I believe we can prevent heart attack. We can put in place strategies to reduce risk. We can literally plan to change your future. Welcome. My name is Dr. Oreck Bishop. I'm a cardiologist. I'm an author and a keynote speaker. Together with that, I'm CEO of the Healthy Heart Network and I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. You probably know, heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes someone suffers a heart attack and we know that over 20 people per day die from heart disease. This is on the backdrop of over 9 million people globally being impacted by this condition. Truthfully, most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand better where blood pressure, weight, cholesterol and all the other bits and pieces around there can help together with general health literacy for general better health. I am on a mission to impact not just heart health but general health on a global scale. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honoured for a five-star review and... you can share it with your family and friends. Who knows? It may well save someone you love. Hi, Warrick Bishop here, and welcome to my podcast and videocast station, and thank you for joining me. Look, I thought I'd like to share with you today a little bit about a presentation I recently attended on obesity. Well, it was pretty interesting in that a fair bit of obesity seems to be linked to genetics and, as you might guess, epigenetics. Epigenetics being the very things that modify how our genes are expressed. But the data to support that obesity is closely linked to genetics is powerfully demonstrated with twin trials. So there's little question there that there's a significant underlay. of genetics which drives obesity. The big question then is how do we alter and recognize the epigenetic factors whether that be diet, exercise or lifestyle which then impact those genes and allow people to become markedly overweight. Well you might be aware that my general recommendation is for people to keep their carbohydrates down i do encourage people to exercise particularly cardiovascular exercise walking but also high intensity training and weights as there seems to be good data suggesting that weights possibly offer a better bang for the buck when it comes to trying to drop your weight or at least lose body fat and certainly is a better way to gain body muscle. Some people fast and get benefit from that. I've been doing a restricted eating regime for a number of months now and I actually find it quite an easy thing to do. I've also realized that sleep is incredibly important to good weight control and lack of sleep is directly linked to people generating elevated levels of cholesterol, sorry cortisol, not cholesterol. elevated levels of cortisol, and will lead to people gaining weight. Well, the particular bit I was keen to speak with you about today is in regard to the body regulating its own weight. And as you might be aware, our bodies have set points for different things. The easiest example is temperature. Notice that the body temperature is increasing and put in place mechanisms for us to sweat and therefore lose weight. Conversely, if we're too cold, the body recognizes that and puts in mechanisms to increase temperature and that's why we shiver. So the body is well attuned to set points. that it produces more leptin. And leptin is a hormone that then feeds back to the brain and starts to turn appetite centers down. So if you think about it, as the fat cells accumulate, if you start to gain weight, then they produce the very hormone that would break that circuit and restore the body moving back towards its... recognized set point. Anyway, I think we possibly have all heard of that, but the very interesting bit of information that I came across in this particular talk was that over and above leptin, there is possibly other markers feeding back to help the body know where its set point is. Now, what was What's being proposed and what was demonstrated through trial is that the bones, which measure, if you like, or have the impact of our weight, have cells in them that are responsive to the force passed through them. And the particular study that was shared in this session that I attended was in regard to putting weights, inside the abdomen of mice. And so they had a set of obese mice. Half of those obese mice received a weight of at least 15% of the total mass of the mouse within the abdomen. And the other half of the mice received the, if you like, the holder or the lining that would have held that mass at a fraction of the actual weight. in their abdomen. And after a period of time there was a clear indication that the mice that had an extra weight implanted in their abdomen lost weight statistically more than the mice that did not. Well, the suggestion from that was that the bones have cells within them called osteoclasts. Osteoclasts. These are the cells that build bone, but they're sensitive to the forces through bone. Anyway, it appears that these osteoclasts, under increased load, seem to release some sort of messenger back to the body. We don't know how it works, but it seems to drive the body returning back to its set point. Well, absolutely fascinating and a space that I dare say we will continue to watch. Certainly it could fit in with people getting more benefit out of weightlifting and lifting weights over and above the energy expenditure as it might be that weightlifting stimulates these very same cells and releases this compound or chemical which has an effect to bring the body's weight down. Anyway, I hope you find that as interesting as I do. From my perspective, I'm going to sign off. If you are interested, you might be aware I've got a weight loss course. If you go to drWarrickbishop.com, click on Contact Us, and at the bottom of that list, you'll see Weight Loss Course. If you go to healthyheartnetwork.com, you'll find the weight loss course listed in the resources. Well, look, thank you for listening. I really do appreciate you taking time out. I hope you found today interesting. If you have any queries or questions, drop us a note. I'm always interested to hear what people would like to hear about. I'm going to wish you the very best. Until next time, live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now. Did you know that coronary artery disease kills one in four people? So most of us are likely to carry some risk or know someone who does. If you're interested in finding out more about how to evaluate that risk, check out www.virtualheartcheck.com.au. It'll give you information about risk and what else can be done to be even more precise.
