Popularly known as “Doctor Leo,” the highly opinionated and outspoken physician, clinical scientist, and author born in Brazil and living in the United States had his first book already translated into three different languages before hitting the shelves. Later this year, it will be available in Mandarin in China and Portuguese in Brazil, and it is already trending at the top of the charts in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, he has been all over the mainstream media. He appears on CNN Newsroom alongside Brooke Baldwin, Alicia Menendez on MSNBC’s American Voices, BBC World News, and is frequently seen live on CBS News with Anne-Marie Green and Vlad Duthiers.
Altogether, he has amassed almost a thousand TV and streaming interviews in just a couple of years.
Dr. Nissola has a unique background and was educated internationally. He is a former intern of the prestigious Charles First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, founded in 1348, the oldest medical faculty in Central Europe and the 11th oldest medical institution in the world, regularly ranked in the top 1% of medical faculties globally.
He is a former cancer research fellow at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the largest cancer center in the U.S., which is constantly awarded the best hospital in the world for oncology and related cancer treatment.
He is a former executive at Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Oncology, an American multinational corporation founded in 1886 that develops medical devices, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. Dr. Leo Nissola was based in South America during his tenure as the lead physician for Oncology Medical Affairs, responsible for two multi-billion dollar drug assets for prostate cancer.
His book, “The Immunity Solution: Seven Weeks to Living Healthier and Longer,” published by W.W. Norton and Countryman Press, talks about how the body’s immune system works, how we are slowly destroying it, and how lifestyle choices can cause permanent, long-term damage to our health. He has an approachable, easy-to-understand style of writing but also a charming personality online. His Instagram account, @doctorleo, is a mix of factual science takes and wholesome content. His book, though, is also chock-full of validated research and intriguing facts which he often shares on Twitter @LeoNissolaMD.
He introduces a concept that many Americans still haven’t heard about, which he calls “inflammaging.”
“First, let me say that the immune system is the most important and determining factor in how well and how long you live. “So you need to pay attention to its signs,” he tells me.
“Inflammation is the body’s response to an attack.” Whether it comes from a virus, a cut, or a bacteria, it is a biological mechanism the body uses to try to cope with a threat.
Aging is inevitable. Unless you are a greenland shark, who lives 250–500 years, you will age. Humans tend to live about 600,000 hours, or eighty years, so I have been researching ways to slow down the aging process.
When you observe the natural biological aging process in humans, you see that there’s a link between inflammation and the speed at which a body ages and health decays. “That’s what I call inflammaging.”
Dr. Nissola has a subtle accent, is of Italian descent, speaks five languages, has an olive skin tone, and has a charming personality. It is rare to see an intellectual with these characteristics. He was named a “Hero of the COVID Crisis” by Authority Magazine in the United States for his work on data-driven COVID-19 epidemiological models, some of which were featured by the White House in Press Briefings.
If you want to know the secrets to living long—and, most importantly, to living those years well—his book holds the secrets.
You can find “The Immunity Solution” on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and pretty much anywhere you get your books.