**Episode Title: "Day 4: The Power of Calcium Scoring (CAC)"** **Speaker:** Hi and welcome back to day four. This is a really important day, and it's fundamental to your best health journey. It's central to what I do as a preventative cardiologist. What I'd like you to understand or imagine is if we had a motor vehicle, a car—let's call it a Toyota Corolla for argument's sake. It's got intermediate miles on it, it's been looked after, and we're looking at the car from the outside. Can you tell me for certain what the oil level is in that car by looking at the tyres, the exterior, the number of kilometres it's travelled? No, the trick is you need to lift up the bonnet and have a look inside. Well, humans suggest the same. If you look at humans from the outside, based on their height, their weight, their cholesterol levels, even their blood pressure, their smoking history, their age, and their sex, you can have a stab at what's going to be going on in their heart, but you can't be sure. The only way to really know is to lift up the bonnet and have a look at the heart directly. Well, we actually have technology that allows us to do that. It's called coronary artery calcium scoring. It's a very affordable test; it's literally a few hundred dollars, it takes one heartbeat, it has a low dose of radiation, and it tells us whether there is plaque present in the arteries or not. A zero score is a fantastic reassurance over a five-year period for anyone. So, coronary artery calcium scoring is a very important check. What I'd like to do is, if you want to know more about it or if you want to explore if it's for you, I’ll send you along to a website I've created called virtualheartcheck.com.au, where you can put in some of your details and get some feedback as to whether this might be a test that's important or valuable for helping decide your best medical management into the future. I'd also like to invite you to make sure you follow up on the podcast that goes with today, because I'll give you a little bit more detail. And, of course, speak to your GP as well. Is a calcium score valuable for you? But in my own practice, I tend to think a calcium score should be a rite of passage for every male aged 45 to 50 and above, and every female aged 55 to 60 and above, unless there's a reason to do the testing a little bit earlier, like a really bad family history. So that's it—coronary artery calcium scoring. Stay tuned; we've got lots more to cover, including some of the new medications that are going to be available for lowering cholesterol, and they're right at our doorstep now. I hope you live as well as possible for as long as possible. Take care, and bye for now.