Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast am on iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: And welcome back to Coast to Coast George Nori with you.
Speaker 2: Doctor Elson Hass is a longtime philosopher, teacher, and integrative
Speaker 2: family physician. In nineteen eighty four, he founded still directs
Speaker 2: one of the first integrative medical clinics in the United States,
Speaker 2: the Preventative Medical Center of Marin in northern California. Doctor
Speaker 2: Elson is the author of a number of popular books,
Speaker 2: including the groundbreaking first book Staying Healthy with the Seasons,
Speaker 2: his most recent Staying Healthy with New Medicine, a pioneering
Speaker 2: evolving modern day medical approaches to healing. Doctor Elson is
Speaker 2: one of the first doctors to integrate ancient Eastern healing
Speaker 2: traditions with the modern Western medical practices remarkable. He offers
Speaker 2: a variety of online courses. We'll tell you about some
Speaker 2: of them available to you as his popular Detox in
Speaker 2: Spring cleansing groups, weight management, and his new program holds
Speaker 2: Self Detox. Doctor Elson Hass Back on Coast to Coast
Speaker 2: Nelson always a pleasure, Welcome, well, thank you.
Speaker 3: George's great to be with you again, going away from Detroit.
Speaker 3: But oh yeah, we need. We need peace more than
Speaker 3: ever now.
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, we really do. And I have a
Speaker 2: feeling by the time people wake up in the morning,
Speaker 2: we could have a mess in the Middle East.
Speaker 3: Elson, Well, sorry, kind of messy the second the news.
Speaker 3: I try not to watch the news too much because
Speaker 3: it stresses my mind and my heart. But you got
Speaker 3: to pay attention to what's happening.
Speaker 2: How did you get involved in this new type of
Speaker 2: integrative medicine.
Speaker 3: Hey, I went through medical school in Annaburg, Michigan. Came
Speaker 3: out to California in seventy two. You know, the times
Speaker 3: they were changing, and I got interested in learning about
Speaker 3: health and healing. I started with myself. I did a
Speaker 3: ten days juice cleans. I was introduced to that by
Speaker 3: a man who wrote a book called The Master Cleans.
Speaker 3: And I did ten days and drop twenty pounds. My
Speaker 3: allergies cleared up. On the third day, I had more energy,
Speaker 3: less sleep, and I felt like a new person. I said, Wow,
Speaker 3: this is how I want to feel. And I started
Speaker 3: to eat differently, and I started exercise and get myself
Speaker 3: in shape, and you know, the whole change in lifestyle,
Speaker 3: and you know, I kind of gave up certain food
Speaker 3: that gave up red meats then, and I just started
Speaker 3: eating clean more cleanly, and studying herbs and Chinese medicine
Speaker 3: and saying, hey, there's value in all these systems that
Speaker 3: you know. I've been around a lot longer than Western medicine,
Speaker 3: you know. But I was a Western trained doctor. So
Speaker 3: I said, well, how do I bring this together? And
Speaker 3: my folks were my folks, after they helped me get
Speaker 3: through med school. They said, what are you doing Elson,
Speaker 3: I said, well, I'm learning about a new a new
Speaker 3: type of medicine, you know. So I wrote a book,
Speaker 3: Staying Healthy with the Season, that came out in eighty one.
Speaker 3: It's been out forty two years and still some people's
Speaker 3: favorite book, and introduction to a healthier type of medicine
Speaker 3: and paying attention to nature, paying attention to the cycles,
Speaker 3: looking at herbs, looking at nutrition, and how do we
Speaker 3: shift and adapt because everything keeps changing, We have to
Speaker 3: keep evolving and growing. And you know, paying attention to
Speaker 3: the cycles of life and nature to me is really key.
Speaker 2: That's so cool. I have a simple philosophy. If you
Speaker 2: don't have your health, you can't help the people you
Speaker 2: care about.
Speaker 3: Well, exactly, you can't help yourself. And that's you know,
Speaker 3: and I've been doing these detox programs and you know,
Speaker 3: I just kind of realized that, you know, I've been
Speaker 3: still a family doctor. I'm busier than ever. And we
Speaker 3: should talk sometime about the shortage of family doctors and
Speaker 3: the lack of quote, you know, the care that people
Speaker 3: really need. But I realized that most health issues that
Speaker 3: people have have they have emotional and mental aspects. They
Speaker 3: have a spiritual so we're not connected to a real
Speaker 3: deeper self. And so I realized after forty some years
Speaker 3: of doing detox and spring cleansing, it's much more than
Speaker 3: the physical detox. We have to learn how to clear
Speaker 3: our mind and make new thoughts and visualize our health better.
Speaker 3: We have to deal with our emotional stresses and strains
Speaker 3: that get stuck in our body, and you know, all
Speaker 3: have to connect, you know, to a spiritual truth for
Speaker 3: us so that we can really embrace our life more completely.
Speaker 2: What do you recommend people do to make that first
Speaker 2: jump to start being more healthy.
Speaker 3: I think the first step is is to look at yourself,
Speaker 3: be more self aware and self reliant, because you know,
Speaker 3: we have an inner doctor that we need to really
Speaker 3: address and to look and say, well, what can I
Speaker 3: do for a couple of weeks. Can I get off
Speaker 3: my sugar, caffeine, alcohol, Can I give up you know,
Speaker 3: rich foods. Can I get away from certain drugs that
Speaker 3: I'm on? People are just inundated with you know, the
Speaker 3: quick fixed medical care, and they're not really looking at
Speaker 3: the causes. So you know, ask yourself what's really underlying this?
Speaker 3: And you know, I have done thousands of people George
Speaker 3: over my career, just watching them change and getting doing
Speaker 3: my detox diet or getting off you know, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, wheat, dairy,
Speaker 3: which sounds like a lot for some people because it's
Speaker 3: you know, a lot of what they eat. But the
Speaker 3: difference that happens when people do that is they start
Speaker 3: to lighten up, their inflammation goes down, they start to
Speaker 3: feel better, their symptoms get better, their allergies get better,
Speaker 3: their digestion gets better, and it really makes a difference
Speaker 3: for them.
Speaker 2: That is pretty dramatic. And people can start instantly with
Speaker 2: this too, can't they exactly?
Speaker 3: I mean, you could be anything. You could be on medicines.
Speaker 3: You know, sometimes I's around a lot of medicines. You
Speaker 3: need to check with your doctor because oftentimes you start
Speaker 3: to feel better quickly and your blood pressure goes down,
Speaker 3: your blood sugar or your cholesterol, you don't need as
Speaker 3: much medicines. A lot of people can get away from them. Now.
Speaker 3: I prescribe medicines every day, but I prefer to, you know,
Speaker 3: do lifestyle first, natural therapies next, and drugs as the
Speaker 3: last resort. But when people come in on drugs, you've
Speaker 3: got to make sure that the right medicines, the right
Speaker 3: amounts with outside effect without interactions. And that's a lot.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, right now, there's a shortage of
Speaker 3: family doctors really across the country, but particularly in the
Speaker 3: day area where I practice. You know, I'm the only clinic.
Speaker 3: I mean, I used to be kind of the integrative
Speaker 3: alternative doctor. People came for another opinion, or they didn't
Speaker 3: want to take the drug or do the surgery they
Speaker 3: were looking for. That I have an answer for them.
Speaker 3: You know. Now I'm seeing everybody out that the seniors
Speaker 3: that moved to Marin County. You know, I'm the only
Speaker 3: clinics seeing new new new patients and Medicare patients and
Speaker 3: all that. Because I'm one of my unique aspects of
Speaker 3: about a medical center is that we have done a
Speaker 3: more integrated practice using the insurance model as well. And
Speaker 3: you know it really it really helps a lot of
Speaker 3: people to have that because not everybody can afford, you know,
Speaker 3: the expensive doctors.
Speaker 2: Why do you think there's such a shortage elson.
Speaker 3: I think doctors are going into they have big loans,
Speaker 3: they're going into jobs, they're going into specialty practices. They
Speaker 3: don't want to really be an old time family doctor
Speaker 3: that gets to know who patients are, takes you know,
Speaker 3: gets to know their parents, their kids. It really is,
Speaker 3: you know, it really is a valuable experience because it's
Speaker 3: you know, it's like more like a family. My clinic
Speaker 3: is run. I mean, I tell people I'm still practicing
Speaker 3: at seventy six because I want healthcare to be educational
Speaker 3: and fun. So I want people to really engage, you know,
Speaker 3: and and I'd like to be their partner in their
Speaker 3: health care, not just the doctor who tells them what
Speaker 3: to do. And I encourage them to take hold of
Speaker 3: their inner doctor, to take hold of their habits, and
Speaker 3: to look honestly at themselves and say, well, what's underlying this.
Speaker 3: I wrote a whole chapter in my new medicine book
Speaker 3: on understanding the causes of disease, and it really has
Speaker 3: to do with our habits. It has to do with
Speaker 3: are we getting all the nutrients we need or we're
Speaker 3: getting too many toxins that interfere and inflame us and
Speaker 3: causes problems. And once you get you start getting good
Speaker 3: nourishment in and you get rid of some of the
Speaker 3: junk and the irritants. Hey, you guess what, You start
Speaker 3: to feel better pretty quickly.
Speaker 2: Generally, Y also, do you think most people are unhealthy or healthy?
Speaker 3: I think most people get into layers of illness when
Speaker 3: they have problems and symptoms, and they just cover them
Speaker 3: up with treatment, which is helpful, but not everybody wants
Speaker 3: to make the changes they need to do. So I
Speaker 3: think by and large, I mean, if you look at
Speaker 3: I think twenty year olds are not as healthy as
Speaker 3: they used to be. Fifty year olds are probably a
Speaker 3: little healthier than they used to be because they're kind
Speaker 3: of awakened a little bit more. But I think it's
Speaker 3: really individual. I mean, we all have a mixture of
Speaker 3: you know, good health sides and poor health side. So
Speaker 3: I think generally people are you know, are themselves.
Speaker 2: Are you a booster? And supplements and things like that,
Speaker 2: which I've been taking all my life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do a lot of natural therapies in our clinic,
Speaker 3: and you know, I probably have three hundred different products,
Speaker 3: you know, mostly professional grade ones, and you know, we
Speaker 3: use we use that as part of our experience. I mean,
Speaker 3: everyone of my patients has a different diet, set of
Speaker 3: supplements and medicines that they take, so in that way,
Speaker 3: they're a unique experiment and they pay attention to. I
Speaker 3: mean I've lectured to you know, you know, around the
Speaker 3: world and all over the country less of now, mostly online.
Speaker 3: But I realized that when I talk to doctor, they say,
Speaker 3: you have to know that everything we do in medicine
Speaker 3: is an experiment because you don't know what the result
Speaker 3: will be until you do it, and it's really an experience.
Speaker 3: The patient has an experience just because of you know,
Speaker 3: a certain drug work for somebody doesn't mean it's going
Speaker 3: to work for the other person, and so you have
Speaker 3: to just pay attention to that. People have to listen
Speaker 3: to their body. The doctor has to listen to the patient.
Speaker 3: And you know, I tell people I practice with kindness
Speaker 3: and respect for you to really embrace who you are,
Speaker 3: and you know, the philosophy of being a preventive medicine
Speaker 3: doctor or a barefoot doctor. You know where in China,
Speaker 3: you know, they were paid to keep people well. You know,
Speaker 3: to me is the key, and I think, you know,
Speaker 3: there's not a lot of young people. I mean, I'd
Speaker 3: love to have a new a new doctor come in
Speaker 3: that I can kind of train a bit and you know,
Speaker 3: kind of take over. I just you know, I've been
Speaker 3: at my clinic for forty years and I don't want
Speaker 3: to I don't want it to lose that. We serve
Speaker 3: a lot of people in the community.
Speaker 2: So, you know, well, good for you with y Nelson Haws.
Speaker 2: His website is linked up at Coast to Coast am
Speaker 2: dot com. On April twenty seventh, He's got a whole
Speaker 2: self detox program. We'll tell you about that tonight and
Speaker 2: make sure you take down some notes on that and
Speaker 2: people can get to that link through your general website too,
Speaker 2: can't they. Doctor.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, seltonhas md dot com or the whole self
Speaker 3: detox dot com.
Speaker 2: Yes, were you born in Michigan?
Speaker 3: I was born in Detroit. Yeah, raised went to Mumford
Speaker 3: High School. Then I went to ann Arbor and I
Speaker 3: was there in the late sixties and early seventies and
Speaker 3: left there. When I had a chance to go intern,
Speaker 3: I said, I'm going to Berkeley, and then I worked
Speaker 3: at Highland House School in Oakland, and then I just
Speaker 3: went into practice. So I got I kind of jumped
Speaker 3: out of underground into med school early, and then I
Speaker 3: jumped into practice. So I just said, I got to
Speaker 3: get out there and do it. And I wanted to
Speaker 3: change how medical practice is done. And you know, I'm
Speaker 3: happy that I think I've done that in a good
Speaker 3: in a good way, and it's still working. And I have,
Speaker 3: you know, lots of patients who are appreciating the team
Speaker 3: that I have, and you know, we have a really
Speaker 3: good team of people that still love working together and
Speaker 3: serving our community.
Speaker 2: A lot of people will ask you when we take
Speaker 2: phone calls next hour, what are some of the things
Speaker 2: I can do right now to start changing my life?
Speaker 2: What do you tell them?
Speaker 3: Pay attention, listen to your body, start to breathe more.
Speaker 2: What do you mean by breathing more?
Speaker 3: I just pay attention to your breathing a little deeper,
Speaker 3: inhaling and breathing out through your nose. My son's been
Speaker 3: studying this a lot, and it's already beda practice, you know,
Speaker 3: just to walk, you know, when you're exercising, when you're
Speaker 3: walking outside, and hail through your nose and let it,
Speaker 3: you know, and then just let it out. You can
Speaker 3: breathe in and out for your nose. So that's one thing.
Speaker 3: And just you know, to me, pay attention to what's
Speaker 3: going on between your ears. You know, you have stories
Speaker 3: that you tell yourself that hold you back. Do you
Speaker 3: have things that upset you know? How can we address that?
Speaker 3: You know? And besides that, we have all the nutritional
Speaker 3: and uh, you know, dietary changes that people can do.
Speaker 3: I mean, most everybody George has hooks on you know
Speaker 3: what I call the snack habits s NACC, sugar and nicotine, alcohol,
Speaker 3: caffeine chemicals. Yeah, you know, we've talked about this before,
Speaker 3: about you know, the detox. So I think the first
Speaker 3: level that people can do is like, maybe I should
Speaker 3: take a few weeks off from my habits of X,
Speaker 3: Y and Z, you know, and just see what happens.
Speaker 3: How much do I need those things? How can I
Speaker 3: embrace uh, you know, a new a new feeling by
Speaker 3: not being dependent on that. You know, do we need
Speaker 3: caffeine for energy. What about can we use nutrients for energy?
Speaker 3: You know, so some things like that. I mean, there's
Speaker 3: a lot of deeper things that we can do. You know,
Speaker 3: I want people to start visualizing their health and visualizing
Speaker 3: a certain amount of peace within. Can we calm ourselves
Speaker 3: and we calm our minds, Can we calm our emotions.
Speaker 3: Can we connect to our essence, our purpose, our spirit?
Speaker 2: You know, I see more and more people doc walking
Speaker 2: with walkers or canes, generally elderly, some of them not,
Speaker 2: but more and more people than I've ever seen in
Speaker 2: my life. What's happening there.
Speaker 3: You should see how many people I see who have
Speaker 3: new joints. They're you know, they're bionic people. They have
Speaker 3: these and hips, and it's just as part of what medicine,
Speaker 3: the tech, you know. I mean, I have a slide
Speaker 3: in my intro talk I just did recently, you know,
Speaker 3: it says, you know, it's kind of computer images on
Speaker 3: the screen and it's like technology and beyond, but also
Speaker 3: back to the basics. So I mean, we had, you know,
Speaker 3: a lot of people, I mean I've had I have
Speaker 3: a lot of patients who have they can't walk to
Speaker 3: the pain in their hip and ourthrits in their hip.
Speaker 3: They get a new joint, Hey, they can walk again.
Speaker 3: They feel better. So, you know, there's a lot of
Speaker 3: benefits that we have in technology, and you know, we
Speaker 3: use Western medicine to repair things. But we can reverse
Speaker 3: a lot of the progressive degenerative diseases I called the
Speaker 3: triad of problems high cholesterol, high blood pressure, high blood sugar,
Speaker 3: and the diseases that come and progress with that. We
Speaker 3: can change a lot of that with just differences in lifestyle,
Speaker 3: difference in the food we eat, difference in handling our stress,
Speaker 3: you know, changing our attitude. You know what I call
Speaker 3: my five keys to staying healthy.
Speaker 2: What do you think of moderate exercise?
Speaker 3: Stock I think moderate and even more dynamic active exercise,
Speaker 3: but a good balance and exercise, you know, I want
Speaker 3: you know, I mean people who are you know, a
Speaker 3: little overweight or heavier up top, you know, shouldn't and
Speaker 3: they're aging, you know, shouldn't probably be running because running
Speaker 3: is a stressful thing on the body. But you can
Speaker 3: use the treadmill, you can use an elliptical, but I
Speaker 3: think people need a good combination. And I know I
Speaker 3: exercise probably six hours a week, three different times at
Speaker 3: the gym, I do elliptical, and I do recomb and
Speaker 3: bike and I do some weights and then I do
Speaker 3: some stretching and I do some swim and you know jacuzzi,
Speaker 3: and I fine, My body feels refreshed, My endorphins come up.
Speaker 3: You know, it just helped me feel happy. So I
Speaker 3: think people need a good balance of stretching, wait for
Speaker 3: you know, and you know, get flexibility, waits for strength,
Speaker 3: cardio for endurance. So I think, you know, we need
Speaker 3: more than Yeah, we need regular exercise for sure. People
Speaker 3: feel better when they do that.
Speaker 2: How much of all this is just plain common sense?
Speaker 3: Much of it? Much of it is like what did
Speaker 3: it take? You know, we don't we don't educate our
Speaker 3: young people, and we never we never have. We got
Speaker 3: pushed into four food groups and you know, eat a bunch,
Speaker 3: drink a bunch of milk, eat a bunch of cheese,
Speaker 3: eat some meat, and you know, throw a few vegetables
Speaker 3: in there, and then all the fast foods we've gotten.
Speaker 3: We've you know, we've altered the body, and we've created
Speaker 3: a lot of obesity, and we've created a lot of inflammation.
Speaker 3: And you know, people need to wake up from that
Speaker 3: it's it's not a healthy path. But the common sense is,
Speaker 3: you know, for most people common sense maybe I can
Speaker 3: just go get a fast food a meal for you know,
Speaker 3: three dollars, and you know that's sensible to them, but
Speaker 3: it's not healthy.
Speaker 2: What changes a person's pattern where you know, you're there
Speaker 2: in their twenties, thirties, forties, but then when they get
Speaker 2: to their sixties and seventies, they seemed to deteriorate quicker.
Speaker 3: How come, well, I mean to me. You know Bethany
Speaker 3: who worked on my books with me, he's a big
Speaker 3: fan of yours. She said, people change because of crisis
Speaker 3: or vanity. You know, you're either falling apart, or you
Speaker 3: look like you're falling apart, or you put too much
Speaker 3: weight on and follow you get a wake up call.
Speaker 3: You know, I just had this all this pacing the
Speaker 3: small and he you know what, he's a healthy, youngest guy.
Speaker 3: But if cluster was high and he was worried about it,
Speaker 3: he started exercising and he dropped eighteen pounds and as
Speaker 3: cluster went down fifty points. He didn't take any medicines
Speaker 3: for it. You know that was a possibility, but he said,
Speaker 3: I want to try this first, and I said, and
Speaker 3: I bet you feel different, he said, I feel so
Speaker 3: much better. I said, and a few people tell you
Speaker 3: how you look different? Yeah, he said. The families didn't
Speaker 3: know when I first changed my diet towards is my
Speaker 3: family who are kind of generally overweight, you know, overeaters
Speaker 3: in Detroit. You know, we're like, what did you do?
Speaker 3: And I told him what I did. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: that sounds hard. You gave up this and you gave
Speaker 3: up that. I said, yeah, I started eating healthy, vital
Speaker 3: food and that makes a big difference.
Speaker 2: The greatest compliment to DOC is when you haven't seen
Speaker 2: somebody in a couple of years and they see you
Speaker 2: and go, you look great exactly, and they really mean it.
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