ExclusiveThis LA Doctor Uses Barbershops to Fight a Silent Epidemic | Dr. Bill Releford

I've been known as the doctor who, as they say, speaks for those who don't, who can't speak for themselves. And I've been able to save a lot of limbs in Los Angeles County. And I used my own resources to get the job done and was incredibly successful. Then the sponsors came. So sometimes spiritually, I think we have to, you know, make a few steps on our own to move forward. There's nothing more fulfilling to me. Four years later, someone would find me on Facebook or social media and they would say, you probably don't remember me, but you saved my life. Bill, it's great to have you on. Welcome. Thank you for having me. So exciting. We're excited to have you on because you've done a lot in your life. You're a doctor. Can you first tell us about your practice? Well, I've been practicing for over 35 years and as a podiatric surgeon, specializing in amputation prevention and wound care. I saw early on in my practice some very disturbing trends. People who are African-American, diabetic and are recommended for amputation. And the amputation rate in the black community is horrific and astronomical. And I decided that I would make this a part of my professional assignment. You know, when you say assignment, that means you have deliverables to humanity. You know, when you say the word purpose, that's, you know, no real quantifiable metric, so to speak. So I've made it my business to address the horrific complication of diabetes in particular, and that's the amputations. And that's how it affects African-Americans in particular. So I've dedicated my life to that. And there's a lot of work to be done in educating people on the standard of care that they deserve if they or a loved one is ever recommended for amputation. But more importantly, how to prevent that in the first place. Prevent amputation. Exactly. Now, you mentioned you decided to make this your assignment. Was there a moment that you said you have to do something about this? There was that one crowning or that crown jewel moment where several patients, one after another, were in my office. And they all said that they were recommended for amputation. In LA? In LA, in Los Angeles. And they didn't need an amputation. So I decided to get on the phone to talk to the doctor that recommended the amputation. And as a courtesy to see if they saw something that I didn't see in my clinical evaluation. So as a courtesy, I called them. And I realized that their explanation was really not founded on clinical evidence. It was perhaps due to maybe racial bias, so to speak. And I'm looking at these three patients, and I can see my grandmother. I can see my aunts. I can see my cousins. And I saw how vulnerable they were and almost even helpless and no one to speak on their behalf. And that really hit my heart that I needed to do something about that. And so I've been known as the doctor who, as they say, speaks for those who can't speak for themselves. And I've been able to save a lot of limbs in Los Angeles County from people who had preventable wounds and people who didn't need it. If you do look at the studies, 75 percent of diabetic amputations are preventable. But most people don't understand the standard of care that they deserve if, God forbid, someone wants to recommend them for an amputation. So my goal is to educate people about, number one, to prevent yourself becoming a diabetic in the first place. It's with diet, right? Diet and exercise, as you already know. Our food is absolutely horrific in this country. We have fast food that's prevalent primarily in urban communities. We have food swamps and food deserts and food swamps where you have a large density of fast food venues. And the food desert is where you got to travel a long way to get healthy, nutritious foods. So we find that many urban communities are struggling to access healthy, nutritious foods. And as a result of that, we're compromising the viability and the future of this country. To me, our nutritional crisis is the number one security crisis that we really should be concerned about. I call it this tsunami of sick people that will be coming into an already fragile health care delivery system. It's already difficult to get health care. Now, of course, you can see some of the challenges we're having with this current administration and things like that that may even further cripple the things that we're already struggling with right now. So I'm really concerned about food security and how it can affect those that are most vulnerable. Now, you decided to get ahead of this, right? What came next? Well, I did a number of things. Of course, I started seeing doing some things globally, you know, around the world. And prior to me really solidifying my passion, I realized that this crisis is not just the United States, but diabetes and womb care is a global, global crisis. Unfortunately, those developing or emerging economies that have adopted this Western lifestyle as a symbol of upward mobility and success. We are not just exporting our goods and services, but we're exporting that decadence as well. And many times we're exporting our ignorance to, to other parts of the world where we have people in emerging economies thinking that getting a hamburger or a hot dog or a soda means that you are moving up, really you're moving down. And so as a result, we find that many people from around the world or have abandoned their traditional lifestyle and traditional diets. For example, if you see some of our Asian Americans in Japan, diabetes is not as much of an issue, especially on some of the outlying islands where they have some of the longest living humans on the planet there. They have locked in and have maintained their traditional diets. It's only when they come to the United States that now they start seeing, and these are the same family members, that those genes get cut on, so to speak. And they end up with diabetes, obesity, heart attacks, strokes, blindness. So it's what, you know, what is happening to people when they come to this country, even take the, the slaves that were born. I'm a, I'm a descendant of slaves. Okay. And the fact that African-Americans have been so resilient, we're still here is something I think that's remarkable and needs to be applauded. It's not applauded enough, but when you look at a mainland Africa, diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity is not an issue. And most African-Americans can trace their lineage from West Africa throughout the Caribbean and to the United States. So the question is what happened to the African from West Africa through the Caribbean and to Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, where some of the highest recorded blood pressures, blood pressures in a man or human is recorded in Chicago, Philadelphia. So we really need to begin to unpack, you know, what we are offering our people in this society. Was there a moment that you decided to go global? Because there's a lot going on in LA. So travel is one of my passions and I was invited to go on a sailing trip in the South Pacific islands in Fiji with some other physicians. And I'm like, wow, I get a chance to have a vacation. So I'm there and the gentleman is helping me with my bags. And tomorrow we're supposed to be leaving and going on this sailing trip through the Yasawa group of islands in Fiji. It's a nice vacation. No, it was something looking for. So the guy said, well, what do you do? I said, well, I specialize in diabetes and amputation prevention. He said, oh, my God, my dad has this wound on his foot. I'm on vacation. I hear I'm going to work again. I said, he says, he's got this hole in his foot. Would you mind going on this little island over there before you go on your sailing trip tomorrow morning? I said, sure. So I get up early and we get in this little motorboat and we go to this island. It's very tropical and, you know, the trees is almost like surreal. And we go through this little tropical area and there's an opening and there his dad's house is there and he has his foot up and he's got a diabetic ulceration. So I said, well, show me the island clinic. So I go into the clinic and you can tell it hadn't been used in a long time. It was kind of dusty. So I said, let me take a little bit of that. So I worked on his foot. And then when I came back after the 12 day trip, the wound was nearly healed. I used an old technique of honey. Honey is a natural healer. Honey is a natural pain reliever. And so honey will never spoil. So it means honey is a natural antifungal and antibacterial. So honey can stay in the tree for years and it'll be just fine. So you take those same properties and you put it on a wound. It can clean the bacteria. It can draw. So you did the operation right there? Right there, right there in the open. In his house? Outside. It was outside. This is tropical. So you had a couple of hours? About 30 minutes. And I put it together and I said, well, I think it should do fine. I came back from the trip and the wound was nearly healed. And so after that, I sent the dad some diabetic shoes and things like that. So I made that a part of my South Pacific Island amputation prevention campaign. And then I was in Ghana. If the gentleman recommended amputation and I was able to save his leg. So that really solidified my daily meditations. I had 10 affirmations that I say every day. And one of them is, I am global. The whole world is my neighborhood, my marketplace and my playground. I am global. And it's amazing to see some of the things that you affirm every day actually come into fruition and manifest. So I believe some people ask, where are you from? I say, I'm from everywhere. That's why the globe you have in here has resonated with me. The one in the background. So I think that people should have a real global approach. I'm a citizen of the world. Although I was born in Oklahoma. But I believe that I belong to the entire world. So that's why I've made it my my business to be passionate about the well-being of everybody that I can encounter. When was it that you decided to come back and focus more on LA or do more things in LA? Did something trigger that? Once I realized that I have a gift of saving limbs and healing wounds, I started a foundation called the Diabetic Amputation Prevention Foundation, the DAP Foundation. We raised money for health fairs and educational programs in some of the most underserved communities in Southern California. And then that culminated into the Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program, where I realized I needed to take my message outside the four walls of my office and basically into the streets. One day I needed a haircut. And this particular barbershop that I was going to was closed, even though it says returning at two o'clock, but it was three o'clock. So the barber still wasn't there. I said, let me just I didn't have that much hair. I still don't have that much hair now anyway. So I saw another barbershop a few blocks down and the gentleman was there. Everyone was cutting hair except him. And of course, that means that's not a good sign. That means that he might not be good if no one is using him to cut their hair. But I said, no, I got to get out of here. I got a lot of things to do. So I said, I'm going to take a risk. He did an amazing job. So I saw him again, Dante is his name, and then very quiet. And then we built a relationship. We started working out together and we were jogging. And I said, so you were pre-med, he said, I was pre-med at Grambling. And I said, what about bringing, you know, doctors and nursing to the barbershops? I think it'd be a great idea. So we didn't talk about it anymore. I'll never forget. It's like almost like yesterday. It was a Sunday. I was in the barber chair and I heard a voice say, what are you waiting for? And I said, Dante, let's do the barbershop program. He said, we shake hands on it. Didn't have a dime. And sometimes spiritually, supply follows demand. Supply follows demand. And every sponsor that I went to, they turned us down. But I moved forward anyway. December 6th was the stake in the ground of the first Black Barbershop Program in Inglewood. It was called From Watts to Wilshire. We had barbershops from Watts all the way to Wilshire. And I used my own resources to get the job done. It was incredibly successful. Then the sponsors came. So sometimes spiritually, I think we have to, you know, make a few steps on our own to move forward. And I use the analogy that you take a few steps and God will take the rest. And so I took my steps. It was definitely it's a faith walk. Of course, sometimes it's hard to convince your spouse that, you know, at night, who do you think you are, robbing the hood, trying to save the world, right? And how many stores was this? It was 25 barbershops. 25 barbershops. And when we first started, 25 barbershops from Watts to Wilshire. And what was the idea, to have a doctor and nurses? So the beautiful thing about the Black Barbershop Health Outreach Program, we took existing resources that were already in various communities, but made them work together. So we took the nursing schools and the medical schools and the pharmacy schools and dental schools because they all needed to do community work. They all need to have so many hours of doing something out. So we were able to provide that element or that requirement for their education. So you could get them the credits that they needed through this program, but then they would come to the barbershop. Their volunteer credits were checking blood pressures and doing blood. And so they had all the testing. So they would come every Saturday or Sunday or was it? For the first one. It was just one time. It was just one time just to test the model. It was so incredibly successful. How many people did you guys test? 1500 the first time. Wow. And the amazing thing that many men had to be taken directly from the barbershop to the emergency room. Wow. That's why they call it the silent killer. They said, do you know your blood pressure is 200 over a hundred? I feel fine. Do you know that your blood sugar is so high? The machine can't read it, which means it's like 500. They said, I feel fine. Why they have a donut or the hamburger in their hand. Is it, we got to take you to the emergency room. You don't, we can't make you go. So we had to call the ambulance to take them. And in this country, we had to make the most calls for the ambulance in New Orleans, in Alabama, Mississippi, that whole area where you have all of the, they call that cardiovascular disease row, where some of the sickest people in this country are. So we saw that firsthand where African-American men, one after another was sent to the emergency room directly from the barbershop. There's nothing more fulfilling to me. Four years later, someone would find me on Facebook or social media, and they would say, you probably don't remember me, but you saved my life. When you sent me to the emergency room from the barbershop. And for me, that's one of the most crowning moments for me as a human being, as a man, as physician, to see that something as maybe insignificant as checking someone's blood pressure and diabetes could have saved their lives. Wow. Was it because they wouldn't, when they would come to see you in your office, it would be too late? Mainly because African-American men, I believe from a health perspective, are the most underserved. Because before Obamacare, men did not have a financial tag on them. We live in a very economic society where, you know, money is everything and many times profit before people. And so most health care programs never marketed to African-American men. It's usually women with babies and WIC programs and things like that. So you have this very vulnerable population. And on top of that, the legacy of medical malfeasance in this country is well documented. You have the syphilis experiment where African-American men were actually infected with syphilis and then untreated to see what the complications would be like years later. So the legacy of mistrust in the black community is still palpable. So most people are very reluctant to even seek care because of the level of mistrust. So the barbershop is that safe place where African-American men can be vulnerable. We talk about everything. And as I mentioned before, that the black owned barbershop is the only place where you will find the preacher, the pimp, the drug dealer, the doctor and the attorney and the undertaker all in the same place at the same time. So that's why and that's the only place in America where you see that demographic at the same place, at the same time, in the same space. So it's a perfect environment for educating African-American men about healthy lifestyle choices. We did a program where we got funding from NIH called First Saturdays, where we actually were testing men on a Saturday and then making an appointment for them to go to the doctor from the barbershop. So we had the nurses right there with the laptops. And if your blood pressure was out of control, we say, you know, we have a doctor. We can get you an appointment. How many people have been through this program now? Are you guys doing this in barbershops on a regular basis? We're going to reignite the black barbershop health outreach program at my farm, Bloom Ranch, and we'll talk about that. But we've screened over 30,000 men across the country. And with over 750 black-owned barbershops, we're able to mobilize over 5,000 volunteers across the country. And I think that there's something very magical that happens when you are able to aggregate groups of people for one cause. And even spiritually, I think something magical happens when you put people first. And we were genetically and historically wired to care as human beings. We're wired to care. We're wired for compassion, I believe. And even when a woman has a baby, unlike other animals that have eggs and the babies just go and they're on their own, we have to show compassion for this baby for several decades. So genetically and hormonally, we secrete the oxytocins and the serotonins and the dopamines that make us feel good. And then when you look at us as a people, hunter-gatherers, the tribe is more successful when it takes care of other people in the tribe. So I think going back to the basics, and there's science that really supports the power of compassion and the power of taking care of people. So when you take those feel-good hormones, and studies have shown that you can meditate better when you're in the rest and digest phase versus fight, flight, or freeze when you're nervous. And we live in a society that's riddled with so much uncertainty. That's why I don't watch the news because the news can make you feel a lot of anxiety, fight, flight, or freeze. And so now, I think being in nature to me has been a very healing and very therapeutic and cathartic for me. And that has been the foundation that has allowed me to do a lot of the things that I'm passionate about, which is helping people exactly where they are. Before we get into your ranch, because you have a ranch, you have a farm that's in the city. Why did you become a doctor? Did you always want to become a doctor? Well, you know, I believe in destiny a lot of times. And if we listen, sometimes the higher powers may have plans for you that you may or may not be aware of. And when I was a little boy in Oklahoma, I think I was four or five years old, I would go and rub little old lady's feet. And the word got around. And my grandmother would say that Miss Sally wants you to rub her feet across the field. And I never forget, it was like, when I think about it, I'm like, did this really happen? I had to call her uncle. I said, was there a field by the church that went to Miss Sally? He said, you got it right. So, you know, I was so young. I forgot, but it was imprinted, but it was so long ago. Like, is this my imagination? And then my family moved to Los Angeles. This particular day, my customer asked me if I could get this ingrown toenail out of her toe. And I did. He said, you know what, you're going to be my foot doctor. So, here I am, even before I can even think about what I wanted to become, I'm already down this journey of working on limbs. Then I met, I was at LA High at the time. And I believe that certain people come into your life at the right time, the crossroads. The career day is there and they have the different booths and things like that. So, my counselor, I told her I want to be a doctor. And she looked at me like, kind of like, are you sure? That's hard. I said, I want to be a doctor. And I was a little disappointed because she didn't take me serious. She says, well, the army is recruiting down the hall. Maybe you should just join the army. And I felt deflated, like, why doesn't she hear me? It's almost as if it was comical. However, an English teacher did something very powerful. Dr. Floyd Coleman, I'll never forget it, was an English teacher. And he said, all right, I want to close the door. He had a stack of boxes in the back that was on the dolly. And he passed out college applications to everybody. He says, I don't care if you say you're not going to college. You're going to fill this application out. At that time, it was for the California state applications. One application, you could circle the different state schools. He would get on the board, carry number one, write your name. He would check your name, write your address. Everybody filled out a college application. He collected them all. He turned them in. And I believe that many of the people in my class would not have gone to college. It wasn't for that one person that did that one thing. Once again, people caring about people. One of my old patients told me, I don't care how much, you know, how much, you know, until I know how much you care. I don't care how much, you know, until I know how much you care. So when he did that, that was the trajectory that took me to Cal Poly Pomona there. And once again, that angel, that person in the middle of the road, the classes are hard. You're a little discouraged. And this one individual said, Bill, I think you'd make a great doctor. So you were kind of in the middle of it. And he says, you'd make a great doctor. So I'll go back to my dorm room. I look in the mirror. And sometimes words are powerful. You'd be surprised how you can encourage or discourage people by the words that you use. And so he says, you'd make a great doctor. So now I was walking with a little bit more, being more proud. And then another professor who was responsible for my global mindset, that was Professor Bert Hammond. I would go to his office and his office looked like a museum. He had African artifacts all over from all over Africa and said, I want to go to Africa one day. He said, well, you can go. And so when I become a doctor, he said, well, you can go anytime you want to. I said, as a student? He said, sure. So we did a program called Project West Africa at Cal Poly Pomona, where I would be studying tropical diseases like malaria and schistosomiasis. And then there was an entomologist there who got word that there was a student ready to go to West Africa. He says, you know what? I collect beetles. I collect dung beetles, D-U-N-G, the beetles that roll around the excrement. He says, I have beetles from all over the world, but I don't have any beetles from West Africa. I'm going to show you how to collect them. I'm going to give you senior credits for them. So he shows me how to collect the beetles. You've got to put some meat in the ground, cover it up. He gave me the little collection tubes and things like that. However, the people that were there, like, this is good food. What are you putting this fish in the ground? So that was, we didn't want, they couldn't comprehend it, right? But I was having such a great time in West Africa. And this is before Instagram and Facebook and all social media. This was 1981. So I'm up there a little bit. So that began my global mindset that the world is much bigger than Los Angeles. And it helped me to appreciate the diversity in this world and the gifts that people have to offer from all over. What was the time you started to do the farm, the ranch? How did you get into that? That's another one of those moments where what you're seeking is seeking you too. I wrote a book called Five Colors a Day to Better Health 15 years ago, when all my patients that were a hundred years old, they ate five colors. So I'm one of the kind of physicians that I'm going to ask you, what did you have for dinner last night? I'm going to ask you, what have you been eating? No different than a mechanic would ask someone, what kind of gas you put in your car? What kind of oil? And I saw a trend that the healthiest people were eating a variety of fruits and vegetables versus the sickest people were eating highly processed foods. So I documented it and I wrote a book called Five Colors a Day to Better Health. Hopefully you can count to five and you know five colors. So I would quiz people on how many names, some purple vegetables, make a game, gamify it a little bit. And with the kids, I would do the career day thing and say, Hey, everybody named something, name something red, a vegetable or fruit. I said, let me ask the little guy in the back. Name something red. He raised his hand. Barbecue. No barbecue is not one of the colors. I went to another school. So let me ask the little girl over there. Name something yellow. Cornbread. No cornbread is not one of the colors, but you find that fruit and vegetable vocabulary is limited in certain communities where people will look at a vegetable and not even know what it is. Right. Or you can really tell you go to the store, you pick a vegetable and the cash register says to look it up because people are not buying it that much. You got to call on the phone and say, what is this? Right. Since we're talking about the store, I would tell my patients, my job is to simplify complicated things. When you go to the store, most stores have the same layout, hug the walls. When you go in the store, usually you have deli, you have fruits and vegetables, meat, meats and things like that. That's the healthiest part of the store is in the aisles when you get in trouble in the freezer and things like that. That's the processed foods like that. So I wrote this book and I used to meditate and think about it'd be great if I could grow the five colors for my patients. And then a decade or so later, an opportunity came for me to purchase a pretty dilapidated farm, 250 acres. And had my business managers at the time saw what I was about to do, they would say, don't do it. And there's a time. Did it cost a lot? It didn't make business sense. How are you going to make money? How's this thing going to work? And I think there's a time where you go with the heart and not the head. Sometimes we can overthink ourselves out of opportunity. And every opportunity may not just fit in a nice neat little box. Sometimes your journey is a journey between you and God. And you may not need to get external confirmation from someone. A lot of times we look for confirmation from the wrong people and from the wrong element. But it felt like the right thing to do at the time, even though I could not see at the time what it has evolved into today. So I bought it. And for a minute, I did have some buyer's remorse, like, what have you just done? I started looking at all this junk everywhere and old cars. Was this in the middle of LA? This is in Acton. This is in LA County, in between Santa Clarita and Palmdale, 45 minutes from downtown LA. But even with that, and I tell people that imagination is probably the best tool, the best underutilized tool that you have. So I sat there on the property and I began to visualize what it could be. Began to make myself feel what it'd be like if it was in full production. So when you make yourself feel, that's the power of meditation. The power of meditation is to feel and experience something that hasn't happened yet. And meditation makes you appreciate and see it even when no one else can see it. And especially when you give gratitude in advance that this is going to be, if I had a chance to show you my journal, I could show you when I first purchased it that I said, Bloom Ranch is a mega successful enterprise. You should write that every day. So when you write it, so I really believe that there's power in writing and you put your muscle and your neuromuscular fingerprint on something and then you say it to yourself, then you start speaking it. And sometimes it's good to talk to yourself, just don't answer it right. Good to actually put it out there. Words are powerful and then you begin to visualize it and feel it. So now, lo and behold, Bloom Ranch has become a household name and growing exponentially. We're growing some of the best fruits and vegetables, I believe, in the state and maybe even the country. Bloom Ranch is a 127-year-old farm established in 1891 by the Blum family that came here from Switzerland. They were homesteaders. They were stonecutters too. The main guy, George Blum, was a stonecutter and some of the stones that he cut actually were installed in City Hall today. So the Blum peach was actually established or cultivated and grown and created at Bloom Ranch. So the peaches are absolutely delectable and we and my team, so proud of my team, we work with a number of black farmers that have really, really exemplified what hard work really, really can do. So we're providing a lot of good quality food to the local community. You were doing this to feed your patients, is that what you wanted to show them? How did you bring this in? So what I started doing is to, so now I have this farm and so now I have a food as medicine program where I actually send my patients fruits and vegetables as a part of their doctor's prescription. Interesting. So they, every two weeks or every month, they get a box from me, from their doctor, and they're feeling better. The blood pressure is better. The diabetes is better controlled and the wounds are healing. And so, you know, you really see something so powerful to see food as medicine really working in real life. So I'm very proud of that. And we're also establishing some other partnerships with clinics in L.A. County to actually create a customized box based upon clinical presentation. For example, if a urologist wants to develop a stone box for kidney stones, there's certain clinical conditions where you can't eat certain things, but you can. So with kidney stones, there's certain vegetables you can't eat. So it's a box. So we're going to customize it. So we're going to work with urologists. Yes. What they need for their medical condition. And then for blood pressure, beets, garlic, dill, turnips will bring the blood pressure down. So we'll do a pressure box too. Some people just don't want to take pills. So this is going to replace all of those, like some of those things. And we're not saying that, but you've got to talk to your primary care physician. You should let them know. But the numbers will speak for themselves. When you change your diet, your body will adapt and change as well. And most of our patients have been getting off of the high blood pressure medications. So Bill, you have had an amazing journey. Like you started, you became a doctor against odds. People told you can't become one. And you have managed to do a lot for the community. What is the one lesson that you have learned in the process that you want to share with our audience? If I would say the one lesson that I learned is to keep people first. That sounds very cliche-ish, but when you take care of people, money and other things will take care of themselves. And I believe that, as I said earlier, that we are wired for compassion. We are wired as human beings to care. Some of us have lost our way. You can even see some of our seniors who, they take care of a cat or a dog, a bird, a flower, a goldfish. They live better. They have better quality of life when they are able to care. So I would tell someone out there that may be listening, you may be going through some things. Take a moment, number one, to make a list of the things that you should be grateful for. That's number one. You'll be surprised of just how blessed you are. Number two, go out and help somebody. Go and volunteer at a soup kitchen, and you'll see the stories that are there, and nothing compared. What you're going to do is nothing compared to what they're going through. And number three, I would tell you to take some time to slow down and journal. Write your feelings down, but more importantly, write down what you want. And then visualize the outcome of that in a positive way. But it's all got to be wrapped around humanity. You can't be selfish all about yourself. Do you have any regrets in the process of building all of these ventures? No regrets at all. And yes, I've had failures, but even you have to redefine the word failure and call it feedback. It's only failure when you give up. So if you fall short, that's feedback. Get back in the game and continue, right? It's only failure when that's the last chapter. So there's no regrets. Anything that may have happened that was less than ideal was the feedback I needed to get back in the game and continue my assignment. Dr. Bill Relaford, doctor and farmer with Boom Ranch. It was great to have you on California Insider. Well, thank you so much for having me and congratulations on the great things you guys are doing. It's been an honor.