Chiropractic and Sports with Dr. Ken Kaufman | 020

Dr. Fab Mancini: Hi. This is Dr Fauci Mancini. I'm super excited to be with you today, because I have one of the greatest chiropractors of all times, Dr Ken Kaufman, and a dear friend and somebody that actually has spent most of his life helping individuals like you. So Ken, it's so great to see you again. Thanks for making the time to be with us.

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Thank you, Dr Mancini, I really appreciate it. I'm very excited to be here today.

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, let's talk a little bit about, first of all, how you got into healthcare, because I know that you were an athlete before. So tell me this journey of why healthcare and why did you choose to go more the holistic way when you could have gone and become a medical doctor or maybe potentially an orthopedic surgeon helping other athletes out there.

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Well, when I first got into you know what, I grew up in Michigan, but then I moved down to Florida. Right after my first semester of college, my parents moved down here, and so I moved down, worked in the family business for a little while, worked too many 80 hour weeks, and decided I'm going to go back to school. And I was fortunate to be in Venice, Florida, which is just south of me. Now. My mentor was a very, very well known family that was, you know, helped to start light Chiropractic College in Atlanta, Georgia. And so I had a wonderful mentor, and I was actually a chiropractic patient. My father, you know, had problems when we lived in Michigan, and so he would take me and my brother to go see the chiropractor every once in a while. And so I really liked it. It was interesting, because the first two times I got adjusted, I got sick afterwards. And so when he asked me if you wanted to, you know, go get adjusted again. I'm like, Well, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to get sick. And they explained to me how, well, if you have, like, a subclinical infection in your body, and you get adjusted now your immune system is working. You're really not sick. You're healthier, and just getting rid of that, that infection or virus or whatnot. So I was very intrigued by chiropractic, right from the very beginning. I think I my first adjustment when I was 14 years old. And then when we moved down, one of the first things I did was try to find a chiropractor down here. And fortunately, I was with Dr Chris siga Fauci, who was my, ultimately became my mentor. And he, yeah, he loved what he did. He was, you know, had a lot of fun. His patients loved him. He drove a nice car. You know, of course, when you're, you know, 20 years old, that that that's an important thing. And then he just inspired me to, you know, pursue chiropractic care and as a profession. And when my I was married at the time, and when I was discussing this with my wife, we went

to Sherman College in South Spartanburg, South Carolina, and I heard Reggie Reggie gold speak. And halfway through Reggie gold's program, my wife, at the time, turned around and looked at me. She says, you're going to be a chiropractor. And that was all she wrote. And so that's how I that's how I got into it.

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, you can always interesting because you mentioned some of the greatest legends in chiropractic. So just like I've always felt very blessed that incredible people have poured on me and so in me things that I wasn't able to see at that time, when I was so young. Yeah, sure. So let's talk a bit about the premise of chiropractic. What was it about the chiropractic philosophy understanding that really called you to become a chiropractor and to spend the last 30 years serving so many people through your center and all the things that you

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Yeah, I think the thing that it just the philosophy of a chiropractic really resonated with me to where, you know, we're made in the image of God, and that our, you know, we have this innate intelligence that is smarter than any pill or drug or therapy or anything like that, and that we have this unique and inborn wisdom that allows us to heal and function. You know, the whole idea of that. You know, two cells to come together at fertilization, and then a fully formed human being is born nine months later. There's got to be a divine aspect to that and how it functions. And that same intelligence doesn't you know that that that had the power to, you know, create you as a human being from two cells didn't leave you from the moment you were born, it was, it's still in you. And we have this remarkable ability to heal, and all we have to do is is, you know, provide the right building blocks and basically just get out of the way. And that's what attracted me to chiropractic above, you know, going to medical school and, you know, learning about the pharmacology and surgeries and, you know, treating disease, I wanted to help promote health

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, and it's interesting, because for me, the idea of trying to find the root causes of our name diseases out there, I never really was a big fan of giving a name to a series of symptoms and expect. Know that every patient is going to be treated the same. Yeah. Because we're all individuals, we have, not only, you mentioned our innate intelligence, which is the wisdom of the body that guides the body to stay balanced, but also, you all have different lifestyles, right? There are some people out there that live in weathers like today, I'm in Florida, and it's beautifully sunny. I'm looking at the ocean, and you got somebody in Alaska that is freezing when so tell me a little bit about from a chronic perspective, we know that right now, 90% of our healthcare bill is chronic diseases like heart disease, arthritis, cancer, diabetes, obesity. Now is cutting crazy. Tell me a little bit about your approach towards chronic disease. What is it that you feel most people still don't get or maybe potentially don't understand because of the way that they've been conditioned by the traditional medical system? What is it that you discover over the last 30 years, where you are getting results on patients when, unfortunately, other providers are not,

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Yeah, I think I'm glad you brought that up, because it is so profound to understand that if you look at how they you know, as you said, they come up with a name for a series of different symptoms for somebody, And then the way they test any intervention with that is to try to isolate it down, to remove any variable possible, to see if that intervention, that medication, that drug, if that actually, you know, works. Unfortunately, as human beings, we cannot isolate ourselves from other variables. Those variables, just by logic, are involved in how the human body functions, how the human body heals. And so you have to take that all into consideration. When you're dealing with the patient, their lifestyle makes a huge impact. And I think the you know, it's easy to reach for a drug. It's easy to reach for, you know, an anti inflammatory medication if you have inflammation in the body. But when you don't understand how inflammation is actually a critical component to the healing process, you know, it's, you know, you're trying to suppress the body's innate wisdom that's trying to heal the body, and you're putting something in that has been tested through trying to isolate every single variable, but that the variables play a role in how somebody is going to heal and their longevity. So the toxins in your environment, the foods that you're eating, the preservatives in the foods, the toxic water, the you know, your thought process and your high stress levels and that type of thing that cannot be isolated out into the end of the factor. So when dealing with patients coming to, you know, trying to devise a program for a patient to restore their health, you have to take all those into consideration, and you can't isolate everything out well.

Dr. Fab Mancini: And it's interesting, because I have discussions, and I'm out there talking to people all the time, and so many people still are completely ignorant that there is more to the story we've been told all these years. You know, yeah, the idea of, oh, if you want to prevent the flu, get a flu shot. I mean, that never makes to us. So we never did it as a family. But I see so many people that do that, the idea that if you have high blood pressure now you're going to have to learn to take this pill for the rest of your life with a chance to heal itself, which is naturally designed to do. Let's talk a little bit about the world of sports, because you'll be doctor for some of the sports, professional sports team you were an athlete. You take care of some of the biggest names out there in sports. Tell me, you know, most people are revered by sports, right? They're like the celebrities of all times. Whenever somebody does something is like, oh my gosh, everybody's gonna do it. Tell me a little bit about what you have found that professional athletes do, especially under your care, that keeps them healthy. That may be other people out there that may not be professional athletes, but they should actually consider doing so they can be healthy too. Yeah.

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Well, I always tell my patients you, you know, because of my exposure and learning about professional athletes and what they go through and what they do, you know, a professional athlete has to rely on their body and their function and, you know, optimizing their health and operating in a very high level for their income, okay? And I think that a lot of the general public kind of loses the loses themselves and puts their own health on the back burner, you know, because their their income and their their work and their purpose is, you know, in finance or in construction or whatever it is. The problem with that is, is that we still, and it doesn't matter if you're a professional athlete or a regular human being, your body operates in this. Same same manner, and it responds the same way to stress and toxins and poor food choices, lack of exercise, the lack of flexibility, stress and all those things. So I always tell my patients, if you want to have a high performance body, you have to train in high performance way. And that's not to say that you have to quit your job and exercise all the time, but strategizing your health and your daily lifestyle. Daily lifestyle centered around helping to promote a high performance is going to affect not only your health, but also your job, because you'll have more energy, you won't be fatigued, you'll have more focus, so it can actually increase your earning potential just because you're operating at a high capacity, not to mention the fact that the influence that you can have on others when they see you and they go, Wow, what are you doing? You look so healthy. And then they find out what I'm doing, and they're like, I don't know if I could do that. Well, if you want to, there's no shortcuts. And that's, I think part of the problem in healthcare is there's a big divergence on, you know, what can be done easily and quickly. So, for example, taking pharmaceutical medications, as opposed to,

okay, I actually have to change my lifestyle now. And unfortunately, too many people wait until a heart attack, a diagnosis of cancer, a diagnosis of type two diabetes, or some, you know, issue, some health issue that they all of a sudden wake up and go, Oh, wow, I should probably take care of my lifestyle now and eat better and get more exercise so I don't treat a professional athlete any different than I treat a regular patient. They all function the same. They heal the same. There's motivations might be a little bit different, but everybody wants to feel better, have more energy, have more longevity, and not just live longer, but to live better. So that's really the emphasis is, you know, our tagline in the office is, you don't have to be a pro to be treated like one, because, you know, we treat everybody exactly the same, and it's, you know, hey, look, you got to look at your lifestyle. You got to lose some weight. But, you know, giving them the tools to be able to do that, not just saying it. And

Dr. Fab Mancini: I think that's a key, because a lot of people, if you ask them, they know pretty much the things they need to do. They just somehow are blocked, or they need the resources or motivation or even accountability to be able to address it and do something about it, and not just think about it, but do it. Let's talk a little bit. You mentioned the word longevity, and as you know, in healthcare, that is a big word that a lot of people are searching in Google. It's become one of the most searched words in Google. I believe it's the reason that people not only want to live longer, they want to live a better quality of life. And something in our space called regenerative medicine, and you've been in this space for a while, and we have things like natural substances, like stem cells, peptides and others like that. Nutrition. I mean, our nutrition has evolved so much over the last 25 years, there's incredible ingredients out there that science has proven can actually make a great contribution towards preventing or even potentially reversing a condition out there. Tell me a little bit about your viewpoint of regenerative medicine and and what role does it play in helping us hopefully prevent you know some of these conditions that we're seeing today, or even if we see some of these symptoms, what can we do to try to reverse that?

Dr. Ken Kaufman: Well, in regenerative medicine, as opposed to traditional allopathic approaches. The emphasis in the allopathic model is to take pharmaceutical interventions to suppress and to treat different symptoms. You know, if you have, you know, the you brought up high blood pressure a little while ago, high blood pressure is is just a symptom of something else that's dysfunctional in the body. And if you take a medication to bring the blood pressure down, you have not addressed that underlying cause. In regenerative medicine, our emphasis is to find that underlying cause of the condition and any concomitant or, you know, lifestyle factors that are contributing to that particular condition. You know the easiest example, and this is something obviously because if we're in sports medicine, in sports medicine, regenerative sports medicine, if somebody has pain in their knee and they have inflammation, the traditional kind of approach is, well, let's give you a cortisone injection and see if it helps. Well, cortisone, as you know, shuts off inflammation. Oftentimes can, like, get rid of the pain, but the in regenerative medicine, we look at it as to, all right, why is the knee hurting? Is it due to unstable ligaments? Is it due to a meniscus tear? Is it due to arthritis? What is the underlying etiology, or the underlying cause of the pain and the swelling that might be happening? And so. So that approach is takes a little longer, but when we address the underlying cause, we can actually correct that, that issue, and have better outcomes, long, long term, to where, you know the traditional approaches, cortisone injection, six months later, another cortisone injection, and then, basically, that's the approach, maybe some physical therapy, but that's the approach, until they ultimately knee replacement, because they never address that underlying cause. So in regenerative medicine, it's the you know, as the name says it's to help regenerate and supply

the building blocks and the tools that the body needs to actually heal and leverage that innate wisdom that we have to heal is just sometimes. You know that innate wisdom needs some help. It needs not not helps, necessarily. It really doesn't need help. It just needs the right building blocks and the right tools to be able to accomplish its goal, and that's for health and longevity.

Dr. Fab Mancini: You know, it's interesting. Over the last 38 years, I have seen so much improvement in people's lives without relying on some of these pharmaceutical injections, opioids that can be addictive. As you know, you have a huge opioid addiction in the United States, bigger anywhere. So this gives people an option to realize that pain is just a symptom. I call it the alarm system of the body. It's only there warn you, to guide you as to where the problem may be. And one way keep asking the questions, and maybe now that we have functional testing, you know, we can actually test for markers and things that give us a better education, the root cause of the problem may be, and I believe beautiful about all this is that patients now have a choice, and that's really one of my main messages. I want people to understand you don't have to rely on the same information that you've been given over the years, right? I have not gotten outcomes, or they're not getting you well. I mean, how many athlete lives, how many careers have you saved through a functional, holistic way, rather than individuals that told you when they came to see you, they were told by the traditional providers that their career was over. I mean, I had it happen with a path to this cook. I was in that space for 15 years where people were telling me, look, they told me, I can't do this anymore. And we would take care of them through chiropractic adjustments and maybe laser and nutrition, if we had access to other things, we would do that. And then the next day they would play and win a gold ghetto and they were like, how is that possible? But let's little bit about the mindset of healing, because one of the things that I want people to understand, that behavior is one thing. But I believe really everything starts with a mindset, how we see ourselves, what we think is possible. Tell me a little bit about maybe three suggestions of, how do you instill the healing mindset in your patients,

regardless of what resources are coming from to your office. What is it that you feel? Because I know that as an athlete, your mindset had to be so sharp to be able to know that your body's ability were greater than those around you, right? You push yourself, yeah. Coach is usually there to say you can do this. Kevin, you know, just come on, man, you can do this. Just so a little bit longer. Just try one more time. Let's practicing. How do you instill the healing mindset in your patients? Well,

Dr. Ken Kaufman: I use, basically use some of the professional athletes that I've had the opportunity and blessed to be able to be around and help. And the motivation only lasts so long. You know, you can get yourself motivated for a few days a week, but then life kind of gets in the way and you don't follow through. So that's why people that's why, you know, everyone starts a diet and they can't stick with it. So the main thing in the first part of the mindset is really understanding what a solid plan is, and in getting a plan that makes sense, that resonates with you, that you know, entails, you know, diet and exercise, you know, obviously it comes down to that. And then the other thing is discipline, and not discipline from the standpoint where, you know, I need to get up and do this like for example, for me personally, I get up at 5am every day, and I have one hour where I can, I can journal, I can read the Bible, and then I can read a book that's going to help, you, know, help me in business or finance or health or whatever. That is a discipline thing that I don't miss that is my commitment to myself, and that is the the most important mindset to have is to have that commitment for yourself. Too many people, especially if they're married, or they have kids, or, you know, they have business, they have jobs, they have work, they have a tendency to put themselves on the back burner. Particularly women. Women. Women are, you know, the nurturers, and they want to, you know, they have to take care of their family and their husband and their their kids and and that type of thing. And so they put themselves on the back burner. And that is the actual opposite approach. You need to make sure you set aside time and be disciplined with being able to help promote your health. If that means healthier eating, it's you got to come up with a plan, commit to that plan and have the discipline to follow every single day, because it is a daily habit, and you have to stick

with it long enough to have it ingrained in you to where if you miss for whatever reason, it feels off your day is just not right and and you know, creating that will create the momentum that you need to be able to reclaim your health, promote your longevity, and you know, live longer and live better and influence your family and people around you as well,

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well. And I'm glad that you mentioned that that was going to be my last question to you, and that is, there's a lot of parents right now that are really struggling in influencing their kids towards not only healthy lifestyles like eating non grasses foods, trying to stay away from that sugar, all those snacking that really suffice the body. Tell me a little bit about maybe some of the tips that you have used in your own family to try to encourage your own children to be able to be as healthy as they can be.

Dr. Ken Kaufman: That's a great question. And here's the interesting my wife now, she is she has a background, and her first business was called I train your kids. And she taught children how to eat better and exercise and that type of thing. So the the her training was for the parents. It wasn't for the kids. They've done studies where, if you take, you know, elementary school kids, and put out, you know, donuts and cookies and also fruit. For the kids, they'll go for the fruit before they'll go for the the other stuff, okay, it's really the, you know, the advent of fast foods and, you know, getting something quick that has transitioned and allowed parents to be able to, you know, and I'm not saying they're lazy, because we've done it before. It's, it's tempting, it's tempting to be able to do that, but when you start somebody off young, they develop a taste for the sugar and the preservatives. They literally do crave the preservatives, the fats and the oils and different things like that. It makes them crave that, and it makes them overeat. And there's certain foods that will shut the leptin off in the brain, which leptin is an important neurotransmitter to say, Hey, you're full. Don't eat anymore. If that's shut off, you continue to eat. And that's that. That's the issue. The other component of that is understanding that kids innately will go for healthier foods if given the choice, and have that available all the time. But one of the most important things that somebody can do is to not try to dictate what the kid is going to eat. Let's say they're now a, you know, pre teen or early teenager. By that time, you've ingrained a lot, you can't dictate and say, hey, you need to eat this way. All of a sudden, everyone's going to change. And what my wife has discovered is that if you take and you go to the child and say, Look, I want to be healthier. Will you help me? Because the kid will go, absolutely, Mom, I'll help you. And they'll, they'll, all of a sudden,

they'll start to absorb information and to help their mom or help their dad be healthier. Because what kid doesn't want their, you know, for the most part, they they want their, you know, parents around long time, maybe, maybe not for teenagers, but you know what I get anyways. The point is, is that asking, you know, leading by example, but then also asking them to help, and that will influence the child, or the kid to start eating better and adopt healthier lifestyles, because now you're doing it as a family, and you're doing it together, and you have some accountability too.

Dr. Fab Mancini: Well, I love it, because at the end of the day, we know that also our example, the way we live our lives, is probably the greatest little that's all I kept saying to myself, is if I want my kids to follow something or do something. I needed to model it for them, because they were watching more did than listening to what I said, Right, absolutely, and that watching way means my life, and now watching them be 28 and 25 with such healthy lifestyles, and being able to bring that and surround themselves with healthy friends and all of that. Because, yeah, they've been patient. They've been trained in a whole different paradigm, and that's the kind of paradigm that they want to live, because they know is one that is full of not only energy excitement, but also not a lot of no symptoms. And. Yeah, and being able to be as healthy as you can be so well, Ken, I just want to say thank you so much for the amazing work that you do in Sarasota. You build one of the greatest facilities. And I'm going to put all your information right here. So anybody that would like to come see you, they will go right there, ask you any questions. They can reach you right there in your office, and more importantly, for people to recognize the value that you have given the healthcare system, but also the chiropractic profession as a true leader of what is possible in creating a lifestyle center that really not only helps all these amazing athletes that you have going through there, but also their families, because we live in a society, everybody needs some guidance, some care. And I know Sarasota is growing so so much right now, people need to go and really get the benefits that they need. And especially if you are listening right now, and maybe something that was said inspire you to think a little bit different, or maybe question the way that you have been living your lifestyle, or perhaps some of the treatments that you have been following without ever

getting in a second or a third opinion, and a holistic provider that may be able to open up some options for You, just like we've done for 30 plus years. I'm I'm going to be a chiropractor this year, 35 years. So it's been time, but I feel like I just started, and I'm more excited today than I've ever been, because there's more people today than ever, and there's a lot of people that are just looking for an option. They just don't know where to find us. So thank you so much for your time, for all that you do, and for those of you that are listening, please seek out Dr Kent, go visit him in Sarasota, him and his staff with good care of you. And I hope that you got tremendous value from this session. I know that I did, and I will definitely see you in the next one. God Bless.