The Heart-Brain Connection

Introduction to the Heart-Brain Connection 0:00

Hello, everyone. I'm cardiologist doctor Jack Wolfson, a natural heart doctor, and, very excited to present to you all as part of this online event. Again, I'm doctor Jack Wolfson, cardiologist, natural heart doctor. We like to say, is your home for the 100 year heart. And again, I'm going to be talking about the heart brain connection and why you need to understand all these things related to, again, the heart and the brain, how they are intertwined and how fixing one tends to fix the other. And you're hearing from a lot of great other speakers talking about how important the brain is.

But again, the heart and the brain are intimately related. So I want to tell you about Jill. Jill is a 63 year old, excuse me, a 68 year old female. She got a history of high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, and she's also pre-diabetic. So they put her on a couple of blood pressure drugs. She's on a statin drug for cholesterol, and she's also on an aspirin. But when I see her, she's complaining of not having any energy, which isn't a surprise because she's not sleeping well. And then also she's now having memory issues.

So what's happening with her heart now is also happening with her brain. None of it's working, right? And she states, I feel like I've aged 20 years in the past three years, and I've heard this so many times amongst the 35,000 plus patients I've seen in my career. So I want you to watch this short presentation. If you're someone who has high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, or any other cardiovascular diagnosis you'd be labeled with, and also, if you've got concerns about your memory, your mood, your overall brain health.

You know, my father died of a Parkinson's like illness called progressive super nuclear palsy when he was 63 years of age. I don't want that to be me. I don't want it to be any of my patients, and I don't want it to be you. So again, please watch this if you want to avoid a stroke, dementia movement disorder like Parkinson's or even PSP like my father had, please watch this. If you take any pharmaceuticals, this is important to you. And again, watch this. If you want the 100 year hearts and the 100 year brain a little bit about me.

I was a senior partner in the largest cardiovascular group in the state of Arizona. I was the director of cardiology, director of medicine, and director of cardiac rehab. I was recognized by my peers as one of Phoenix Top doctors, top 50 functional medicine doctor, now five times holistic medical doctor in Arizona, international speaker and author of the Amazon bestselling book The Paleo Cardiologist. Also contributing author to one of the chapters in the Textbook of Integrative Cardiology.

Why Cardiovascular Disease Affects the Brain 3:00

So cardiology integrative is going mainstream. And then again, founder of Natural Heart Doctor and natural heart doctor.com. So when we talk about cardiovascular disease we're talking about the number one killer worldwide. Yes cardiovascular disease kills more than infections and it kills more than cancer. And it kills more than diabetes and even dementia. In and of itself, cardiovascular disease remains far and away the number one killer worldwide. And in the United States alone, over $4 trillion are spent on cardiovascular conditions.

And this is absolutely abysmal. And what happens with all of the surgeries and all of the stents and all of the pharmaceutical and all of the visits and all of the pacemakers, we have to do something about it. And that's what we do here at Natural Heart. Doctor. Now, the physicians, you're going to see them with any problem. They're just going to give you a prescription. You know this. You've likely experienced this with yourself or someone who you love. It's not personal. It's not. And the doctors aren't intelligent.

They obviously are. They're only trained one way and they're trained in the pill and procedure model. So that's what you get is pills and procedures. You do not get any training as to any teachings and any advice as to why you are sick. Now. When I first became a holistic cardiologist, before that, I met the woman who would become my wife and she advised me to become a DC. And I said, DC, you want me to become a doctor of chiropractic like she is? And she said, no, I don't want you to become a DC doctor of chiropractic.

I want you to become a DC doctor. Of course, you have to go over the cause of why people get sick. Now, as we kind of connect the common things that people would understand as far as this heart brain connection, how when we have cardiac problems, why that leads to brain issues. Now number one would be from what we call chronic under perfusion or we're not getting enough blood flow and circulation up to our brain. So in doing so what does that mean. It means if we have atrial fibrillation an irregular heart rhythm, our heart may not be producing enough output and enough blood flow to our brain.

If we have congestive heart failure, our heart may not be producing enough blood flow to our brain. If we have blockages in the arteries of the neck called the carotid arteries, the heart may not be pumping enough blood to our brain and even some of the small circulation inside the brain itself. Now, other things, of course, that can lead to brain disease is thromboembolic disease or strokes. Either a small stroke or a large stroke, or even strokes that people don't feel these kind of mini strokes that may not cause any short term symptoms, like you have difficulty speaking or walking or movement, but the chronic small strokes that ultimately lead to dementia.

And we call this multi infarct dementia. So that can again that can come from strokes related to atrial fibrillation to congestive heart failure. Cardiomyopathy can also be related to carotid artery disease, the arteries in the neck that supplying the brain. And it can also be again from disease further up into the brain. Again this is what's called thromboembolic disorders and even hyper coagulation states or sticky blood, which invariably is a problem as well. And there's a lot of factors related to that.

Now, certain pharmaceuticals also can directly affect the brain, and I'll talk about it in a second.

Medication Side Effects and Brain Health 7:00

But I also want you to understand whatever is causing the heart issues, whatever is leading you to develop high blood pressure, whatever is leading you to develop atrial fibrillation, coronary artery disease, cardiomyopathy, whatever your cardiovascular disease label is, those same things that are causing the heart issues are also causing the brain issues. And as we fix the heart issues, we also fix the brain issues, which is very, very exciting. Now I do want to highlight some pharmaceuticals that certainly should be considered as we're trying to build a better brain.

And number one, all this, you know, statin drugs. And although the literature is kind of mixed regarding statin drugs, do they prevent dementia. Do they cause dementia? Is there no effect regarding dementia and other brain disorders, including Parkinson's? I have seen many people over my career that undoubtedly their brain disorder was related to statin drugs. And oftentimes when we remove the state and drug and do our other therapies, the people get better. So I do believe that all of the effects from statin drugs are reversible.

My personal opinion on one of the things that would kill my father again at the age of 63, and this Parkinson's like illness, I think also the fact that he did take a step and drug, I think, also led to his demise. Now, other pharmaceutics calls blood pressure drugs, blood pressure, drugs help to lower down blood pressure, but they can also cause memory issues. They can also cause these other things that again lead to this brain dysfunction. So whether we're talking about beta blockers, calcium channel blockers or talking about Ace inhibitors, all of these things may have other unwanted effects.

And I think we need to be very conscious of that whenever we think about brain health. And then ultimately also these blood thinners or anticoagulants that we can't have bleeding from these, that can actually bleed into our brain. What's called a hemorrhagic stroke. So these can be things that are the advanced blood thinners like, pradaxa. Or is the toe or, Eliquis or other things including aspirin, you know, for example, or F3 and or Berlinetta and the old, you know, drug warfarin. So please consider that a lot as well as we think about the path to the better brain and then plenty of other pharmaceuticals, whether it is, opiates, proton pump inhibitors, psychiatric medications, lots of data about what that does to your brain.

So again, always consider that the pharmaceuticals may be leading to brain dysfunction. Remember when you have a brain issue it's not because of a lack of pharmaceuticals. There's something that's causing that. And that's what we want to determine. Now we do talk about the concept of leaky, brain in the context of leaky gut, leaky heart, leaky brain. And I think this is a beautiful concept, but I want everybody to understand on how we have leaky gut. Now, leaky gut means things get into the body through the gut or the intestines, and they get in where they don't belong.

Now, the gut should be a semi-permeable barrier, which means things should get into the body that belong. Things stay in the food to the tube that don't belong. And then we, you know, poop them out the other side. But what happens in the context of leaky gut is that things get in through the gut lining, and now they're into the body, and we call that leaky gut. And we can also have leaky heart because the lining of the blood vessels is compromised and therefore things leak into the heart arteries.

And so the heart muscle itself, and then ultimately leaky brain, which means that we are leaking through the blood brain barrier

Leaky Gut, Inflammation, and Brain Fog 11:00

into the brain tissue, leading to brain inflammation. And these are all tied in together. And many other medical doctors are talking about the same thing. So now when these things get into our body and they're in a place where they don't belong. So again, maybe it's gluten, which is a nasty food particle and protein found in wheat, barley and rye. Maybe it's other infections. Maybe it's other things that again are leading to this leaky gut. They get into the bloodstream. And now the body recognizes this as a foreign invader.

And in doing so what happens? We get immune system activation, we get inflammation and we get oxidative stress. And this is inflammation. This is your heart. This is your brain on fire. Your body your heart, your brain are inflamed. Now the medical doctors know that inflammation is bad. They know that what's called oxidative stress is bad. But there are solutions for it. Or they're attempt at a solution. Is pharmaceuticals some kind of procedure to cover up the symptoms, to cover up the inflammation.

But unfortunately that is the wrong approach. Now that may be an easier attempt and people may find that easier. Unfortunately, it's wrong and millions of people suffer because of that faulty system. The faulty methodology of what the medical doctors are doing and what we need to do is we need to figure out why there is inflammation, why there is oxidative stress, why there is leaky gut, and march it all backwards. And that's how we're going to have the brain health. That's how we're going to take it back.

And a natural heart doctor we call this eat well, live well and think well. So when you eat well, live well and think well, that is going to be a strategy. And I'll talk about some other strategies as we move along. Now, as we discuss eat well I want to talk about different things because again, there's so many different variables when it comes to diet. And it's all very important. Of course, the eat well and the live well and I think well. But do you. Well let's start off with no matter what diet you follow, can we all agree to make it organic, get the chemicals out of our food, the artificial colors, the artificial flavors, the artificial sweeteners?

Can we get the pesticides out of our food as much as we can? We know that pesticide exposure, it's linked to dementia. It's linked to Parkinson's and other movement disorders. Pesticides are linked to what just about every health condition. And so please understand that no matter what diet you follow, please follow organic food principles. That is strategy number one. Number two, I'm a big seafood guy. I my book is called A Paleo Cardiologist The Natural Way to Heart Health. Seafood to me is by far and away one of the two most healthy foods on the planet.

People with the highest levels of omega three fats, from eating seafood have the lowest risk of everything heart attack, stroke, cancer, brain disorders. They have longest life expectancy. Please eat high quality wild seafood. Wild salmon. Sardines. Anchovies. Clams. Oysters. Shrimp. Lobster. Crab. Salmon. ROH is another another superfood. When we think about charging up your brain, remember that these omega three fatty acids, they're part of every single cell. The cell membrane that keeps things outside of the cell that belong outside of the cell lets things inside of a cell that belong there.

Eat Well: Organic Food, Seafood, and Gluten-Free Living 15:00

They also make up a large part of what's called the organelles on the inside of the cells, and that is the nuclear membrane that is also the mitochondria. So again, the mitochondria being the fuel factories of the cell that do so many things are going to generate ATP, generate cellular water detoxification involved there. So again so many different facets. Eat seafood I try and eat seafood every day. Eat organs. I got a beautiful bison up there on the screen. And again, I love eating nose to tail free range grass fed, grass finished, animal products that were humanely raised and then sacrificed for the health benefits to us.

And humans. I love eating liver. I love eating hearts. And you can also again get quality products inside of capsules. So if this is not on your plate or you're quite unsure about how to get it or how to cook it or prepare it, you can get a freeze dried organ, capsules as well. Fish oil is not fish freeze dried organs are the organs and have all the health benefits of it. And then finally, in this conversation, which is short and sweet, eat gluten free. Again. Gluten is a nasty protein found in wheat, barley, and rye leads to leaky gut, leaky gut, leaky heart, leaky gut, leaky brain.

So let's keep gluten out of our diets. We do not need any gluten containing foods such as wheat, barley, or rye. Let's just be safe and let's get rid of it. So we talked about it. Well, now I want to talk about live well and all the different components of living well, living well as it pertains to brain again, sleep. Sleep is when our body, relaxes. It's when to detoxifies. It's when we are able to allow our brain to cleanse itself into and to create new proteins and get rid of old cells and material that's no longer needed.

That's again the cleansing process. The healing process occurs with sleep. So it's no surprise that so many studies show that for sleep duration, specifically six hours or less, and even seven hours is not enough, that is linked to dementia risk. So please focus on getting high quality sleep. Sunshine is the next facet of live well again. Our ancestors went to sleep with the sun down. They awoke before the sunrise and then they spent the day in and out of the sun. So many studies show the link between low vitamin D levels from sunshine exposure and increased dementia, Alzheimer's and cognitive disorder risk again including movement disorders such as Parkinson's.

So if we're looking to build a better brain sunshine, just imagine the power of the sun coming in through your eyes, right into your brain, and coming in through your skull again. The power of the sun, energizing the brain, making everything function better. That's very important. And of course, that certainly anything I'm saying here as it pertains to brain also helps to support any cardiovascular condition. Now, I do want to talk about the toxins. This is kind of a big category, and a lot of speakers on this summit are discussing this as well.

And we talk about toxic metals mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, palladium, thorium, thallium, tungsten, all these different things. They are well known to cause brain disease. They're known to cause cardiovascular disease. The same is the PS category. The plastics and phthalates and parabens and pesticides, these environmental toxins that are so problematic. So as much as we can test for those and minimize those very, very important EMF electromagnetic fields, manmade wireless communication, what does that do to the electrical system in the brain?

If you have an EEG, the EEG is measuring the electrical signals of the brain, and EKG measures the electrical system of the heart.

Live Well: Sleep, Sunshine, Toxins, and Oral Health 19:00

So what is all this external wireless communication radiation or emfs. What is that doing to our heart? What does it mean? If you have a cell phone right up to your brain, or you're wearing earbuds, or the like, it's clearly a problem. Now, I do also want to talk about mold mycotoxins. Last but not least, because I think that this is a 21st century crisis and everybody with any condition or looking to prevent a condition would be best to test themselves for mold, mycotoxins and then test, their home or any place where they spend an extended period of time.

Now, the other things on the list of metals, all the pieces, the MPs, they do not have a personal agenda. Their toxins, their toxins and laundry detergent, fabric softener, dryer sheets, colognes, perfumes, different, lotions and personal care products. Scented candles. These are all toxins in our environment, but they don't have a personal agenda. Mercury and an amalgam filling is not. Purposely trying to kill us. Mold is. Mold is. Mold is a living organism that wants to survive. And in order for it to survive, it puts out the micro toxins into the air, into its environment to kill off things that may interfere with the success of that particular mold.

So it helps to kill off other molds, bacteria, viruses, parasites, and ultimately animals. Pets, birds and humans. That's what it is. So I'm really concerned that actually mold mycotoxins is the most important of all the toxins involved. They're all bad. But I want you to consider whatever your brain disorder is. Mold, micro toxicity. There I am on my mountain bike in Colorado. My son took this picture and again, out there being active out there, being active. Have fun with your physical activity.

Stand up. Paddleboard. Hike. Bike. Walk. Make time to be active. The more time we spend outdoors, the longer we live, the better our heart, the better our brain. Oral health big subject here, but I want to touch on this. Periodontal disease, gum disease, rot, root canals, mercury amalgams, dental implants, infections of the mouth. All these things are all linked to not only cardiovascular disease, but also brain disease. So make sure you're under the care of a good quality, holistic dentist. And then last but not least, inside of live Well is the concept of spinal health.

And I want you to take a look at the chart you see on the screen there where you can see the brain and the spinal cord running down the spine, are sending off the branches of nerves into the different organs of the body, from the eyes all the way down to your rear end and everything in between. So having a well-adjusted spine under the care of a Doctor of chiropractic and all other modalities that help to support body health and wellness again, whether it's a lymphatic practitioner, a massage therapist, all these different things that support body health are important.

But we all need to be under chiropractic care because the spinal subluxation, the chiropractic adjustment, helps to restore the balance of all that nervous system supply, most of which we would call the autonomic nervous system the parasympathetic and sympathetic. And if you're constantly in fight or flight mode, which is known as sympathetic, if you're constantly in fight or flight, you're going to have problems. You got to get back into rest, digest. And in doing so, that's how you will clear out the toxins out of your brain.

So make sure you get adjusted by a doctor of chiropractic. And then finally, as far as our equal live well, think well. Last but not least, here we do have to think well, and thinking well is just as important as everything else. So ultimately we want to tell people, find your happy, find your happy. If you are unhappy with your job, consider doing something about it. Excuse me if you are unhappy in a relationship, friends, family, you have to really reassess if these people are part of your future going forward.

And if you can't find the happiness in this relationship, I strongly consider you, you know, consider that you will, end those relationships that you move on. You bless people for, for the part they played in your lives. Maybe. I certainly in a positive way, but maybe even in a negative way.

Think Well: Stress, Happiness, and Emotional Wellness 24:00

Thank you for impacting me and making me the person I am right now. But going forward, you're not part of my life. Sounds like a dramatic thing. But again, think about that. Ultimately, if you want a heart and brain health, you have to find your happiness. We cannot live with stress, anger, anxiety, depression, isolation, fear. We cannot live like that. That is a recipe for an early exit from this life. The power of meditation. Prayer, gratitude. Finding this emotional wellness, finding this spiritual wellness is absolutely paramount when it comes to brain and body health.

And ultimately, if you need help, go seek out health and there are some tremendous, tremendous practitioners that can help you with the living. Well, excuse me to think. Well, process. So please reach out to someone and get help when you need it. Now, ultimately, a lot of us talk about you well, live well, think well. You read about it on the internet videos. But I think really where we can do something special is when you test, don't guess. We do the most advanced testing in the world to determine if you've got a leaky gut, and therefore a leaky heart and a leaky brain.

We can look at intracellular vitamins and minerals. We can look at mold, mycotoxins, environmental toxins, toxic metals. We can look for things that help, you know, to support the brain. Omega three zinc, glutathione, yon and the B vitamins. And we can look for all those markers of inflammation. So when you're in the care of a holistic practitioner you get to test for all those things. You get to do something very special, you know, with that, with that. So again, the most advanced testing in the world, sometimes you're going to have to pay out of pocket for this, but this really gives you a good benchmark as to where you are.

So there's no surprises. And ultimately we can test you on day one. And then we can institute a plan and then test you further down the road. And when we see the improvement, you know that you're going to live longer and you're going to live better. Now, evidence based supplements are just what they are. They're evidence based. Again, they come from the evidence. There's proof that they work and are supplements. They supplement that it well, live well, think well. That's always the foundation. And then we test don't ask.

And then we can use evidence based supplements. And as it relates to brain health and heart health, there are many, many, many different tools that the holistic practitioner has in their toolbox to be able to help you build a better brain and to build a better heart. And the way that practitioners like myself practice is that we find that the supplements and these natural strategies in the medical literature, and then we create products

Testing, Supplements, and Biohacking Strategies 27:00

and services around that to be able to offer that to our patients. So again, supplements are fantastic, but they supplement, eat well, live well, think well. This is not my recommendation for you to eat fast food, drink alcohol, smoke cigarets and take a multivitamin that is not my, purpose here. My purpose is that the supplements supplement the eat well, live well, think well. Okay. And then there's advanced biohacking strategies that we talk about in this could be sauna. This could be red light therapy.

This could be cold thermogenesis. So this could be I've therapies. There's a lot of different modalities that holistic practitioners are using to again help support better brain, better heart and a better you. So please consider these biohacking strategies. Now let me just finish up here and tell you about Jill. So Jill again 68 year old female, she's got the high blood pressure abnormal cholesterol, pre-diabetic. And what we did is we got her on the well, live well, think well planned and taught her about the right food, sort of what to eat, what not to eat.

We had coaching. I was guided into this with her to help support her through this. We talked about the importance of sleep and sunshine and physical activity and getting out of a toxic environment, including a home that was tested and found to have mold, mycotoxins, and mold in the home. And then ultimately, how do we recover our thoughts? And again, thinking in the power of prayer and meditation and seeking counseling to kind of help with a lot of these issues as well. And then ultimately, we would do the most advanced testing in the world that I just described. The test.

Don't guess. We use evidence based supplements. We got our using the sauna, we got our using red light therapy. And ultimately we stopped the blood pressure drugs

Jill's Recovery and Final Takeaways 29:00

stopped the statin drug, we stopped the aspirin. It wasn't cold turkey. In the case of the blood pressure drugs, the statin and the aspirin were stopped immediately. But the blood pressure drugs, we want to do it in a smart and methodical fashion. And that's what we did. But it was very soon to get her off the pharmaceuticals. And ultimately, Jill said, full of energy, sleeping is great and has this mental clarity that's better than ever, in fact, that she thinks that her mind has never been healthier at any stage in her life, likely because, again, she was born into an environment that violated eat well and live well and think well.

And again, ultimately, she said, I feel like I'm in my 30s. I tried to push for her to say that she felt like she was in her 20s, but she actually said she felt the best that she had ever felt when she was in her 30s. And she was in a very positive relationship. And it sounds like it was in a healthy home and with healthy nutrition. And then sometimes life gets in the way. And many years later, again, as we start to snowball and the pharmaceuticals add up, she starts to suffer from brain issues.

But ultimately she is doing the best that she ever has. So again, I'm really excited to present to you all this information about the heart, brain connection. And as we eat well, live well, think well. We test on gas evidence based supplements, biohacking strategies. That is how we prevent, treat, and reverse cardiovascular disease, brain disease keep you on your path to your 100 year heart and your 100 year brain. I'm Doctor Jack Wolfson over here at Natural Heart Doctor, and I appreciate your time and you listening to my presentation today.

Be happy and be well.