Natural Heart Health, cholesterol, Afib, inflammatory markers, myocarditis, thrombosis and more with cardiologist Jack Wolfson DO, FACC

This week on The Less Stress Life Podcast, I am joined by Dr. Jack Wolfson. In this episode, we discuss natural heart health, cholesterol, Afib, inflammatory markers, myocarditis, thrombosis & more.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• The link between a toxic lifestyle, mitochondria, and heart health
• Does your cholesterol matter?
• Stealth infections can drive inflammation and cause issues in the heart
• The relationship between COVID and the COVID vaccine and myocarditis and other heart issues
• The definition of AFIB and the common denominators
• Should you consume less meat for cardiovascular health?
• What is heart rate variability?

GUEST SHARED HELPFUL TIPS ON:

• The best test to look at the nutrient that supports the mitochondria
• How to access for carditis to know if it is resolved
• Home assessment tools to improve your health
• Nitric oxide boosters

ABOUT GUEST:
Jack Wolfson D.O., F.A.C.C., is a board-certified cardiologist who uses nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements to prevent and treat heart disease. He completed a 4-year medical degree, 3-year internal medicine residency and, 3-year cardiology fellowship. He served as the Chief Fellow of his cardiology program, managing all of the other cardiology trainees. Dr. Wolfson then joined the largest cardiology group in the state of Arizona and spent 10 years as a hospital-based cardiologist performing angiograms, pacemakers, and other cardiac procedures. He was the Chairman of Medicine, Director of Cardiology and, Director of Cardiac Rehabilitation.
He was selected by his peers as one of the Arizona “Top Docs" in 2011.In 2012, 

Dr. Wolfson founded Natural Heart Doctor to offer patients the ultimate in holistic heart care. People worldwide consult with Dr. Wolfson, traveling to Arizona or virtually for natural heart care. Dr. Wolfson has appeared on every major news station and major newspaper along with hundreds of appearances at live events, podcasts, and online interviews. He has taught medical doctors and practitioners from all over the world. Dr. Wolfson was recognized as one of the Top 50 Holistic Medical Practitioners. The Paleo Cardiologist, The Natural Way to Heart Health is the first book by Dr. Wolfson and is an Amazon best-seller. 

He is also a contributing author to The Textbook of Integrative Cardiology.

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Website  :https://naturalheartdoctor.com
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On IG:https://www.instagram.com/natural_heart_doctor/

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TRANSCRIPT:

[00:00:00] Dr. Jack Wolfson: If someone has inflammation that's leading to AFib, you can burn out the AFib. But what about the inflammation and what's the next thing to happen to someone from a health standpoint when they still are inflamed? Stress is the inflammation that robs us of life, energy, and happiness. Our typical solutions for gut health and hormone balance have let a lot of us down.

[00:00:29] Christa: We're overmedicated and underserved at the less trust life. We are a community of health savvy women exploring solutions outside of our traditional Western medicine toolbox and training to raise the bar and change our stories. Each week, our hope is that you leave our sessions inspired to learn, grow, and share these stories to raise the bar in your life and home.[00:01:00] 

[00:01:00] Christa: All right, so I have Dr. Jack Wolfson, who's a board certified cardiologist. He uses nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements to prevent and treat heart disease. He has a long bio of a lot of things. He's been chairman of medicine, director of cardiology, director of cardiac rehab, and selected by his peers as one of Arizona's top docs in 2011.

[00:01:18] Christa: In 2012, he founded Natural Heart Doctor to offer his patients the ultimate and holistic He Care. And people worldwide consult with Dr. Wolfson traveling to Arizona, and we were just talking about his move to Colorado, so we can talk about that. He's been recognized as one of the top 50 holistic medical practitioners, the paleo cardiologist, the Natural Way to Heart Health is his first book, and as an Amazon bestseller, which, when did that come out?

[00:01:42] Christa: That was 2000. Cool. Welcome to Less Stress Life and I'm excited to talk about all things cardiology and heart health today. Thanks for joining me and driving down for the mountains to have phone service, . Yeah, no, it's fantastic. Be beyond loving to share the heart health and wellness information.

[00:01:57] Christa: My 2015 book, everything I said in there, rings [00:02:00] true, but there's a lot more things of course, we know I've learned over the. Seven, eight years since the book was published. But it's been a great way for people to get the truth about heart health. People are stuck with their conventional cardiologist pills, procedures, not getting real answers.

[00:02:15] Christa: So that book provides that. And of course, our website does, and hopefully my new book will be released in sometime in 2023. Cool. Let's jump into, you recently moved to Colorado, but before all of that, you really took a bigger move, which was out of working in hospitals, working for yourself and doing things completely against the grind or against the grain.

[00:02:36] Christa: And I always like to hear about the catalyst, like what was the last straw for you? Why the change? Because it's not necessarily an easy transition. Some people have different transition stories, but we're time, I keep asking providers that I interview about this, that have done this earlier.

[00:02:51] Christa: We're in a time where people are just in general kind of annoyed, right? They don't feel like they could be making as big of an impact, et cetera. So what was the last straw for you or the thing that caused you to [00:03:00] transition and how did you transit? Once I, met my wife, who's a doctor of chiropractic DC or as she says, doctor of Cause, and I learned the truth, she pulled me outta the medical matrix, really told me about what causes all disease.

[00:03:11] Christa: And as I was learning that I was trying to make changes inside of the conventional cardiology group that I was with. But ultimately, money would prevail. And the hospitals, the group itself, they're so predicated on procedures, quick office visits, they're not looking. Getting at the cause. So ultimately I would keep getting in trouble.

[00:03:31] Christa: I would keep, again, telling people a different way to eat and live and think, and hospital administration. Everybody again, was getting frustrated with me, so I saw the writing on the wall, so it was time to get out again. I tried to make changes inside the system, but the system will not allow it.

[00:03:45] Christa: So I said, you know what? I gotta go on my own and give it a shot. That was 10 years ago and it's been a whirlwind and it's been one of the greatest things that's ever happened to me besides my wife and my four children, and brings me to talking to people like you. So I appreciate it. Yeah. Let's [00:04:00] talk about the things that come into mind first.

[00:04:01] Christa: When people think of heart health, which are their labs, To set the stage for this, I saw a stat the other day in some resources from the American Nutrition Association talking about insulin resistance and that 70% of people with atherosclerosis have insulin resistance, but only 50% of people have hyperlipidemia.

[00:04:22] Christa: Uncontrolled at the time of their heart attack. So that points us a lot to blood sugar issues. So we can talk about that. But before we do, before get into that, I wanna talk or wrap that into what really matters in our blood chemistry, right? Because that's where people like start and that seems like we're, it ends, until something gets really severe or people have really significant symptoms.

[00:04:42] Christa: So let's like unwrap the cover there. Do we really give a shit about total Cho. I'm just gonna be real honest. I guess in short, yeah, in short, we don't, and that was chapter one in my book. Cholesterol is king, and again, how important cholesterol is. And then again, as you assess it, as far as the lab value, total cholesterol is not very [00:05:00] important at all.

[00:05:00] Christa: In fact, I could care less what it is. And we know that really from the 1970s, the Mr. Fit trial really put the dagger in the early career of cholesterol as a marker. But nonetheless, that's still what most people focus on. Most cardiologists focus on. That's really, and oftentimes all they focus on, but to your point, it is not a relevant value when it comes to lipids.

[00:05:20] Christa: What you really want to know is you want a ratio, the apo B apo, A ratio. We need to know that. We need to know our LP little A, which is a nasty type of L D L particle that's highly correlated with cardiovascular disease. And then you can know triglycerides and triglycerides. Go back into your point of that insulin resistance, dyslipidemia syndrome.

[00:05:41] Christa: They all kind. Go in together what's called metabolic syndrome and there's a whole kind of thing that surrounds that again, and, but those markers are one thing. I think what are even more important are the markers of inflammation and oxidative stress. If you have inflammation and you have oxidative stress, you're in trouble.

[00:05:57] Christa: You need to know those ox, L D L. [00:06:00] Lipid peroxides, myelo, peroxidase. And then you know, again, the markers of inflammation. H S C R P, phospho, lipase A two. Those are the real things we want to know. Is your body on fire? And if it is, we need to figure out why. And ultimately, like you said, let's look at fasting insulin.

[00:06:16] Christa: Let's look at fasting glucose. Let's look at hemoglobin a1c. Those are very important markers as well. We can look at uric acid and then we can go intracellular. We can look at intracellular vitamins and minerals. What is your level of copper? Your zinc, your selenium, your coq 10, your glutathione, your omega three s.

[00:06:34] Christa: What are your levels of. All the fat soluble vitamins and the water soluble vitamins, we can determine all those. So again, the standard medical doctor is just doing the basic 1970s tests. And when you work with a holistic practitioner who really wants to take a deep dive on all these things, then you're really gonna get some solutions.

[00:06:55] Christa: And we do leaky gut testing. We do mold microtoxin [00:07:00] testing, we do environmental toxin testing, toxic metals. You can do gut. And truly, I think for someone who really wants to know their status, their health status, that's the information we need. And then, people like you and I, Krista, we put 'em on a plan and then we retest three, four months down the road and we make sure that they're on track for what I would say is their 100 year heart.

[00:07:21] Christa: What another person would say the a hundred year, body, the a hundred year lifestyle. That's where we're at. . Yeah. Wanna feel younger as you get older. So I heard you talk about something I almost never hear people talk about very commonly. In my profession, we do talk a lot about comprehensive testing of vitamins and minerals, but you just brought it up and I'd love to hear about it.

[00:07:39] Christa: From your perspective, how often are you looking on that at that, because there's a lot of options for testing and you don't always have to test every single detail for every single person, right? So often are you looking at vitamins, nutrients, et cetera? Are you just going and supporting mitochondria because it's such a big thing for heart?

[00:07:56] Christa: how do you approach that depending on the person? I think, again, it depends [00:08:00] on maybe someone's financial capability for any of these tests. So in that sense, the first things we're gonna do right is eat well, live well, think well. You're gonna spend the money on Eat live well, think well.

[00:08:11] Christa: And then ideally after that you test don't guess. So the testing, of course, Could be thousands and thousands of dollars, or it could be very minimal. Depending on what tests you run. To your point, if what we wanna really focus on is that one area and say, okay, how do we support the mitochondria again?

[00:08:29] Christa: What are the best tests to look at the nutrients that support the mitochondria? And that just goes back to the B vitamins. If you don't have vitamins, B one, b2, b3, you're not. Have functional mitochondria if you don't have, again, B five. all, They're all important for the mitochondria.

[00:08:47] Christa: If you don't have copper, the mitochondria is not gonna function. Copper is critical for electron transport chain units one, two, and four. If you don't have omega-3 s, if [00:09:00] you don't have coq 10. So again, that's where really that analysis. Comes in to really dial in how we can support mitochondrial function.

[00:09:07] Christa: And then ultimately, if we have a lot of reactive oxygen species, if we have a lot of oxidative stress by measurements, then yeah, we wanna support that mitochondrial function. Not only that, but we also wanna support superoxide dismutase. The, we often reach, Krista, for these antioxidants and are you taking enough c and e?

[00:09:28] Christa: And. Resveratrol or other herbal, compounds that are known to have antioxidant potential and even some of the most, in some of newer things, again, you get people talking about methylene blue and some of the heavy oxygen electron donors of what it is. But the best antioxidant system is really the superoxide dismutase and the more that, and that.

[00:09:49] Christa: Inherently made in our body, and that's really where the best balance comes in. And supporting that is the best way to go. Some of these external antioxidant systems, they are not [00:10:00] overly beneficial according to the literature. And again, it may be if we support our own antioxidant defense mechanisms.

[00:10:08] Christa: That's the strategy. So I like to think about common denominators. When I think about a certain conditions. I wanna talk about some different heart conditions, and then I wanna then jump to different steal infections. And before I do that, you were just talking about all the nutrient supporting mitochondria and B vitamins.

[00:10:26] Christa: For example, if your gut's not working, as you were saying, you're not going to digest and absorb B vitamins either. So there's and you brought this up in different words earlier, but there's a lot of opportunities to look at things and. This is how I feel. It's like once you know things, you can't unsee them anymore, so you just wanna fix everything.

[00:10:42] Christa: Once you're in there, it's, and it's just how it is sometimes. So it's nice to hear you say, and I hear this from people who specialize in all different things so often. We're trying to take care of everything, as much as possible. People talk about gut health all the time, right?

[00:10:57] Christa: But it's not that we're actually doing as much [00:11:00] as we could be sometimes with it. As much as populars has gotten, we haven't made treatment or improvement of gut health as mainstream as it probably could be yet. All right, so I wanna talk about self infections and these common denominators of other things.

[00:11:11] Christa: Let me start with steal infections, cause it probably relates a little bit to your last points. Before we hit the record button, we were talking a little bit about your personal story with you with mold in Arizona, and then we got to talking about mold and cardiovascular disease. So let's talk about all stealth, sneaky, annoying things that can be.

[00:11:29] Christa: Driving inflammation, these inflammatory markers and thereby causing issues with the heart. And maybe first to make it tangible, tell us what this can sometimes look like on the outside that might alert someone to say, Hey Doc, I think I've got a heart problem. And then you look and you say I think this is actually a different stealth infection if you will go.

[00:11:50] Christa: I think, the reality is, and literature supports this, pretty much any kind of complaint or ailment can be linked to cardiovascular disease. Not in so much that if someone [00:12:00] says, I've got a rash, is that my heart? You'd probably say, of course no, but you would say if I've got a rash, that means.

[00:12:06] Christa: I've got inflammation, something is leading to that rash, and if therefore, if I've got that inflammation of course now my heart is at risk because inflammation and oxidative stress are linked to all cardiovascular conditions. Atrial fibrillation, cardiomyopathy, heart attack, stroke, abnormal lipids, blood pressure, whatever label us medical doctors wanna put on things.

[00:12:27] Christa: Again, it can be it's all linked to inflammation, oxidative stress. So as we. Look at all of that, and we say, okay what's gonna be causing that inflammation, oxidative stress? That's where it takes us maybe into these stealth infections that you mentioned, but even the stealth infections kind of thing, whether you're talking about Epstein bar or other viruses, or you're talking about parasites, and maybe Lyme, disease, from the Lyme spirochete and other co-infections.

[00:12:53] Christa: I think that the reality is that a lot of those chronic infections, They are because your immune [00:13:00] system is damaged and you are not able to clear out things that we should be clearing very easily. And again, one of the biggest immunosuppressives is mold. In your environment from water damage, the mold mycotoxins are immunosuppressives and make your immune system dysfunctional.

[00:13:18] Christa: So now you can't clear Borrelia equals to Lyme or baia or barella, and you can't clear Epstein Bar and other viral infections. So if we look at the concept of mold and mold in. Water damage, building mold, micro toxicity. It really provides that kind of overall construct for this really can be linked to all disease.

[00:13:43] Christa: And it's very interesting. And again, that's why I think some people, most people, they don't get success when you try and quote unquote, treat Epstein Barr or you try and treat. Lime again, there is a, an issue there. Now, other other things that could be a chronic irritant, of course, if you [00:14:00] have dental issues, if you've got infected teeth, if you've got periodontal disease, if you've got root canals that are chronically infected, which they all are by definition that of course would also provide the foundation of chronic infection leading to immuno dysfunction.

[00:14:19] Christa: And I'll say also, if you are in mold, it leads to the difficulty and inability to clear dental infections as well. So I think those are two really important points for people to look at. Again, what is your oral health status as really foundational? And then of course, what is your, mold, micro toxicity status.

[00:14:39] Christa: Yeah, I think. Oral health all the time. I always think that what's going on in your mouth is probably a window to what's going on in the inside of your body, so I'm glad to hear you . You also feel, and again, like this is not just like pie in the sky, know, thinking like this. In the medical literature, there are dozens and dozens of studies that talk about periodontal disease and [00:15:00] cardiovascular risk.

[00:15:00] Christa: We know that when you look at, you do culture in coronary plaque, you will be able to grow out a lot of bacteria that come from the mouth. And if we look at the issues regarding, gut health, how much of that comes from the mouth? How much does gut health. Actually lead to oral disease.

[00:15:20] Christa: There's a lot of that theory out there as well, which came first, the chicken and the egg. Was it the dental issues that led to the gut issues? Was it the gut issues that led to the dental issues? I think clearly in the answer is probably somewhere in the middle, and the fact that it relates to both.

[00:15:34] Christa: . Speaking of viruses, you brought up viruses. Cardiology's gotten a lot more of a spotlight in recent months, as we've seen young people with myocarditis and other heart issues or kind of heart like symptoms or cardiology type symptoms, with covid and covid vaccination, all of those things.

[00:15:51] Christa: Can you explain the mechanism of what's happening there? The alleged purpose of a vaccine or the covid, Mr. Shot is to [00:16:00] stimulate the immune system to produce a response against the said, pathogen that we are injecting and we're trying to stimulate that immune system, whether it's to the chickenpox virus, the measles virus.

[00:16:15] Christa: Diptheria, pertussis, tetanus or covid. So there is a purpose allegedly for that. And once you stimulate the immune system, now again, you've got the immune system. Now it's kicked in and it was kicked in artificially, and therefore the response is anybody's guess. It's not natural, so therefore the response is truly unknown.

[00:16:36] Christa: So could that response, of course, it always leads to inflammation. It always leads to oxidative stress, and when going haywire on that, now you can develop cardiovascular problems. So you can develop. Immune system attack on heart muscle cells, for example, in the case of myocarditis, you can also cause mini thrombotic events or macro thrombotic events [00:17:00] leading to massive stroke or heart attack.

[00:17:02] Christa: But they could also be small events leading to obstruction of the tiny vessels inside of the heart, leading to a maybe a more subtle myocarditis. And the worst part about it, or one of the worst things about it is that the medical community they can recognize. There is the risk of myocarditis. They are totally underestimating the amount of myocarditis that's generated.

[00:17:23] Christa: And then of course, they're underestimating the long-term impact. They're saying these myocarditis cases, they mostly heal. How can you tell me that a 15 year old myocarditis case is healed? How do we know what's gonna happen to that person 10 years down the road, 20, 30, 50 years down the road, and does it increase their risk?

[00:17:41] Christa: Heart attack, stroke, atrial fibrillation, cardiomyopathy. We have no clue. The reality is it's always been the principle of first do no harm. And again, I think we're harming a lot of people. The message should always be, give the body what it needs, take away what it doesn't. Health will never be at a, in a prescription and health will [00:18:00] never be at the tip of a needle.

[00:18:01] Christa: You just brought up, oh, healing carditis and a 15 year old. How do we assess for carditis? so that way you can know if it has resolved. Yeah, so again the, probably the best way to, or the official way to diagnose it would be by a blood test. So again, the child or person may have symptoms and that could be chest pain, it could be heart rhythm issues, it could be, shortness of breath could be a lot of different things that they're having.

[00:18:25] Christa: But typically we do a blood test. So we look for something like a troponin or C P K looking for evidence. Blood evidence of myocarditis. There are some subtle changes that can be seen on an E C G, not so much on an echocardiogram. Oftentimes, again, it's a clinical diagnosis or like I said from the blood work.

[00:18:41] Christa: But again, this is rarely done inside the study protocols. They did it, but, studies are only as good as the people in the companies who control them. , you brought up thrombosis, which I always think is like a sneaky scary, it's like in my brain, probably because of experiences and people I've known and deaths I've seen.

[00:18:59] Christa: It [00:19:00] always feels like the sneakiest way to go cuz it's, it feels real quick. Is there screening and prevention for this? Is this where a d dimmer fits in? Is that even recommended? Yeah, DDI is a pretty cool test. It is non-specific, so it can be elevated in the cases of just inflammation in and of itself.

[00:19:18] Christa: And the problem is kinda like what to do about a D dimer. So if someone, for example, got a shot or had covid or whatever it may be, so to check a D dimer, what do we necessarily do with. Information. I don't think we really know. So for example, if we saw someone with very high D Dier and yet they don't have any overt symptoms, should we put 'em on some kind of pharmaceutical anticoagulant?

[00:19:41] Christa: Or should we rush to do additional natural strategies like on Nattokinase, serrapeptase Lu kinase, some systemic enzymes? Should we try and rush that person and tell 'em that, Hey, listen, you better get super serious about your diet right now. Eat plenty of wild seafood. Keep plenty of nose to tail animal [00:20:00] products.

[00:20:00] Christa: Get rid of carbs, sugar, and and again, and the grains, or make sure you get sunshine or should we u put that person in some kind of a red light therapy or vitamin D lamp, all these different things that we would do for those people. But I guess those are certain things that I would consider Krista, somebody called me up and they're like, oh my God, I did this and now my D dimer is.

[00:20:22] Christa: What do you think I should do? So I think all those options are on the table. Personally, I've never prophylactically recommended any kind of pharmaceutical for those people, and I think there are protocols, of course, that include aspirin and other pharmacologic therapies. It's just not something that I think is really necessary and I think the risks outweigh any benefits for those pharmaceutical.

[00:20:44] Christa: Yeah, the tricky part about cardiology is that it seems like a lot of the conditions that we're most familiar with tend to be emergency style situations sometimes, right? Like I guess there's the chronic rising, been brewing for a long time, and then some of this stuff just comes outta nowhere, but always makes [00:21:00] people worried when they have feelings around their heart flutters, and all those things.

[00:21:04] Christa: Which brings me, feel free to interrupt me if you have something to say there, but that brings me to. Asking you a little bit about AFib. I feel like I see this quite a bit with people and you brought it up. You've mentioned it in passing before, but will you define AFib technically for us? And then share what are some of the things that you are seeing in practice that are causing that?

[00:21:25] Christa: Cuz I have some opinions or thoughts around this as well, but you're much more the expert and I'd love to hear about your common denominators with. Atrial fibrillation is the most common heart rhythm abnormality in the world. It's the number one reason why people come to see me in person in Arizona, or consult with me over the phone.

[00:21:41] Christa: And I think the, issues with it really are that people are scared, right? They're scared. Of atrial fibrillation. They don't like the way they feel. Racing heart feelings, palpitations, flip flops. They certainly, when they see their medical doctor, they don't wanna necessarily go on pharmaceuticals.

[00:21:57] Christa: They don't wanna have a stroke because [00:22:00] again, atrial fibrillation is linked to stroke risk. But I think we really get, we need to have people understand what atrial fibrillation is and what's causing it. Maybe they don't wanna have an ablation. All these different things are areas that we. People and to guide them through it.

[00:22:14] Christa: But ultimately, AFib is highly linked to inflammation. So as we get older, inflammation is more likely and therefore atrial fibrillation is more likely. So if we find out the cause of the inflammation, which are gonna be violations of eat, live well, think well. If we find the sources of the inflammation, we will be able to help people get rid of atrial fibrillation.

[00:22:37] Christa: And ultimately, if people need pharmaceuticals or if people need an ablation procedure from the AFib, then if we make them the healthiest version possible of themselves, they're most likely to get success from. Or ablations, but it definitely is something that is affecting millions and millions of people, and these people are struggling, but [00:23:00] just whisking 'em away to a procedure or a pharmaceutical is not solving the problem.

[00:23:06] Christa: Whatever is leading. To that will lead to something else. If someone has inflammation that's leading to AFib, you can burn out the AFib. But what about the inflammation and what's the next thing to happen to someone from a health standpoint when they still are inflamed? . And I think the other question for me and for listeners is how do you assess and determine if it's really AFib or if it's really not technically AFib, but a flutter or could it be mineral deficiencies?

[00:23:36] Christa: Those are questions I have when the adrenals are on the struggle bus and when minerals are really low from stress. I think that it's, this is really a question for you. It seems that some of these symptoms can, something like this can be possible. So what is the cutoff of, this is actually AFib, how do you assess that?

[00:23:53] Christa: And then this is really not AFib, but my heart's fluttering. The best test to do that I think is what we sell is called the Z [00:24:00] patch, Z i O patch. And it's a two week patch, sits right on top of your heart and watches every single heartbeat for two weeks. So when you have symptoms, The device records it, it'll tell us is it atrial fibrillation?

[00:24:12] Christa: Is it atrial flutter? Is it av nodal reentering, tachycardia? Is it AV reentering tachycardia? Is it sinus tachycardia? Is it PAs, PVCs? Is it nothing? Really, is it more of an anxiety thing that's happening to people? So that's the best test is to do the two week monitor. Now, if someone's having symptom, In your office and you could detect that on an e kg.

[00:24:32] Christa: There's also this cardio and there's Apple watches, but again, those are really not state-of-the-art technology as it really relates to getting the official diagnosis. We're best off doing a xop patch, and that'll tell us what the rhythm is. Now, it doesn't tell us. Again, what the cause is, and back to your, point.

[00:24:50] Christa: Could vitamin and mineral nutrient deficiencies lead to atrial fibrillation all day long? People with low magnesium, low potassium, low omega three s, low vitamin D, they have a [00:25:00] much higher risk of AFib. So ultimately, whenever I see someone for AFib, we test, don't guess we do the most advanced lab testing in the world and then be able to help her and say, okay, these are the strategies that we can use going forward to help improve your.

[00:25:13] Christa: It makes me really happy when we consume an a lot of food-based potassium, like coconut water, and we see blood pressure and AFib and other things improve potassium since it's dumped from high cortisol. It's just something I see all the time and I love that it can be that simple . So thanks for confirming the possibility.

[00:25:37] Christa: Not that it's necessarily that simple, and I bring up potassium specifically because we talk more, I think like magnesium, a little more mainstream. So people sometimes take that trial, that different things around magnesium, but. Often we're not consuming a ton of food-based potassium, and so sodium, potassium get out of balance.

[00:25:55] Christa: And that's just personally what I've seen with that. And I have a question about the X patch. Is that something [00:26:00] you, is that something you developed or made or whatnot, or is it something that's on the market? Yeah, no, that's something on the market. Other practitioners do have it.

[00:26:07] Christa: We happen to have it on our website. The technology side of all these devices is certainly beyond me as far as the manufacturing of it. But, the interpretation of the data is something that is absolutely spectacular and very, very beneficial. Are there any other cool things that you like to send home for people to do assessments to improve their health?

[00:26:25] Christa: That's like an assessment tool that's fun using that technology. Is there anything else you like to use in your practice that helps change the game for people a little bit like that you send home? I definitely, know, yeah, I definitely like home mold microtoxin testing, that's for sure.

[00:26:38] Christa: I like the home erm test for people to look at, to assess their home. Other kind of bio, hacking or biofeedback, type devices. Even something like a nitric oxide. A simple test strip that's put on your mouth to see what your nitric oxide levels are, and that could be of course, valuable and given good information there.

[00:26:55] Christa: And then, there are heart rate variability monitors, and certainly the lower your heart rate variability, [00:27:00] the higher your risk. The aura ring and things like that to help to judge your level of sleep. I'm not a huge fan of wearable technology. I think if you want to use it once in a while, it can have value, but I'm very anti emf so it doesn't make sense for somebody to sleep with wearable technology on a daily basis.

[00:27:18] Christa: I think that the risk of that far outweighs any benefit as far as the information you're gonna. . I actually just interviewed a, got a researcher on nitric oxide and so it has some things in supplement and some things going into pharmaceutical in the next 24 months, which we talked about pros and cons of that, but I'm hopeful that something our body naturally makes can be a useful thing for the future of cardiology and blood pressure as well without side effects.

[00:27:46] Christa: So thanks for bringing that up. Again, like a, na, natural nitric oxide boosters, beet root powder, leafy greens, amino acids, El arginine, al Citraline altor, our notorious nitric oxide boosters. Sunshine, of course, is a nitric [00:28:00] oxide booster. I believe chiropractic care is a nitric oxide booster.

[00:28:03] Christa: So a lot of different things we could do there. I did also wanna say, listen, I share your love and passion for coconut water and my kids Totally. Dig on it. That's a phenomenal treat. Avocado. Why I often say the AVO cardio. Is loaded with magnesium as another, beneficial nutrients.

[00:28:19] Christa: Bananas are really not a good source of potassium, as I'm sure you tell your listeners as well. Sweet potato is another option. But hey, listen, don't forget, we as humans need potassium and therefore all mammals and animals need potassium. So when you eat other animals, you're getting the potassium.

[00:28:38] Christa: From that particular animal and that's going to have benefit for our health. Is there anything you wanna say about, for the people that say we should consume less meat for cardiovascular health? On that note? Listen, I don't make the rules. It's Mother Nature and for the last three and a half million years when hunter gatherers, that's in the paleontology literature, the anthropology literature, [00:29:00] it's not in the medical literature, but those are the researchers, the PhDs who came up with it.

[00:29:04] Christa: And then of course, you can look at TV shows like. Naked and afraid. Love those shows. I'm sure you do as well. Krista, it's great for the family to watch, and again, you put a vegan in that environment and they quickly turn or they leave the show. So again, there's no bags of oatmeal or walnuts in the wild.

[00:29:20] Christa: When you're in the wild, you quickly become a hunter or you're going to die. That being said again, the most nutrient dense food in the world is animal liver. There's nothing else even close. So why would we try and limit the consumption of the animal products people who eat the most amount of seafood, lowest risk of everything.

[00:29:40] Christa: People again, who consume liver, you're getting all those nutrients. If you have an unhealthy heart, why would you not eat animal hearts? And of course, we're only talking about free range, vested grass, finished pasture rays, the healthiest animals in the world. I'm never talking about anything aside from that.

[00:29:56] Christa: So again, I like eating plants. I like eating vegetables. But [00:30:00] don't confuse the two. That's, it's just the health value and ramifications of eating the animal products. Are beyond, compare. There's nothing in the plant kingdom that compares to those foods. Totally. So you brought up H R V, which I forgot was something that can be very accessible to people.

[00:30:16] Christa: It may not always be accurate. Will you give a touch more lip service to H R V? Because I think it's a little bit of a buzzword right now, but people don't always know what it means All the. Yeah, so H I V stands for heart rate variability. And what they're measuring is the beat to beat variation in time between one beat from another.

[00:30:38] Christa: And when you look at a child, for example, they'll have phenomenal if they're healthy heart rate variability. And as we get older we lose that. So essentially if our heartbeats 60 times a minute, it could beat every single second. Totally perfectly spaced out. One second, two second, three seconds.

[00:30:59] Christa: Now, [00:31:00] heart rate variability would mean in between the first and the second beat. Maybe it's a little less than a second the next time around, a little more than a second. And again, that variable nature of that. And the more that variability we have, which can be measured, and I agree with you, a lot of the tech that's out.

[00:31:17] Christa: Unfortunately does not give us a good approximation as to how we're doing. So I think time will tell, we'll learn more about it. Now, it's interesting, of course, if you do have atrial fibrillation, by definition, that's high heart rate variability. So you can't check things. We're only talking about people who are in normal sinus rhythm.

[00:31:36] Christa: But I think like anything, right? It's just one of the other strategies. But ultimately, to your point, the technology still has to be a little bit. Yeah, I know people always recommend Aura Ring and I'm always looking for other options for it. I was recently looking for this because I was testing some other tools and I wanted to see if there was impact on heart rate variability.

[00:31:54] Christa: I think one of my final questions is really like how to healthy people like assess and take care of our heart health, but before we get there, [00:32:00] but I think of H R V, like that's an option. For people that's a little bit accessible even though the tech, like you said, isn't there. But okay. Before we go to those last couple of questions, I have another one that came up with some client stuff this week.

[00:32:13] Christa: So I see a lot of AFib, but this week I had a client asking me about she has a pacemaker and I was gonna have her use a vagus nerve stimulation device. And I've actually had this come up multiple times for different clients and different things happening. So there's different types of agus nerve stimulation devices.

[00:32:29] Christa: but is there really a serious contraindication to doing vagus nerve stimulation or using a device that stimulates it? If you have a pacemaker or other heart condition, again, right? We'll qualify this and say, ask your doctor. Of course. But I don't see any issue with it whatsoever. So a vagal nerve, stimulating device.

[00:32:45] Christa: Again, if you use something that's, right there on the vagus, on either the left side, on the right. That is not gonna be near the pacemaker generator, which typically is under the clavicle. Over here on the left side, most commonly is where it's placed. So again, if you're gonna do a right side [00:33:00] stimulation, you're not gonna be near that.

[00:33:01] Christa: Now, there are wires that dive down through the subclavian vein into the right side of the heart, so you probably wouldn't wanna put any kind of advice directly on top of where those wires may be or where the leads are, although they. Deeper down, it's not likely to cause any problem or damage to the device.

[00:33:19] Christa: And certainly if you're concerned, you could actually use the device while you are getting your pacemaker checked at your doctor's office. So you could do that as well. And really, I don't think vagal stimulators, I think are a problem for anybody with cardiovascular disease. I think they're the solution.

[00:33:35] Christa: Again, that's what we're doing it for is to get people out of this dominant sympathetic. Tone and to induce a parasympathetic tone and vagal stimulation is proven in many studies to actually decrease the incidence of atrial fibrillation, decrease blood pressure, lower heart rate, and increase heart rate variability.

[00:33:56] Christa: So these are all really good things and I think that's wonderful techniques. I [00:34:00] think also any kind of technique that stimulates the Vegas, again, whether it's, garling singing, humming, bearing down for bowel movements, cold water, plunges, there's so many different.

[00:34:09] Christa: That people can do, breath work, for example, helps to stimulate the parasympathetic nervous system. So lots of different options there and I think they're all healthy ones. Yeah, I appreciate that because you not only gave us a solution, if someone is pretty concerned about that, which we're always concerned about any kind of significant heart thing typically, you give 'em a solution, they can go check using it while they're having their pacemaker. and or considering where the placement of that is, if it's not really near that place. If it's a little dial in the ear or potentially even something on the wrist that's transmitting a signal, then it's potentially less risky than something that would be, in that space possibly.

[00:34:45] Christa: But always checking with your provider okay, so thinking about. Healthy people and things that we can do to take care of our heart health. There's a couple sections of this because for me, athletes sometimes come up and athletes to me are, [00:35:00] they're a population that has a lot of induced inflammation sometimes.

[00:35:04] Christa: So I dunno if we wanna qualify this a little bit or if you have any thoughts around athletes and heart health where it's a little bit different, but I think. For the average healthy person, what people are always looking for at the end of a podcast is what are these top things that we can do to take care of our heart health and assess for our heart health?

[00:35:22] Christa: If our like lipid, our standard lipid test is not that the primary thing to look at. Again, for athletes, I think the main problem I see with athletes over the years, including myself, is the way that they eat and the way that they live. For example, and a lot of times athletes think that because they're athletes and they're athletic, they can avoid doing the other things.

[00:35:42] Christa: So for example, they can eat whatever they want, or they're doing a. Marathon or a century ride and they run a few miles and they have a power bar and then they run a few miles and they have a Gatorade and they run a few mi, or the night before their car bloating with some nasty pasta meal.

[00:35:57] Christa: . And so again, these, these athletes, they just [00:36:00] do not eat healthy. And that's the really the problem. They have to provide the body with the right nutrients to get the job done and those kind of foods, those kinda lifestyle behavior. Are not gonna support that. So you're gener, as you perform athletics, you really start to produce a lot of free radicals, that oxidative stress on the body.

[00:36:16] Christa: And if you don't have the systems in place again to be able to combat that, you're gonna develop atrial, fibrillation, heart attacks, and so many other conditions that athletes suffer from. So ultimately, as an athlete, like anybody else, you want to get tested, you want to be able to test for. Oxidative stress.

[00:36:33] Christa: You wanna know your homocysteine levels. You want to know intracellular vitamins and minerals. You wanna know your levels of mold, micro toxicity, environmental toxicity. The more athletic you are, probably the more you wanna make sure that all these numbers are in place. Because if you're very athletic and you're generating a lot of free radicals and they're not balanced by the body, you're in big, big.

[00:36:54] Christa: On a note of what are things people can do to take care of themselves? I think you have a, something coming [00:37:00] up, it's called, is it Your Path to 100 Year Heart Summit? Will you tell us about that? What people can find you online? Yes. Yes. So again, you can find us online at natural Heart Doctor.

[00:37:11] Christa: We do have something coming up the called a hundred Year Heart Summit. Then I and myself and my. Associate practitioner who's a naturopathic medical doctor. We've interviewed about 35 different health experts about cardiovascular conditions. And of course, whenever you treat cardiovascular conditions, you treat everything else from brain disorders, autoimmune conditions, fatigue, cancers, you name it.

[00:37:32] Christa: So there's a lot of different things that we can help with in that arena. But again, yeah, it's called your Path to 100 Year Heart Summit. Totally free. And yeah, would love for any of your listeners and followers to check it out. All right, cool. And that's in February. We'll link it below. Thank you so much for coming on today, Dr.

[00:37:47] Christa: Wolfson. Anything else you wanna leave us with? No, again listen I think ultimately heart health is yours and there's a time and a place for pharmaceuticals and again, God bless the men and women. Who are there in emergency rooms and trauma centers [00:38:00] doing what they do. But when it comes to prevention, the medical doctors have nothing.

[00:38:04] Christa: And Krista, you and I have everything, so people should pay attention to what we have to say, which is only common sense mother nature type of strategies, which unfortunately they do not teach the medical doctors. Learn a lot through experience and trials and just all kinds of things. So thank you so much for coming on today and for sharing and check out the Your Path to the 100 year Hearts.

[00:38:29] Christa: All right, perfect. Thanks so much for coming on today. Sharing and reviewing this podcast is the best way to help us succeed with our mission. To help integrate the best of East and West and empower you to raise the bar on your health story, just go to review this podcast.com/less stressed life. That's review this podcast.com.

[00:38:52] Christa: Less stressed life, and you'll be taken directly to a page where you can insert your review and hit post.[00:39:00]