Thriving in the 21st Century: Dr. Jaffe’s Roadmap for Healing Chronic Illness

Welcome to Integrative Medicine with Dr. Leland Stillman, the podcast where we explore the best of East and West, old and new, conventional and unconventional, in search of answers to medicine's toughest cases and most difficult problems. This podcast is for informational purposes only. Diagnostics and therapeutics discussed on this podcast may or may not be right for you, so talk to a qualified practitioner before taking action based on what you learn here. If you'd like to become a patient at my practice, go to stillmanmd.com to schedule a complimentary discovery call. Thank you for listening and welcome to today's episode.

Hello everyone, Dr. Stillman here, back with my good friend Dr. Russell Jaffe. We are here today to talk about his book Thriving in the 21st Century. My favorite part of the book, Russell, which is tough for me to choose, is the part where you share a very compelling story about recovering from a stroke, or we believe would have been a stroke if we'd actually done an MRI or CT, which we'll get into. At the beginning of the book, I didn't know about this about you. I didn't expect to read it in your book, but I love that you included this personal anecdote. So I'd love—

and I'm—

I want to start with it because we, we have a series of podcasts called Stories of Hope, Stories of Healing, which this is sort of like book review plus Stories of Hope, Stories of Healing. Anyway, read the book for Russell's full breakdown, but we're gonna talk about it today and then we're gonna get into what the book is about. But without further ado, Russell, thank you for joining me and let's jump in. What was this story of you surviving this severe neurological issue? Let's just call it that.

Whether it was a stroke or a near-death experience or a combination of things, at 9:00 AM 15 years ago, I'm talking with Joe and Patrick the handyman. At 9:02, I'm dizzy. At 9:05, I have paroxysmal vertigo. I'm in a fetal position in my video room with my cell phone in my hand, and people came and they wanted to transport me. And I asked myself, what's going on? Why Given all the wonderful things I've done over some period of time, what is the meaning of this? And clear internally was the notion that you have a choice about your life. You can go conventional, or you can assume this is a challenge to your spiritual practice and commitment and treat it as such, which means very conservatively. To compress the story, my son, who's a Trager practitioner, came, picked me up, brought me into my bedroom, and for 3 days I didn't eat, I didn't drink, I didn't pee, I didn't poop. My eyes were mostly closed, but interestingly, and this has been reported by others, I had complete awareness of what was going on and the motivation of the people who came. There were those who came because people were coming. There was those who came to see what they could get. There were those who came to see how they could be helpful. This was for me an important moment. And I'm glad to say on day 8, I was able to take a flight. So I came as close as you can to cutting what's called the silver cord and being on the other side. What happened to me could happen to anyone. I'm not advocating that you ignore good medical care. I'm telling you that the stress to me of being in the hands of a young doctor who might not know as much as I do, having machines like CAT scans and MRIs and so forth, which are pretty loud and a bit intrusive, might might have tripped me over to the other side and I wouldn't be here.

So I want to unpack this for people for a minute. So 3— did you say 3 days you didn't eat, drink, sleep?

I may have sleep— slept. For 3 days, every time I started to contract, my son, the body worker, stretched me out.

Okay.

That was a great support. And, and, but my perspective was up and to the right, you know, out of my body, up and to the right. And not only could I see with my third eye, I guess, but I knew the motivation of the people who came.

I'm trained as a general internist. And Russell, I think you trained as an internist too, right?

Absolutely. Internal medicine was my first training under Norman Levinsky at University Hospital. Yeah.

So if somebody doesn't eat or drink for 3 days, usually they go into— Yes.

Well, what I observed on day 4 when I got up was I was gaunt.

I'm sure.

I had, I think, what's called a dead body before, but I was way too lean. And it took me a while to regain healthy weight, which I have kept since.

I'm sure. But what I think is interesting about the case is that we'll often call someone, you know, you would've been classified as oliguria within a matter of hours and then anuria within days. And usually we— to the hospital.

Hospital. I would've had IVs, I would've had medications, I would've had a whole bunch of scans. And from my point of view, they would never have understood what was going on truly at a meta level, at a spiritual level, and gotten in the way.

And what I think is fascinating about it is that, you know, we're told, well, if you don't eat or drink or whatever for so many days, you'll die. But you obviously didn't.

I understand that. And I'm here to say that at least survived. And there were multiple people, including physician friends, who came to document, like do a cardiogram at home, make measurements with a device. So we have lots of documentation of what happened and in what sequence and how quickly I recovered.

Right. Without any medical intervention at all, which again is not a recommendation against medical treatment.

Thank you for saying that. That's my point. Get the best medical care you want. And since this was my life, I got to make a choice. I can go down the path of this is a spiritual crisis and treat it as such, or I can go down the path of going to the hospital and giving my care into the hands of others who are trying to do their best. I am confident, but as I've already said, they would not have understood what was going on with me, and my sense is I might well have passed.

So you said this was 15 years ago. Where were you and what was going on in your life 15 years ago?

I was physically here at my R&D center where I also live in Vienna, Virginia, in a mature woods. It's very lovely. We have a big garden and so forth.

You were running which companies? Because I know you have a bunch.

So I was an academic in the early part of my career on the permanent senior staff at NIH. Every year we introduce some innovation in laboratory testing that improved precision, sensitivity, and specificity. So I thought I would be an academic my whole career, and then the world changed. This was when Carter and Reagan transition happened, roughly 1980. And I could see that the freedom that I had to explore something innovative and maybe won't even work, but to have complete support from my mentors and bosses and funds. And I could see that was changing and that people specifically like me who worked with multiple different heart, lung, and blood institute and cancer institute and allergy institute and neurology— there was a small tribe of us and we got together. We could see that we might have our wings clipped. So I became an entrepreneur. I started with the first T-cell cell culture to measure delayed immune defense and repair systems accurately because the T-cells have discriminating beneficial information. The antibodies turn out to be quite ambiguous at best.

Yes.

We started a cell culture lab, then a few years later we realized that the industry of dietary supplements was poorly regulated and run by business people who didn't understand molecular biology, biochemistry, physiology, bioavailability.

Russell's being very polite.

I come in peace. So we spent an entire year basically rethinking everything from production to ingredients to combinations, and we came up up with a novel delivery rapid release system, all active ingredients, called Perk Lifeguard. This has 40 ingredients in meaningful amounts that are bioavailable and needed today. The 21st century is a hazardous time, as you know. In addition, so we started Perk, which is the dietary supplement reference standard, gold standard. We brought out the first triple detoxifier, We understood that Phase 1, Phase 2, and Phase 3 are not only important, they're really important, especially when you have people accumulating fat in their liver, spleen, kidneys, organs, heart, brain. So the industry people told me, we're making money, it's technically legal, at least the better ones are technically legal. Some are not even technically legal. But it's the Wild West. And we did, among other things, a double-blind placebo of our Lifeguard capsule showing 100% bioavailability, whereas the best prior study had 20% uptake because of binders, fillers, excipients, flowing agents, triterating agents. And there's a whole bunch of details that actually go into a quality product that delivers promptly results with evidence, not just with fancy marketing.

Absolutely.

Yes.

I have to tell you a quick story. Since we last spoke, our nurse at the practice, Eva, confessed to me that when we gave her the vitamin C protocol that we use— that's, you know, you've got the C cleanse is what you call it in your literature, I think— she, uh, she did it with a a very name brand or big name supplement company product. And she said, you know, I didn't, I didn't see the same effects and I felt worse and I didn't understand why. And I said, finally, I said, Eva, did you use our vitamin C? She said, well, no, I didn't. I said, well, you know, listen, here's a bottle. I gave her a bottle of the powdered C that you make, and I said, look, try it again. And she said, oh my gosh, Dr. Stillman, I feel so much better. So, you know, it, it really is— you, you can see a great difference with high-quality supplements in a matter of minutes.

Thanks for saying that. Quality, clinical evidence, research evidence. Synthesizing it all together is an art, and we, and we encourage other quality companies to do the same. We're happy to have people copy us. However, we continue to advance, and we now have 40 years of clinical experience that illustrates exactly what you just said. Feel the difference that quality makes And Perk makes quality.

Absolutely.

Yes.

So you were running Perk at the time and what else was going on in your life?

Well, I was running Eliza Biotechnologies, the cell culture lab. That was a full-time gig. Perk, the dietary supplement company. And I continue to run the company because I'm— I have a wonderful team of people that executes very well. But if I didn't continue to nudge and ask for detail and bind the vendors. We don't do our own production, but we bring the formula to a quality house and then we bind them to not do it for anyone else because we originate the formulas that are all active. We originate the Triple Detoxifier that has—

What's the Triple Detoxifier product?

Oh, it's called Detoxin Guard. Detoxin Guard. It was originally just Perk 2. Perk One was Lifeguard, Perk Two was Detoxing Guard. But yes, the Triple Detoxifier really helps today. And from my point of view, you need a supportive, appropriate personal suite of supplements to compensate for all the toxins and stress, et cetera, of modern living.

Absolutely.

Yep.

So that's what was going on in your life.

Well, along the way, we started a foundation to research, to report, to advise anyone who's interested in preventive, truly primary prevention. And Health Studies Collegium has become quite an activity, similar to my friend Amory Lovins, who started Rocky Mountain Institute. And a word about Amory, if you don't know him, look him up. But Amory Lovins has very unusual biochemistry, and he has a 45-minute talk that basically says if he had followed the conventional medical community, he would be dead. He followed the advice of his doctor, who's eclectic, who's comprehensive, who practices prevention. And we understand more about my unique chemistry. For example, he has an alcohol dehydrogenase deficiency and he never, ever drinks alcohol. Actually, Rebecca does too. It's not as unusual as you would think when you start looking for it.

Absolutely.

And that's his point. And then he says, well, we all— primary prevention, nature, nurture, and wholeness before pharmacology, physiology before pharmacology. And that's a great combination.

Absolutely.

So along the way, we also marched into patents on the reinvented magnesium. I can tell you that there are millions of people who are deficient and then more people who are hypomagnesemic. What I mean is, if you're in the lower half of the usual serum range, you're deficient. And if you're in the upper half of the usual serum range, you're sufficient. And it's water soluble, regulated by the kidneys, stool, and sweat. So you cannot, unless you have kidney failure, you cannot go too high. So we triple the uptake, we add a specific choline molecule which goes to acetylcholine in the brain, cholinergic bile salts to make it more soluble, the bile, and to correct the inositol-choline balance at the cell membrane. We are well into a process at the FDA on the medication side, on the drug side, You go through Phase 1, Phase 2. We're post-Phase 2. We're Phase 3 ready. We're on a 505 path. That technically means that the agency has really scrutinized us because we will open a new category, not just a new medication, but a new category, which happens every couple of years.

I didn't know this about this.

No, no, no, no. This is— we're doing all of this sottovoce. We're doing all of this below the radar. We really don't even have a website singing the praises of Entity and its patents. And we just got a new patent, a very strong patent with— we have a pipeline of possibilities, everything from essential hypertension to arrhythmias to restless sleep to eclampsia of pregnancy to on and on and on. And as I said, we are doing this privately because if you draw too much attention from big companies, they will either want to buy you, and we don't want to sell yet because we think we have an A-list team that the agency has really taken to heart, and a design within one year in and out of clinic. That's very fast for a Phase 3 trial. So I wear multiple hats.

Got it. Okay.

And then, and then it's very important for me to mention that a large fraction of my life is spent on mindfulness practices, meditation, and in the land of what I would call spirit. There's a physical world, there's an emotional world. There's more than that in the world. And I have had the good fortune to be mentored by some of the most extraordinary human beings. And every once in a while you meet someone who does something effortlessly, naturally, and it blows your mind. And I've had that good fortune a number of times.

What did you do after what we believe was a stroke, or we may just call it the neurological incident you went through?

I think of it as a near-death experience. Depending on where you train, you might make a slightly different diagnosis.

What I, what I want to know specifically is what did you do to recover from it specifically in terms of the supplements that you use?

Oh, oh, oh, I'm happy to unpack that. The first thing I did was hydrate with herbal teas. The next thing I did was put myself on a whole foods, mostly whole fruit and some vegetables, some root vegetables, some sea vegetables, some fresh mushrooms. In rotation. In fact, today we have a week's recommendations of how to improve your microbiome and your metabolism.

You have a lot of dietary recommendations in the book, by the way, for people who are interested to read it.

Good nutrition begins in the pot. Beatrice Trum Hunter taught me that many years ago. But today you must intelligently supplement on top of that.

And you go through in the book in great detail why that is. And I think one of the most compelling pieces of evidence you present, which I was absolutely— I mean, I think I closed the book and had to take a walk after I read this. 100 tons of mercury falls on the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States every year. On the East Coast, it's coming from Africa. On the West Coast, it's coming from Asia. And 100 tons of mercury— people, the numbers here defy our comprehension. And I'll often tell patients that the toxic dose of mercury, if you have the right form, that's the most toxic form— I can't remember which it is— The toxic dose will fit on a corner of your pinky finger. That's how deadly it is.

A CDC pediatrician was testifying on Capitol Hill. Question is, what is the safe level of mercury in the blood? Her answer— she took a deep breath and she said, when we see it in the blood, it's too late. We need to remove it from the environment. I don't have it available, but I will— I will send you a slide. That starts with the amount of mercury being introduced into our environment each year and breaks it down to how many micrograms per person per day are you likely to be exposed to.

I've done similar things with things like copper sulfate, which I think you're— I love the Lifeguard formulation. It's the only multivitamin, multi-mineral I've ever recommended. And that's because I know too much about the nutrients and how they're being, you know, copper is one that I frequently talk to people about because we often see patients with very high levels of copper in their blood and/or their hair, and they'll feel much better when we give them copper-antagonizing things like vitamin C or zinc, which can drive out the excess copper.

Do you know copper can be in a high oxidation state? That makes it a pro-oxidative damaging molecule. And it goes lots of places from the DNA to membranes and so forth. If you have the ascorbate, as you correctly recommend, you reduce the copper to +2, and that the body can regulate. It can easily excrete the excess copper. And in my home, we have old-fashioned copper pipes, very hard copper. But the copper in our well water is enough that I take zinc daily.

And I will share with patients that when I, when I ran the numbers on the amount of copper sulfate being sprayed as an organic pesticide, by the way, it's 62 milligrams per person per day on planet Earth. And the daily intake— and this is, I think, really interesting— so I looked at the literature on this, and it turns out that daily intakes of copper over something like 1.2 milligrams, which is very little— I mean, you can get more than that with a couple handfuls of nuts and seeds— actually is associated with an increased risk of mortality, which is why I very rarely supplement with copper and only in very specific cases and contexts with real lab data to back up the decision. And it's why I'm so bearish on people taking copper empirically without without some lab data from their blood work, because you'll just get a non-zero proportion of people who have a copper level in their blood of 200, and you just have no business giving them more.

Well said. Agreed.

Yeah.

Now, we can live in harmony with our nature, including our copper, of course, but we need to keep the copper reduced. We need to have a balance of minerals. Harry Hankin used to He made a whole career out of recommending zinc. But back in the '70s, when Harry Henkin was active, you could test on the tongue for zinc deficiency. Hmm.

You mean the zinc taste tolerance test?

The zinc taste tolerance test no longer works because our taste buds have been so compromised.

Really? How did you— how did you substantiate that? Because you don't say things like that without data.

No, no, no, no, no. I knew Harry Henkin. I learned how to do this from him personally. I actually took care of him in his later years. What we do is— I'm an analytic biochemist. So the first thing I want to know is what is the correct measurement that distinguishes good from bad? Because it may be surprising that the fact that you can get numbers from a lab doesn't mean that there's a meaning to the number.

Absolutely. I actually wanna plug something I just put out this week. This would've been published on June 25th. You'll love this, Russell. I went to LabCorp and I had labs drawn back to back to back to back every couple of weeks. I did 4 or 5 draws. I didn't repeat all the markers every time. And then I went through them in a podcast. It's about, it's really pretty short. It's only 12, 15, 25 minutes. We've got a video version where you can see the numbers, but there's huge variability in the numbers. You know, my ferritin on the low end was 60, on the high end was 120. I, uh, even my high sensitivity CRP went up to 1.46 after a weekend flight and a couple of drinks with some friends out of town. And, um, my homocysteine moves all over the place. There's about 20% or more variability in most of the lab markers that people run routinely. And like I said, with ferritin, there can be 100% or 200% variability. And so when people say, well, my lab said this, I'll often say, well, how do we know or even trust that value? We'll often repeat labs to confirm that the abnormality we see is not just a fluke. They didn't just test it on a bad day.

Galen and Gambino, who published a little book called Beyond Normality many years ago, 15 to 20% variance is standard in clinical labs known. This is known. By clinical pathologists, of which I am a double board-certified one. But clinical pathologists don't talk to clinicians or to clients or patients. This is an avoidable crime. What you do is you run everything in triplicate and you have a smart system that basically it dials in to now less than 5% variance. By simply doing everything in triplicate. We have published about this in the academic literature, but to the best of my knowledge, very few labs do. Although if you ask Mayo Clinic, if you ask AROPE, if you ask some of the high-quality reference labs to do it in triplicate and report, you'll see that there is An improvement in sensitivity, technicalities, and what we get today for very important markers like ferritin is, in Yiddish, it's called a shanda. A shanda means it's embarrassing for the neighbors to see what's really going on.

That's quite funny. Okay, got it. I know, I know. Yeah.

And by the way, if you, if you find it entertaining, if you find it a little bit humorous or self-deprecating, that helps retention. Doing what you enjoy is highly recommended. Doing what you feel obliged to do, I would rethink.

This has been great. And I want to make sure people know Russell's book is Thriving in the 21st Century. And before we Before we sign off, Russell, I do want to talk about, or I want to ask you, you know, sort of why did you write the book? What's the basic structure? What can people expect to get out of it? And where can they find it? Where's the best place to buy a copy?

Oh, the best place to buy a copy is Amazon. It's available as a print, Kindle, and audiobook. And we did this book because we did not know of any other guide to solutions. 21st century applicable, doable solutions. We get very specific. We suggest if you invest 5% of your time in yourself, which means 72 minutes spread through the day, you can get restorative sleep and get renewed and detoxified during restorative sleep. You can improve your digestive microbiome. You can improve your detoxification metabolism. You can reduce the fat that's accumulated for a variety of reasons. You can reduce the toxins, oxidative, proactive, harmful toxins. For example, I'm just one specific prominent example. I don't want to know your cholesterol level. I want to know what your oxidized cholesterol is. Oxidized cholesterol can be easily measured. It's a specialized test. It is not included in the routine lipid profile, but we showed in animal models, foxhound dogs and Yucatan pigs, many years ago, and many others have proven this over decades, cholesterol is a necessary innocent bystander. It should not be inhibited. Half the heart attacks occur with people whose cholesterol and LDL are below 200, 100 standard, and half the heart attacks occur in people above. I have helped people repair their membranes, their hormones, by allowing cholesterol to go up but keep oxidized cholesterol absent. So thank you for the opportunity to share this. Hopefully we will have other opportunities to unpack and and demonstrate how much fun it is to live long and well, or young and eager, following physiology before pharmacology and all that goes into thriving, not just surviving.

Yes. There's one thing about the book that I wanna mention for people who've followed me for a long time and who, who read a lot of and listen to a lot of my work, and that's that we— you recommend in the book, I can't remember, I think it's a 60% carbohydrate, 20% fat, 20% protein, correct?

Yes. And if you do the math all the way through, that optimizes the intake of whole nutrients. And when I say carbs, I mean fiber.

Yes. Right. It's not just empty carbs, of course.

Right. Not empty calories, not even artificial sweeteners. We just avoid all of that. Yes, but fiber, muy importante.

Absolutely. Yes. I want to make a note for those people because that's the main thing that I would want to unpack with you at another podcast is macronutrients, because what— and micronutrients, of course, that does deliver a huge dose of many of the micronutrients, as Russell's mentioned, plus increased fiber. What I find fascinating about my clinical practice is that we'll have cases where people say go carnivore or keto and get much better. And that's a whole book in and of itself, probably, for you to write, Russell. There's no one-size-fits-all diet. But thank you, Russell, for joining me. Again, the book is Thriving in the 21st Century. People can pick it up on Amazon. There will be a link to purchase it in the notes to the show. Russell, thank you for joining me.