Editor’s Note: This article is a reprint. Originally published on May 1, 2022.
Dr. David Minkoff is a pioneer in naturopathy and has an active practice in Clearwater, Florida. In this interview, we dive into some of his best strategies for improving your health and solving common health challenges that conventional medicine can’t solve.
Like me, he loves exercise and has been an avid athlete since his youth. He has completed many Ironman races in his athletic career.
“Most of my practice is with chronic patients, but I’ve worked with some very high-level athletes, and I can really help them because I understand what kind of metabolism you need to perform consistently at a high level.” He says. “I was in the lab myself, and that was very helpful.”
A trip of the moon
Minkoff has extensive medical training including adult and pediatric infectious diseases. In the year In 1995, his wife, a registered nurse, took him to a series of lectures by Jeffrey Bland, a pioneer in nutritional biochemistry, and the rest, as they say, is history.
“My lights are still on.” Minkoff says. “It was like, ‘Holy shit, this guy’s smart, and he’s reasonable, and I want to learn this.’ So I started going to courses. I went to ACAM (American College for the Advancement in Medicine) and learned how to do chelation.”
He then trained with Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, a pioneering physician and Lyme disease specialist in alternative medicine. Dr. and Dr. Thomas Rau, a Swiss doctor specializing in biological medicine.
“Going into it, I’m looking for the best people I can find to help me figure out how best to do this.” Minkoff says. “It’s been 25 years. So, I left the emergency room in 2002, and we’ve been gang members ever since.”
Now we have a very large practice, and it’s very exciting because there are many new ways to help people improve and solve problems with their bodies.
… If you have a chronic illness – high blood pressure, high cholesterol, rheumatoid arthritis, Parkinson’s disease – the prescription of conventional medicine is not very good. They may help you with symptoms, which is good for a while, but it’s leading you to an end point, which won’t be what you want.
We have seven hyperbaric chambers. We’ve been doing it for years. It’s a great treatment … we’ve been doing methylene blue for about five years … then I learned about intranasal NAD – amazing. The field is exploding with people bringing things that help people and sub zero people.
2 main reasons
Chronic pain is often caused by some cellular problem, and two of the main reasons for that are toxicity and/or poor gut health. Minkoff explains:
Half of the problems are things that shouldn’t be in the body, and half are things that are missing from the body that should be there. In some cases, there are mechanical things.
We need chiropractors, acupuncturists, massage therapists or things like that because there is no joint space or their cervical spine is out of place. Sometimes they may need surgical intervention.
But the big two are you’re poison and you’re exhausted. My approach to people is: What are those things, and what is the priority or order of those things?”
When it comes to detoxification, many things can go wrong, so it should be done under the supervision of a specialist. DMPS use, for example, can be very rough on your kidneys, and if your body is unable to excrete the toxins, releasing them from the tissues they’re trapped in can make you worse than better.
Conduct an investigation
When Minkoff sees a new patient, he has them fill out an extensive and detailed medical history, including a dental history. Then, he conducts a detailed physical examination, followed by an auto-reaction test, which allows him to identify various triggers such as toxins and infections.
“The body is so sophisticated that it says, ‘Here are my priorities. Do root canals first. Treat cavitation. Oh, yes, there’s a parasite. There’s autoimmune disease. I have chronic Epstein-Barr virus or herpes type 6.'” Minkoff explains.
Autoimmune response testing also identifies specific pathogens that cause problems. In the interview, Minkoff gave several examples of people whose health problems were solved after a specific pathogen was identified and treated.
An infected root canal is often found to be the culprit. Minkoff has a biological dentist nearby. If a dental problem is suspected, the patient is referred for a three-dimensional cone beam CT scan, which can clearly identify problem areas that cannot be seen using two-dimensional x-rays. Another very helpful test is dark-field blood analysis (live cell microscopy), which Minkoff learned to use under Rau.
“I find it very useful because sick people look bad.” He says. “Their physical exam is usually good, their reflexes are good, their hearts look good and their livers and kidneys are good (but they’re scary) … we throw the blood on there and we look at it and we’re like ‘holy smokes’. There’s bio-films on everything, there’s fibrin deposits and there’s organisms …
Two months later, he said, ‘Hey, look at this blood. This blood looks better.’ And two months later, ‘this blood looks really normal’ … it’s a whole picture of us restoring healthy physiology to this person and that’s what health is.”
Available treatments
When it comes to treatment, Minkoff has many interesting methods, including prolotherapy, ozone therapy, prolozone (combination of prolotherapy and ozone), hyperbarics, chelation, UVBI (ultraviolet blood irradiation), EBO (extracorporeal blood oxygenation), photobiomodulation and many others.
Minkoff also offers VSELs (very small embryonic type) stem cell therapy, and it has powerful results. Minkoff uses it himself and claims to have gained 7 pounds of lean body mass without making any changes to his VSELs training. He was trained in the use of VSELs by Dr. Todd Ovokaitis in San Diego.
Dr. Frank Shallenberger is a physician trained in ozone administration. Minkoff and I spoke on Dr. Shallenberger’s ozone certification courses. If you know of clinicians interested in this method, encourage them to check out the training programs designed for clinicians.
Benefits of Extra Body Oxygen and Ozone (EBOO) Therapy
EBO is a powerful way to manage ozone. It’s more effective than 10 pass ozone, but most people should start slow and work their way up to it. After being impressed with this treatment, I encouraged Tom Lowe to market his units in the US Minkoff:
“EBOO is a method of delivering oxygen and ozone to the body in a dialysis-like setting. An IV goes into an arm, goes through a machine with a pump, so the blood can be taken out of the body. This blood is exposed to very high levels of oxygen and small amounts of ozone, and then recycled.
Some newer machines expose the blood to ultraviolet light. For an hour, the blood circulates in this machine and is highly oxygenated. It’s not as refined as dialysis, but it’s exposed to this high concentration of oxygen.
And – I don’t really understand how it happens – but if they are really sick and toxic, there is a drainage tank in this container where a lot of this waste is collected. Sometimes it is foamy and yellow. Our record is 2,000 cc of this foamy fluid in a really sick person.
Sauna therapy is another excellent intervention with powerful therapeutic benefits. We haven’t had a chance to dive deep into sauna therapy, but I’ve published a deep dive on saunas with specific tips on how to identify and/or build one of the best saunas in the world – a therapy that I believe most people can benefit from.
How to increase NAD naturally
If you don’t have or can’t afford IV NAD therapy, there are three ways to raise your NAD levels naturally: calorie restriction (or time-restricted dieting, which does the same thing but is safer), vigorous exercise, and sauna therapy.
If you do those three things, you activate NAMPT, which is a precursor to NAD. Then you can use a lower dose of niacinamide (not niacin). The ideal dose is about 50 mg three times a day. This gives your body the raw material it needs to produce NAMPT. I did a good job An interview with molecular biologist Nicola Conlon On this topic you can find it on my Substack.
“I’ve put a lot of people with mitochondrial problems on[niacinamide]and found it helpful,” Minkoff says. Niacinamide is very cost effective. It will run you about 25 cents per month, while other NAD predecessors like NMN can cost you $100 or more per month.
Plasmalogen and iron test
Minkoff also uses a lipid test developed by lipid biochemist Diane Goodenow, author of “Breaking Alzheimer’s.” “I’ve learned a ton from him, and we’re going to put his challenge on everybody,” Minkoff said.
“He now has a lab that can measure plasmalogen levels, which are highly integrated components of cell membranes, and he has very good data on people with APOE4 for memory loss.”
Patients with low plasmalogen levels may be given supplements such as fatty acids to prevent their nerve function from deteriorating. In addition, Minkoff measures ferritin and iron binding in all patients, and if their hemoglobin is high, he orders a blood donation to reduce the accumulated iron. Accumulated iron is incredibly destructive, as it causes oxidative stress and is a common cause of declining health.
Basic health guide
If you have a chronic health condition, full exercise is the best way to go, but three basic tips that can improve your health include:
• Clean up your diet- Focus on whole organic foods, and avoid any and all processed foods, including restaurant fare.
• Improve your sleep – A sleep tracker can be very helpful in making sure you are getting a good night’s sleep.
• Do regular exercise- While cardio is important, strength training should be at the top of your list, especially as you get older, as muscle mass helps you live longer and lowers your risk of insulin resistance and diabetes.
