Welcome, my name is Dr Warrick Bishop. I'm a cardiologist, an author and a keynote speaker. I'm CEO of the Healthy Heart Network. I'm all about trying to help people live as well as possible for as long as possible. Heart disease is huge in Australia. Every 20 minutes someone suffers a heart attack. Most of these could probably have been avoided if only we knew what to do. This podcast is all about helping you understand blood pressure, weight, cholesterol for better health. If you enjoy this podcast, I would be honoured for a five-star review. You can share it with your family and friends. It may well save someone you love. Hi, my name is Dr. Eric Bishop and welcome to my podcast and videocast station. Really appreciate you tuning in and I hope I can give you something valuable and informative. to take away to help you with your own health journey. Today I thought I would talk about some hints and tips for good heart health. In fact, I think I might call it the 10 commandments of heart health and it's perfect timing for sharing this podcast as very soon we will be releasing my next book called Ten Commandments of Heart Health Explained. But let me share with you the main dot points. And if you're interested, keep an eye out for the book because we think it'll come up really, really well. It's very close to its final edits and it's looking really good. So what are the Ten Commandments of Heart Health? Well, number one. Very simple. Don't smoke. Please, just don't smoke. Unfortunately, it's much easier said than done. We know smoking is a very addictive condition. In fact, it rates right up there with things like cocaine. Having said that, though, people can quit. We do observe people stopping cigarette smoking, so it's not impossible. Unfortunately, many people don't stop until it's too late. So refocus. Have a grown-up pants conversation with your other half and talk about what smoking is going to offer you in your later years. It really doesn't offer much. And any support you can get from your loved ones to help you quit is valuable. So number one, don't smoke, please. The next commandment is to exercise regularly. And this is so important. Not only is this good for your physical health, but so much research these days is telling us how valuable it is for your mental health. And so regular exercise is almost a wonder drug to not only help you improve your physical well-being, Reduce your risk of heart attack, reduce your risk of stroke and dementia, but it'll also improve your mood while you're living longer. So please look at regular exercise, and it needn't be much more than a brisk walk, say 20 to 30 minutes, three, four, five times a week. Whatever that exercise is, though, please try and find something you enjoy, because exercise that you don't enjoy can't. become a habit. It becomes a chore and you won't do it. So exercise. Number three, eat well and maintain a healthy weight. Now we know that preservatives, flavorings, even artificial sweeteners can all have significant consequence on our metabolic processes that we wouldn't have even imagined. unless we were able to get some of the research around it. I produced a podcast relatively recently on aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener, and many people might be reaching for that low-sugar soda drink in the belief that it may be beneficial for their health. Well, a study on aspartame, which is an artificial sweetener, demonstrated clearly in mice that it increased levels of anxiety. Now, that's a problem of its own, but here's the really scary thing. When they looked at the offspring of those mice who'd been given aspartame, those offspring had increased levels of anxiety compared to a control group. And here's the really, really, really scary thing. When they looked at the offspring of the offspring, So we're talking grandchildren mice of the mice originally given the aspartame. They demonstrated increased levels of anxiety. And the offspring and the offspring's offspring were not given aspartame in the meantime. That means that that foreign chemical, that artificial sweetener was having an impact on the DNA and therefore the DNA and... proteins that read the DNA that were passed on through generations. So please, if something has a barcode on it, it's probably been tampered with and you can probably do better by finding a fresh alternate option. So please eat well and please keep the weight under control. If you're a couple of kilos over, make a decision to lose the weight now, not wait until you're 10 or 15 or 20 kilos over. Because then it's too hard to get the weight off. Your body adjusts, gets used to that new weight and makes it very difficult to get back towards your ideal. So, healthy food and healthy weight. Commandment number four, limit alcohol consumption. Well, wow, this is one that's gone in and out. of popularity over the years and up until a few years ago we used to think that perhaps a glass or two of red wine could be beneficial particularly red wine because it may have some of those flavonoids and antioxidants in it that we believe could well be useful for reduction of risk of cancer formation and risk of cardiovascular disease. Recent time however has led us to believe that there is no dose of alcohol that's beneficial. And so no longer do we think any could be beneficial. The take-home message is zero is probably best. Any amount may be detrimental. Too much is certainly detrimental and will increase your blood pressure, increase your risk of atrial fibrillation, increase your risk of weight gain, increase risk of dementia. So alcohol, what do I do? One glass most nights because it's such an important component of me enjoying my meal in the evening. Maybe a couple of extra glasses at the end of the week or on the weekend. But please limit alcohol consumption. Commandment number five, keep that blood pressure under control. If you haven't had it checked recently, go and get it checked. Raise blood pressure, increases risk of stroke. It increases risk of heart attack. It increases risk of atrial fibrillation, that irregular beat of the heart that we see in 10-15% of people over 80 years of age. It increases the risk of cardiac failure, which is a sinister and rather insidious condition of a stiff heart that people get as they get older. High blood pressure can also drive kidney function. You really don't want kidney function as you're aging. If your kidneys pack up... you pack up as well. And high blood pressure is also linked to dementia. So if you haven't had your blood pressure checked recently, please go and get it checked and make sure you keep it under control. Next on the list of 10 commandments is number 6 and that is be on top of diabetes. Now diabetes and weight. tie in together, you're far more likely to run the risk of diabetes if you're overweight. So if you are overweight, check in with your doctor, get your sugars checked, get your HbA1c checked, anything that's appropriate and relevant for your situation. And if you are carrying too much weight and you do have a family history of diabetes, do whatever you can, get the support you can to try and... Get that weight off. Not only will you avert diabetes in the future, but you feel better with a better quality of life. Commandment number seven, know your cardiovascular risk. Precisely. Now it's all good and well to know your age and your sex and your smoking history and your diabetic history and your blood pressure and your family history and all these things and put them into a risk calculator. But until you take that extra step and image your arteries to move away from association and predicted rate of event from a population-based risk calculator tool to being specific and looking at your arteries in particular, then you just won't know what's going on in you. And in a podcast I recently did, I presented some of the data that we've collected from virtual heart check which is we believe the very first patient interactive platform to allow individuals to go through the process of calculating their population based risk and if appropriate going through and selecting to purchase a calcium score to look at their actual risk of plaque within the arteries. Well, the upshot of that was that a large number of the individuals who went through our platform were intermediate or medium risk. They were average. But when we looked at those average risk people and compared them to the scores, the highest scores came from the average people. And so it's incredibly important to take an extra step and know precisely. what's going on within your arteries. And the only way to do that is to look. You wouldn't ask a mechanic to make a comment on the health of your car engine without allowing him to lift up the bonnet. So why would you do it on yourself? Commandment number eight. Know your cholesterol level and act on it. Very important. It could be one of the drivers for you selecting a... heart scan. And if, by the way, if anyone's interested, go to virtualheartcheck.com where you'll find the risk calculator and an opportunity to purchase a heart scan in any major centre in Australia. But back to commandment number eight. Know your cholesterol level and act on it. Well, of course, if you've got plaque in your arteries and your cholesterol's up, you need... guidance from your doctor to get that cholesterol down. If your cholesterol is even borderline but your age is creeping up you might act on that by getting a scan on your heart and seeing exactly what's going on. Either way your cholesterol can be managed. Our drugs work extremely well. For the right people we can actually change the future and if you combine that with commandment number seven where you include some imaging you can have the Best information to make the best decisions. Commandment number nine is understand aspirin and other heart medications. So should everyone be on aspirin? Probably not. We've had a couple of large trials come out in the last two to three years. One called Ascend, one called Asprey, and one called... I think, Aspire. Don't quote me on that, but these three trials looked at people with intermediate or medium risk of heart attack, put them on aspirin and followed them. Now, it turned out that these studies did show a reduction in heart attack, but they showed an increase in risk of bleeding that outweighed that benefit. However, none of these trials used imaging to scan the heart and see if we were really giving aspirin to high-risk individuals or not. So, in general terms, aspirin, probably not indicated broadly. For people who've had a heart scan and they've got high-risk features, then it probably is indicated, but there's no research in that space at the moment. That tends to be my own practice and it makes perfect sense to me. The last commandment is to have your own support team. Now, why would you want your own support team? Because even the best athletes in the world need... And so what are we recommending? Please talk to your family, your friends, your loved ones. If you are looking on a healthy heart, healthy lifestyle journey, engage the people around you. Because if they're not engaged and they're who you're hanging around, you won't do anything. That's just a fact of association. So if you're going to make a difference, you have to engage the people around you or find people who are doing what you want to do. Please lock in with your GP. This is the central person in your health care journey. And they're the person who will guide you to each of the specialties or specialists that you'll need through your own. health journey and then you might need a cardiologist you might need an exercise physiologist you might need a psychologist if you're looking to break habits and improve eating habits or you might need a hypnotherapist to help you with your smoking habit i don't know what it'll be but whatever you do surround yourself with good people who can help you on your own heart health journey and more importantly than that take the time to support and encourage the people around you. Because if you think about it, it makes little sense for you to be on this fantastic journey, have all your heart risks sorted out by following those Ten Commandments, and your friends and family pass away prematurely because they weren't engaged and didn't have the opportunity to share the knowledge that you had. So please talk to other people, share the knowledge and make a difference. Well, that's The Ten Commandments of Heart Health. And please, if you're interested, and you'd like a lot more information and detail, and I can tell you the book's come up really well, it's going to be out soon. It's going to be called The Ten Commandments of Heart Health Explained. I'm writing it with Dr. Karam Kostner, who is an Australian and world expert on lipids, and he's also a dear friend of mine. I hope you've enjoyed this podcast. If you've got any queries or questions, drop us a note. If you've got any suggestions for future podcasts, of course, let us know as well. For now though, I am going to wish you the very best and hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care and bye for now. Hi, ever wondered what your risk of heart attack is? You should. It's the single biggest killer in the Western world. We're talking one death. less than every 30 minutes in Australia, one death less than every 60 seconds in the United States, 9 million deaths globally per annum. Well how do you check your risk? Well you can go to www.virtualheartcheck.com.au you'll find out about your risk and what can be done beyond that to be even more precise.
