ABOUT THIS EPISODE
Heart disease is the leading cause of death—but much of it is preventable.
In this episode, Amanda sits down with family physician Dr. David Bruce Clarke to discuss cardiovascular health through a modern, prevention-focused lens. With additional training through the Institute for Functional Medicine (IFM), Dr. Clarke blends traditional primary care with deeper metabolic evaluation to identify risk earlier.
They explain why basic cholesterol numbers don’t tell the full story and how inflammation, endothelial damage, insulin resistance, and chronic stress drive plaque formation long before symptoms appear. You’ll learn why LDL and HDL are only part of the picture and how metabolic dysfunction quietly increases long-term heart risk.
The conversation explores advanced cardiovascular testing beyond a routine lipid panel, including ApoB, Lipoprotein(a) [Lp(a)], NMR lipids, hs-CRP, fasting insulin, A1C, coronary calcium scoring, and carotid imaging.
They also discuss practical prevention strategies—nutrition changes, reducing processed carbohydrates, resistance training, sleep optimization, stress reduction, and when medications like statins or low-dose aspirin are appropriate.
The takeaway: heart disease develops over decades, but so does prevention. Earlier, broader evaluation combined with sustainable lifestyle changes can significantly reduce cardiovascular risk.
SHOW NOTES 🔗
TRANSCRIPT 🔗
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Hello, and welcome back to the Elevated Health Podcast. I'm Amanda Jones.
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I'm your host and the founder of Elevated Health in Canyon, Texas.
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Today, I'm joined by Dr. Bruce Clark. He's my mentor and friend and physician. Welcome to the show.
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Well, how are you today, Amanda?
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I'm good. Well, you know, we had a windstorm, so we're all stuffy.
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And I feel like every other week I say that I'm stuffy because of wind,
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because we live in the Panhandle.
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That's the Panhandle for you.
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So how did you end up practicing family medicine?
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Oh, you know, that started in high school.
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My mom was a nurse, and I liked the science books she had, and I liked the thought
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of helping people that way.
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And so when I got to college, I started taking my classes seriously,
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and I did an EMT course, got to ride on ambulances and go to the hospital while I was doing my classes.
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And then I got a job in the burn unit down at Tech. Oh, that's cool.
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And that was a great experience for me, you know, to see patients like that.
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And I got to see a lot of doctors and medical students and, you know,
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the attendings and how that works. And I was just really blessed,
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you know, to, to be there at that time and,
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Got accepted to go to medical school at Tech, and the rest is history.
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The rest is history. Yeah. I was exposed, basically, in the town we grew up
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was rural, and the doctors that I knew were family doctors.
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They seemed to do everything at that time in life, and I felt that was my calling,
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you know, when I got into medical school.
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So I pretty much was going to be a family doctor.
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Just now? Well, yeah, because especially then, did you get to deliver babies right.
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Off the job? Oh, yeah. Yeah?
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How many babies have you delivered?
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A thousand, maybe, maybe a little more.
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That's a lot of babies. Yeah. For a family, I mean, that's not normal anymore.
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No, no, it's not.
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When did they stop doing that?
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Well, I think they still can do it, but, you know, it's just times have changed.
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Health care has changed. you know obviously there's more specialty care
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Now practice insurance yeah.
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Yeah about practice insurance for obstetrics is pretty outrageous
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That's crazy you.
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Know it's it was a fun time in my life but i switched gears
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Yeah well like the across the lifespan you know my when i was going to go into
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nurse practitioner school i initially declared women's health and then I was
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told you were going to be doing gin visits,
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and just doing women's health and not the OB part and I said no thank you,
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that's pretty so niche and I'm so glad there are people that want to do just that oh I know.
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Yeah people like that too when I was in medical school you had to take like
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aptitude tests to see what you might fit into and everything pointed to me being
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a pediatrician for some reason and I did a lot of
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Child care, you know,
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Initially when I started practicing. But I've aged with my practice,
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so I'm an old guy to treat old people.
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And you just stay with the same group the whole time.
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That's right.
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Kids too older.
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I know. I've had some patients that have been with me for 30 years,
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so it's remarkable. It's been that long.
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Well, I guess that would be me.
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Yeah.
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Too. I think I was eight, so, yeah. Well, you.
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Know, a long
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Time. I don't want to talk about my age either. No. No.
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So when did you start getting interested in the cardiovascular part?
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I mean, the whole time, of course.
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I've always liked it, but I think it's when I started doing more learning about
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functional medicine, integrated medicine, and looking at health care through a different lens.
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And, you know, the cardiovascular module was really outstanding with,
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you know, how to look at cardiovascular disease.
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And it's not just all about, you know, cholesterol and, you know,
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don't eat fat and all this stuff that, you know, we were taught.
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So that's kind of got me more interested in it and just the physiology of the
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vascular system is very awesome.
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Yeah, it is. It's so much more broad than we, I think, going through school,
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you learn how to not kill people, right?
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And not how the lifestyle part is supposed to go.
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Right.
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So I think that's really, really fascinating and we went to the A4N conference
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together and listened to Dr.
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Houston and that was my first exposure of making it so functional and real life
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examples and how to live better instead of not die faster.
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Healthcare is mostly chronic, but, you know, we treat it as an acute care issue
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and it's not really that simple.
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And so we have to broaden our mind about labs and treatments and everything
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that goes into preventing, you know, a heart attack or stroke.
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You know, that's really where the biggest bang for your buck is, is prevention.
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Right. Yeah, where you live in the best country if you have a heart attack, right?
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Oh, yeah. If you have a heart attack, you want to be here. Yeah. Good old UFSA.
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Yeah, but we're not good at the prevention. So I think it's sad that it's taken
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this long to get us to the prevention side, where other countries,
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I think, are probably miles ahead of us in preventing disease.
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True, true. I think so. Their lifestyles are better.
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Yeah, they like walk and know about fats and eat butter. And they did that long before we did.
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They look at their vegetables that they're going to buy and, you know, feel them and
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That kind of stuff. Yeah, I don't know. I still don't know how to pick a cantaloupe.
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I don't know. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if it's the thump method or what it is that
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Works the best. My mom's good at it. She can thump it and she smells it and
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knows the veins and stuff. Yeah.
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That's her time in Europe, I guess. She learned how to do that stuff.
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Cantaloupe whisperers.
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But tell her that. So what kind of do we get right? Right.
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What did schooling teach you initially about heart health and what we do the right way?
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Well, just how we talked about it a second ago, the acute care things like EKGs
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and lab sets for a cardiovascular event, we do that exceptionally well.
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But there's so much more to prevention and that's, you know, different labs.
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You know, it's not just your general lipid panel. There's more to it than that.
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Dr. Houston talked a lot about, you know, how this all happens,
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you know, is you have inflammation responses.
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And that's the problem. The cardiovascular system gets irritated.
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You have 60,000 miles of arterial tubing in our body, you know.
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It's a lot of highway there.
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It's a lot of information moving back and forth through it.
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And anything that disrupts that flow, like a poor diet, toxins like smoking,
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infections, anything like that can start affecting that interior lining of the
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cardiovascular system called the endothelium.
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So that oxidative stress loads from the same things, poor diet,
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stress, all that sets into motion your immune system, which wants to respond
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to something, and it does.
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And that starts creating, you know, vascular change.
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And then you start having this events of inflammatory responses.
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And they don't go away. And that, you know, can lead to high blood pressure
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and plaque progression.
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You know, all these things are going to lead to a heart attack or stroke that
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we're trying to prevent.
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We think of, you know, in school for me, then I walked away thinking you have,
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you eat fat, you eat cholesterol. all and then it gets higher in your bloodstream
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and that's what clogs your veins and arteries and that's what leads to a heart attack.
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Right. But we didn't learn the inflammation part.
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Right.
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In near in the depth that we should have.
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We need cholesterol.
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But cholesterol is in a way just an innocent bystander of all this.
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You know, it's being transported by structures, you know, these lipoproteins, you know.
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And so that's the problem is the passenger just gets trapped and he gets trapped in this bus.
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Let's call LDL a bus because that's what it is. Comes in different sizes, big sizes, small sizes.
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And something happens to it. The bus gets a flat tire, you know,
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the antenna on it gets messed up.
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And it has to stop, and it stops in the arterial wall.
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And that's where the nidus of the plaque starts. And that's all this stuff.
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And that's when the immune system comes in and does its thing and creates foam cells.
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And then you get a plaque, and then it keeps growing. And then,
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Lord forbid, it might rupture and go downstream, and it's going to block.
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And that's when you have that ischemic event happen, you know,
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that causes a stroke or a heart attack.
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So that's what we have to prevent, but it's more than just cholesterol.
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So that's understanding lipidology, and that's kind of hard to do, but it's possible.
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Yeah, it's possible. It's intense. There's a lot to it.
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But I think the statin thing where there's some cardiologists and family doctors
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and such that we think that statins should just be in the water.
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Just give a baby aspirin and a statin and you'll be fine.
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Yeah, without mention of other things like diet and other change.
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So some studies said 50% of people who have heart attack have normal cholesterol values.
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So that gets you thinking, well, what is it?
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It's not just about that cholesterol, but it's more about what's going on in
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the vascular tube with the inflammation responses and what happens to LDL and
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what's leading it to be dysfunctional.
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That's more lifestyle. It's what we're putting in our body, which a lot of us
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are putting a lot of garbage in our body.
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Grains and fats are horrible. You know, they're going to modify LDL and it's
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going to get oxidized and change and it's not going to function as well.
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HDL levels as well, which they call the good cholesterol, which is not always necessarily true.
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It helps LDL work and function and take stuff back to the liver.
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But if you don't have enough or sometimes if you have too much,
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which means you're probably not working very well, then you're going to have
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still the same problems.
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We don't have any medications to really fix HDL. Maybe exercise and a plant-based diet.
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Yeah, we talked about, and Dr. Houston talked about that, that HDL is almost like a dump truck.
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If we've got a bus for LDL, then we've got a huge dump truck that's HDL,
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so it's just a quote-unquote better carrier in some ways.
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Still just as necessary, both types. So what does a statin do?
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What is its action on cholesterol?
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It disinhibits the formation of cholesterol, which, you know, you make cholesterol.
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You have to because it is the base molecular structure for your hormones.
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It helps cells repair themselves, cell walls. It's kind of involved in your
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immune system response, actually.
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So we need it. That's important.
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And statin drugs just inhibit the formation of it.
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And then it inhibits all kinds of cholesterol. So it's kind of that across the
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board with exception of triglycerides.
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Right, yeah.
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Or just lowering everything all at once. It's not only selecting LDL or the
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inflammatory part. It's just overall.
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Yeah, just that. So then you're, in theory, that would maybe decrease your LDL
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because you don't need as much to carry to deposit to tissues to do what it's supposed to be doing.
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Same way with triglycerides,
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You know, they're basically from carbohydrate metabolism. They're transported
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in the same structure in LDL and are picked up by HDL to be moved back to the liver, you know.
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So that's a carbohydrate response, you know.
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It's basically going to be formed into fat and it's going to be stored.
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And that's where, you know, insulin comes in. And that's the whole problem,
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how we start snowballing into metabolic syndrome because of that.
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And that's why this is a vascular disease.
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You know, it's a whole body disease. But, you know, one thing sets off another, sets off another.
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Right, right. I talked a little bit about cholesterol and fatty liver and how
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that's a heart risk in itself. And so millions of people probably have this
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fatty liver at some end of the spectrum or another in the middle.
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Almost 33% of the population has a fatty liver of some degree.
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You're talking about moving the cholesterol to the liver, and it's supposed
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to, if we have a functional liver,
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that's doing what it's supposed to be doing and not dealing with a ton of toxins
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or blood glucose, then we're supposed to be metabolizing that cholesterol,
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moving it, and then excreting it.
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But if we've got a fatty liver, but we're just holding all of that in.
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Right. Well, you know, when you make triglycerides, you're going to burn them as energy,
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like beta-oxidation, or you're going to go into that giant lipoprotein,
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got like very low-dense lipoproteins, or it's going to be stored in your liver as fat.
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That's kind of the three things it does, and, you know, which is all led by insulin resistance.
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Right. So getting the insulin down, again, I talk a lot about insulin resistance, of course.
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So making sure that that's, you said, all to start with diet and lifestyle,
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which we go to, hey, your cholesterol looks like it's getting high.
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Do you have family history of it? Oh, yeah, you do. Well, it starts you on a
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stat and I'm going to send you to cardiology.
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And then we started doing stress tests and all these things that are great and
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the screenings and the blood pressure screenings, all of that,
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that we kind of missed the prevention part of why does your family have a history
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of elevated cholesterol and why do you ask those questions regularly?
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How's your sleep? How's your stress? All of those things.
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All this stuff sets off in inflammatory response. I mean, I love Dr.
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Houston. He's just such a smart guy.
00:15:44.952 --> 00:15:47.932
I think he autographed one of his books. I've got one.
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Oh.
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Yeah. Exciting. And anyway, but he feels all disease is set off by those three
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things, inflammatory response, oxidative stress in the immune system,
00:16:00.972 --> 00:16:02.432
responding to this, everything.
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So he's probably right. It's imperative that we figure out how to decrease inflammation
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through lifestyle. It's the only way to do it.
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And, you know, we've gone through the functional models. You,
00:16:17.352 --> 00:16:19.492
of course, are certified with IFM.
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But spending time with patients and leading them to the right things is difficult in a short visit.
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So, you know, that's why we do a lot of referrals to each other.
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There, and okay, well, they're going to need to have the big stuff,
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the big labs and screenings and all that stuff that our model does a really
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great job with, and then going,
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I'm going to need you to spend an hour just talking about diet with this person.
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So it's a good thing to have a couple of providers in your corner so that you're getting all of it.
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Or you can go to Dr. Clark and do all of that together.
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So whenever somebody is going in and doing their quote-unquote normal labs,
00:17:03.343 --> 00:17:07.763
their normal physical labs, can you talk a little bit about why that's not comprehensive?
00:17:08.563 --> 00:17:13.103
Well, it's kind of like you're playing darts.
00:17:13.423 --> 00:17:19.543
You're throwing at the wrong bullseye. It seems like a general lipid panel,
00:17:19.703 --> 00:17:25.863
let's say, has total cholesterol, HDL, VDL, VL.
00:17:26.283 --> 00:17:28.823
VLDL? Yes. There we go. Got it.
00:17:29.023 --> 00:17:32.263
And, you know, an LDL, which is a calculated value.
00:17:32.603 --> 00:17:35.423
So that's what we're basing this off of.
00:17:35.663 --> 00:17:40.283
But there's other things out there that we know of, like APO-B,
00:17:40.783 --> 00:17:45.703
which is a good marker for, you know, it's a good surrogate marker for like
00:17:45.703 --> 00:17:51.703
LDL particle, which is part of a higher level lipid panel.
00:17:51.703 --> 00:17:57.683
So looking at those markers, there's more studies that show those actually are
00:17:57.683 --> 00:18:03.143
more indicative of cardiovascular disease that's being set in motion.
00:18:03.523 --> 00:18:10.363
So looking at maybe a different type of LDL called LP little a,
00:18:10.463 --> 00:18:16.183
which is very genetic and it can lead to stroke and heart attack at an early age.
00:18:16.363 --> 00:18:21.583
So those are things that you could throw that into the mix. You can look at
00:18:21.583 --> 00:18:25.363
ratios like triglycerides to HDL ratios.
00:18:25.803 --> 00:18:31.203
All those might be a little more higher indicators of cardiovascular progression.
00:18:32.223 --> 00:18:39.643
So that, insulin levels and A1C, all these can show you, like if you have someone
00:18:39.643 --> 00:18:44.723
who has a pre-diabetic level, well, that's not, oh, it's pre-diabetes. I'm okay.
00:18:44.943 --> 00:18:49.843
Well, no, it's not. That's probably inflammation setting up in your body,
00:18:49.843 --> 00:18:52.623
and that's going to lead to further progression.
00:18:53.379 --> 00:18:53.699
Right.
00:18:54.039 --> 00:18:57.879
Well, we were just talking about a shared patient as we came in and talking
00:18:57.879 --> 00:19:03.179
about they have a family history of cardiovascular events, of heart attacks.
00:19:03.399 --> 00:19:08.659
They're afraid to take some of these medications because of their father's history.
00:19:08.939 --> 00:19:14.419
So setting them up with some labs and you're talking about another test, a CT.
00:19:14.419 --> 00:19:20.939
Right, yeah. So we can even look at calcium deposition in your coronary arteries.
00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:24.379
It's a CT coronary calcium score test.
00:19:24.579 --> 00:19:29.239
I mean, you do get a little radiation exposure from it, but you don't have to do it all the time.
00:19:29.399 --> 00:19:36.039
But that's a good test, I think. It's a good screening test as well that can
00:19:36.039 --> 00:19:40.519
kind of give you options about treatment maybe for your patient.
00:19:41.279 --> 00:19:45.819
So I like that. You know, that could proceed into a CT coronary angiogram,
00:19:46.039 --> 00:19:48.679
which is more of an invasive study as well.
00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:56.859
Do carotid interval thickening with a Doppler. These are all things that show signs of plaque per se.
00:19:57.079 --> 00:19:59.659
And that's what we're trying to decrease.
00:20:00.599 --> 00:20:05.819
Some studies have showed plaque developing in early people in their 20s.
00:20:05.919 --> 00:20:06.559
Oh my gosh.
00:20:06.679 --> 00:20:08.059
So that's kind of scary.
00:20:08.059 --> 00:20:12.239
So we think, again, we talked about how we think in our 20s that we can just
00:20:12.239 --> 00:20:16.759
handle anything and, you know, the drinking all night and eating Wagga Burger
00:20:16.759 --> 00:20:18.739
for every meal and all that.
00:20:18.899 --> 00:20:20.319
But it's guilty as charged.
00:20:20.519 --> 00:20:25.359
Guilty as charged myself as well. So but then maybe 30, 40 years later,
00:20:25.579 --> 00:20:29.279
then that stuff comes out that you can't hide from that forever.
00:20:29.539 --> 00:20:33.959
No. It's been there the whole time. So plaque, when you talk about plaque,
00:20:34.159 --> 00:20:39.099
that's cholesterol that's been deposited in the artery and the endothelium.
00:20:39.239 --> 00:20:41.439
Can you describe plaque a little bit more?
00:20:42.054 --> 00:20:48.454
Well, there's LDL that gets trapped in the intimal wall of the artery.
00:20:48.614 --> 00:20:52.554
They usually, most plaque is around bifurcated areas where, you know,
00:20:52.654 --> 00:20:57.894
where an artery splits and then below it, that Y, that's where there's a lot
00:20:57.894 --> 00:20:59.314
of pressure gradients that develop.
00:20:59.614 --> 00:21:03.594
And that's where you can see, you know, LDL getting stuck in those areas,
00:21:03.994 --> 00:21:08.454
You know, goes right past the endothelial lining into the next layer of the
00:21:08.454 --> 00:21:13.234
intima. And when that happens, then your immune system is going to respond to that.
00:21:13.454 --> 00:21:19.094
And you've got this LDL, it's full of cholesterol and triglycerides,
00:21:19.134 --> 00:21:23.454
and you're going to have these immune system cells going to go in there and
00:21:23.454 --> 00:21:27.734
microphages, and they're going to gobble it up because they're going, this shouldn't be here.
00:21:27.854 --> 00:21:31.614
I'm going to take care of it. And they gobble it up and they form these foam
00:21:31.614 --> 00:21:33.534
cells, which they keep growing.
00:21:33.774 --> 00:21:39.814
And it's like the blob starts growing. And then it doesn't have anywhere to go.
00:21:40.014 --> 00:21:45.574
It can either pooch out into the lumen of the artery or it can kind of bulge
00:21:45.574 --> 00:21:49.634
back into the enema and into the smooth muscle of the artery.
00:21:49.874 --> 00:21:57.814
And if it bulges out, well, that decreases flow possibly and it has to form a cap.
00:21:58.054 --> 00:22:03.554
And that cap can be soft or it can develop a firmness over it,
00:22:03.554 --> 00:22:07.734
a hard plaque. And then you can get some calcium deposition in that hard plaque.
00:22:07.814 --> 00:22:11.734
And that's what we're seeing on, you know, CT coronary calcium test.
00:22:11.954 --> 00:22:15.634
But, you know, so it doesn't tell us the whole story because what's more dangerous,
00:22:15.634 --> 00:22:17.154
hard plaque or soft plaque?
00:22:17.394 --> 00:22:22.874
Well, it has to be soft plaque. It's more after rupture and it spills its content
00:22:22.874 --> 00:22:25.274
into your cardiovascular system.
00:22:25.434 --> 00:22:28.094
It keeps going and going and going until it finds, you know,
00:22:28.214 --> 00:22:29.574
smaller artery where it can't go.
00:22:29.774 --> 00:22:32.134
And that's where we see damage.
00:22:32.827 --> 00:22:36.627
So, that's kind of how plaque is developed.
00:22:37.447 --> 00:22:42.047
That was a good picture of that. Yeah, when your immune system is trying so
00:22:42.047 --> 00:22:46.787
hard to help you out, but especially if you have a very reactive immune system,
00:22:46.947 --> 00:22:51.907
like an autoimmune condition or, yeah, in diabetes, you've got a bunch of blood
00:22:51.907 --> 00:22:56.967
sugar coursing through your vessels, and then you've got glucose added to the
00:22:56.967 --> 00:22:59.987
party of immune cells to add to that plaque.
00:22:59.987 --> 00:23:04.327
So, again, anything that you can do, right? We talk a lot about baby steps of
00:23:04.327 --> 00:23:06.087
what are some of the things you can do?
00:23:06.227 --> 00:23:11.967
You can't take away the Whataburger of your 20s, but what's something that you can do now?
00:23:12.507 --> 00:23:19.387
But, you know, they showed some study where they had patients eat some fast
00:23:19.387 --> 00:23:23.687
food and they checked an inflammation marker, C-rect protein,
00:23:23.847 --> 00:23:27.147
high sensitivity, which is also a test that should be done.
00:23:27.287 --> 00:23:27.547
Yes.
00:23:28.267 --> 00:23:33.727
And they did that, and these people spiked within so many hours, their CRPs.
00:23:33.887 --> 00:23:37.867
Well, they gave them that and broccoli. And they still got spikes,
00:23:37.907 --> 00:23:39.387
but it wasn't near as much.
00:23:39.827 --> 00:23:46.527
So, you know, offsetting a bad food with a good food might decrease some inflammatory
00:23:46.527 --> 00:23:50.787
responses, you know, altogether not eating that bad food. That'd be great.
00:23:50.827 --> 00:23:52.207
You know, we're going to do it.
00:23:52.387 --> 00:23:59.347
Yeah. I mean, it happens. And it's fasting might help that helps create autophagy,
00:23:59.467 --> 00:24:02.427
which that's your immune system doing good things.
00:24:02.607 --> 00:24:06.547
It's clearing up stuff that doesn't need to be there in your body.
00:24:07.067 --> 00:24:09.467
It's like a little bit of that autophagy.
00:24:10.088 --> 00:24:14.608
In other countries, I know they say autophagy, and they have all different pronunciations.
00:24:14.928 --> 00:24:17.188
I know, but up in Texas, that's how I say it.
00:24:17.188 --> 00:24:18.028
That's how I say it, too.
00:24:19.008 --> 00:24:22.988
It's a way of your body cleaning house.
00:24:23.288 --> 00:24:27.828
I think of it as a warehouse where it was full of workers, and they leave,
00:24:27.848 --> 00:24:31.248
and then the cleaning crew comes in to make it all nice for the next day.
00:24:31.928 --> 00:24:36.948
And our bodies form cells that, over time, don't work very well.
00:24:37.068 --> 00:24:39.828
They call them senescent cells or zombie cells.
00:24:40.088 --> 00:24:45.288
And you make proteins during the day that some just don't work very well.
00:24:45.388 --> 00:24:48.448
They're not molded properly. They're just not helpful.
00:24:49.168 --> 00:24:55.528
And they decrease our function of our metabolism at the microscopic level.
00:24:55.888 --> 00:25:00.828
So these immune system, I guess, knows this and that's why it's innate.
00:25:01.626 --> 00:25:06.086
And it goes in there and just, you're not good. I know you.
00:25:06.266 --> 00:25:11.706
You're bad. It takes it out of the system. It gets all this stuff out and it
00:25:11.706 --> 00:25:14.546
prepares us for the next day for health.
00:25:14.726 --> 00:25:19.046
And so that's what bad foods and toxins in our environment and all these things
00:25:19.046 --> 00:25:23.746
set up an immune response that it has to respond to it.
00:25:23.926 --> 00:25:28.706
And that's kind of how that works, autophagy. And the same way for your mitochondria.
00:25:28.866 --> 00:25:35.166
It's called mitology. And because that's really key, it's protecting your mitochondria
00:25:35.166 --> 00:25:38.466
because that's making the energy for your whole system to run itself.
00:25:38.726 --> 00:25:41.826
But that's a part of this. So that's how that kind of works.
00:25:42.486 --> 00:25:47.266
Makes sense. Yeah, because it literally means eating self autophagy. Right.
00:25:47.486 --> 00:25:52.766
So the cleanup part is that your immune system and the innate immune system
00:25:52.766 --> 00:25:56.806
is taking care of it by degrading and all these things.
00:25:56.806 --> 00:26:03.266
It's it's very cool and because a lot of us will eat at 10 o'clock at night
00:26:03.266 --> 00:26:06.766
and then we're eating again at seven o'clock in the morning you're not really
00:26:06.766 --> 00:26:08.766
getting your body a chance.
00:26:08.766 --> 00:26:13.406
Yeah you're just not giving it yeah by itself just eating anything even good
00:26:13.406 --> 00:26:17.966
foods can create oxidative stress loads to your body and you know a little bit
00:26:17.966 --> 00:26:21.446
of stress is good for the body but you know that's why you have to give time
00:26:21.446 --> 00:26:25.186
space it's why you know exercise is good it stresses your body out to a degree
00:26:25.186 --> 00:26:28.746
but then you have to have a recovery for a little bit. Then you get stronger.
00:26:28.966 --> 00:26:31.006
That's kind of what this is helping you with.
00:26:31.626 --> 00:26:37.266
Yeah, I think fasting and people experimenting with different levels and there
00:26:37.266 --> 00:26:41.486
are differences in men and women probably in childbearing years and things like
00:26:41.486 --> 00:26:43.426
that, but you've got to be careful.
00:26:43.686 --> 00:26:51.386
It's not probably a 12 to 16-hour fast. People are pretty generally okay with, would you say?
00:26:51.626 --> 00:26:59.486
Yeah, I like that. I do like a 12-hour fast most days. A 12-hour fast
00:27:00.186 --> 00:27:01.246
It's good for me.
00:27:01.326 --> 00:27:05.446
I have some patients that do a 72-hour fast once a month.
00:27:05.586 --> 00:27:09.446
They feel good when they do that. I don't think I could do that unless I'd have
00:27:09.446 --> 00:27:12.286
to be strapped down or put in a, I don't know.
00:27:12.966 --> 00:27:15.686
Lock the fridge in the pantry. Yeah.
00:27:16.466 --> 00:27:17.706
I would be very...
00:27:17.706 --> 00:27:19.966
I'd be cranky. I'd be too hangry. I couldn't get it.
00:27:19.966 --> 00:27:22.766
Angry, oh yeah, I'd be a I don't
00:27:22.766 --> 00:27:27.206
Think I'd be a nice person I have some patients that are very religious and
00:27:27.206 --> 00:27:33.746
they use fasting as part of their religious practice and I guess God helps them get through this Well.
00:27:34.046 --> 00:27:41.046
You know, fasting it's a survival technique that we have so we should utilize
00:27:41.046 --> 00:27:46.246
it makes us healthier we don't need to eat all the time No,
00:27:46.366 --> 00:27:50.926
I think we can go about 30 days without food, technically kind of survival,
00:27:51.266 --> 00:27:56.306
but, you know, going more than 12 hours, man, asking some patients to do that
00:27:56.306 --> 00:27:59.906
is a tall order, but it's really not that bad.
00:28:00.146 --> 00:28:04.346
If you're going, you know, you finish eating at eight o'clock and you have something
00:28:04.346 --> 00:28:06.926
at eight in the morning, that's really doable.
00:28:07.246 --> 00:28:10.766
It is doable. It just takes practice like anything we do, you know,
00:28:10.826 --> 00:28:14.766
you just have to work at it, you know, have it, make it intentional.
00:28:14.766 --> 00:28:19.606
Mm-hmm. When there's things that people can do, like I like that if you're in
00:28:19.606 --> 00:28:25.106
kind of a modified fast, even things like bone broth or unsweetened tea or coffee,
00:28:25.266 --> 00:28:29.026
green tea, those kinds of things that still can kind of count as a fast.
00:28:29.186 --> 00:28:33.606
You're giving your body something and definitely liquids. Don't fast for liquids.
00:28:34.126 --> 00:28:39.146
Do that. But there are ways to do it without feeling like you're starving and
00:28:39.146 --> 00:28:41.466
definitely doing it in small steps.
00:28:41.706 --> 00:28:45.346
If you're going from eating every four hours, you wouldn't want to do a 20-hour fast.
00:28:45.566 --> 00:28:46.506
Please don't do that.
00:28:47.169 --> 00:28:50.709
Let's talk a little bit about sleep in the cardiovascular system.
00:28:50.869 --> 00:28:56.209
We talked about breaks, and I think that in itself is going to help autophagy and mitophagy.
00:28:56.329 --> 00:28:59.469
But what are some other recovery things for the cardiovascular system?
00:29:00.089 --> 00:29:07.369
Sleep is awesome. There's a lot of problems with sleep, but a good six or eight
00:29:07.369 --> 00:29:13.489
hours of sleep, well-intended sleep, is what helps us autophagy and helps our vascular system.
00:29:14.518 --> 00:29:18.498
Maybe decreases the inflammation response so it's a reset
00:29:18.498 --> 00:29:23.138
Well like you said that you need even exercise is stressful in that recovery
00:29:23.138 --> 00:29:27.638
period it's the same you've been going all day just shutting everything off
00:29:27.638 --> 00:29:30.618
is anti-inflammatory yeah itself that's.
00:29:30.618 --> 00:29:31.598
Fine it's good
00:29:31.598 --> 00:29:36.578
And definitely insulin resistance and blood glucose if you're not sleeping that's
00:29:36.578 --> 00:29:39.138
you've got higher cortisol levels.
00:29:39.758 --> 00:29:40.898
Yeah, good old cortisol.
00:29:41.158 --> 00:29:45.998
Yeah, no cortisol. Is there any cortisol-specific things in the cardiovascular system?
00:29:46.618 --> 00:29:52.358
It's precipitated by stress, and it's a regulating hormone, and it's going to
00:29:52.358 --> 00:29:57.218
cause you to discharge epinephrine, norepinephrine, and what is that going to do?
00:29:57.318 --> 00:30:00.758
Well, it's going to increase your heart rate, it's going to cause vasoconstriction,
00:30:00.838 --> 00:30:06.378
it's going to precipitate other hormone events, which continue to put pressure
00:30:06.378 --> 00:30:09.198
on that 60,000 miles of tubing.
00:30:09.538 --> 00:30:12.798
You know, we didn't mention that, you know, the inside of the lining,
00:30:12.958 --> 00:30:16.878
the endothelium, also has something attached called the glycocalyx,
00:30:17.058 --> 00:30:20.818
which is this amazing structure.
00:30:20.878 --> 00:30:25.418
It's kind of like, I envision it like seagrass, you know?
00:30:25.658 --> 00:30:30.438
And so, you know, you look at seagrass in the ocean just moving back and forth
00:30:30.438 --> 00:30:34.698
from, you know, these currents that you can't see. well, that's the same kind
00:30:34.698 --> 00:30:37.618
of thing that's going in our lumen.
00:30:37.958 --> 00:30:42.718
We have fluid through there, you know, and so we want to keep it flowing nice
00:30:42.718 --> 00:30:46.038
and smoothly, and the glycocalyx helps do that.
00:30:46.258 --> 00:30:51.598
It also has receptors on it and things like that. Well, things like poor sleep
00:30:51.598 --> 00:30:54.998
and poor diet and toxins can diminish the glycocalyx.
00:30:55.678 --> 00:31:00.538
So what happens is things don't flow as well. Things get sticky, you know.
00:31:00.538 --> 00:31:07.298
That affects the sensitivity of the endothelial lining because the endothelial
00:31:07.298 --> 00:31:11.178
lining is also making something called NO, nitric oxide.
00:31:11.952 --> 00:31:16.332
Nitric oxide is an amazing gas that was discovered in the 80s, I think.
00:31:16.532 --> 00:31:20.432
It does so many things. It stimulates your immune system response.
00:31:20.572 --> 00:31:23.072
It helps cause vasodilation.
00:31:23.692 --> 00:31:26.972
It does, God, there's so many other things. I can't even list them,
00:31:27.052 --> 00:31:29.172
but it's an amazing structure.
00:31:29.512 --> 00:31:36.052
So things like poor sleep or cortisol level elevations or putting pressure on
00:31:36.052 --> 00:31:42.092
that vascular system affect, you know, the functionality of the cardiovascular system.
00:31:42.192 --> 00:31:46.372
And that's really another, that's a big tick to develop with plaque.
00:31:46.692 --> 00:31:52.052
It is crazy. I was trying to put that together for a patient and made me think
00:31:52.052 --> 00:31:55.172
of a patient that has elevated,
00:31:55.492 --> 00:32:01.312
she's got some autoimmune disorders and she just did some labs with her specialists
00:32:01.312 --> 00:32:03.812
there and they did a cortisol level.
00:32:03.972 --> 00:32:06.472
I think it was in the 20s. Very high.
00:32:06.992 --> 00:32:13.732
She's had high inflammatory markers, and then her A1C jumps like two points into the sevens.
00:32:14.572 --> 00:32:18.952
And so we just got this over and over. And she asked me, well,
00:32:19.032 --> 00:32:20.772
they want to send me to endocrinology now.
00:32:20.932 --> 00:32:24.432
And she said, do we need to do that? Do we need to go to endocrinology yet?
00:32:24.572 --> 00:32:27.832
Or is there something else we can do? And I just started seeing her.
00:32:28.032 --> 00:32:32.292
So I told her we'd watch it and start doing some more because I'm worried about
00:32:32.292 --> 00:32:33.612
her cardiovascular vascular system.
00:32:33.932 --> 00:32:39.312
Yeah, because what does cortisol do is stimulating insulin response or,
00:32:39.332 --> 00:32:42.392
you know, it's creating sugar elevation.
00:32:43.472 --> 00:32:49.772
And that's what a lot of people don't need, you know, because that's going to affect, well, insulin.
00:32:50.518 --> 00:32:52.338
It's going to cause the inflammation.
00:32:53.338 --> 00:32:56.298
So you can do a big panel of testing.
00:32:56.518 --> 00:33:03.058
NMR, the lipid panel, is there a searchable way for people to find these panels
00:33:03.058 --> 00:33:05.178
or ask their physicians?
00:33:05.438 --> 00:33:14.338
NMR lipid panel and an insulin C-peptide level and an A1C and a high sensitivity
00:33:14.338 --> 00:33:16.938
CRP, C-reactive protein.
00:33:18.398 --> 00:33:22.178
And an ApoB and a LP-Lalay.
00:33:22.278 --> 00:33:27.718
Those would be add-on tests that you should ask your health care provider to do.
00:33:28.218 --> 00:33:31.918
A lot of times if I have somebody that comes in and their lipids are pretty
00:33:31.918 --> 00:33:36.098
altered and they've got some of these inflammatory markers, then I can all go,
00:33:36.218 --> 00:33:39.178
yeah, you got to go back to the lab. I got to try some other stuff.
00:33:39.949 --> 00:33:45.829
You know and it is it's we don't think about it because we've got this small little lipid panel,
00:33:46.509 --> 00:33:51.369
and over and over i had these people that go yeah it's okay that my triglycerides
00:33:51.369 --> 00:33:56.549
are okay they said that they're within normal limits so we're not doing anything
00:33:56.549 --> 00:34:02.409
about that or my insulin's normal now i don't get very many people that tested
00:34:02.409 --> 00:34:06.089
insulin but it's like normal is around 2 to 20.
00:34:06.729 --> 00:34:11.869
It's this huge range. Right. It's huge range in what is normal.
00:34:12.249 --> 00:34:12.749
Right.
00:34:12.949 --> 00:34:17.709
You know, and so I can catch people in their 20s than I have going,
00:34:17.889 --> 00:34:19.849
we got to start now. Yeah.
00:34:20.389 --> 00:34:24.229
I'd say less than five, probably for insulin levels, normal.
00:34:24.789 --> 00:34:29.749
I think we've got a lot more things that we could test that would help a lot.
00:34:29.929 --> 00:34:34.689
And then family history considerations when we're talking about that.
00:34:34.689 --> 00:34:38.529
A lot of times we'll ask about, do you have any family history?
00:34:38.689 --> 00:34:43.489
And people leave out a lot, too. They leave out a lot of cardiovascular and
00:34:43.489 --> 00:34:46.629
metabolic things that they go, oh, well, they had diabetes.
00:34:46.929 --> 00:34:47.109
Yeah.
00:34:47.829 --> 00:34:48.849
Do you get a lot of that?
00:34:49.249 --> 00:34:53.529
Yeah, you got to really ask the right questions with these patients and hone
00:34:53.529 --> 00:34:56.529
everyone, you know, that family history.
00:34:56.989 --> 00:35:01.309
And, yeah, of course, obviously their dietary history as well. But, yeah. Yeah.
00:35:02.113 --> 00:35:06.533
Dietary histories, are there things, what do you kind of recommend if you are
00:35:06.533 --> 00:35:09.933
short on time, you've got a 15-minute visit,
00:35:10.113 --> 00:35:13.333
and you've got somebody that really needs to work on things,
00:35:13.473 --> 00:35:17.593
do you have them go research something, or what do you like to talk about?
00:35:17.593 --> 00:35:25.533
Well, I guess it depends on their goals, but with IFM, they have so many great
00:35:25.533 --> 00:35:28.693
nutritional plans that work for different things.
00:35:29.913 --> 00:35:32.393
There's no right way to eat,
00:35:32.473 --> 00:35:39.633
I guess, but none of these health plans are like, oh, please include processed food in your diet.
00:35:40.409 --> 00:35:44.809
You know, they're not saying that. So that's, you know, that's an easy thing. Yeah.
00:35:45.309 --> 00:35:47.929
What's a processed food? That's where you have to explain it.
00:35:48.089 --> 00:35:52.949
You know, well, it's, you know, unfortunately, it's a piece of bread, a cracker, a chip,
00:35:53.189 --> 00:35:58.049
you know, your, your white rice, you know, I mean, that those are things you
00:35:58.049 --> 00:36:00.929
have to start talking about. you know, well, what do I do?
00:36:01.109 --> 00:36:06.569
Maybe substitute quinoa for your rice or spaghetti squash for spaghetti noodles.
00:36:06.889 --> 00:36:11.029
You know, just you got to kind of feel, you know, feel them out a little bit,
00:36:11.169 --> 00:36:12.209
what they're willing to try.
00:36:12.629 --> 00:36:16.769
You know, but if they're willing just to decrease cheeseburger and fries,
00:36:17.129 --> 00:36:19.909
you know, that they have maybe three or four times a week, you know,
00:36:19.989 --> 00:36:22.329
maybe cut back. Just start somewhere.
00:36:22.649 --> 00:36:27.649
You know, get more vegetables in your diet. I just talk about the rainbow of
00:36:27.649 --> 00:36:31.769
color that you can get in your diet that's through vegetables and some fruits, you know.
00:36:31.929 --> 00:36:35.169
So, you know, that's kind of keeping it simple.
00:36:35.789 --> 00:36:38.349
That's what you need to do when you don't have a lot of time.
00:36:38.869 --> 00:36:40.529
Talk about water consumption.
00:36:40.849 --> 00:36:45.229
You know, of course, ask them about other consumption of fluids like alcohol
00:36:45.229 --> 00:36:51.889
or beer or whatever, you know, or Cokes or Diet Cokes or sodas.
00:36:52.109 --> 00:36:52.869
That's just the next one.
00:36:53.029 --> 00:36:55.749
Sodas and Cokes. In Texas, we say Cokes. Yeah.
00:36:56.069 --> 00:37:00.669
So that's some of the simple things that I can do, you know,
00:37:00.749 --> 00:37:03.549
when I have time crunch with patient care.
00:37:03.809 --> 00:37:07.489
And then we can come talk to you more about stuff.
00:37:07.909 --> 00:37:11.209
But that is a good way to do it. What are you willing to do?
00:37:11.971 --> 00:37:17.011
And, you know, even when I have an hour with somebody, that's a lot of what
00:37:17.011 --> 00:37:19.731
we do is, this is how I'd like you to eat.
00:37:19.831 --> 00:37:22.351
This is how we can go somewhere in the middle.
00:37:22.511 --> 00:37:28.031
Because I remember shadowing you, I think it was like the first day I'd moved back to the panhandle.
00:37:28.111 --> 00:37:31.111
And you looked at somebody and said, well, you know, pizza's going to happen.
00:37:34.231 --> 00:37:38.431
That's good to think about, too, because those things are going to happen.
00:37:38.431 --> 00:37:42.271
And then you are going to need to go get a cheeseburger some night when it's,
00:37:42.291 --> 00:37:45.771
you know, eight o'clock and you've had three kids practices and whatever.
00:37:46.111 --> 00:37:50.511
But how to fit that into your life and then maybe don't have a cheeseburger
00:37:50.511 --> 00:37:52.211
the rest of the week. Yeah.
00:37:52.391 --> 00:37:58.371
Or you have two pieces of pizza with a side salad with oil and vinegar instead
00:37:58.371 --> 00:38:00.571
of blue cheeks or, you know, whatever.
00:38:00.571 --> 00:38:06.471
Where making those little switches throughout the day makes such a huge difference
00:38:06.471 --> 00:38:08.671
in keeping blood sugar steady.
00:38:09.031 --> 00:38:13.091
And then maybe you can add a 12-hour fast a few days a week at least.
00:38:13.711 --> 00:38:19.911
Things like that that are just not so intense. They're not going to just rock your world.
00:38:20.171 --> 00:38:27.571
We sure wish you would, but I'm not about to just eat vegetables and chicken every day.
00:38:27.811 --> 00:38:33.871
No, there's no reason to. but that's that's a good approach everyone's unique
00:38:33.871 --> 00:38:37.751
you know and you have to meet them where they're at some people are more motivated
00:38:37.751 --> 00:38:39.471
than others and just gotta
00:38:39.891 --> 00:38:44.491
let them through it and they're gonna work their plan it's not my plan it's
00:38:44.491 --> 00:38:49.411
their plan you know I can support it and give them ideas and they can give them a thanks and
00:38:50.078 --> 00:38:54.818
So we go back to, of course, the lifestyle and the diet. I do want to touch
00:38:54.818 --> 00:38:56.778
again on exercise, though.
00:38:57.238 --> 00:39:02.718
What kind of exercise do you talk to your patients about and what do you subscribe to yourself?
00:39:03.578 --> 00:39:10.018
Well, it kind of depends on the patient, the age, you know, their chronic problems,
00:39:10.238 --> 00:39:12.358
muscle skeletal, whatever.
00:39:12.358 --> 00:39:18.198
But, I mean, most people seem to be pointing towards like a high-intensity interval
00:39:18.198 --> 00:39:21.158
training kind of stuff, which is great.
00:39:21.478 --> 00:39:23.878
If you're, you know, if you can do burpees in your 20s,
00:39:23.918 --> 00:39:24.858
I think that's good.
00:39:25.018 --> 00:39:32.218
But I, in my 60s, I can't do a burpee. But I can do fast motion things with,
00:39:32.218 --> 00:39:35.038
you know, time intervals and stuff like that.
00:39:35.098 --> 00:39:39.738
And that's what I do, you know, on a stationary bike or a lift trainer or,
00:39:39.878 --> 00:39:41.738
you know, I have to work around my body.
00:39:41.738 --> 00:39:44.978
And what resistant training is great you
00:39:44.978 --> 00:39:47.878
know that's some type of form of you know weight training
00:39:47.878 --> 00:39:51.378
whether it's a band or actual you
00:39:51.378 --> 00:39:54.378
know weights themselves i have something i
00:39:54.378 --> 00:39:57.258
call my seven minute workout which is just kind of
00:39:57.258 --> 00:40:00.598
jumping jacks and planks and some lunges
00:40:00.598 --> 00:40:03.718
and all that and you just do it take seven minutes
00:40:03.718 --> 00:40:07.338
to do because it's a little station it's like 30 seconds with
00:40:07.338 --> 00:40:10.718
the rest interval that somewhere I
00:40:10.718 --> 00:40:13.738
get people to start somewhere if they can just walk us
00:40:13.738 --> 00:40:16.398
and walk it because we we need to
00:40:16.398 --> 00:40:21.378
be more active you know if you can stand more than sit if you can walk more
00:40:21.378 --> 00:40:26.038
than stand that's what we have to do every day you can do exercise snacks where
00:40:26.038 --> 00:40:30.138
you can just do butt touches on a chair up and down for 30 seconds to a minute
00:40:30.138 --> 00:40:35.478
I mean you can do that during the day a couple times a day you know with your work you know
00:40:36.439 --> 00:40:41.059
That is what you have to do. There's just so many things you can do to stay active.
00:40:41.519 --> 00:40:42.959
That's the first step.
00:40:43.319 --> 00:40:47.219
I think that's good because I think a lot of people, when they think high-intensity
00:40:47.219 --> 00:40:50.379
interval training, then immediately they go to CrossFit.
00:40:50.539 --> 00:40:52.919
Right. And I can't do that anymore.
00:40:53.339 --> 00:40:59.119
But, you know, modifying an exercise does not make you lazy or weak.
00:40:59.119 --> 00:41:01.179
You're doing it to your body.
00:41:01.339 --> 00:41:04.999
And then maybe you can level up or maybe you never do. Maybe you do,
00:41:05.019 --> 00:41:06.619
what do they call, knee push-ups.
00:41:06.759 --> 00:41:07.079
Yeah.
00:41:07.519 --> 00:41:11.639
Forever and ever. It's still a push-up. It's still working the muscles.
00:41:11.819 --> 00:41:12.579
You're supposed to work.
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:18.079
I challenge all my patients to do push-ups now after reading the article about
00:41:18.079 --> 00:41:23.839
doing 40 push-ups can decrease your heart attack risk. So I don't know where the study came from.
00:41:24.039 --> 00:41:26.399
But it sounded good. It sounded like I didn't get to kill anybody.
00:41:26.779 --> 00:41:30.919
Yeah, I think that's great. But that's what I do. I do push-ups.
00:41:31.499 --> 00:41:34.219
Yeah? Yeah. And you're still standing, so that's good.
00:41:34.439 --> 00:41:39.959
I started, I can only do 20 now. I do like 55 this morning. Really? Yeah.
00:41:40.199 --> 00:41:45.059
Oh. And a two-minute plank and do my, call it my Bruce yoga.
00:41:45.739 --> 00:41:48.459
I don't know how to do yoga, so I do these word stretches.
00:41:49.279 --> 00:41:51.299
It sounds like my daughter. That's what she does.
00:41:51.539 --> 00:41:52.739
Yeah. Pulls out the yoga mat.
00:41:52.819 --> 00:41:56.479
I don't know what she's doing over there. Oh, yeah. She seems happy. That's good.
00:41:56.999 --> 00:42:00.599
Starting with yoga. It's Vivian yoga. Vivian yoga, Bruce yoga,
00:42:00.739 --> 00:42:02.579
whatever kind of yoga you want to do. That's right.
00:42:02.879 --> 00:42:08.639
And then all those stretches being limber, again, that is very helpful as well.
00:42:09.299 --> 00:42:13.319
So I'm kind of wrapping up talking about, well, you got our lifestyle,
00:42:13.399 --> 00:42:17.979
you got your diet, you know what lab tests to ask for that's not,
00:42:18.219 --> 00:42:20.359
your basic thing is a good place to start.
00:42:20.519 --> 00:42:23.679
If you're going every year, every six months and getting the basics,
00:42:23.939 --> 00:42:28.319
that's fine, but knowing that that's not the whole story.
00:42:28.599 --> 00:42:28.819
Right.
00:42:29.607 --> 00:42:34.267
I think it's been important for my patients when they need a new primary care
00:42:34.267 --> 00:42:39.887
physician when I'm telling them to go see somebody what to be asking for and
00:42:39.887 --> 00:42:42.087
how to know it's a good fit.
00:42:42.287 --> 00:42:47.747
Being dismissed for wanting comprehensive testing is a big red flag to me.
00:42:48.427 --> 00:42:51.847
So, you know, going to somebody like Dr. Clark and saying, you know,
00:42:52.027 --> 00:42:56.347
I've heard some, there's some more tests that we can do and how do we really
00:42:56.347 --> 00:43:01.427
know about my risk as opposed to, here's your labs, they look pretty good, see you next year.
00:43:02.047 --> 00:43:06.467
Telling the company line, you know, well, data statin,
00:43:07.067 --> 00:43:11.987
you know, I mean statins have their place, but you know, lifestyle has its place,
00:43:12.587 --> 00:43:18.587
you know, a lot as well, so it's a blend of to me functional,
00:43:19.167 --> 00:43:23.567
which is more lifestyle driven with science behind it
00:43:24.322 --> 00:43:28.082
And the conventional wisdom, that has science behind it as well, too.
00:43:28.742 --> 00:43:32.502
But everything is changeable, debatable. Mm-hmm.
00:43:33.222 --> 00:43:38.222
Yeah, I do think that, you know, say don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.
00:43:38.342 --> 00:43:40.762
There are some good things that have been very well researched,
00:43:40.762 --> 00:43:43.382
and there is a place for all this stuff.
00:43:43.642 --> 00:43:47.622
And some people will come see me and they go, well, I just want just the natural stuff.
00:43:47.922 --> 00:43:48.122
Right.
00:43:48.222 --> 00:43:50.662
Well, I do both. I'm in the middle.
00:43:50.962 --> 00:43:51.162
Yeah.
00:43:51.422 --> 00:43:55.122
There's a place for medications if we need them, if I'm really going to help your risk.
00:43:55.362 --> 00:43:59.002
I did put somebody on a low-dose statin the other day. Yeah.
00:43:59.222 --> 00:44:04.142
Because they had the risk. They had, you know, overage of all of their cholesterol
00:44:04.142 --> 00:44:06.602
markers, and they had diabetes.
00:44:06.642 --> 00:44:10.942
And I said, well, you know, it's not going to fix the whole thing,
00:44:11.082 --> 00:44:15.702
but maybe we'll lower that part of your risk the best we can.
00:44:15.902 --> 00:44:17.642
I mean, it's little by little.
00:44:18.042 --> 00:44:23.222
Oh, and things like baby aspirin, you know, I think that that's not a bad thing
00:44:23.222 --> 00:44:25.982
to do. Yeah, that's a good one. You still do that.
00:44:26.622 --> 00:44:28.422
Yeah, I think turmeric's good too.
00:44:28.642 --> 00:44:33.382
Oh, yeah. I love it. I did put somebody, I have curcumin behind me.
00:44:33.682 --> 00:44:35.642
Curcumin's the active ingredient in turmeric.
00:44:35.882 --> 00:44:36.062
Yeah.
00:44:36.382 --> 00:44:39.902
Yeah, starting people on that is wonderful. And then you don't have to worry
00:44:39.902 --> 00:44:42.822
about the GI bleeds. Yeah. That's nice.
00:44:44.362 --> 00:44:47.642
But if they'll just work their plan,
00:44:47.662 --> 00:44:51.342
we just have to help them understand what the plan means and how we're gonna
00:44:51.342 --> 00:44:57.922
has to be implemented the hardest part is the beginning that's where the most
00:44:57.922 --> 00:45:04.142
amount of pain is is starting always you know whatever it is so whether it's
00:45:04.142 --> 00:45:07.642
an exercise program or eating differently or whatever I mean it just
00:45:08.695 --> 00:45:10.095
A little bit of self-sacrifice,
00:45:10.195 --> 00:45:12.655
So painful initially, but it gets better.
00:45:12.935 --> 00:45:18.295
It does get better. Well, this has been great. I think this was a great start.
00:45:18.295 --> 00:45:20.235
I'm sure I'll have you back to talk about more.
00:45:20.355 --> 00:45:23.855
Oh, yeah, we got more stuff to talk about. We got more stuff to talk about always.
00:45:25.175 --> 00:45:29.675
But Beginner's Guide to Cardiovascular Health, we'll call this one. Yeah.
00:45:30.375 --> 00:45:34.795
But it's been good, and thank you for coming on and talking about all this.
00:45:34.795 --> 00:45:39.995
And y'all let us know what else you want to hear from Dr. Clark or other guests.
00:45:40.135 --> 00:45:43.795
You know, all my socials are at Elevated Health Texas. I'm easy to find.
00:45:44.175 --> 00:45:49.495
Again, I love hearing the stories and people that are finding me through the
00:45:49.495 --> 00:45:51.195
podcast and coming to see me.
00:45:51.415 --> 00:45:54.435
And that's always fun to hear your stories.
00:45:54.695 --> 00:45:58.335
So thank you for joining us and thank you for being here.
00:45:58.715 --> 00:45:59.715
Thank you very much, Lynn.
00:46:00.135 --> 00:46:01.755
All right. We'll see you all next week.
00:46:05.995 --> 00:46:10.895
The Elevated Health Podcast is for educational and informational purposes only.
00:46:11.115 --> 00:46:15.115
The information discussed on this podcast does not constitute medical advice
00:46:15.115 --> 00:46:20.235
and is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any medical condition.
00:46:20.435 --> 00:46:23.435
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00:46:23.675 --> 00:46:27.135
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00:46:31.795 --> 00:46:34.695
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