Becoming Heart Smart (Performance & Longevity Series)

< Full Episode

Transcript: Becoming Heart Smart (Performance & Longevity Series)

Season 11, Episode 6  | August 14, 2025

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Welcome to Life Time Talks in our series on performance and longevity with MIORA. I’m Jamie Martin, I’m here with Jim LaVelle. He is our chief science officer at Life Time. And today, we are talking heart smart, mastering cardiovascular health. Understanding cardiovascular health is essential for overall health and well-being, and it requires a holistic lens that goes beyond just looking at your cholesterol levels by understanding hidden causes of heart disease, how heart disease progresses, and how to prevent and potentially reverse heart disease. You can own your cardiovascular health and be heart smart.

And Jim, we know that cardiovascular disease is the number one killer in the US. So let’s just touch on that. And like some of the statistics around cardiovascular health and what’s the state of the state right now?

Yeah. Well, as you just said, it’s still our number one killer. Several hundred thousand people will succumb to an event this year. And so I think it’s important that we understand that cardiovascular disease can start really early. It can start in childhood, especially with the epidemic of childhood obesity, stress, environmental burden, a lot of things that can contribute to it.

But I think it’s important for people to understand that you want to work on your heart health, really it should be a top of mind every day.

Every single day.

Yeah. Well, and like you said, it can start early. And we may not know it. It’s often called — as well as being the number one killer, it’s often referred to as a silent killer because there’s so many things happening under the hood that we may not even be aware of.

That’s right. Well, so the silent killer goes back to a previous episode. We talked about metaflammation, metabolic inflammation. The crossroads of metabolic inflammation is cardiovascular disease. Meaning that I’m under stress. I’m not eating right. I’m not getting enough sleep. Over a period of time, my blood sugar starts to get disrupted. Maybe I’m exposed to certain things.

And now all of a sudden, either my blood pressure is starting to go up or I’m starting to plaque my arteries. Or maybe my nervous system gets out of kilter called autonomic nervous dysfunction. And now all of a sudden, we’re on that path towards becoming what’s known as a vascular path.

And so that’s the critical juncture that everybody should be aware of. And there’s a lot of things that you can do as early warning signals that can help you figure out, hey, am I in the path for future cardiovascular disease. And I know we were talking about this earlier that genetics play a big role in it too. And sometimes you got to work extra hard.

Yeah. Well, you and I, we’re both saying that. We both have family histories of cardiovascular disease. And let’s talk about that for a second, because there have been things that I’ve read because this is a topic that’s really personal to me as well. It’s like there are all these things you can do to lifestyle factors, which we’re going to delve into. But when you have a genetic risk with certain genetic risks, there’s still things you can do, but your risk is still there regardless.

Yeah. Probably the biggest one is called the APOE gene snips. So they’re categorized. But basically when you get your test back on an APOE blood test, if you are a 3/4 or a 4/4, so APOE 3/4, 4/4, you’re at a four-fold increased risk for dementia, heart disease, kidney disease.

And that’s because there’s things in your lifestyle that will trigger that gene snip. So you got to moderate alcohol intake. Alcohol is not good right. You have to watch your blood sugar even closer than other people. And you have to watch your saturated fat. So you know how a lot of people are like, hey, you can use coconut oil or you can eat more grass-fed beef or eat organic cheese.

You have to measure saturated fat. And you should not get more than 20 grams of saturated fat a day if you’re an APOE 3/4, 4/4, or you’re going to increase your risk of cardiovascular disease and dementia.
Super interesting. I’m a farm girl from Wisconsin. I grew up on a beef farm. So grass-fed beef is pretty common in my family. But it’s one of those things that just that’s the staple. But it’s also something to just be aware of, how do we moderate and make different choices, for instance.

Yeah. And look, food labeling has sat fat on it. That’s what you do is you add up your saturated fat and you should be under 20 grams a day. I love grass-fed beef. My father was a world-famous chef, highly decorated. I like a lot of foods. Probably my favorite food is dairy. I love cheese. Just can’t eat it. But that’s a choice that you make when you’re forward thinking about, well, where is my health moving as I’m aging.
Yeah. It’s kind of thinking beyond the present moment. And looking forward. So let’s talk about some of those well-known causes of cardiovascular disease. We’ve talked about, you’ve mentioned diet already like some of the food choices we’re going to make. But what are some of the other things that might be contributing?

Well, the big one, of course, smoking is still a big contributor. And you have to always mention that. Stress is big. Cortisol and the loss of your diurnal cortisol pattern. So as human beings, we wake up in the morning and our body is at its highest state of alertness, and it’s supposed to drop that state of alertness at noon, drop again at 5:00 PM, and then drop to a very low cortisol state at night so your body can go into repair mode.

So when we don’t get adequate sleep, when we have a condition known as sleep apnea, which is very big for cardiovascular risk, that can start to create problems when you what’s called flattening your cortisol curve. Flattening your cortisol curve, meaning that you’re releasing stress hormones all day long, 333% increased risk for cardiometabolic disease. 333%.

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a big number. And that means I want to manage my stress. Insulin and glucose regulation, super important. All diabetics end up with heart disease. That’s why you want to regulate your glucose. Another obvious check the box.

Trace mineral status. Things like magnesium, which is very important for blood vessel dilation. Big, big support for that. And then, of course, are you active or not? Do you exercise? Do you move? Very important. So those are the top line things in terms of that. But then there’s a lot of other things that people don’t think about.

Yeah. More the hitting causes. Let’s delve into them.

Yeah. One, environmental burden. So there’s clear correlation to things like lead levels in your body. That lead, and you think, well, how did we get lead. Well, there’s something called Proposition 65 in California, which measures the lead levels in things like food and that you could probably go into most places, order a salad and it would fail Proposition 65, because there’s so much lead in our soil from all the gas that was burned, all the receipts that have been put into landfills, you name it.

There’s a lot there.

There’s a lot. Paint, you name it. And lead’s not the only one. Mercury is an issue. There’s other metals as well or contaminants from the environment. And so that’s important.

I think gut health, people don’t realize that there is a gut-heart connection. That when our gut is creating more inflammatory cytokines. And basically, when your gut microbiome is breaking down and you release — when the bacteria die, they release something called lipopolysaccharide.

We’re just going to make it LPS.

LPS.

It’s going to be a lot easier than lipopolysaccharide. So lipopolysaccharide, it gets into your circulation and your liver is supposed to filter it out. Your lymph helps to get rid of it. But the problem is, is when there’s too much of it, it circulates and it can attach to your heart. It can damage the inner lining of your artery, known as the glycocalyx. Glycocalyx.

OK. Tell us more about that because that’s one I haven’t really heard a lot about.

Well, it turns out that the glycocalyx is basically, it’s the new term for the inner lining of your artery, which we used to think the inner lining of your arteries was like this smooth little cell. Well, when they started doing things like electron microscopy on it, they found out that it’s got like these hairy-like projections, just like your mucosal cells. And that protects your artery or the intimal medial area from getting damaged.
And when you get under stress or you have excessive oxidative stress or you have environmental burden, you damage that inner lining called the glycocalyx. And we can actually measure that. You can measure if your micro capillaries are doing well. So you’re providing blood to all of the little areas of your

body that you should, which is really good because our body needs oxygen.
When you lose your micro capillaries, that means those tissues get ischemic and you’re going to damage those tissues and your heart can get damaged and that can be an issue. The other thing that a lot of people don’t realize is overtraining. Because we think of heart disease, we think of plaque.

Well, the other aspect are things like heart failure. And so we hear of endurance athletes that end up growing their left ventricle and ending up as they’re aging. Yeah with risk for heart failure. That’s why it’s important that people understand. The harder you train, the more you need to work at recovery. If you don’t understand that, if you think, hey, I train really hard, I don’t have to watch my diet. That is the first step in the wrong direction.

And so overtraining could be an issue if you’re not really recovering well. So then the other piece is what’s your resting heart rate. It turns out that for every four points above 62. So if it’s 66, 7% to 10% increased risk for a cardiometabolic even if you’re resting heart rate is going up.

So for every four points every, a 7% to 10% increased risk. Yeah, I know right. A lot of people don’t realize that. And then heart rate variability, that’s another one. So when your heart rate is no longer having its flexibility. So that when you have increased demand, your heart rate goes up. Decreased demand, your heart rate goes down.

When you’re losing that kind of periodic rhythmicity that your heart needs, which is a little bit of variability, when you lose that lowered heart rate, variability increases future risk for acute myocardial events.
And that seems counterintuitive. When you say you want to lower HR, you don’t necessarily want to lower HRV, you want that variability that’s a little bit higher.

Exactly right. And then the third one that’s important, two-minute heart rate recovery. So what does that mean? You’re working out. You stop your workout, sit down, and measure how much your heart rate goes down in the next two minutes. And it should go down at least 12 beats per minute for those two minutes.
So your goal would be a 24-point drop in your heart rate. So if your heart rate variability is good and your resting heart rate is good, and your two-minute heart rate recovery is good, and then we get into things like labs. But before we get to that and your sleep is good and you’re managing your stress and your diet is good and you don’t have bad genes.

Ifs there.

Yeah, ifs there. But if you can get all those things together, well, then you know what, you’re getting on the right track for cardiovascular health. But the other thing is there’s no doubt about it. Labs play an important role in this.

Absolutely. So let’s go there because we know that over time, heart disease will progress. So what does that look like. And then how are we monitoring this over time?

Yeah. So I mean if you go to your doctor these days, a lot of them will suggest a coronary artery scan or a coronary artery calcification score or CAC. And then you can look at advanced ones of that where you look at vulnerable plaque or soft plaque, which is actually more at risk of breaking off and leading to a stroke.

Soft plaque.

So soft plaque. So you can go with real advanced testing like that, which is being done preventatively now more and more. And then, of course, there’s the traditional lab markers that you look at, triglycerides, which is a big risk factor. The higher triglycerides that’s a problem. And then LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol.

And then you can even get into advanced testing, which is actually done. I mean, we do this at MIORA. You can get this done. It’s an advanced cardiometabolic test where you’re looking at the bad actor lipids that are associated with future coronary artery disease risk. So there’s things like lipoprotein (a) Lp-PLA2, particle size of your lipids. A lot of people don’t realize all LDL cholesterol is not bad.
That was one thing that I remember from several years ago being pretty eye opening to me. It’s like the size of these matter for both LDL and HDL.

Yeah, exactly. Well, the way I explain it for folks, and I think they understand it, if you think of the inner lining of your artery as a tennis net. And if you’re making LDL cholesterol, that’s the size of a softball, throwing that softball through the tennis net. probably not going to happen.

No, not happening.

But if you’re making BB sized LDL cholesterol, now you’re getting some BBs going through that tennis net. And the problem is when that LDL cholesterol lodges into that glycocalyx, that inner lining now your immune system starts to take action.

So monocytes trigger macrophages, which are a part of your immune system. And you make two kinds of macrophages, pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory. So M1 macrophages attack. They attack that cholesterol, oxidize that cholesterol. And they do that through an enzyme called myeloperoxidase.
Wow. And so it makes more oxidized LDL. Oxidized LDL creates foam stealth streak cells plaque. So the bottom line is gee, I want to know if my monocytes are high. I want to know what kind of lipids I’m making. Where’s my glucose and insulin at? Where’s my cortisol levels at?

And then of course, we think of other things because 40% of hypertension is renal hypertension. So how are my kidneys doing?

That means kidneys.

Now one thing that I failed to mention is one of the easiest things you can do is take your blood pressure.

On a regular basis.

You should do your blood pressure pretty regularly. And I also like people to do a morning and night blood pressure. So you do your morning blood pressure because hey, remember what I said. Your body is a diurnal being. We wake up in the morning, it’s supposed to work hard, but then we’re supposed to slide into our evening hours.

We’re supposed to wind down.

Bring it down. Bring it down right. So you want to do your evening blood pressures. And what should you see? You should see a lowering of your evening blood pressures if you’re managing your stress. And look at your heart rate. And the other piece to this is so blood pressure really important. And what’s an ideal number? 120 over 80 or maybe 110 over 70. If it’s too low, then you’ve got orthostatic hypotension. You get dizzy on standing.

What you really want to worry about is when your blood pressures get up over 120 over 80, because that’s more pressure on the inside of your arteries. What grows that intimal medial area. It’s called intima media thickness. So your artery inner lining gets thicker, more inflammation. It gets stickier. So you’re going to let that cholesterol get on it. A lot of times that’s insulin resistance.

Goes back to it. I mean, again, it’s a fundamental health marker. What is our insulin look like?
Yeah, exactly. So there’s a lot that you can do. Measuring things like blood pressure. What’s my resting heart rate? Little tip. Say you had a really hard training day. Go into the gym. Man, your personal trainer. You went into Life Time and your trainer said, have I got a workout for you. And you’ve been training hard, but you hit it extra hard that day.

You wake up the next morning and your heart rate, your resting heart rate is 10% above your normal resting heart rate. That usually means I need to take it easier today. Or hey, maybe I want to focus on Pilates, stretch, get in the sauna, participate in maybe lighter activities when you walk into the gym, versus oh yeah, I’m going to get after it again today.

That bump in heart rate is a big indicator. And of course, you can look at recovery state and HRV and all those things can also give you that insight. But it’s really important that you can really get good insight with just doing some biometrics on yourself.

I feel like so many of the smart devices, now that we have access to, are giving us this information if we’re willing to pay attention to it. It’s keeping a close eye on it. It’s a sleep aid on my bed, and I’m getting my HRV every night and telling me my sleep quality and how long I was in deep sleep and all that. But it is helping inform how I train.

I might have a training plan laid out for the entire week, but I’m going to move things around depending on what those numbers look like potentially. And I think that’s the opportunity we have with. We have access to all this information now, many times at our fingertips.

And I think it’s important that when we get that. Now, for example, love my Apple Watch. I love that it tells me when it’s time to breathe. Sometimes I’m getting really blue and I’m like, when can I breathe? So I love that heart rate variability on this. Probably not as good as the WHOOP or Oura or Ultrahuman Ring. Maybe like one lead EKG, like a Morpheus strap gives you the most accurate.

So it’s important to keep in mind that as we’re learning about our measurements, that you know what, probably good to get a couple different measurements. I love the sleep bait. What a great tool. So that’s fantastic. And I love the fact that you’re following the lead of what the information your body is telling you of what you’re really prepared to do the next day.

That’s how people can really optimize their results from their exercise. I think that’s what is interesting, is that I know in my now, four decades of doing this and working with professional teams and working with tactical groups as well as people in everyday life, sometimes that lighter day actually is enhancing your performance of your metabolism.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well, I think it’s so interesting is I’ve taken me looking at the data to actually make the change. But if I’m really honest with myself, I can feel when I shouldn’t be training hard. Do you know what I mean? Like, I know it. I wake up and I’m like, I didn’t sleep that well or something seemed off.

Those numbers just helped you be aware of even just your state. It’s a level of state of how am I feeling. And that goes back to some of the things that we talk about from the assessments that you’ll do with MIORA is like, it’s not just about the blood tests in the lab, the comprehensive blood tests, those are amazing. But you also need to do that self-assessment with it and answer questions about how you’re feeling as well and having that awareness, which is so important.

Without a doubt. Because when it relates to — because the reason — and I’m so glad we’re talking about wearable device information because the single biggest risk factor for a future cardiac event is autonomic nervous system dysfunction.

Yes, diabetes increases the risk. Yes, smoking increases the risk. Yes, poor cholesterol management increases the risk. But the biggest jump on when you’re going to have a future event is when your nervous system is out of balance. And when you’re training hard, that means you’re pushing that white tiger out.

So it’s that area that people aren’t, I don’t think, nearly aware enough because when we were talking it was like, hey, the obvious, don’t smoke. Your lipids are high, your blood sugar is off. Those are the easy ones, the layups. Your diet is poor. You’re not moving. There’s the other side of it is, am I driving too hard?

Yes. And there are a lot of people who are doing that. It’s like we always talk about smarter, not harder. But there is still sometimes that mentality is like, I’ve got to go all out all the time or it doesn’t count.
Well, I’m a recovering exercise addict. I mean, I love to train hard. I mean, there’s something about it that I feel really alive when I’m doing it. But I think at the same time, the harder you train, it’s real simple, the harder you train, the more you have to recover. And you have to remember. Don’t compare yourself to a professional athlete, who’s pushing themselves really hard because they’re getting paid.

And they also have this recovery built into their routines, typically because they’re working with people who know this. They have trainers and they have PTs. And their job is to work out hard and the rest of the day is recovery. Our jobs are our careers, and then we go in the gym and work out. I’m not saying don’t train hard. I think you get results when you train hard. But also take advantage of all the tools, whether it’s doing red light therapy, sauna.

You could do H pot, you can do massage, you can do Normatec.

What is H pot? I’m going to stop you.

Hyperbaric oxygen.

OK. I was like, what is that? I need to know before you go on.

So I mean, Normatec boots. Improve your circulation. You have all these tools that are available that you want to take advantage of, whether it’s a cold plunge. I mean, whatever that is. Recovery creates success for future performance.

Got it.

And I mean cardiovascular performance and how you’re going to age and how your blood vessels are going to age. Because the number one thing that will damage your blood vessels is metabolic inflammation. Inflammation known as met inflammation.

OK. So let’s talk about how we can prevent cardiovascular disease, and how does that prevention shift as you age potentially.

Sure.

It’s probably the opposite of a lot of what we’ve talked about already. It’s like, exercise appropriately those types of things. But go on from there.

Well, number one, the number one cause of blood vessels getting damaged, fluctuations in blood sugar. So we talked about CGMs in a previous episode, which is a continuous glucose monitor, to maybe give you insight as to how much your glucose is fluctuating. You should also look at your fasting glucose. So the number one thing is managing your glucose for heart disease.

Number two would be other dietary choices. And depending on what your genotype is, we mentioned APOE gene SNPs earlier. There’s other ones. There’s probably 18 really big genes that correlate to heart disease. But the big one, APOE.

So managing, hey, where’s my saturated fat level at? What should I be at? Be really honest about your stress. Are you feeling overcommitted every day? Are you having trouble sleeping because you’re making a list for a list, and you wake up at 3:00 AM thinking about what you got to do the next day? That’s a big sign that you are in fight or flight too much. So sleep, diet, movement, really important.

Environmental burdens a little bit different because you have to do an assessment for that. And that would be an advanced assessment that you would do for that. But understanding that you’re a part of the environment. What are you getting exposed to? What’s your indoor air quality like?

I’m a big proponent of people understanding what are you getting exposed to in your home. Did you just buy a 1930s home to be renovated. And you’re peeling off three layers of wallpaper that probably has lead and paint that’s leaded? Are you wearing gloves? What are you doing?

Do you have air filtration in your home? Really important to understand that even things like quality of air inside your home can lead to triggering inflammation, at least to heart disease. So where’s my home? Important. Training, that’s why I think you need professional guidance. It’s really easy to say. Well, I’m going in the gym, and I’m walking on the treadmill. Well, is that enough?

Where’s the variety that gets your heart to work in different ways.

Exactly. Exactly. And I’m a big proponent of saunas, because saunas help to change heart rate and help with vascular expansion. And I think that obviously, you want to do things that promote tissue oxygen. And those are the big ones. And then you can start to get into, well, do I have apnea? I cannot tell you how important it is.

If you have a partner at home that is telling you, you’re snoring really loud or you’re stopping breathing.

Yes, they can hear it.

And hear it that you’re gasping. You need to go and get checked for sleep apnea. Now there’s two kinds of sleep apnea that’ll happen. One is because you’re overweight and you’ve got all this metabolic inflammation going on. But the other one can be somebody that’s perfectly normal, weight looks very fit, but they have central apnea.

And central apnea is where you get that disruption in the central nervous system, which relates to heart rate variability. And that can be causing it. And you could have an airway issue. And so there’s a lot of things that may need to be corrected for that. But that’s a big thing that you should be looking at for at any age if you’re noticing that.

What are some of the strategies that as we’re aging? Well, I think you have to look at each year. I mean, certainly at each decade, what are the lifestyle choices I’m making to keep myself active and moving. Do I need to change the way I’m exercising based on my age? Those things are important.

I think the other thing is that as people age in our country, they end up on more and more medications. And if you’re on medications, you could be depleting valuable nutrients that relate to cardiovascular health, like antioxidants. Or you say, if you’re put on a beta blocker because of your blood pressure. You could be depleting melatonin. And now all of a sudden, you’re having trouble sleeping.

If you’re put on what’s called a thiazide diuretic, which is really common, you could be depleting magnesium and potassium and CoQ10, which are all important for future heart health. And then it’s interesting, when people end up on blood pressure medication. And I think people should do everything they can to prevent that, because a lot of times people don’t feel great on them.

But if you need to be on them, you need to be on them, be under doctor supervision. But one of the most interesting aspects is the first line of defense are called ARBs or ACEs. ARBs are angiotensin blockade drugs. So they’re angiotensin receptor blockers.

Why do you need those? It turns out when you’re gaining weight and you have more visceral fat, you release something called angiotensinogen. Now it’s big. But hear me out. It’s important.
I’m following. I’ve got you.

You gained weight, and your fat is throwing out inflammatory compounds, directly pointing you at heart disease.

Because visceral fat is metabolically active.

Very metabolically active. It’s called you make adipokines. That’s called. So you’re making fat tissue that’s releasing inflammatory compounds. One of the big ones, angiotensinogen, converts angiotensin I to angiotensin II. The first line of defense in drug therapy is to block that conversion.

Why does this happen? Insulin resistance, weight gain, visceral fat. That’s why we want to measure our fat. I love people of all sizes. My brother, he struggled with his weight his whole life. He got up to 476 pounds. I’m not one of those people that looks at people that are overweight and thinks anything negative. Because I love my brother, more than anything in the world.

Yes. You know him as a human.

Yeah. Him as a human being, very important. But here’s what I also know. You have to get as much fat off as you can, get yourself to a recommended percent body fat. It doesn’t have to be ideal. But the reality is, fat’s a problem for several reasons. One is it’s that engine of inflammation. Like you said, it’s an engine for inflammation. Also, the heavier you are, the more fat you have, the more you accumulate environmental toxins in your body.

So you’re carrying a heavier load of toxins.

Exactly.

OK.

And so you want to limit the angiotensinogen. You want to limit the release of resistin, which is another compound that leads to left ventricle enlargement and heart failure. Remember, it’s not just about plaque in your arteries. And remember, about 40% of heart attacks are not due to elevated lipids. They’re actually due to coronary vasospasm, which can relate to that loss of autonomic nervous system function and why magnesium is so important for folks.

Just remember, it’s all tied together. So when I gain the weight, the reason I’m moving towards cardiovascular disease is that fat tissue is an engine for releasing all kinds of compounds —

Into your body

—that goes into your circulation, affects your vascular network. And you just have to remember, your blood vessels are what carries all the nutrients, all the oxygen into your tissues, and carries all the waste products out of the tissues.

Got it. Oh, my gosh. There’s a lot here. And I did not know that stat of 40% of cardiac events are not due to elevated lipids. That’s really interesting to me.

Yeah. I’ll tell you what. There’s a study that just came out that looked across a very broad population of people. And if you don’t have coronary artery calcification, now let’s place that in a different area, because that might mean more intense medical therapy depending on how far along that is.
Respectfully, that’s where cardiologists — that’s where they have their big role was how are we managing risk in those kind of situations. But for the person that is living longest, void of all that calcification, cholesterol, between 220 and 240, people lived the longest.

So there is that contrarian view right now that says, well you know what, if I’m making healthy lipids and I’m repairing my cell membranes that cholesterol around 200 is OK, because we also have that other view that drive your cholesterol down as low as possible, which does make it hard to repair your cell membranes. And you can’t make sex hormones as easy.

So it’s all interconnected again.

So once again, it’s all interconnected. And there’s different management that has to occur based on where you’re at in your progression in your cardiovascular disease. So it’s just important to understand it’s not a one size fit all. Everybody has the same solution. Everybody does the same thing.
OK. So let’s talk about how we, at Life Time at MIORA, address this. And can you reverse cardiovascular disease with therapeutic approaches and interventions?

Yeah. I think you completely, especially with new interventions, you can reverse cardiovascular disease. I think at MIORA, once again, why do I think MIORA is the place to be. And obviously, as the chief science officer for Life Time, and being so vested in MIORA because of having clinics for 40 years, and seeing hundreds of patients a week in these clinics with my physician providers and dieticians and nurses, it’s important to remember, you’re only as strong as your weakest link.

You may not have inherent cardiovascular disease risk. You didn’t get the genes, but if you’re insulin-resistant or you’re under stress, or you’re having trouble sleeping, or if you have gut issues, or your sex hormones are off because we didn’t go over those as one of the hidden reasons. But women, when they lose their estradiol, more women will die of heart disease after menopause than what men do.

And thankfully, there’s more awareness happening around this right now. There are more conversations than ever. We’re going to delve into that too. But it’s so true. All of these things, it’s a web. And you can’t really separate one from the other.

And that’s why MIORA is important, because the health care providers, they’re under the medical director’s direction. We’re looking at all of the aspects of your health that lead you to cardiovascular disease. And then the plan helps get rid of the metabolic roadblocks that are pointing you in that direction towards cardiovascular disease.

And that’s diet intervention, that’s training and getting proper training through our personal trainers. Most importantly is what are some of the early things that you can do or take that can help you? So say, your blood pressure is 130 over 90. A lot of times people will say, hey, diet and exercise.

But compounds like aged garlic extract that have been studied in double blind, randomized, placebo controlled crossover trials in humans at leading universities, showing that it can lower your blood pressure and help reduce coronary artery calcification and reduce vulnerable plaque.

That’s an important nutrient because they’ve studied it in human trials, they’ve published it in over 200 studies, but also 900 publications. What we rely on at MIORA is looking for evidence-based nutrients, where can we incorporate more novel leading edge, treatments like, maybe, peptides, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy to help when those hormones are out of balance, which could be contributing to cardiovascular disease.

But really, a lot of times there’s some key nutrients that can help you to manage that cardiometabolic duress, manage your stress response, manage your glucose and insulin so that you’re not driving down that path directly towards the intersection of where people get ill and develop chronic disease. And that is the vascular network and heart disease. That’s the crossroads.

And that’s why MIORA is important because members can actually take a deeper look and get insightful recommendations about how to create their future health plan, and then have oversight so that there’s always that tethering to a team that’s interested in moving you forward.

Yeah. And away from that path, towards ideally off the path.

Let’s turn that path off.

Let’s go in another direction.

Let’s turn that path off. Like uh-oh, roadblock. Let’s move directly towards reducing risk, promoting vitality, promoting healthspan. Cardiovascular health is right in the middle of that path. And so we want to create cardiovascular health, reduce cardiovascular risk.

Absolutely. We could delve into each of — like every question I ask, I feel like oh, we could have a whole episode on just that, which we might in the future.

We should do it.

We will in the future.

But for this instance, anything you want to make sure we add before we wrap up, and then we will come back and dive deeper later on into some of these.

Yeah. I think the biggest issue when we talk about cardiovascular health is it’s a lifestyle issue. It really is important that you, first of all, know your markers, get a blood test so that you understand where you’re at.

But more importantly, what decisions are you making day in and day out about stress and sleep and diet and exercise and what nutrients I could be taking.

And depending on my stage in life, where my hormones are at. If you’re a man, low testosterone correlated to cardiovascular disease. If you’re a woman, that the loss of estradiol, the imbalance of hormones as you’re aging, all of these factors really need to be looked at so that you have a full thought at successful aging.

OK. We’re going to delve into all of those factors even more in future episodes. In the meantime, if people want to learn more, they can visit MIORA at lifetime.life. And Jim, thank you. This was a ton of info. But I love it. I love these conversations. So thanks for joining me.

Sure. It’s great. Thank you.