Understand Your Chronic Disease: A Holistic View

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

It is so my pleasure. Wow, what an introduction!

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well, you deserve it. You have my complete and utter appreciation for what you do. I know you work very hard, and you are an authority. Nobody leaves their screen now. I know your practice, which is a real practice. You work with group patients, work one-on-one, and work with VIP coaching patients basis. But you have moved from Western to functional medicine. Why is that such a heavy focus? Tell us a little bit. Any time you can throw in heart disease, go for it.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, my whole focus is on preventing chronic inflammatory diseases, with heart disease being one of the big ones. When we think of that chronic disease bucket, we think of cancer, neurodegenerative disorders, and heart disease. Of course, who does not have a family member whose heart disease is near and dear to their heart? I watched my dad go through triple bypass surgery, have that clot off, and end up having stents. I watched my dad have those stents removed and end up having stents again. We have seen it all with him. It is so funny. There was a time, many years after his surgeries, when I listened to you on a podcast. It was one of the deepest in the Western medicine world. I was not a functional medicine expert yet. I remember hearing you talk about what could be done alternatively to help prevent procedures in people with heart disease. I can remember just thinking If my family only knew that, then what a difference this could have made for my dad. I shifted teams; I moved from Western medicine to functional medicine. I have not prescribed anything in a long time. I have not met in the Western world now for a while, but it has been because I just have a passion for prevention and helping people prevent chronic disease. Ironically, I worked in a preventive medicine department for Kaiser Permanente, which, of course, is one of the biggest HMOs in America. Prevention from a Western perspective and prevention from a functional perspective, Joel, are not the same thing.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Absolutely. How have you found it? You were in the trenches of nursing, hospital nursing. How have you found the functional medicine model to fit with this passion for identifying and reversing inflammatory diseases to work better? You do a lot of things differently. Just pick out one or two.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I do everything differently. In the Western world, we do a lot of screening tests. We do screening mammograms, we do screening colonoscopies, and we do screening prostate PSA tests. We do all these screening tests, and we call it preventive medicine. In your insurance plan. It is called your prevention. But what we are doing is looking for early disease with these tests. They are not preventive at all. They are early detection tests. There is no such thing as breast cancer that is a breast cancer prevention from a mammogram. You have a mammogram, and either you have breast cancer or you do not. We are not going to do anything different to prevent it from a mammogram. Once I realized this, I went into the functional medicine space and saw that, we do some things that are preventive over here. My eyes were opened, and so was what we do so differently. I do not recall learning much about nutrition through nursing school, nurse practitioner school, or any of the continuing education that I did for 25 years in that space. 

The way that we look at nutrition here in functional medicine, we do not emphasize mitochondrial cellular health; we do not emphasize gut health. We did not emphasize the impact of environmental toxicants on the body that leads to chronic disease. So, yes, to say things we do to say we do things differently over here, we do. I know that I am preaching to the choir to you because this is exactly what you do differently in your practice: keep people out of the operating room because you are focusing on all these things well.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

You just go deep. It is a lot of testing. It is a lot of questions. It is a lot of history-taking and exposure. I know people are always surprised when I ask them, by any chance, did you ever work in a chemical factory, visited China for six months, lived on a farm got sprayed by airplanes going overhead, and did crop dusting? I said, That is weird, you ask that, but a matter of fact. Then, surprisingly, the answers come out, and then, go track them down. Crazy.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I would like to say something about cardiovascular heart disease prevention. When I worked in the preventive model, we checked cholesterol, blood pressure, and blood sugar. We prescribed the drugs for those things. We said, Come back in a year, eat low-sodium, walk, exercise, and come back in a year. Let us see how you are doing. People come back worse and worse every year, and we are increasing the number of drugs every year.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Absolutely. We never fix that root, because when you can, once in a while I get frustrated. You must do that. The root cause does not show up. But boy, most of the time, I think sleep is by far, so widely overlooked as a source of inflammation and disease. Tell me about, when you are looking at this topic, the root causes of chronic inflammatory health conditions. What are some of those root causes that are often missed, you have talked about them, but just talk about maybe four of them. I think you have got something you call your four main buckets.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Yes, I do. As I get into talking about that, I want to dispel a myth that this is a summit that is going to be watched by many people who understand something about integrative medicine and functional medicine. There may be newbies here, and we are certainly so happy you are here learning this. For those of you who have been in the functional medicine space and integrative space for a while, whether you are a consumer of health care or you are a practitioner, I found in my functional medicine training that I was taught in the beginning to look for root causes like thyroid problems, hormone dysregulation, leaky gut, and adrenal problems. I focused on those things for a long time as the root causes of chronic disease and its symptoms. Then, as I went on and on with my practice and kept learning, I learned that there was a missing piece. There was a deeper root cause, that something was causing what I would call those middle-stream problems, like adrenals, thyroid, blood sugar dysregulation, and gut dysfunction. I would call that a middle-stream problem. Underneath that were four buckets, a problem. Once I started focusing on those four buckets of problems, that is when everything changed for my practice, for my patients, for my business, for my family, and for myself. Because you first do it on yourself, and then you start doing it on everybody else you know, and love. Then you start bringing it to your family and realize, This is where it is at. 

If you are going to write anything down in this talk, these are the four things you want to write down. As you are looking for practitioners, these are the things and questions you want to ask, too. First thing, bucket number one is chronic hidden infections. Now, when we think of infections in the body, a lot of people’s minds go to gut health, like, bacteria or parasites. Yes. There is fungus, and there are viruses in the body. But I want you to think beyond that, because we get chronic hidden infections in our sinuses, in our tonsils and lymphatic system, in our gallbladder, in our liver, in our lungs, in the cracks and crevices and crypts, and in places that are hard to get to. Infections like to be there. This will perpetuate in the mouth as well. This will perpetuate and worsen the inflammation. When you think of the cascade of what gets us to heart disease, inflammation is underneath that, among other things. These infections are perpetuating that. The second bucket is environmental toxicants, and that is a big bucket with a lot of sub-buckets. 

Let us just put it that way. There are mold mycotoxins, heavy metals, and radioactive elements like radon and uranium, which are, by the way, heavy metals. They are just the heaviest of the heavy metals. There are all of the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed on our food. There are body products and skin products you are using that are full of endocrine-disrupting phthalates and parabens. For example, there are products that you are using to clean your home that are full of toxins and disruptors. There are the forever chemicals, the PFOS and PFOA, that are in our cookware and sports gear and sprayed on anything that needs to be water-resistant and retardant. Then we have, I am not leaving anything out. The environmental toxin bucket is so big, I can just keep going. You get my drift. We are exposed to toxins at a higher rate than ever in human history. In my practice, I am seeing people sicker and sicker. I am seeing people move towards chronic disease faster and faster. I truly believe that it’s a toxic overload. Then the third bucket would be nutrient deficiencies. Now I am going to say something that people may not realize here. I think most people are aware that farming practices have changed and our soil might not be as nutrient-rich. The vegetables that are grown in that soil may not have those nutrients. We may not always pick the best food. You might be eating processed food, or you might not be eating a diversity of food. that will cause nutrient-deficient seeds. 

But I am going to give you two more reasons. You can have nutrient deficiencies that people do not realize. It is those first two buckets that I explain. Bucket number one is infection. Think about infections, skimming off the top. They are taking your good nutrients from you before they can even get to your cells and mitochondria and support your body. The second thing is environmental toxicants. They block receptors in your cells where nutrients get in from the bloodstream or the extracellular space through the cell. If that receptor is blocked and the nutrient cannot get in, then you cannot utilize the nutrient, and you have a nutrient deficiency. The first two buckets are part of the cause of the third bucket, nutrient deficiencies. Then the fourth bucket would be chronic stress and unresolved traumas in someone’s life. We know without a doubt that trauma has a biological imprint on the body. We know that there is a biology of trauma. This has been well-proven in research. Just think of the ACS studies, which were the primary researchers on that, Vincent Valenti was a Kaiser Permanente doctor, and he proved that people with adverse childhood events had more chronic health conditions. These are traumas. Adverse childhood events are traumas with a big T. These are things like sexual abuse, physical abuse, mental abuse, and verbal abuse. Maybe you have been a victim of a crime, or you have witnessed something horrific and disturbing. These are all traumas that come into the body, followed by the stress of our daily lives. I think stress is at an all-time high. We see higher rates of suicide, and we see higher rates of domestic violence. We see people disagreeing. The country is divided. The world is divided. Stress is everywhere. This has an imprint on our bodies as well. Those are the big four buckets.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Yes. Wow. That was, I hope everybody took some good notes, and that was some powerful and very helpful stuff. Again, you can test for the bucket of hidden infections and the bucket of environmental toxins and nutrient deficiencies. You probably need to take a good history and be compassionate to explore stress and trauma. But those are, I think, completely overlooked in the standard of medicine. You are not going to find anything there. There is a wonderful book by a friend, Darin Olien, that came out in 2023 called Fatal Inconveniences, and you can read a whole book about all the toxins in your house and then strategies for how to move them out because they guide just the issue of fertility in the United States and drop some counts. just one little microcosm of something that is a serious problem.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Joel, this is so funny that you say that. In my programs, when we start moving the toxins out of the body, particularly metals, glyphosate, and pesticides, people in their 40s start getting pregnant because they did not think they ever could. Now all of a sudden, that phase of the detox is like the baby-making phase. We tell people that if you do not want to be pregnant, make sure that you are making sure you do not get pregnant. They do not believe me, and then they get pregnant.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Do you test them first for, use a Vibrant Health or one of the.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I love the Vibrant Total Tox-Burden. It is easy to understand tests for 88 different molds, metals, and environmental toxins. It is simplistic and powerful, and it is a test. No one is sure. But to understand this, it is a test for what you are excreting. It tests what is coming out. Until your body is safe to release toxins, they will be missed. When we do that test, we slowly provoke people over about four weeks in a very gentle, nourishing way that helps get their drainage pathways open, supports their gut health, and helps their body feel safe to stop releasing toxins. Then we do that test, and we see far more toxins than if we just did it from the first minute I met someone. But yes, I love that test. Great.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well, it is funny; this is just the way people are. People find my email. I am sure people will find your email. Just before I logged on to have this wonderful conversation with you, I got a random email. My grandchildren were grinding their teeth and banging their heads on the wall. Their doctor suggested it could be parasites and treated them for it. They do not grind their teeth and bang their heads against the wall. I am so happy for you. I do not know why you chose me to tell this one story. 

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, those are the kinds of stories we hear all the time in our community. Yes, that is. That is amazing that they shared that with you. It was.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

It was like that.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You are the Parasite guy now.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I am so happy. The parasite-hard thing has not evolved. We are probably overlooking a source of chronic inflammation, and food allergies have recently risen in the cardiovascular field as something that is not negligible and may be very important. Well, when people listening are looking for a functional medicine protocol to prevent the root causes of inflammation, you are talking about solving the root causes. Talk a little bit about that solid foundation for solving some of these bucket problems.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

This is one of those things, too. When I very first started working in the functional medicine space, I did what I learned from the IFM and from various people I studied with. Then and then I started digging deeper, and I found out about a regulatory medicine that hails from Germany and Switzerland. You can think of it as the grandparent of American functional medicine. There is a little bit of advanced theory in it. Different theories say it is advanced. It is pretty basic, but it is Terrain Theory that we need to change the terrain in the body to bring the immune system back online, to bring the mitochondria back online, to bring the gut back online, to bring all the systems back online so that your body can solve its problems because there is intelligence inside of you and you can solve your health problems with just a little bit of support. 

What I recommend everyone look for is, first and foremost, number one: make sure that whoever you are working with supports mitochondrial energy production because you need more ATP energy to heal. You even need ATP energy to sleep. If you have insomnia, you cannot fall asleep or stay asleep. Chances are your mitochondria are not working very well, among other things. But you do need energy for your body to go through the process of falling asleep. The first thing we do with our clients is bake in mitochondrial energy support into anything we are doing so that their cells are supported so they can have the energy to heal. The second critical thing is that before you start moving infections out of the gut and toxins out of the body, you must support the drainage pathways. This is a concept that I think is missed quite a bit, but your body and your drainage pathways all funnel into one place. They all funnel to the bowels. I want you to think about where toxins go and where they move through your body. They move through your liver, most of them. That the liver funnels straight to your bowels. Now, your kidneys. We do not want all your toxins to go through your kidneys, because your kidneys and your urine should be pretty pure coming out. We do not want to burden the kidneys with tons of toxins. We want those toxins to go through the liver. We want them to go through the bowels and out. You want to support all drainage pathways. That is your lymphatics, your fascia, your skin, your kidneys, your lungs, your liver—all organs funnel to drop toxins through the bowels. 

First and foremost, you have got to poop every day. I will not allow anyone in my community to start clearing parasites, to start massively clearing bacteria, or to start taking the toxin protocol until we can get them pooping. Because if I cannot get you pooping every day, that stuff’s going to back up. As soon as we start moving it out of the cells you are going to hate me, you will feel so lousy. It is called a Herxheimer reaction. You will feel sick. You feel like you got hit by a train, and you say, I am never taking these supplements again. I am never working with that person again. They made me sicker than I have ever been in my life. Just make sure people are supporting those drainage pathways. Then, and only then, do you start moving pathogens out of the gut and toxins out. I like to do a good month to two of gut restoring before I even start doing heavy-hitting detox. It is a myth that a detox is a two-week juice cleanse or something short-term. Detoxification is a long process for most people. The sicker you are, If you have heart disease now, then chances are you have got more detox to do than somebody without heart disease. Be kind to yourself, know that slow wins the race, and know that your detox process could take you six months. 18 months. 12 months, 18 months. It is different for every person depending on what you have been exposed to, your genetics, and how consistent you are. Many factors influence this.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Wow. You lay it out so clearly, eloquently, and excitingly that people are listening now, and they are frustrated with their health. They are looking, and not all of them have been exposed to somebody as eloquent as you in the functional medicine space. So, Laura, do me a favor. Do not go anywhere. We are going to say thank you very much to our general audience. I think you have learned a lot. All of these apply to cardiovascular disease. If you do not identify in pain, the four buckets of inflammation, you are not going to have optimal control of your cardiovascular health. You are not going to have the optimal opportunity to reverse your cardiovascular problems. These are all very pertinent. We are going to come back in a minute and just go a little further with you with our premium group. Everybody hold on. We are back with Nurse Laura Frontiero from lovely San Diego. We appreciate your taking time from your very busy clinical schedule, writing schedule, and family schedules. You have a lot going on in a good way and are a very sought-after expert, as everybody by now knows. Just spend a few more minutes about the relationship between toxins and infections and optimal health. You have already touched on mitochondrial energy, but it does take us a little further down that path because, if you go to a cardiologist, you are not hearing about toxins other than quitting smoking.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

No, you are not. If we have time, I will share my dad’s story and the conclusion of my dad’s story as well. But so, again, we go back to that Terrain Theory and back to the concept that your body is so intelligent, and I am going to share with you something that may blow your mind. Viewers may or may not have heard of this, but there is a symbiotic relationship between your infections, your parasites, your bacteria, your fungus, your immune system, and the toxins that are in your body. It goes like this: Your immune system will invite infections to hang out and thrive to solve a more dangerous problem in your body. That more dangerous problem could be something like heavy metals or radioactive elements. The most dangerous and lethal things on earth. Heavy metals for your brain and your heart are no good. Your immune system says, Hey, you parasites, hey, you fungus, you are annoying you. You cause all these problems; you have all these symptoms; you make me tired; you make me foggy; you make me bloated. You cause all these issues inside my GI tract. But you are not as annoying, troublesome, or dangerous as the heavy metals and the radioactive elements that I have been exposed to through my drinking water, the air that I am breathing, the food that I am eating, and the amalgams in my mouth. So I need you to just stick it out here with me and work on absorbing those for me and making them less toxic for me. 

Your immune system invites them, and they stay with you. Now you have got infections that are feeding on toxins. Your body’s trying to keep those toxins out of your brain and your heart. Now you feel awful. I call this middle-aged deficiency syndrome because it hits in middle age when you are foggy, you are bloated, your energy is low, your skin looks bad, and your skin is inflamed. Your joints might ache, you might have migraine headaches, and you may be starting to develop chronic disease conditions or prescriptions. Maybe you have an autoimmune disorder, or maybe you have high blood pressure. Maybe if my cholesterol is high, you have diabetes, and maybe you have IBS or something worse like Crohn’s or colitis. All this is impacting your body. Your body cannot clear the infections because the toxins are there, and the toxins are worse. You are on this hamster wheel. So what do you have to do about it? You have to do what I call a Tango. You have to dance with your immune system. The infections and the toxins, and you have to remove infections and toxins in a very systematic, smart way that does not make you feel sicker, drop your immune system, or make those toxins go into your brain or heart where you do not want them to be.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Wow, that is an interesting way to close it out. An interesting dance going on, an interesting Tango that determines whether we wake up in the morning and feel good and avoid chronic diseases, including heart disease, or whether we, as my grandmother says, schlep around and we are tired and life is open. That is quite remarkable. Tell the audience, and everybody will get this to where they find you.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

You can find me at LauraFrontiero.com. You can find me on Instagram at Laura.Frontiero. Also go to BioRadiantHealth.com, where there is tons of information to support your health journey.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Does BioRadiant have a hash or not?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

No, just one word.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Bioradiant Health. If anybody writes that down as well, you will see it on the summit material. But I pronounce it Frontiero because there is an I before the E, so I am giving it a good spin there. I want to make sure people find you online. Well, thank you so much. You have done so much to upgrade the health of tens of thousands of people. You are so good at it that I am proud to know you.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Thank you. Likewise, sir. Thanks for having me here. I enjoy all the time that we get to spend together in the health space. You are a gift to the world here. I wish we had you when my dad was diagnosed with heart disease.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I will say that I think soon after, people will be watching this summit. You have a summit yourself at DrTalks, Hidden Illness. What is a title?

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

Well, I do not know. Mine launches in February. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I got this.

Laura Frontiero, FNP-BC

I am before you. But we always have something going on.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Always something good. Well, we will certainly promote the heck out of your summit, which I was very proud to be included in. Thank you.