients all the time where, um,
whatever metric we're using togauge the extent of their
problem, whether it's labtesting or imaging or other
kinds of diagnostics you know wedo our song and dance and
people get better and theirquality of life improves and we

(01:06:08):
would like to think that we'veadded years to their life and
life to their years.
Sometimes you don't know thatuntil you're 20 years down the
road, but sometimes pathology isnot the right word but maybe
the degree of, say, tissuedestruction or perturbation

(01:06:29):
hasn't changed, but quality oflife and function certainly has.

Speaker 2 (01:06:32):
Well, let's take what is considered to be one of the
worst examples, and that'sosteoporosis.
We did a study by DEXA.
Over two years we built newbone.
This was completelyunprecedented.
You can slow the loss of bonemaybe by making impaired bone,

(01:06:57):
but the point is that ournatural approach built new bone
between 2% and 12 percent injust two years.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
And was that?
Did you leverage impactexercise and weight-bearing
exercise or was this allnutraceutical and lifestyle?

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
change.
This was only to judge whetherour bone guard formula of 20
essential nutrients would buildnew bone.
If you did our comprehensivelifestyle program, you would get
better results.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
But that was just the bone guard from your company.

Speaker 2 (01:07:36):
This was a simple trial over two years of 12
people seeing if we could buildnew bone, and we did, and we
have a bone.
We have a book on bone, jointand muscle health with my
colleague Dr Susan Brown, jaySrimani and my sister Marcy
Jaffe, and we've published someof our results to encourage

(01:08:01):
other people to do even better.
Our results to encourage otherpeople to do even better.

Speaker 1 (01:08:07):
So back to the repair deficit concept.
You mentioned that you couldassess their repair capabilities
.
How do you do that?

Speaker 2 (01:08:18):
Well, you start by being a collagen biochemist.

Speaker 1 (01:08:23):
Not an easy task.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
I didn't say that this was for the faint of heart.
You can today measure what arecalled N-telopeptides and
C-telopeptides.
You have to understand theirlimits and strengths, because
sometimes they go up and that'sbad and sometimes they go down

(01:08:49):
and that's good.
But if you take a physiologybefore pharmacology approach,
you can measure whether theinfrastructure connective tissue
collagen of the body isincreasing or decreasing.
It should always be renewing.
You have to renew the bone andbody collagen and then you have

(01:09:15):
to get a liver that's healthyenough to make dicarboxy gamma
glutamic acid, which is the onlyamino acid that builds new bone
.
This amino acid is released bythe liver when it's healthy.
It's elective protective.
When the liver is under assault, it stops making this.
When the liver is electivelyprotected, it makes this in

(01:09:39):
abundance, which goes to all thebones in the body.
And your bones are only 10years old.
They are constantly renewing.
They are not rigid.
They are actually diaphanous.
They actually havefenestrations.
They have little holes throughwhich cells wiggle to repair and

(01:10:05):
renew them.
Amazing, remarkable.
The GGT.

Speaker 1 (01:10:13):
I'm sorry to interrupt, russell, but the GGT
that you just mentioned.
Is this the same or a relatedcompound to the GGT that we
would measure just in standardblood chemistry, that we know no
slight difference.

Speaker 2 (01:10:26):
Yeah, ggt is gamma carboxyglutaminase.
It was originally thought to bea liver enzyme, but it turns
out it's very important in bloodclotting.
It's factor 13 in bloodclotting.
Okay, clotting, it's factor 13in blood clotting.
What I'm talking about is gammacarboxyglutamic acid, a

(01:10:50):
slightly different molecule thatbinds calcium and magnesium,
because you need both calciumand magnesium in your bones.
Calcium makes things more rigid, magnesium makes them more
flexible.
Do you want flexible bones orrigid bones?
Well, I want both.
I want bones that support meand I want bones that are

(01:11:15):
flexible.
Well, if I happen for a friendto fall down, I don't want to
break a bone.
To fall down, I don't want tobreak a bone.
So inflammation is repairdeficit.
That's a reframing that we havebeen advocating for decades and

(01:11:35):
we are making great progress.
Except guess what?
There is much more marketingbudget for pain killers than for
health promoters.
So I would say NSAIDs no tootoxic.
And I will just mention thatthere was a meeting at the FDA

(01:11:59):
and the topic was should allNSAIDs be removed because
they're too toxic?
The vote was 16 to 15.
Oh wow, 16 in favor of onlyputting a black box warning on
15 who said it should.
Just too toxic Of the 15 thatvoted one way, 10 had conflicts

(01:12:27):
of interest that were notdisclosed.
Well, you would like to thinkthat the committees at FDA, at
NIH, at CDC, at HHS, areobjective and independent.
What planet do you live on?
So I want to be as helpful as Ican.

(01:12:53):
I want to be a voice forphysiology, nature, nurture and
wholeness, for inflammationbeing repair, deficit and what
to do about it.
What inflammation means to mostpeople is pain and stiffness.
It might mean redness andswelling.

(01:13:14):
These are some of those wordsfrom pathology.
What I want to know is are youbuilding new collagen, elastin,
glycosaminoglycan?
Is your liver healthy enough toprovide elective protective
mechanisms?
Are your fluids movingregularly to deliver nutrients

(01:13:36):
to the cells and take wastesaway?
We could go many, manydirections, because inflammation
means accumulation of schmutz,accumulation of debris.
Inflammation means a lack ofrepair.
Well, if I don't repair my carand it stops, I need to repair

(01:14:00):
my car at someone who knows howto repair the car and then get
it to start again.
With regard to health care, alot of it is up to the person.
A lot of it really is lifestyleand epigenetics, about

(01:14:21):
relationships, environment,about being plastic-free, about
eating organic and biodynamic orgrowing some of your own food,
have a healthy environment,laugh, breathe, relax, etc.
I don't think doctors areopposed to that.

(01:14:43):
In fact, often doctors say youknow you're a little bit under
stress, you should relax.
But the doctor doesn't practicerelaxation.
Response the doctor may be afew pounds overweight.
The doctor only has a fewminutes.
He can't really get to know youpersonally.
Right, the doctor only has afew minutes.
He can't really get to know youpersonally.

(01:15:05):
I remember when the doctor whobirthed you might be the doctor
who buried you because you had acontinuous healthy relationship
, and when you walked in he saidhello, I know who you are.
That's right.
Today, that's almost all gone.
Yeah, today, that's almost allgone.
I just went to see a doctor whohappened to remember that he

(01:15:28):
quoted my work from the 1970sand 80s.
He was at NIH when I was there.
Of course, I knew his namebecause he was actually a very
famous guy.
He's a contemporary of mine.
I was so glad that he took thetime to reminisce with me about

(01:15:49):
our good times at the NIH.
He didn't have to.
He's very busy, very productive,very successful neurologist and
since I'm into this, I willjust mention I went to him
because I have a benign tremor.
I don't know if you can seethis, but my right hand has a

(01:16:14):
little bit of a wiggle and Iwant that to go away through
brain sprouting and othernatural approaches.
He said no one's ever come inasking for that.
I said I'm the N of one.
I am confident in him as acaring, competent and

(01:16:40):
comprehensive physician whohappens to be a neurologist, who
is interested in nutrition, whois interested in lifestyle, who
is interested in getting mebetter.
But he then said to me you know, everyone gets tremor at some
age.
You know everyone gets tremorat some age.

(01:17:05):
Now I think that was to relieveme of anxiety.
But I don't have anxiety.
I have a little bit of a tremorand I think I know what I did
to earn it.
I think I do know.
But the point is I want to getrid of it.
I want it to slowly go away.
I don't want it to slowlyincrease.
Rid of it, I want it to slowlygo away.
I don't want it to slowlyincrease.
That's an example of takinglife into your own hands as if

(01:17:31):
your life mattered.
Well, I can't ask a doctor totake care of me if I'm not
willing to take care of myself,and most of the information you
get today is it doesn't matterwhat you do, what you eat, drink
, think and do.
Don't matter until you need aprescriptive solution, and then

(01:17:54):
we'll try to find the bestbalance of prescriptions.

Speaker 1 (01:17:57):
How much of a black sheep are you within the metal
community?

Speaker 2 (01:18:01):
that's a good question.
I don't aspire to be a blacksheep or a white sheep.
I aspire to be someone whospeaks truth to power In a way
that it does not hurt me.
When we published that MSG wasbad for you, monsanto came after

(01:18:25):
me.
Oh wow.
In the 80s, when we publishedother similar data about the
human immune system and how itresponded to microplastics and
other harmful chemicals, thisactually happened.
One of my lawyers was talkingto one of their lawyers and the

(01:18:49):
lawyer said you know, yourclient is in danger of being
eliminated.
And my lawyer said to him well,you know, if you kill him, he
won't be available to you whenyou need him.
Oh wow.
And the guy said that's a goodpoint.
And it stopped.
Wow, you need friends in lowand high places.

(01:19:11):
If you don't like the heat,don't go in the kitchen.

Speaker 1 (01:19:17):
How many of your colleagues that are currently
practicing privately confide inyou that they agree with
everything you say, but theyfeel shackled in the system that
they're in?

Speaker 2 (01:19:33):
Oh, I hear that a lot and my answer is just don't
deal with that system.
But that's not an easy answerto no, it's not, no, no.
If your reimbursement, if yourcompensation, if your income
depends upon just signing aprescription, there's going to
be a lot of incentive to just dothat, and that's why I

(01:19:57):
mentioned that.
I think health coaches are soimportant.
They're affordable, the doctorcan bless them.
The doctor can say I would likeyou to have a lifestyle
epigenetic program, but I don'thave the time to explain in
detail what that really meanspersonally for you.
Jill or John over here is goingto conduct a group and you're

(01:20:20):
also welcome to consult withthem individually about living,
not dying.
If you want to know about dyingdoctors are pretty good at
dying I want to know aboutliving, and living long and well
, and that's why I made thestudy that I did of people who

(01:20:42):
reached midlife, got sick, gotwell and didn't look back.
All of them werenon-engineerians, most of them
were over 100.
And bright-eyed andbushy-tailed.
And bright-eyed andbushy-tailed.
I remember Paul Reps.

(01:21:04):
At the age of 99, maybe olderhe came to a yoga retreat.
He was joyful, he could tell astory, he could listen to a
story, he could play chess.
He was bright-eyed andbushy-tailed and I said how do
you do it?
I want to do it too.
He said I live life.

(01:21:25):
I don't fear death.
I think it's important to notfear death and I had a
near-death experience which willget your attention enough years
ago that it informed me that Iwas good but I could be better.
And since then I've beenfeeling and functioning better.

Speaker 1 (01:21:52):
Do you care to share details on that?
Oh happy to.

Speaker 2 (01:21:56):
At 9 am on an August morning, I'm talking to the two
handymen that help around here.
At 9.02, I'm dizzy.
At 9.05, I have paroxysmalvertigo.
The world is spinning around.
I'm on the floor in a fetalposition.
My eyes are closed.

(01:22:17):
I have my cell phone in my hand.
My people come running to sendan ambulance to take me to the
hospital.
There's much to unpack in this,but I decided that this was a
challenge to my spiritualdevelopment and that I should

(01:22:40):
stay home because if I went tothe hospital, they would do
scans and doctors would runaround and things would be
stressful.
And all of that especially ifthey were younger doctors who
knew less than me.
It just was not acceptable.

(01:23:00):
My son drove four hours and hesees me for the first time as
the man down.
I had been iron father.
Iron dad, strong-willed andstrong life.

(01:23:21):
Okay, he triages me, brings mein the back.
He literally picked me up andput me in my bed.
This was all at home and everytime I started to contract he's
a trigger practitioner.
He stretched me out.

(01:23:46):
For three days I lay there eyesclosed, didn't eat, didn't drink
, didn't pee, didn't poop.
I lost 15 pounds.
When I finally got up andlooked in the mirror, I was
gaunt.
Wow, I finally got up andlooked in the mirror.
I was gaunt.
On the third day Sky says to meI'm really tired.
And I said you're the hero ofthis case, go take a nap.

(01:24:11):
The next day I took a shower.
The next day, with the help ofmy sister, marcy, I was on a
recumbent bike recovering mycardiac function, because if you
just lay in bed for three days,a little bit of your cardiac
function goes away.
And I will tell you.
On day eight I flew to EuropeBecause I had been scheduled to

(01:24:33):
give a talk to very importantfriends near the Munich area.
They were involved with Germandiplomacy.
I show up at their home.
I'm still a little wobbly on myfeet.
They know I'm not drunk andvery politely they ask what's

(01:24:54):
going on.
And I said well, I had this NDEand I'm recovering.
And they looked at each other,husband and wife.
They looked at each other andthey said are you going to talk
about the NDE on Monday when ourfriends are coming to dinner at
this really nice restaurant?
I said oh no, I'm just going togive the same talk.

(01:25:14):
It'll take me months to processwhat just happened.
It'll take me months to processwhat just happened and in the

(01:25:41):
meantime I'm not going to talkmuch about it.
I have talked on occasion aboutit when I thought it was helpful
to others to know that you canhave have written about their
patients who had near-deathexperiences.
There was a guy inCharlottesville, virginia, for
many years who was studying thisquietly.
There often are intriguingwells of wisdom that we don't
hear about in the news.
There often are individualsquietly toiling away at some

(01:26:09):
important issue and if you couldhave time with them they would
enlighten you.
I don't know if you remember thename, joseph Chilton Pierce,
but he wrote a book called Crackin the Cosmic Egg and I was
down at Monroe Science Instituteand a guy walks in farmer's hip

(01:26:30):
boots up to his hip, but he'sthe most fascinating farmer I've
ever spoken with.
Eventually he goes back to hisfarm.
Bob comes in and says oh, whatdid you think of Joseph Chilton
Pierce?
I said he didn't tell me who hewas.
He didn't need to impress me,he was just having a

(01:26:55):
conversation that was ofinterest to him and to me.
Actually, it was aboutfrequency, following responses
and how your brain can beinfluenced by frequencies.
Farmer.

Speaker 1 (01:27:17):
He wanted to be physically active so he could
stay mentally active.
Amazing.
So during and you don't have toshare details if these are too
personal, but during those daysthat you were in bed contracting
and making your way back torecovery, did you have visions,
did you have visitations?

Speaker 2 (01:27:32):
oh, no, I, mine, was considered to be a classic NDE.
What that means is, whileyou're laying still with your
eyes closed or vision is fromabove and to the right.
I could sense or see everyonethat came.

(01:27:54):
Lots of people came.
Some people came to be helpful.
Some people came just becausepeople were coming.
Some people came to find outwhat they might get if I passed.
Remember, my eyes are closed.
I'm physically not moving.

Speaker 1 (01:28:16):
So you're and you're not.
Are you non-responsive at thatpoint, like you're?

Speaker 2 (01:28:19):
not interacting with people.
No, no, no.
I never lost my gag reflex.
This is very important.
Sky was able to get me toswallow water, just water,
nothing more than that.
I didn't want anything morethan that.
I couldn't digest anything.
My entire survival was at stake.

(01:28:42):
But this is a very interestingpart of many, many NDEs you have
a sense of vision from aboveand to the right that transcends
your physical eyes.
It wasn't with my physical eyes, it was with something mental,

(01:29:04):
something in my mind that wasevoked, that was enabled, and
boy was that instructive.
Yes, so I learned a great dealfrom my so-called near-death
experience.

Speaker 1 (01:29:22):
What was the biggest lesson that came out of that?
Oh, humility, humility.
Did you feel like you were aprideful person prone to hubris?

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Enough.
You know I had punched tickets,I had accumulated accolades and
so forth and so on.
Yeah, I think I needed to beknocked down a peg or two to be
more effective, to be able tocommune with people virtually or

(01:29:59):
physically and not be so quickto know the answer to help them
discover the truth.
I think I'm better at thatbecause of the NDE.

Speaker 1 (01:30:15):
And I think that's a hallmark of a good teacher,
right?
You don't just supply theanswer, you lead the questioning
.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
Amen.
You can inform, you can inspire, you can motivate people.
That's your job, my job.
It's then up to them to takeaction my job.
It's then up to them to takeaction.
If you give them a little stepthat they say they can do, then

(01:30:48):
ask them to come back and tellyou if they did.
Just asking them to come backmeans that you care enough about
them to ask them to come backRight.
Very often, when you see aphysician today, it's a one-off
experience and the next timeyou're going to see another name
, another person.

Speaker 1 (01:31:06):
That's one of the reasons why I love the kind of
work that I do in functionalmedicine is that, you know, I've
worked in my own career.
I've worked very hard to findsolutions to some of the
deficiencies that I see and haveseen for many years in
conventional medicine, and oneof those is not looking at my

(01:31:28):
interactions with people asthese disconnected, discrete
events that happen randomlythroughout time.
But to engage in a program, ina program uh, I don't need I
guess that's the right word aprogram where we have a set of
goals and priorities, we have anend point in mind and we build

(01:31:48):
in connecting points in betweenwith some frequency of
regularity that's meaningfulenough that I can keep tabs on
them.
And you know, personally I cometo really care about the people
that I work with.

Speaker 2 (01:32:02):
I hope you do and I hope they sense that you really
care.
I think they do.
Yeah, I can imagine that theydo, and I'm glad that you're
doing what you're doing andinspiring other colleagues to do
the same yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
It's very satisfying.
It is very satisfying.
Do you just to play offterminology for a moment do you
consider the work that you do?
Do you consider it just simplynatural medicine?
Do you consider it functionalmedicine, nutritional medicine,
integrated medicine, or do younot really care about the
terminology?

Speaker 2 (01:32:41):
I care about some words, mostly if there are
compatible companionable wordsIntegrative, eclectic, holistic
the words I don't likeAlternative.
I don't like Alternative.
I don't like that either.

(01:33:01):
Complimentary I'm notcomplimentary.
I don't hand out complimentseasily.
I hand them out when they'redeserved.
I do.
I'm better at that.
The point is I am a reasonablycaring, competent, trained

(01:33:28):
physician.
I can share the best of myphilosophy and what I suggest
you do.
I would like you to know what Isuggest and why, and I would
like you to report back on theresults.
That does several thingssimultaneously.

(01:33:49):
It leaves the locus of controlwith them.
It makes me a resource, which Iwant to be A helpful resource.
People ask me are you a healer?
I don't know.

(01:34:11):
You can tell me If I've been acatalyst to your improvement and
better health.
You can call me anything youwant, but just don't call me
late for dinner.

Speaker 1 (01:34:32):
And there's your subtle sense of humor.

Speaker 2 (01:34:35):
Well, I learned it.
Actually, I learned it in partfrom my mom.
My mom was a successfulrecording jazz musician in the
1940s when and didn't get thebetter end of the trade.
She was a classic Jewish mother, but she encouraged, nudged,

(01:35:12):
pushed, made resources availableto me that have enriched my
whole life.
So, yes, I went through myperiod when my parents were dumb
.

Speaker 1 (01:35:21):
And then, as I got older, they got smarter.

Speaker 2 (01:35:25):
And fortunately we had my mom till 83 until a
doctor unfortunately killed her.
We had my dad till 90.
My dad had such severenutritional cirrhosis that,
according to the NIH,nutritional cirrhosis that
according to the NIH, he had a0.0 chance.
This was a time when memos weresent a 0.0 chance of living
five years.
So we did nothing that theyrecommended and we had him for

(01:35:49):
another 40 years.
So there's times to say yes andthere are times to say no.

Speaker 1 (01:35:56):
thank you yes and there are times to say no, thank
you, no, thank you.
If you were to look back andexamine your perspective and
your current approach andclinical model, what do you
think is missing?
Because I would sense thatyou're probably probably.

(01:36:20):
Well, I would like to thinkthat you and I are of the same
mind, that we don't know what wedon't know oh, no, no, no, no.

Speaker 2 (01:36:27):
We will never know enough to know enough.
Yeah, that's, that's a given.
Yeah, we're always somewhatlike the person looking through
a glass darkly and trying tomake sense.
I think that's theresponsibility of a human being
is to try to make sense,including of your life.

(01:36:50):
And can you extend beyond thatto those you care about?
There is something called thespreading phenomenon.
It's been well studied inanthropology.
If you get healthier, thepeople around you get healthier.
If you get sicker, the peoplearound you get sicker.

(01:37:11):
So I want to be a change agentthat catalyzes lifelong good.
Health for individuals willripple through society.

Speaker 1 (01:37:23):
Right, Well, let me just pose a couple of questions
and then I'll let you go,because you've been very
generous, very generous withyour time.
If you had a medical colleaguecome to you who's fairly
entrenched in conventionalallopathic medicine and they say

(01:37:46):
, russell, I'm dissatisfied, Ineed to do something different,
where would you tell them, orhow would you advise them to
begin their journey innutritional functional medicine,
whatever label you want to puton it, what would be your best

(01:38:08):
first step for them?

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
That's a very good question.
I try to find the issue ofgreatest interest to them.
It could be my thumb is stiff.
It could be I eat something onMonday, but it comes out the
next Monday.
I want to find something aboutthem that I can improve in a

(01:38:39):
short enough period of time toask them to report back.
I'm almost always able to dothat, including the fact and
I'll just mention a case thatI'm a little bit involved with
so there's a health coach whohas a friend who's been a client
for a long time.

(01:39:00):
I say this is a bit complex.
Maybe we should talk together,the three of us, and we do.
And then she just mentions onthe side that the same place in
the hip that is causing her painis where her grandmother had a

(01:39:20):
fracture and she was so poor shewasn't able to take care of it.
Now how do I use thatinformation to be helpful in
this moment, because grandma'slong gone?
I said is there any chance thatyour grandmother is like a
spirit guide to you?

(01:39:41):
She says how do you know?
I said I don't know, I'm justasking.
She said yes.
I said ask your grandmother inyour quiet, meditative, relaxed
time, in your quiet, meditative,relaxed time.

(01:40:05):
Does she think that what I'msuggesting makes sense?
Not only did she come back witha yes, she came back and said I
was scheduled to have hipsurgery less than one month from
now.

(01:40:26):
I now believe there's a way toavoid and rebuild my hips
without surgery, so I'm going todefer surgery.
I said defer I'm not saying bein the most engaged possible way
with wound healing, before anyprocedure is done, agreed and

(01:40:46):
for full disclosure.
We have two chapters coming outon wound healing in a textbook
next year.
So I'm continuing to do myindividual work, which I find
very satisfying.
I'm continuing to publish,which I find very satisfying.
I'm continuing to publish,which I find very satisfying,
and I don't have a trust fund.
So I have to make a living,like most people, and I do.

(01:41:08):
I think you can do good and dowell if you put your mind to it
For sure.

Speaker 1 (01:41:15):
For sure, russell.
Where can people find you ifthey're interested in learning
more about your work, readingsome of your publications or
even engaging you professionally?

Speaker 2 (01:41:41):
which is a free downloadable book.
Then we have a book on bones,joints and muscles.
We have a book called Thrivingin the 21st Century, because I
want everyone to be thriving.
You can look me up atdrrusselljaffecom online.
You can look me up on a YouTubechannel called Dr Russell Jaffe
.
We post about three or morelittle recipes or blogs or

(01:42:03):
inspirational informationalresources each week.
I have a team of people that dosee individuals or groups.
I only work through them.
So thanks for asking, becauseoccasionally people say, oh, I

(01:42:26):
want to see Il Dottore.
Unfortunately and this I thinkis really unfortunate I would
have to specialize in theconditions of the rich.
My time is valuable to me.
Sure, how many more breaths amI going to take After you have a

(01:42:52):
near-death experience?
You really have gratitude forgetting up in the morning,
absolutely.
I get restorative sleep, whichmeans I feel really well and I
don't have any devices in mybedroom.
The sun tells me when it's downand tells me when it's up.
It turns out that if you get upwith an alarm clock, you're

(01:43:16):
often getting up at the wrongtime in your sleep cycle and
you'll end up being groggy thatday and you won't understand why
am.
I groggy?
Why can't I solve a problem?
Why do I have to do my work inthe morning?
Because after lunch it's SpaceCadet City.
I think you have sensed I'minquisitive, I'm eclectic.

(01:43:44):
I want to be an example of whatI preach.
So I preach less and I practicemore, and I really do.
Thank you for asking, becauseat a certain point in my career
I really do.
Thank you for asking, because ata certain point in my career I
had the thought that we shouldstart something like the Mayo
Clinic or the Menninger Clinicor whatever a name clinic and

(01:44:07):
build up a big activity.
So I took on the Princeton BioCenter after Carl Pfeiffer
passed and it was really morethan I could handle, because it
was a thriving clinical researchcenter in Princeton, in
mid-state New Jersey, and I hada lab that was doing cell

(01:44:28):
culture and I had a productscompany that was pioneering new
nutritional formulas and I hadchildren and I wanted to spend
time with my kids because if youdo they will remember you and
if you don't, they'll rememberthat too.
So I passed the bio center onto.

(01:44:53):
Sid Baker was at the bio Centerat that time.
A number of distinguishedphysicians were in residence
there, so that was run by afoundation.
I passed it on in good orderand I've devoted myself since

(01:45:13):
then to this area of Virginia,this area of Virginia where we
have maybe five cords of agedoak to burn in the fireplace and
another five cords for nextyear already set aside, quietly
maturing, drying.

(01:45:35):
I mostly get to reap thebenefits of this personal blue
zone Secret.
Much of the work now gets doneby younger people.
I want to stretch and walk.
Walking turns out to be anexcellent exercise.

(01:45:56):
I want to be physically active,I want to be mentally and
spiritually active, but I don'tneed to be the strongest kid on
the block anymore.
So I'm privileged to havepeople that help me execute and
implement what keeps this placealive.

(01:46:18):
We have an outdoor chess set,we have a sweat lodge, we have a
medicine wheel, we have awood-fired bread oven that makes
really good pizza and, yes,it's gluten-free.
It's amazing what you can dowith cauliflower and I mostly.

(01:46:47):
I think the most effectiveteaching that I do is by having
people come for lunch or brunchor just for a cup of tea,
because I have a very specificway of making tea Never in a bag
, oh heaven for a fin.
Never in a bag, always loose,always herbal, and the finest

(01:47:14):
white needle teas and rose petalteas you actually brew at 175
degrees.
You don't need boiling water.
In fact, boiling water willevaporate some of the delicate
and elegant components of thoseteas.
Well, it's fun to make a cup oftea around here.

(01:47:39):
It's not a full tea ceremony.
I've gone to the Asia Center inNew York Okay, no, but you can
do little versions of thoseproscribed elegant approaches.
So I'm really enjoyed, I havereally enjoyed this conversation

(01:48:00):
and we have explored a numberof things that I normally don't
get to talk to.
So I'm certainly have yeah, I'mvery grateful to you to be able
to, you know, have a dialoguewith a colleague.

Speaker 1 (01:48:12):
Well, I'm grateful for you and the time that you've
given us.
I will put links to all thoseplaces that you mentioned in the
episode description so peoplecan find you and your work.
Dr Russell Jaffe, you've been adelightful guest, absolutely
delightful.

Speaker 2 (01:48:30):
My mother in heaven heard that.

Speaker 1 (01:48:33):
Amen you.

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