Toxic People Can Age You Faster w/ Paul Fulford | Fertility Fraud Law Passed w/ Josh Wood

Welcome to American Medicine Today, I'm Kimberly Bennati alongside Ethan Euchre. Incredible show lined up, let's get straight to it. So a new study has found that negative or even toxic people in our lives can actually contribute to faster aging pace and an older biological age. Joining us to discuss is returning guest Paul Fulford, healthy living expert and leader in the field of medical treatment systems. First off, Paul, can you define what a toxic person is or a hassler? Never heard that term in my life. Yeah, a hassler, right? So a hassler, you know, most people can at least, I think, when you think of that word, I think they can picture one person immediately. And everyone listening probably is just thought of somebody right now. A hassler is someone who consistently raises your stress instead of lowering it. There's conflict around them, criticism, unpredictability, emotional manipulation on repeat. The hassler is somebody who leaves you feeling drained every time and your body tracks every one of those interactions. I mean, this was a study, apparently. How exactly do you study how a negative person affects your health? Well, you know, the human nervous system does so many things, but subtle is not one of them. So there's like three pathways that get damaged. When you look at these things, first you're looking, cortisol stays elevated and that's your primary stress hormone. When it runs chronically, it degrades tissue, it wrecks metabolism and it suppresses immunity. Second, inflammation markers go up. Chronic inflammation is arguably the single strongest driver of aging and disease. And thirdly, you know, your sleep gets destroyed. So toxic interactions create rumination even, anxiety, and poor sleep alone accelerates aging. So what researchers are actually seeing is that stress biology running in the background like malware 24-7, you know, without your permission. Your nervous system can't tell the difference between a tiger in the jungle or your cousin starting drama Thanksgiving dinner. So like it basically reacts the same way to a stimulus. Are you supposed to like report hasslers? Like how does that work? You look at it as far as people in your lives, right? Especially if it's somebody at work or family, it's very hard to remove people that are regularly in your lives for that reason, right? So, you know, what do we do? How do we avoid those relationships or how do we like manage it, right? You can't always eliminate those people from your life, but you can change how you engage with them, right? So there's like three steps you can do is, you know, first you want to set boundaries, right? Reduce frequency of contact, short interactions and decide in advance, like what topics are off limits, right? And don't be afraid to say, Hey, you know what? I don't want to talk about that. You know, emotional detachment is the second one. Don't let like a 30 minute interaction own your next eight hours of cortisol. You know, basically, you know, deliberate mental separation after toxic encounters is important. And third, actually build stronger positive relationships. You know, for every, you know, draining interaction that you have, you need recovery protocol, you know, and you need those positive relationships because there's information out there that shows that they can recharge you and affect you. And in movement, just walking outside can change your state of being, right? The goal is not isolation. The goal is a healthier relational environment. I know you gave us some insight is part of that related to this whole biological aging process. Yes. I mean, the thing is the body is designed to live so long, right? Like we, if we have everything optimized, the body can live for well beyond what our normal average life expectancy is and stressors, whether they're physical exterior stressors or emotional stressors, that's what causes us to age, right? So basically we, you know, our bodies react to stress and our bodies are adaptive machines, right? But sometimes we adapt when things happen, like cortisol levels rise, inflammation goes up, right? And those things affect aging. Aside from toxic people. I just had a thought because, you know, I do most of my producing and guest booking and all of that stuff for the show from my home office. And I typically have the news on in the background all day long. And my wife will come home and be like, can we not watch the news? And like, so I guess my question is, is seeing all these negative stories like on the news, does that have sort of the same effect as being around a negative person? It can, you know, I actually have a good friend of mine who's a golf coach, Sean Foley. And we did a podcast together where we talked about this and he's like, do I think, you know, positive affirmations and everything are overtly impactful. He's like, I don't necessarily think that, you know, I think it's more just discipline and decision-making, you know, because you want things to be automatic. But do I think negative feedback and negative self-talk and all those things are impactful? He does, right? He's like, you know, those things seem to hit you at a cellular level much deeper depending on what angle is being taken, right? I don't know that it's any of it's overtly positive. It's like, how do you extract the data and the information out of it and then take the emotional piece out of it, right? It's hard because they're trying to keep you engaged and, you know, emotional things engaged. How can people learn more about the study? So the study was published in PNAS and the title of it is Negative Social Ties as Emerging Risk Factors for Accelerated Aging, Inflammation, and Multimorbidity, right? And it was Indiana person-to-person study. It was 2,000 participants, right? And they measured using like second and third generation DNA aging clocks or like epigenetic clocks we talked about last time with the chocolate and the coffee. And nearly 30% of those people, you know, and again, I think there's like another interesting stat. They found that they had a hassler like you brought up in their network. And I think that's conservative. I think that there's a lot more hasslers than people realize in their environment. They've just gotten numb to it. Well, we don't want to live in a numbed society. Thank you so much, Paul Fulford, healthy living expert, a leader in the field of medical treatment systems. Thank you for being on to discuss negative and toxic people and how we just need to avoid that at all costs. Thank you for having me, Kimberly and Ethan. I appreciate it. Make sure you stay tuned. We'll have more after the break. You are watching American Medicine Today. I'm very pleased that the leg is cleared up. After four days of treatment, I'm encouraged. Dr. Bonatti has done a real good job and I wish I had found him 20 years ago. Bruce is a recent patient at the Bonatti Spine Institute. He shares his inspirational story with us in hopes to help others suffering with debilitating spine pain. I'm originally from Adrian, Michigan. We live in the villages of Florida. I've been very active all my life. I was an athlete. I was into sports all through high school and college. Bruce's pain affected every aspect of his daily life. I started with a pain level of about 10. I've had sciatica and lower back pain and stenosis. And that's primarily been up and down my leg and my lower back. At night when I'd go to sleep, I'd have to get in a certain position or I couldn't go to sleep. It's painful when I walk. I could only go maybe 30 feet and I'd have to stop and sit down. I have a cane. I also have a walker on wheels that also has a little seat on it if I need to stop and sit. And that has really been very helpful. Bruce sought medical help from numerous doctors. All any of them would offer him was conservative treatments and pain injections. I've been to eight different doctors. We went to the doctors in Gainesville, Shands Hospital. And the Dr. Patel there told me that surgery would probably only be 50% successful. And he said he would not recommend surgery. He thought the injection would probably be the best approach. And I felt like a pincushion. I had 15 to 20 injections. That's not an answer. Physical types of therapy. And I also had a TENS unit. Nothing seemed to last. I'd get some relief for maybe a week to 10 days and then the pain would return. That's when Bruce saw an advertisement for an educational seminar presented by the Bonatti Spine Institute taking place near his home at The Villages in Florida. And it introduced Dr. Bonatti. And his ad had like, oh, maybe a dozen different treatments for sciatica, for stenosis, for lower back pain. I had all of those. I had all of those problems. And I said to my wife, hey, I want to go to this guy and see if he's for real. And let me tell you, Dr. Bonatti is real. I appreciate all the experience he's had. Over 40 years he's been in business. Bruce met with Dr. Bonatti one-on-one at the seminar, and they went over his imagery to determine if he was a good candidate for the exclusive Bonatti spine procedures. I had an MRI to show him. And he looked at that and it didn't take him 10 minutes. He said, oh, you've got four different areas that we're going to have to do a treatment. He outlined everything he was going to do. That's when he got into the detail of the discs and the problem that your spine has. He was very direct and made things simple for us to understand. And he really was very convincing. The targeted Bonatti spine procedures are performed incrementally using conscious IV sedation. This keeps the patient comfortable while also awake and communicating with their surgeon to ensure the source of their pain is eliminated before they leave the operating table. My leg has really reduced a lot. And that's where I had the majority of my pain before I came in here. I'm very pleased that the leg is cleared up. And today, I really feel a lot better. So I'm convinced this is the right thing to do. After four days of treatment, I'm encouraged. Dr. Bonatti has done a real good job. At the Bonatti Spine Institute, patients don't have to wear an uncomfortable brace after a procedure. Instead, they are instructed to walk about 40 minutes a day. Actually, if I walk more each day, I seem to improve. So I've got to concentrate on that. Bruce highly recommends the Bonatti Spine Institute to anyone suffering with neck or back pain. I definitely would recommend this procedure to anyone. The Institute is great. I'm sure glad I found him. And I wish I had found him 20 years ago. Bruce is excited to get back home and returning to his active lifestyle. Oh yeah, I'm ready to get home. And I have been active in the villages where we live, playing volleyball, water volleyball, and golf, play a lot of golf. So I'm hoping that I can get back into doing that. To see more stories of recovery just like this, search for the Bonatti Spine Institute on YouTube, Rumble, Apple's App Store, Google's Play Store, Roku, and Amazon Spire TV. Welcome back to American Medicine Today. I'm Kimberly Bonatti alongside Ethan Euker. South Dakota just unanimously passed a new fertility fraud law, making it a felony for a doctor to secretly substitute sperm during fertility treatments. Joining us to discuss is Josh Wood, Executive Director of Them Before Us, who is also closely involved with getting this bill passed. Thank you for joining us, Josh. Hey, thanks for having me. So first off, can you tell us more about this Netflix documentary, Our Father, that inspired this bill? Well, yeah. So in Indiana, it was 2019. There was a doctor that ended up swapping in his own sperm for the father, intended father of these usually happening in IVF, and only found out because of one of those 23andMeAncestry.com kind of genetic tests. And suddenly, they found they had many siblings in a very small area, and that their father was not who they thought they were. And so Netflix did a documentary, 2022, raised awareness of it. And I think what really got people was, well, of course, this form of essentially medical rape is not able to be prosecuted. And the guy ended up only, despite this horrible crime, only having a $500 fine. Didn't he father like 94 kids or something? I didn't see the documentary, but I read a write-up about it. And did they ever figure out what his motivation was? He's just weird. Yeah, it was over 90 different children. And I mean, he had a desire to mess with children's biology. It was a form of control. And again, he only pled guilty in the end to obstruction of justice, paid a small fine. And that's when people began to say, this industry is unbelievably unregulated. We need to, it matters. And that's why South Dakota ended up jumping in, is it matters? They wrote into law what every DNA test proves, that biology matters immensely to children. It's also interesting that the bill passed unanimously given the polarized nature of politics nowadays. So Republicans and Democrats were all aboard together on this bill. I mean, I think that's just absolutely unbelievable in today's climate. But people recognize this was one of the first times it's only, so this is the breaking news. It's only criminalized now in 15 states. So this is still prevalent, but people recognize when we make the case that children deserve to have their biological identity secured, that it shouldn't be violated, that no child should be forced to live a lie about their DNA due to an adult thinking, nah, this doesn't matter. It's inconsequential. People respond to that. Can you explain what the real harm is experienced by the fertility fraud victims? Yeah, and this is important because so much of this conversation goes to, oh, the parents didn't get what they intended to get. And I think oftentimes in fertility, we can make it seem like the child is a product. The victim here is a child who grows up in a home thinking he's connected to his father, when his real father, that biological connection has been taken away from him. I mean, this bill, it acknowledges biological identity is permanent. It's fixed. It's meaningful. It matters. It's not a bureaucratic detail that you can buy and sell or swap. And so I love that the legislator stood up and said, no, it matters in this state, and every single one of us agree on that. So how do you think this law is going to shape the national conversation about children's rights? I mean, that's obviously a motivation behind this law. Oh, yeah. And then before us, the organization I lead, we believe firmly that a child has a right to their mother and father. And I think this type of law, what it does is it raises awareness that this industry, this fertility industry, is unregulated. It has no one to guide it, and it believes that children can just be swapped and put wherever they want with any two parents. It doesn't matter who the are. And I think that that idea, that ideology has to die with this. Hopefully this bill will be a part of that. We're going to take a quick break. We'll be right back with Josh Wood after this. You are watching American Medicine Today. Revolutionary in his field, Dr. Benati created, perfected, and patented the Benati spine procedures. Using his genius, Benati invented the precise tools necessary to minimize surgery, scarring, anesthesia, and recovery. So successful are the Benati spine procedures, they consistently reflect 98.75% patient satisfaction. 80,000 procedures have been performed exclusively at our location. Nearly half our patients have suffered from failed back and neck surgeries at other facilities. Benati succeeds where others fail. Welcome back to American Medicine Today. We're continuing our discussion with Josh Wood. What do you think about South Dakota kind of setting that precedent for the other states? Do you think they'll follow suit? Yes. The legislators who took this on, Holst and Jorgensen, amazing. I mean, I think they deserve tons of credit. I think they saw a problem. They were educated about the industry and they decided this is just common sense. And obviously that's borne out in how unanimous it was. There's already been 50 documented cases of this happening other places. States shouldn't have to wait until something horrible happens. And they find 90 half-siblings. I mean, there's been cases, guys, of in small communities where this has occurred, you'll find half-siblings dating each other. And you're going to tell me that nobody else in the facility knew that the swapping of was going on. There wasn't a nurse or an assistant that figured it out. Man, just even in your own state in Florida, there was a case not too long ago where in this fertility industry, they mixed up whose embryo was whose and a couple took home a child whose skin color looked nothing like them. Well, now you've got three or four or five weeks of intense bonding with your child. You've actually gave birth to them. And now you feel this bond, but then someone else comes in and says, that's my child because I'm biologically related. And these types of swaps, I'm telling you, happen so much more than you would believe. And it's because this industry hates regulation. They want the ability to buy, sell, and swap however they want with no one looking over their shoulder. Well, I was going to say in this specific documentary, Our Father, it's the doctor himself, but the thought occurred to me that, and you just touched upon it, that it'd probably be very easy to mix up different vials. Who's keeping track of all of this stuff at the fertility clinics? Oh, man. Well, hold on to your seats. There's about seven to 10 million frozen embryos worldwide. And the regulations around storage, around tracking, sometimes these vials are decades old and they're handwritten in ink, whose baby is whose. We've had cases of people spilling these storage containers and jumbling up the vials. We've had cases of, in Alabama, a patient walked into an unsecured facility and pulled out a couple of vials containing, I think it was close to 10 children, and it burnt their hands because it was on dry ice and they dropped them, killed all 10 children. And again, there was no recompense. They ended up having to go to the Supreme Court to file a wrongful death charge. I mean, we are in the Wild West here. And the reason people get away with this is because no one is regulating the industry. Well, hopefully this creates a wave throughout the rest of the country and they all jump on board to protect fertility rights. Thank you for helping get this law passed. I mean, it's insanity that there isn't more love of family instead of feeling that you can be the creator and whatever they feel they're going to give you is what you should be able to take. Yeah, I think you've touched on it. We opened Pandora's box when we believed that we can. I mean, this industry, for example, now has moved on to polygenic testing where they will create 20 embryos and begin to do things like, I know this sounds crazy, but IQ tests. They will try to judge what their risk profile is. How are they going to be a risk taker? How smart are they going to be? How tall are they going to be? Designer children. It's called embryo. It's designer children. And that's really the key here is what this bill ultimately points out is when we try to, through these processes, allow human beings to control all of this and commodify children, the loser is always the kids. They try to play God and there is only one God. Thank you so much, Josh Wood, for being on the program, executive director of Them Before Us, and was also closely involved with getting this bill passed. Thank you for being on the show. Thanks, Josh. Thank you. Well, that's all the time we have for this episode. 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