Detox Your Mind-Body System, with Dr. Issac Eliaz

Over time, the mind is going to affect the biochemistry and there is a biochemistry that affects the mind. So with cleaning the biochemistry, we have a choice. It is a little bit easier in some level. We take certain supplements, we do a certain diet might be tricky, but once we connect the mind to the heart, it starts moving faster.

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Welcome to this episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. I'm Wendy Trubot, this is my co host at Levitan. And today we're really psyched to have Dr. Isaac Elias back. We love him personally and are having him on the podcast today. He is a leading expert in the field of integrative medicine, specializing in cancer detox, immunity and complex conditions. He's a respected physician, researcher, bestselling author, educator, mind body practitioner. He partners with leading research institutes including Harvard, National Institutes of Health, Columbia and others. And he co authors studies on integrative therapies for cancer, heavy metal toxicity and others. Has a new book out, the Survival Paradox. We're going to talk about that today and also products that help with detox. So Isaac, welcome. What a privilege to have you back.

Thank you so much for having me. I love our conversation and our connection and I'm looking to see it flourishing.

Anything we majorly missed in terms of your bio?

No, it's great. I think I started my journey in integrative medicine in healing arts at the age of 15, so a little bit early. So I think what I'm sharing now in my early 60s is a reflection of this multiple decades of being a physician, a licensed acupuncturist, trained vertically in multiple medical systems, many decades in mind body medicine and being an active researcher with some large NIH grants right now researching specifically the effects of removal of the survival paradox protein galectin 3 through therapeutic apheresis and what it does for sepsis. With this in mind, over the years, especially in the last few years, I've come to the recognition of how critical detoxification is a big part of my book. My first solution chapter in my book, after I introduce the issue of survival paradox, the paradigm and how it works and different systems and diseases that are affected by it. The first chapter in the Solution is detoxification. So I think it's important for people to recognize that it's not just a technique, a method. There is a reason why it's the first step, because it is the first step in our physiology. It's the first step in order to create a change. We need to create space. One of the biggest mistake of detoxification is people have the same lifestyle and they are very busy and they are trying to put detox into a busy life. It's not going to work. We need to create space. So once and the only way to create space is by letting go. It's by cleaning what's crowded. And that's the value of detoxification. So when we come to this world, the first thing we do is we take exhalation. We let go. It's the most basic detoxification process. We do two thirds of the time. Right. Exhalation is twice as long as inhalation. The last thing we do when we leave this world is we take an exhalation. So this process of letting go that allows for something else to happen is so fundamental. And what I'm finding when I kind of contemplate it, preparing for this podcast and thinking about the process as I meditate, it's profound. The power of detoxification is so profound because the depth of the letting go that can happen is so deep on so many levels. And then we have a choice. Do we do it with the mind? Do we do it with supplement? Do we do it with food? How integrated by the understanding that when we let go, so many possibilities open to us. Right? Right. I mean, you know it, we've talked about it. It's amazing. So that's why it's important for people to see it beyond or do this colonic or do this enemy or take this supplement. It's understanding, it's really in order to transform, in order to nourish, we need to detoxify.

Yeah, you're talking our language.

Well, I mean, I, I love the idea that because we mostly talk about detox from a biochemical point of view. And what you're talking about is really not only lifestyle, but when I think of creating space, I think of meditation practice, I think of acupuncture, pressure practice, but I also think of just plain yoga. And one of my first introductions when I first got into yoga was, okay, you go stretch and then you go stretch some more, and then you find space and you are able to stretch into that space because you, you allowed yourself with the breath, you allowed yourself space so that's. I, I agree. For me, like you just added another. It's pretty profound that it's not just biochemical, but it's really the whole, the whole process.

And I heard something thoroughly different.

Haha.

Because I heard, I heard that you can't put detox into a life that's too full.

Yeah. So it's interesting, you know. Yeah. You got me into yoga. I, I started practicing yoga at age 15 and I was a yoga teacher for many years. I trained y teachers for many of that. I'll send you guys some pictures. So I, I still teach yoga now in my retreats, even if I'm not very flexible. So you said something profound that not many yoga teachers often recognize. You know, there are two basic systems that I use very often to create space. Qigong and yoga. And in qigong you really are trying to find quietude in the movement. In yoga, you are trying to find movement in the holding of the asana. So when you get to the place when you are stretching, you try to find the space right there when it's open. That's so true. What I'm finding is the more we know about a topic, the more we understand the biochemistry, the more we understand physiology, the more simple. Exercise has a great profundity because you mentioned the space in yoga, but there is a space within our body. There is good space in the circulatory system. We don't have atherosclerosis. The blood is circulating very evenly. If we have good space in the extracellular space, the space outside the cells, there's no clamping, there's no friction. There will not be inflammation, there won't be a sense of oh my God, we're not getting good supply. We're in the survival mode. Macrophage will be relaxed. Insulin receptors will work well. AMPK will be activated. The mitochondria gets a sense of everything is clean and spacious. I have time to produce energy in an efficient 3680p per every glucose without producing toxic byproducts. But if the cell is at a sense of, my God, there's no space, what happens? There's no air where there's no space. When we are hypoxia inducing factor comes in, right? And then, and then PDK gets stimulated and then the mitochondria is blocked. And then suddenly we get unhealthy metabolism. And based on our genetic epigenetic, which highway we are on, it will lead to different diseases for different people. So the process of detoxification is a mental Process in the deepest way. And the deepest way is when the thoughts end. Can we really let go and not stick it to the next thought, not make it sticky, which is the tendency of holding is a basic driver of survival, of course. Because what is survival? Survival is not letting go of something that has a beginning and has an end. That's really what it is, but the same thing. Then we'll go into the biochemistry and the extracellular. And that's the importance of the survival paradox as a paradigm and the blocking of Galactin 3 with modified as a biochemical solution. Biochemical response to a very profound concept. But my goal when I speak is I don't want to limit this to just a chemical physical disease because it's all interrelated. And in survival we got to survive. The body does the best to survive. It's very important for people to realize, especially when you look at things from the past, the traumas, and say, why did I do it? Why did it happen? Well, this was the best you could have done at the time. That's a principle of survival. Now as part of detox, we are in a different place, we're in different time. We can allow ourselves to let go. It's not easy. Why? Because there are neurological printed patterns in us, multi generational, you know, as the Holocaust, the, you know, my, my grandfather, my. My grandparents being in the Holocaust, my mother escaping. And I write in my book Healing the Scars of Survival, how I healed for my grandfather's trauma.

I have a question, Isaac, because a lot of what I have, more than one, but the one that I've sat with while you're talking is that most of the things you're referring to feel like they're emotional, mental, psychological, spiritual toxicities. How does the process of letting go translate into the biochemical toxicities? What impact does it have? How do you see that on mercury and glyphosate and environmental toxins and pesticides? How does that relate?

It's a great question. It's interesting. For my process is called the five journeys. My journey is that on one level, without knowing, because my initial work on galactin 3 was in cancer, I kind of stumbled around the fact that when you block it. No, I observed actually that when you block it, you affect inflammation and fibrosis early on, late 90s, and said, wow. So I kind of went into the biochemistry of changing this survival response. At the same time I had this spiritual meditation journey which I'm still on, and it comes together so it's all interrelated. We want to ask ourselves what causes us to look in? Yeah, it can be emotional, it can be psychological, and it can be pesticide and heavy metals. And what happens when we clean. And if we have a lot of biochemical toxicity, it will still affect us unless we are truly extraordinary people. They are very rare. You know, they say like a star in the middle of the day, you know, it's not for us ordinary people that can handle toxicity. Nothing happens. Toxins will affect our membranes and like you said, will affect our biochemistry, will create a survival metabolism, anaerobic or aerobic glycolysis in the cell and will create diseases. So you got to address the biochemistry. But when you address it with an understanding that when you really relax, when you really open, then when your mind gets spacious, when you're not triggered by the same way, it's going to affect your neurotransmitters, your neuroendocrine system, your gut lining. Because the gut doesn't feel threatened, the biofilm becomes more relaxed, the healthy bacteria can be more dominant. There can be more diversity in the gut because there's less fighting. Well, the gut lining gets better. You get less autoimmunity, you absorb less toxins. Right. What does glyphosate do? It disrupts it. So that's why there are certain things we have to take. You know, I take my. My pectozole and my glypho detox every day. But I also try, no matter how busy I am, when I wake up in the morning before bedtime, I sit and I meditate. And one thing that I recognize when I meditate, so there's the experience of the regular openness of meditation, which I've trained for decades and decades. But then I. Then I go into the journey of seeing how it can affect my body. It's amazing. It's almost like I asked myself, why did it take 50 years for me to feel today what I didn't feel yesterday. But I know tomorrow is going to be different, you know, so. And I realized, wow, our ability to heal, you know, I had severe long haul Covid in August. Severe because of certain unusual triggers. Almost died, I thought. And I get like paralysis in half of my body. And I totally healed now. I used my tools, I used apheresis, I used. But really what turned it around is a mind. And I find it. So there's a lot of people with COVID long haul and a lot of people have chronic diseases. People are holding to their diagnosis. They are identifying with their disease. So for me, it was Interesting, because I was actually treating people who flew in with severe long haul because I treat it. And then I realized, oh my God, I like what they have, but worse, you know, I mean, I basically canceled everything for weeks except I would somehow come to see them because they came from far away. And then I realized, wow, you know, I have a choice. I can identify with it, I can freak out every time. It feels classically like an mi. Chest pain, pain I can understand. It's just the cytokines and this. So this addresses your question because I've been thinking about it before the interview today and I'm also at the summit about regeneration, the treatings. So this really relates to what you are saying. So there is the change in the mind that will take time to be delivered to the biochemistry. It takes time. It's a mind body connection. It takes time. So the mind feels great, but the body is still sensitive. Over time the mind is going to affect the biochemistry. There is a biochemistry that affects the mind. With cleaning the biochemistry, we have a choice. It is a little bit easier in some level. We take certain supplements, we do a certain diet might be tricky, but once we connect the mind to the heart, it starts moving faster. If we realize this one, ask us ourselves, is there a way where we can really get rid of toxins so they don't come back? And there is. If something which is toxic becomes non toxic, then there's no longer toxicity. So one of the biggest steps psychologically, it's a big step in meditation, is acceptance. The more we accept things that usually trigger us to reactivity, the less things are toxic to us, right? So there are certain things that upsets us and then our blood pressure goes up and our norepinephrine goes up and our glucose goes up. That's a toxic reaction, right? We all agree if we just accept it genuinely and it just doesn't trigger us, we just had less toxins, right? So the organ that does it in the body is the heart. Because the heart takes all the dirty blood that everyone doesn't want with an open heart, right? Otherwise we'll be dead right now on this podcast takes from everywhere. And it needs to take, otherwise it can't function. It needs the pressure of everything that we don't want coming from our past. Because it's coming, right? Whatever comes to the heart has happened in the past in the cell either five minutes or 50 years ago. If it's a certain food or experience that created a certain molecule that affected the cell, that. Now that's why when you do detox, right? You know, so well, people have memories about the path and things come out. The cell is letting go. We connect with the universe through the breath, the power of connecting with the universe, which is credible. And then the heart takes the clean blood and it gives it everyone. And once it. And once it gives it and it relaxes, it nourishes itself closest to the heart through the coronary out of it. So the heart nourishes itself in order to nourish others, but selflessly after it's done. So when we connect with our heart, we start to transform the toxicity. So in meditation, it's a practice of tongling, of taking suffering and giving love and compassion and healing. So the reason why people learn it so quickly, because we are built to do it. You know, it's the tikkun, the fixing in Kabbalah, in Judaism. So connecting with our heart is very, very important. For me personally, I had pain here all my life, since very early age, until a few years ago. And I knew it's not mine until I realized it from the trauma of my grandfather from the Holocaust that just. He died from stomach cancer when he was 52, 53, because he couldn't stomach the trauma. My grandmother survived another 50 years almost. And on a grave side, my mother suddenly told us, you know, your Grandfather Hitler killed 10 out of the 12 siblings. We were never told, can you imagine? And he just couldn't stomach it. It was never talked. And when I did my work with it, being aware of it, my chest suddenly opened up, you know, like after 50 years, you know, it's not common. And I could feel this opening. But what was interesting, and it was related to letting go of the trauma of the Holocaust, accepting it, having a certain level of forgiveness which is hard to even express because people say, how can you go through such a thing? And once it happened, my mother, who could never watch any programs on the Holocaust, was able to suddenly turn on the TV and watch programs on the Holocaust. I didn't tell her what I went through, but because it was a multi generational healing, it went backward to generation and came back one generation, which we know scientifically happens. That's the power of detoxification. So when we get the heart into the process and we create space and we define what we want to detoxify, and we become more forgiving to ourselves and to others, we become self loving as part of loving others, not as part of a narcissistic approach. Then anything and everything is possible. But it starts with detoxification. Right. It started with the letting go on the cells and when the heart taking it in. So that's why detox is so basic.

I have a question. How can we bottle this?

I love talking to you because like.

How do you go from biochemistry to multi generational healing to self love to compassion, back to biochemistry.

This is really.

I want to bottle you.

Yeah. This is why I teach, you know, so I do it in a retreat environment. A few days of the right diet and the right environment and the right explanation and meditating and exercise. It's amazing what happens, especially in the level of multi generational trauma. I mean, things that are too wild to talk in public. But when, when we get together, I'll tell you things that you think are impossible. Now, as somebody who was fortunate to treat and study from the greatest meditation masters in the Himalaya, you know, that are not alive anymore, one of them is still is 96. Then I know that, you know, it's very important us to understand that we have the limitation of what our ordinary, logical, linear aligned mind can really comprehend. Reality is much bigger. It's multidimensional. And we go back to the space. Wendy. When we create the space with detox, we give room for new experiences. And that's why the aging process, in many ways, it's an amazing process. We mature, we become more refined. But if we are so focused on the fact that we have pain and we don't feel well, we kind of miss the value of it, you know, the refinement of it. And that's part of the process of letting go and creating room for the next level and letting go. So people who are meditating, it's very important. That maybe is the most important tip for meditation. Whatever you experience in meditation, don't hold to it. If it's a bad experience, you don't want to hold to it. If it's a great experience, you get really attached to it. There are a lot of meditation systems that are based on somebody having an amazing experience. Things are enlightened and teaching it. It's just an experience. It's don't hold to it. Then it's a survival holding. So then everything becomes the flow. And when there is flow, there's less toxicity.

What's the in to get the mind to the heart? People like, is there one technique or is there three techniques that.

Yeah. Yes. So really the, the key meditation technique is tongling. Then this meditation that takes in now the, the regular tongue leans the universe that is taught for. No, for 2000 years. Usually I Don't share it in a podcast. Probably going to be the first time, is that we take in suffering and we give love and compassion because that's what happened to the heart. So as part of my insight in meditation, it happened to me a few years ago, I kind of discovered an inner tongling. A tongling that happened in the cellular level. It is not. Is not taught. You know, it's very different. It requires much more supervision and guidance. But it's very powerful because one thing for, you know, that we're all interested in, we talked about multi generational. We are made from countless being. If you look at each generation being 25 years, right, you go 50 years, it's four. You go 100 years, 16, you go 1600 years, 64. You know, it's like the chess game two, they didn't have enough grains. It's an infinite number. So infinite number made us these people. And the people that affected them epigenetically, Holocaust being an example, right, are actually affecting our genetics and epigenetics. They are affecting our cellular function. So their suffering is actually affecting us. We are holding it, we are suffering. You know, there's a famous saying in Hebrew, avotaklu bosser v' shenei benin tikhena, which means our ancestors ate unripe fruits and the color of our teeth changed. Interesting how they. This is an epigenetic effect. So if we can find a way to do the tongling but take their suffering that we are holding intracellularly, then it really speeds up. But it has to be done in the right way, because a lot of stuff comes up. And I have had remarkable healing experiences in this, even with regular autongline. One of my most amazing patients that I write on in my book in chapter six, the Heart of Survival, Charlie, who came with a metastatic prostate cancer and was with me for 18 years. He was a Vietnam vet, a commander in the helicopter that would fly very, very low. And then they were like the bait. And then there were the planes up and he would see the people who are trying to shoot him eye to eye. And he either gets shot down or he has to shoot him. He was a kindest man. He got shot down eight times in one year. He had to fly with his arm like tide. So he can fly. And so of course he had. You can imagine the ptsd. But when he learned his first time in a retreat, so he had pain from his prostate cancer in his pelvis for years. But when he learned it from the first time in retreat, the tonglen, it was Just only in the clinic. Two days just came during the day. One meal together, and everybody went. But we had a strong relationship. I was with him also when he left his body. The story is all in the book, really worthwhile reading. And so when he came the next morning, he said, look, all night I went back all the way to my childhood, every trauma I had. I went back to Vietnam. And he woke up in the morning, he had no pain. But one thing I didn't write in the book, and I can mention here, he had the largest bowel movement he had in his life. When he woke up in the morning, he really let go in the gut what we hold, right? And at that point, he could visualize the people that he killed or tried to kill him. And he could see himself giving them love they didn't trigger. It's interesting, as I was driving to give him my last healing was two days before he left his body. Then I was with him when he died. And I asked him, charlie, how are you doing? Says, I'm doing great. I'm sending love to everybody, you know, including to your family. So he really transformed, you know, and lived for many years. So that's that. That's the power. So I hope to really. I call it open heart Medicine was supposed to be my first book in Hebrew, got delayed. So I came up with my second book, which has some elements, but that's really. I hope I stay healthy enough and focused enough to put out this and share it. Because, like one of my main spiritual teachers says, there is a certain stage in life when you went through training for decades and you really have something you can share. You know, that's why I took. I wrote my book only in my 60s, and I was asked to write a book in my 40s. But now it's time for me not to get lazy and to share. Because it is making a difference in people's life. And what you do and I do and we all do, we're trying to bring a different flavor to medicine and health, Right. I don't know if you're seeing it. I think it's a medical system as advanced as it is, it's really collapsing. Regular doctors don't have the space. We are back to space, Wendy, to think, to be creative. It's so automated. It's scary. It's really scary. I mean, if they just took a moment and I'm not any better than them, they just happen to be in the wrong place for too many years. So we have a big job, all of us, and that's why I know that's really what drives me, what drives you. And we see the difference. Right. You see the difference in the patient and we don't get tired from doing medicine. It's amazing because of the difference. So really, thank you for what you're doing and should all support each other and keep moving forward.

Yeah. I mean it really. When you were talking about your next book, it's like the appropriate transition in your career is now to contribute and bring it to more people so that your legacy continues.

Right? Yeah. That's why I do education. It's my third act. Yeah, definitely. That's a plan.

Isaac, this is great. So I think we'll close it out here. Isaac, from the bottom of our hearts, thank you for being on the podcast today.

Yeah.

Ok. To the listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of the Feel Freaking Amazing podcast. Thank you.

Thank you.

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