 If you want to pump your body and expand your mind, there's only one place to go. Mind pump with your hosts, Sal DeStefano, Adam Schaefer, and Justin Andrews. There are some people in our industry that have some very interesting information and viewpoints, and we'd like to bring some of these people to you. These episodes are very information and science heavy. Dr. Minkoff was one of the first people that I picked to interview. He's got an interesting story, so he was an infectious disease physician. His story with his wife is crazy. His wife had some crazy symptoms, and through the process of learning how to heal his wife, he kind of moved off into a different type of healthcare. He's melding the western side of western medicine with some of the alternative type of medicine. It's a very interesting episode. In this episode, because I know you guys listened to this interview. It scared the shit out of me. That's the thing. You're going to hear him talk a lot about toxins and things we're putting in our body and what they do. He does give some actionable items at the end that'll probably protect you from a lot of them. But what I found fascinating with this was just when he tests people for chemical loads in their body, he basically said most people will have high levels of something, whether it's from plastic or from gasoline or something else. So kind of crazy. But anyway, a very interesting episode. Again, information heavy. It's Dr. Minkoff. His website is d-r-m-i-n-k-o-f-f.com. So without any further ado, here's me talking to Dr. David Minkoff. If you could talk a little bit about your background and what brought you to what you're doing now. Sure. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin. And I went to college at the University of Wisconsin in medical school. And after medical school, I went to UC San Diego. And I did a pediatric residency and then a fellowship in infectious disease. And I was faculty there doing pediatric infectious disease. And then I went into private practice and did a hospital-based practice in infectious disease. It was the early 80s. It was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. I saw a lot of those types of patients in 1982. Actually, when I moved to San Diego, Frank Shorter had just won the Olympic Marathon. And I got interested in running and did four or five marathons. And then in 1982, when I saw Julie Moss crawl across the finish line, an Ironman inspired me to want to go do that. And that was in February of 82. And I did my first Ironman Hawaii in October of 1982. And I've done 42 Ironman since then, eight of them in Hawaii. I'm still racing now. And medical career-wise, I did infectious disease and pediatrics till 1990. And we moved to Florida. And I switched careers and started doing emergency medicine. But in 1996, my wife got sick. She's a nurse. She was always very health-conscious, always ate really well. Mother of three children, podium triathlete. And she decided she didn't like the fillings that were in her teeth, the mercury fillings, the silver-colored fillings. And she went to a dentist and had them all drilled out. And if people aren't familiar with this, mercury is the metal that at room temperature is liquid. But if you drill it with a high-speed drill, it will aerosolize and it will go all over the body. So it got into her brain, it got into her thyroid, it got into her blood. And a few weeks later, she started complaining of pain over her thyroid and her thyroid tests were abnormal. And then she started complaining of pain over her liver and her liver tests were abnormal. And I was in a big community hospital, emergency room. I knew all the best doctors. And I had an endocrinologist look at her. I had a hepatologist at the liver specialist look at her. And then a few weeks later, she wakes up one morning and she says, I can't lift my arm to brush my teeth. So I took her to a neurologist and he said, well, looks like this is an autoimmune condition with thyroid, her liver, probably her brain. This looks like an MS type thing. She should go on steroids and interferon, which is the usual treatment for that. And the thing just didn't add up to me. It seemed like this is just like crazy. It's like a nightmare. And so she's a nurse and she owns a home health care nursing agency. And shortly after that, I went to pick her up one night and a dentist had moved into the complex that her business was in. And on his marquee, it said natural dentistry. So one evening he was walking out to his car when I was picking her up. And I said, Hey, can I talk to you for a minute? Here's the story. The only new thing I can think of is she had this mercury move from her teeth. Because there's been no other sort of insults of any kind. And he looked at me and he says, Oh yeah, she's mercury toxic. Mercury and microgram amounts is neurotoxic. It'll kill brain cells. And there's nobody in this town that's going to, we live in Clearwater, Florida. It's the Tampa Bay area. He said, there's nobody in this town that's going to help you with this. This was 1996. And you better go to Seattle and there's a doctor out there who's real smart and he's an MD and he's a PhD. And he trains doctors and how to deal with how to diagnose and deal with heavy metal toxicity like this. So I went out there spent a lot of time with him, learned how he did it, came back and tested her. And she was indeed mercury toxic. And then with the things he told me to do using nutritional methods, we were able to detoxify her and all her symptoms went away. And she's completely fine. She raised three weeks ago. She won her age group at a local sprint triathlon. She's completely fine. And after I saw this, it got me very interested in emergency room work is shift work. So I was doing 12 hour shifts, three or four days a week. And I had a couple of afternoons where I was three. And in her nursing building, agency building, there was an extra room. And I just set up a little little clinic there to just kind of play, just see what would happen. And we had friends who saw what happened with my wife. And one of them had migraines, another one had IBS and another one had rheumatoid arthritis. And I just started to really just like come on in, I wasn't charging people and we're just going to see what I can find on you and see if this stuff will work. And lo and behold, it really works. And people started to get better. And I moved from out of the emergency room because this was so intriguing. You know, I'd had a very traditional medical education. But the emphasis on nutrition detoxification was practically none, you know, the the the emphasis on drugs and surgery is very high. And I'm not anti drug necessarily or surgery, depending on what it is, if you have an acute appendix, you better get it taken out. And you know, if you're in the middle of a heart attack, you better go to a very fine medical center because they'll save your life. But what I've learned over the years is that if you have a chronic illness, you have high cholesterol, high blood pressure, rheumatoid arthritis, MS, Lyme disease, chronic headaches, the tools in the in the typical doctor box aren't any good. And they usually we use pharmaceutical medicines, which are have their own baggage of side effects. And none of them really treat the reason why the body is behaving in this way. And if you can do the right diagnostics, you can actually find out why is the blood pressure high now? Or why is the cholesterol high? Or why is this guy tired all the time? It's not a genetic disease. The person didn't feel that way, you know, one month, six months, five years before, depending on how long they've been suffering. And and there is a reason or usually there's several reasons. And if you're good, you can find out what those reasons are and unwind, so to speak, the reasons why his body is behaving that way. And then they get well. And their symptoms go away. And their pain goes away and their energy goes comes back. And they feel good. And that's a lot of fun. You know, I've, I've often speculated on this exactly what you're talking about. I have a tremendous respect for Western medicine. We've, we've solved some of the, if not the biggest killers and problems that mankind has faced from infection to, you know, acute injury to, you know, malnutrition even. And we've done a great job with it. But I think that same approach where, you know, because I think we view some of these things as the problem. In other words, if I have high blood pressure, high blood pressure itself can cause issues within my body. So our approach is to control that high blood pressure because we know that that's going to cause problems rather than looking deeper and saying what's causing the high blood pressure, which then causes the problem. So I think it almost seems like, and you know, maybe correct me if I'm wrong, it almost seems like we're at these crossroads where you're starting to see this cross-pollinization from the Western kind of concepts of medicine or how to treat things, which tends to be more symptomatic care with the kind of wellness side, which I know that's a large umbrella, but more along the lines of nutritional components, stress management, sleep, you know, those kinds of things. Am I, am I onto something or is that off? No, no, you're totally right. You know, if somebody has a strep throat and you do a throat swab and they have a, you know, a fiery throat and big glands and a high fever, then penicillin might be the exact right thing to do to get them through the hump. And in that case, you know, regular medications would be good. I see a lot of patients that have Lyme disease and many of them have been on four, five, six antibiotics at a time for years and they're not better. And I used to do full time infectious disease and I know antibiotics and, you know, in acute situations, they can really be helpful. But in chronic situations like Lyme, they don't work at all. And you have to sort of build the host up so that the host immune system can handle the infection. I don't know if you're aware of it. At the end of the 1800s, there was this big debate in academic medicine in France between a microbiologist named Bashant and Louis Pasteur, who was the, you know, he was at the big university. He was the big professor. He was had all the notoriety and they had an ongoing debate as to whether what's the most important thing? Is it the microorganism that attacks the body or is it the body's host responses that can't deal with the organism? And Pasteur's idea was it's the microorganism. And if you got the microorganism and it was a bad pathogen, it would make you sick. And Bashant said, no, because when strep goes through or plague went through, not everybody dies. Some people as hosts can overcome it and that they can be it's not the organism. And supposedly they had this debate and Pasteur apparently won. But on his deathbed, his last dying words was go find Bashant and tell him he was right. That that is the host. And what's a lot of what we find too is that if we can reconstitute the host in terms of immune function and energy function, you know, like mitochondria, get them functioning again, that a lot of these illnesses, you don't have to necessarily get rid of whatever the thing is that is that the body will handle it if it's if it's in good enough shape. And that's what good health is. I mean, people who are healthy, they have good immune function because they have good mitochondrial function that can manufacture energy. They have an intestine that will absorb nutrients and keep pathogens out. So this sort of so our approach is how can we get the how can we get the body in whatever condition it's in back to a healthy state? And usually what we find in people is there's there's really sort of only two things wrong. One is is they have things in their body which shouldn't be there. You know, they have infections or toxins. And then on the other side is they have deficiencies, you know, they're if you have cancer and your vitamin A level or your zinc level or your selenium level is low, you're going to have a lot of trouble with that cancer. It's not your because your immune system just won't work right. So if we can rebuild these things, then people often get better. Now how often, because I know in modern times, obviously we're exposed to chemicals and, you know, plastics and things that we didn't necessarily evolve with or we didn't evolve with, how often do you see bad or high levels of of toxins, you know, pesticides or chemicals like that? How often do you see that in your in your practice? Well, we do a laboratory screening for environmental toxins in every one we see. It's 22 of the most common ones and it's things from plastics, petrochemicals, gasoline additives, fumigants, insecticides, and almost everybody has one or more high levels. If you're drinking out of plastic water bottles, you're going to have high plastic residues in your body. If you live in an urban environment, there's a gas additive called HTBE. You're going to have very high levels of HTBE. If you're not eating organic fruits and vegetables, your level of glyphosate roundup, which is the main pesticide used all over the world, your levels are going to be very high. These are all potent toxins. And I can just give you a couple of examples. I had a 12 year old come in about six months ago with a history of nine months of severe fatigue. She wasn't able to go to school. She was just exhausted all the time. Prior to this, she'd been completely normal and she'd been seen by a lot of different doctors. And when she came in to see us, we, I did this test on her and this gas additive called HTBE, which we find in most people. But in her case, the normal levels are under 200 and her, in her body, it was 39,000. And huge, just huge. And her other, you know, her chemicals and pesticides and plastics and all the other stuff was low. So this is clearly an isolated exposure that was just massively huge. And so when I, when the results came back and I started talking to the parents, I kind of jokingly said, is she sniffing gasoline? Is she washing her hands? Is she a painter? You know, is she using this as a solvent? What is she doing? And they said, no, she's, a couple of years ago, she took up midget race car driving. And on a weekend, she'll spend three or so hours Saturday and Sunday in the car on the track. And the fumes from the gasoline had poisoned her. And she got better once we figured out what the heck it was. And went back to normal. So these are, these are things that are very important problems for all of us. And, you know, we encourage people just eat organic as you can. Don't wrap food in tin foil or plastics. Don't microwave food in, you know, containers that, that could be that, that, you know, plastics that could volatilize, because these are, these are, these are toxins. And if you get a lot of them, your body is going to have a hard time. If somebody suspects that they have high levels of some of these toxins, what are some things that they can do to help, I don't know, detoxify their body besides reducing or eliminating their exposure to these things? Are there other things they could do with nutrition or supplementation that can help? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the first rule of toxicology is stop the offending toxins. So if you can figure out what that is, or if you're, if you're sort of lifestyle habit is that you have a lot of these exposures, you know, don't drink in plastic water bottles, filter your shower water, make sure your drinking water is filtered because a lot of stuff comes in through the groundwater and gets into our bodies. Sauna is very good. Can be regular heat sauna or, or infrared sauna, because a lot of these toxins are stored in the body fat and with, with sweating, they come out. Interesting. You, you want to make sure that the, that the intestine is, is healthy. Like you have a bowel movement at least one every day. You're drinking enough fluids so that you're, you know, that you're urine flow with every, every couple of hours you're urinating and it isn't too dark. You want to make sure that, I mean, we, we check people very carefully for their gut because lots of times people have parasites or bad bacteria and they have biotoxic waste too, which sort of gets added to the load. So we want to make sure that the elimination systems are working and then supplements with a good multivitamin, something that's got good liver support to, you know, to help the liver detoxify this stuff. And then the whole detox system is amino acids and we want to make sure that they get a good blend of essential amino acids because if they're low, they won't detoxify. So these are strategies that can help anyone where they don't need a lot of intervention. But I find for most people, if you say, okay, from now for the next six weeks, go on a paleotype diet. Avoid grains, beans, nightshades. Avoid all dairy products except organic butter. Eat all organic, including, you know, grass-fed meat so that you lower your you lower your exposure and then take a few simple things like a multivitamin and a probiotic and a greens mix and some fish oil and a little, either eat some seaweed or take a little bit of iodine. But this super simple thing for most people within five or six weeks, they'll feel definitely better. They're intestinal be better. They're bloating will be better. They'll start having bomb movements and they'll really feel better and their energy will come back and then of course sleep will be better. And for many people, just doing something like that and then getting outside, getting some sunshine, getting some kind of exercise or something they enjoy. If they like tennis, play tennis. If they like to lift weights, lift weights. If they have time to throw in sauna for half hour, three or four times a week, that's pretty, you know, and pay attention that they're getting enough sleep. That's, that for most people, they don't need a doctor. They don't need a fancy program that if they just did that, it would make a huge difference. That's, that's awesome. You know, it's funny, 10 years ago, so I've been in fitness now for 20 years. And 10 years ago, if I mentioned, you know, gut hyperpermeability or leaky gut syndrome, or if I talked about, you know, how the body can build immunities to foods because a leaky gut, I would get laughed at. And it's great to hear doctors talk about these things now. Are you still on the fringe or are more of your colleagues starting to talk about these things? It's getting better. But if you go into the gastrointestinal, you know, the gastroenterologist community, they're not into this at all. You know, if you see there's lots of naturopath, chiropractors, some MDs, we're probably the most resistive of all the professions. DOs are better. There's a lot of people now that recognize this, that gee whiz, your gut is important. Leaky gut is very common. And, but in the traditional, with the traditional profession, it's completely, you're nearly completely ignored. You know, we're going to do an endoscopy and a colonoscopy. And if that's okay, and then we're going to do a regular celiac test. And if we do that, then you're not gluten sensitive. And then you can eat what you want. It's these things are so crude in terms of trying to help with functional problems that they're, they, you know, they don't really help at all. Sometimes they find things on these people, but most of the time, the person has a functional problem with these things. But it's hard to measure it with a CBC or by feeling their belly or by looking down into their stomach. But they tell you, I don't feel good or I'm bloating or I don't sleep well or I'm tired. Oh, we see it, we see it all the time. And what we do, it seems to have gotten worse now. Statistics on this are kind of hard to find. Although there are some statistics that are quite alarming. Food allergies is a big one. You know, when I was a kid, when I was in elementary school, 30 years ago, I don't remember any kids with food allergies. Now I have two kids now and food allergies. There's entire clout classrooms that are peanut free or egg free. Autoimmune diseases seem to be exploding and some statistics, and it's funny because it's hard to find statistics on this, but some of them are clear. Like autism, for example, I think it was one out of 5,000 kids in 1980 had autism and now today some estimates one out of 68 children. Are we having an explosion in chronic disease? Oh, it's absolutely. There's an epidemic of it. When I remember in 1978, I was a pediatric resident at UC San Diego and the chairman of the department is a real famous guy. His name is Bill Nighan. He would make rounds with us once a week and I remember distinctly walking through University Hospital. There's a 15-month-old in a crib and he came up to the crib and he said to the, there's like 10 of us or 15 of us residents that were following him around and he would sort of pontificate on things and he was super smart and we just loved having the time to be with him and he said, I want you when we're done with rounds, everybody come back and examine this child because you'll never see another one of these in your career. He said, this child has autism. The incidence of autism, he said, was like one in 150,000 births. That's what he told us. I don't know if that's actually true, but it's very rare and he said, if you're a busy pediatrician, you will never see that many children and you may never see another one of these in your life, but in case you do, you'll have seen one here and you'll recognize it. And like you said, the incidence of autism now for males is like one in 56-ish and this isn't better diagnosis. This is toxic mothers, toxic babies, toxic vaccines, toxic food and these guys just can't handle it. The host is so overwhelmed. The host body probably starting in utero is so overwhelmed that they can't do it and they're given three vaccinations on day one. A lot of these mothers are toxic and they dump their toxins into the baby during the process of gestation and the kids don't have a chance. There's epidemics of childhood cancer. We have epidemics of childhood obesity. The incidence of chronic illness of autoimmune illness is just skyrocketing. Our planet's toxic and we've done it to ourselves and we have to back up from this. There's going to be nobody to work. If all these kids are autistic and you look at the whole school system, every school in every grade has special needs kids now. They have ADD. They can't learn and in Tampa Bay, something like 50% of the kids that graduate high school can't read and if you're an employer, like we have 38 people working for us in our clinic, try to find someone that can actually read and write, get there at eight o'clock, give you eight good hours and do the job. It's getting rarer and rarer and rarer and I think it's because people are sick. That's great information. I'm glad you shared that. Before we sign off, I do want to ask this because sometimes when you learn about information like this, it can seem overwhelming like the average listener is listening going, well, great. Now what do I do? I'm surrounded by all these things. This is how I live. What do I do now? What are some big rocks or big things that people can do that will help them that they could start with? Maybe a few things that they can avoid or do to help prevent what's happening? Well, I think maybe I just read the thing I said earlier. I think that the human body needs to have nutritious food that isn't toxic, so eat organic food. We find these days that most of the grains are toxic, so I say do a paleotype diet because for most people that works, so they avoid grains, they avoid dairy except for organic butter. I usually start people off of nightshade vegetables, so it's peppers and eggplant and tomatoes and white potatoes because many people are sensitive to these things, especially if you have joint pain or you have any kind of autoimmune condition. As a start, just eliminate those from your diet. Then get out in the sunshine every day for a half an hour. Walk. If you don't do any exercise, get out and walk or walk your dog or do something so that you get outside and you breathe and you move your body. If you like exercise and you have something you like, we'll do that. Then make sure you get enough sleep and try to have the environment you sleep in free of electronics. I don't like big screen TVs in bedrooms. I don't like cell phones next to the bed because these things are dirty energy. If you put somebody's body next to a regular outlet, that outlet is pulsating at 120 times per second and the electrons in your body are moving toward it and away from it with every pulse of that electrical current. They work on little small microcurrents. A sodium moves across the membrane one way and the potassium moves across the other way. They are little microcurrents and they affect us. If you can sleep in an environment where your body isn't under electronic or electromagnetic stress, that's really helpful. In our house, we can turn off the electronics in the master bedroom just by itself. If you walk in there when it's off versus when it's on, you can feel it. I think these are simple things that can make a big difference. I think the other thing is just try to reduce your exposure to toxic things. Don't use plastic water bottles and put your food in containers that are safe. These are good things. People generally feel better quite quickly after instituting them. Excellent. That's what we find as well. I want to thank you for allowing me to do this interview with you. I appreciate it. Great. It was fun to talk to you and hope to see you sometime. Thank you for listening to Mind Pump. If your goal is to build and shape your body, dramatically improve your health and energy, and maximize your overall performance, check out our discounted RGB Superbundle at minepumpmedia.com. The RGB Superbundle includes Maths Anabolic, Maths Performance, and Maths Aesthetic, nine months of phased expert exercise programming designed by Sal Adam and Justin to systematically transform the way your body looks, feels, and performs. With detailed workout blueprints and over 200 videos, the RGB Superbundle is like having Sal Adam and Justin as your own personal trainers, but at a fraction of the price. 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