Latest / Vox Novus with Victor Fuhrman / Dr. Michael Garko – Hearts Happy and Healthy
Transcript
- 0:06Vox Novus, the New Voice, Vox Novus, the new Dimension, Vox
- 0:15Novus thought and movement leaders who will share from their experience and offer tools to
- 0:22help us navigate our rapidly changing world. My name is Victor Furman. Welcome
- 0:28to Vox Novus, the New Voice. February brings Valentine's Day with beautiful hearts
- 0:40as its symbol. February is also Heart Health Month and a time to focus
- 0:46on preventing CAD coronary artery disease. My guest this week on Vox Novus,
- 0:52doctor Michael Garko, says a path of awareness and subtle lifestyle changes highlights the
- 0:58importance of early detection and the embrace of a lifestyle rich in heart healthy habits.
- 1:04Doctor Garko as a nationally recognized credential nutritionist who was devoted to helping his
- 1:11clients and others take charge of their health. He earned a master's degree in
- 1:15human nutrition from the University of Bridgeport. Doctor Garko produced and hosted the popular
- 1:22health talk radio show Let's Talk Nutrition, that added for two hours a day,
- 1:26five days a week in over five hundred cities coast to coast, and
- 1:32was streamed around the world. He believes nutrition is the driving force by which
- 1:37health is created, sustained, and reclaimed. He joins me this week to
- 1:42share advice on keeping our hearts happy and healthy. Please join me in welcoming
- 1:48to Box Novis doctor Michael Garko. Welcome, doctor Garko, Victor. Thank
- 1:53you for inviting me. It's great to be with you in your audience.
- 1:56It's a pleasure, doctor Garko. Please share with us your path and how
- 2:00it led to your calling as a nutritionist. Boy, we have enough time,
- 2:06you know. We start off in life and we have certain ambitions and
- 2:09goals and dreams and whatnot. And I, you know, I've done so
- 2:15many different things in my life. I started off as a musician to start
- 2:20performing at a very young age, went to music school, and my parents
- 2:25were immigrants and so education was a big deal. And made my way into
- 2:30college and got my degrees, a couple of aster's degree, a master's degree
- 2:36in communication and linguistics, and then my PhD is in Communication theory and research.
- 2:43And then I used that degree to teach as a professor for a long
- 2:46time. But I was also a corporate communication consultant. We had clients on
- 2:52Madison avenue and literally around the world. And then I used that skill set
- 2:57also then to become a trial and jury consultant and worked at that and still
- 3:02to this day get calls. But somewhere along the way, I always had
- 3:07always had an interest as early childhood and food and nutrition. Don't know why,
- 3:12can't explain it. And I went back to school after all those degrees
- 3:15and got a clinical master's degree in clinical nutrition credited from the University of Bridgeport.
- 3:23And my belief about nutrition, and I'm so passionate about it. I
- 3:29believe that nutrition is the driving force by which we create, sustain, and
- 3:35reclaim our health, wellness and well being. And there's a difference between nutrition
- 3:38and food. Nutrition is involves all of those biological biochemical processes where the wonderful
- 3:47gifts from nature extracted from food through various metabolic pathways. And of course food
- 3:53is that which we eat our day to day diet. So but nutrition is
- 3:59the driving force. It might again sooner or later everything ends and begins that
- 4:05the health, wellness and well being begin and end with nutrition, no matter
- 4:11what. It's not pharmaceuticals, it's not nutraceuticals. It's nutrition without that everything
- 4:18else fades into oblivion absolutely, as I shared in the introduction. In addition
- 4:27to the romantic heart centered Valentine's Day, February is also heart health month.
- 4:32Coronary heart disease, also known as CAD, is considered America's stealthy epidemic.
- 4:40What is CAD and why is it stealthy or hidden? A good question.
- 4:45Maybe set a little context here to have your audience understand how pernicious this disease
- 4:55is. Think about if you think about your heart, it's about as big
- 5:00as a fist, no bigger and larger than a fist. And each day,
- 5:02on average, it's going to expand and contract about one hundred thousand times
- 5:08and pump about two thousand gallons that's about seven five hundred and seventy one liters
- 5:12of blood throughout your vast circulatory system. And if you extend that network of
- 5:17blood verses of the circulatory system victor and lay them out end to end and
- 5:23extend for a distance approximately sixty thousand miles or more twice around the Earth.
- 5:28And so by the time you reach seventy on average a person over seventy year
- 5:32period, your heart will have contracted about oh two point five billion times.
- 5:41Now with that in mind, you can you can see how important then the
- 5:46arteries are going to be. You are as only as old and only as
- 5:50healthy as your arteries are. And coronary artery disease is something that afflicts us
- 5:58as a species. We have always been prone to coronary artery disease. And
- 6:03we can get into that a little bit. And in a word, coronary
- 6:09artery disease is a disease of the arteries where the arteries become hard and stiff
- 6:15and the narrow and therefore the heart has to even work hartery harder. But
- 6:21in coronary artery disease, by the way, you're going to hear it called
- 6:25coronary heart disease. It masquerades under a different names. But the arteries applying
- 6:31to blood to the heart become hardened and narrowed, and it's caused by this
- 6:36pathogenic process vector called athrosclerosis, which is a process whereby there's an accumulation of
- 6:45plaque that builds up inside the tunica intima. It says that right endothelium is
- 6:50the lining of the artery. On the inside of that is that intima,
- 6:55which is the innermost layer of the arteries composed of a layer of endothelial cell
- 6:59that's only one layer thick and surrounding the blood as as as the blood has
- 7:03flows through the arteries. So in a word, that's what it is.
- 7:06It's a disease of the arteries. And if you think about what I just
- 7:11said a moment ago about the work that it has to do, you could
- 7:15you could doesn't take much of an influential leak to figure out, well,
- 7:18goodness of my heart, my arteries aren't working right. I'm in a lot
- 7:23of trouble and you are. And as most people find out, you had
- 7:28mentioned the endo fielding yourselves. I'm going back to my high school biology days.
- 7:32Yeah, concept of end the field? Does that mean there's little hairs
- 7:34in there? Also? No, not necessarily no. The smooth lining and
- 7:40the arteries only it's one one layer, right, and then you have the
- 7:45intica intima right underneath that in the thelium, and then there's a middle layer
- 7:51and then an outer layer. And what happens is when the arteries get damaged,
- 7:56and we can talk about the risk factors modifiable and non modify bible to
- 8:00damage the arteries. The body tries to repair it and if you're running a
- 8:05lot of cholesterol in the system. What can happen is that cholesterol can get
- 8:11caught up in that area and using they're using the body using cholesterol to help
- 8:16repair it as well, and that cholesterol can get oxidized, and then you
- 8:20start to form this aploscerotic kind of condition of the arteries. It's more complicated
- 8:26than that, but that's just a sketch of what's going on there. But
- 8:33it's a in the thelium is uh is really uh. It is so prone
- 8:39to disease. And I mentioned that because the little story here. A long
- 8:46time ago they found what they call him Utzi the Iceman, and they found
- 8:52him in the Alps somewhere and he was frozen and this was about oh,
- 8:58three thousand years well, yeah, about three thousand years or so ago,
- 9:03but he was intact frozen in a block of ice. Well, he had
- 9:07coronary artery disease. When you look at the remains of the Egyptian kings and
- 9:13other mummified remains that we've been able to gather over time, we've discovered that
- 9:20they have coronary artery disease as well. So this is something that goes back
- 9:26about two or three million years ago, where we lost a gene that is
- 9:30responsible for our propensity to have coronary artery disease. You know, it's interesting.
- 9:35The Egyptian belief was that when you transition, when you pass, your
- 9:41heart is weighed against a feather, and if the heart is lighter than a
- 9:45feather, then you go on to the afterlife, and if it's not,
- 9:48you have some more work to do. So maybe this is something that's been
- 9:50going on for a long long time. Obviously. Now, how do the
- 9:54statistics provided by the CDC on cat fatalities and prevalence impact our understanding of heart
- 10:01health here in the United States. Well, you know, statistics are an
- 10:05abstraction of reality, but you know, we keep track of them and to
- 10:13give some context to people and to help them to understand that, you know,
- 10:18this is not a fiction, that these are facts, and those statistics
- 10:24just serve you know, a coronary leading cause of mortality around the world.
- 10:30It's the primary athoscrosis really is a primary cause of coronary artery disease, which
- 10:35is a leading cause of mortality and morbidity globally. So, you know,
- 10:43in terms of coronary events associated with coronary artery disease. Approximately six hundred and
- 10:48thirty five thousand people experience a first time heart attack and three hundred thousand individuals
- 10:54suffer from a recurrent heart attack every year. So this is you know,
- 10:58this is something that goes on all the time with a lot of people.
- 11:03And what's so frustrating is that it's preventable. Coornary artery disease is preventable even
- 11:11if you do have it, and familiarly speaking, a genetic predisposition for it.
- 11:18So but given the cardiogenic diet that we eat, the sedentary lifestyle that
- 11:24we have, lots of stress, this ultra processed food diet which I call
- 11:31cardiogenic, you start to put those things together among some other risk factors,
- 11:37and we're sitting targets for pornary artery disease. What factors are contributing to the
- 11:41surprising percentage of CAD fatalities among individuals under the age of sixty five? Interesting?
- 11:50High blood pressure is one thing. High blood pressure is called the silent
- 11:56killer victor for a reason. It damages the lining of the arteries and due
- 12:01to the pressure and it starts to the body wants to heal it the next
- 12:05thing you know, you've got plaquing going on simultaneously with coronary artery disease and
- 12:11diabetes. Which is also another risk factor for coronary artery disease is the obesity
- 12:16epidemic. Three quarters of the population is either overweight or obese. Make no
- 12:24mistake, full stop, one hundred percent. Obesity is a major major risk
- 12:30factor for coronary artery disease. And when you think of them, if you
- 12:35go to Disney World or Disneyland and sit on a bench for an afternoon and
- 12:39watch the people walk by, you'll see that right in front of you.
- 12:43The propens the prevalence of it so high blood pressure, obesity, smoking,
- 12:50which has abated somewhat, but people still smoke, physical inactivity, being sedentary,
- 12:56high blood levels of lipoprotein A, high blood levels of high density,
- 13:03low levels of high HDL, high levels of LDL. This is big debate
- 13:09about cholesterol Victor, and people are saying, Oh, don't worry about it,
- 13:13just need all the cholesterol you want. It's irresponsible to tell people to
- 13:16do that. We need cholesterol. I can make a coj and argument as
- 13:20to why we need it. We need it, We need to have it
- 13:22the body makes it, but we're getting it from our food, and the
- 13:26food much of the processed food is high in cholesterol, and we don't need
- 13:31to have a bunch of cholesterol running through the bloodstream to get oxidized and contribute
- 13:35to coronatia energy. So that's a big risk factor as well. Absolutely,
- 13:39we're going to talk about several of those a little bit later on, but
- 13:43you emphasize the importance of recognizing CAD symptoms. I've been fortunate in this regard.
- 13:50Back in two thousand and six, when I was fifty three, I
- 13:52started feeling some discomfort in my left chest and immediately made an appointment with an
- 13:58interventional cardiologist. The scan showed that my left anterior descending artery was occluded,
- 14:05and he immediately placed two stents, considering that my cholesterol was actually really good.
- 14:11I was very fortunate and did not have a heart attack. Ten years
- 14:13later, in twenty sixteen, I started feeling this again again. Immediately I
- 14:18went to the cardiologists and test showed that my Ramis artery, which I understand
- 14:24not every person has a Ramis artery adjacent to the left anterior descending was accluded
- 14:28and again required two stints. I remarked that it was good that I paid
- 14:33attention, and he agreed. I said that if I had not, it
- 14:37would have made me an ignore Ramis, and he laughed, he really is.
- 14:41That's very clever. I have to remember that. Thank you. The
- 14:46serious question remains, how can increased public awareness of these symptoms aid in early
- 14:52detection. Well, you had theoretically, you know, there's been this for
- 14:58decades now. By the federal government does a lot of things pretty good and
- 15:05healthcare and creating information and booklets and getting the word out. They do a
- 15:11good job with that. But notwithstanding all of that effort, and then you
- 15:16have private organizations and institutions doing the same thing. Guess what, people still
- 15:22Coordinative artery disease is still among the leading causes of death. The information is
- 15:28out there, It's there for people to absorb, think about, and then
- 15:35you know, do something about change the behavior. Easier said than done.
- 15:41I have a clinical practice, and fortunately I was trained into social sciences as
- 15:48well, so I know about psychology and communication and I can help my clients
- 15:52change their behavioral relationship with food. Even though the information's out there, Victor
- 15:58doesn't mean that people are resonating with it or really paying attention to it and
- 16:06maybe thinking, oh, this happens to somebody else, that doesn't happen to
- 16:08me. Well, you know, one of the first signs of a heart
- 16:14disease sometimes is a heart attack, and the first sign is death too late.
- 16:18Then, so I hear you. I think we still have to continue
- 16:22to try to persuade people. You've got to keep telling them and trying to
- 16:26convince them. But it's a hard road. It's not that easy considering the
- 16:33dangers of silent cat no symptoms. What measures can individuals take to detect this
- 16:38early, especially not showing symptoms. Yeah, when you go to the doctor,
- 16:45make sure they do a lipid panel on you. You want your cholesterol,
- 16:51homocysteine, the lipoprotein A and B, when you have those measured.
- 16:59That's there's one way to do it. Pay attention to your family history.
- 17:03If you have relatives or brothers, sister, uncles, mother, father who
- 17:10had heart disease, and it seems to be more than one person in the
- 17:14family, you might have a predisposition for it. I had a friend in
- 17:18our neighborhood. He had three brothers. All three brothers died of coronary artery
- 17:25disease by the time they were in their mid forties or fifties. He also
- 17:29died. They found him in his home, sitting in his chair in front
- 17:32of the TV. He died of coronary artery disease as well. So your
- 17:37genetic history, get your blood tested, get a lipid panel done, get
- 17:42homo systeine done. Watch for the cortisol levels in your body influent, which
- 17:48is a measure you know that you need to pay attention to, and that's
- 17:52one way to do it. And if you're taking blood pressure medication, please
- 17:57continue to take it. You can combine those but nutraceuticals. We'll talk about
- 18:03that. Blood pressure medications can save your life. I've had clients who've been
- 18:08on blood pressure medications for decades and are still alive and have no coronary artery
- 18:14disease. They're taking their meds. Please take them. No, we had
- 18:18mentioned silent, but like my experience was, I sensed that something was wrong
- 18:23and I reacted immediately, and that was probably very much prevented a heart attack
- 18:29and also may have saved my life. For those who have symptoms, they
- 18:33start feeling a little discomfort in the chest. How do you differentiate between heart
- 18:37pain, heart related pain, and perhaps indigestion. Yeah, well, yeah,
- 18:44the severity is one. Indigestion is probably patterned. You probably have it
- 18:51more than one time. Right, you eat and you get indigestion, usually
- 18:55that that happens. There's a pattern there. If you start to have chest
- 19:00pains and you never had them to that in that part of your body,
- 19:04in the area of your chest, and they feel intense, that is a
- 19:11bad sign and that you should die. Have immediately call nine to one one.
- 19:15Don't mess with that. Time is of the essence, especially when you're
- 19:19having a heart attack. It minutes count and it can make a difference when
- 19:25you are, you know, having a heart attack. So you again that
- 19:30area of the chest. You know from your own experience you were fortunate.
- 19:34Sometimes people it's silent, but we mean by silent, the disease process itself
- 19:41doesn't signal you. It doesn't tell you that it's going on, and until
- 19:47and when it's in an advanced stage and now now the blood can't a clock
- 19:52break may break loose, and it's at that point you know, it happens
- 19:56late in the game. So it was silent up to that, and that
- 20:00time that I had the ray miss issue, I also had a sensation of
- 20:03pain in the left side of my jaw, and when I told that to
- 20:07my cardiologists, he said, get to the emergency room now, I'm going
- 20:10to meet you there, and they did. So. There are other things
- 20:12related other than chest pain. Yeah, that's exactly right, dizziness, nausea,
- 20:19being nauseous, wanting to throw up, starting to sweat a cold sweat.
- 20:26Right, these are some classic symptoms, signs and symptoms, and you
- 20:30want to pay attention to them, don't disregard them. Usually people at that
- 20:34point realize something bad is happening. What are some examples of herbal supplements recommended
- 20:41for heart help and how do they contribute to cardiovascular wellness? In my training,
- 20:48a lot of time and attention were devoted to botanical medicine, and it
- 20:56turned out I knew at the time I said this is going to be important.
- 21:00It has become important. Uh. These botanicals, herbs have been serving
- 21:06humankind for thousands of years, and we now know, thanks to science and
- 21:12verified and confirmed the efficacious and beneficial effects of herbs that we now you know,
- 21:22can validate what people instinctively did when they were, you know, living
- 21:29their life in different parts of the world. Turns out there are a number
- 21:32of different herbs that can serve us well. One in particular is age garlic
- 21:38extract. Garlic is good, it's a wonderful I use it in my cooking.
- 21:45I use organic garlic, raw organic garlic and my cooking. But as
- 21:51an herbs, it's fabulous. Trouble with garlic is you can't eat a lot
- 21:56of it and to get that that of beneficial therapeutic effect. What we've had
- 22:03learned is when we age it, it produces compounds that didn't exist prior,
- 22:08these sultware based compounds that really serve us well. And as garlic extract is
- 22:15one of them, and there's others as well. Tumoric is also excellent and
- 22:25can help in our effort to have healthy heart. There's a number of them.
- 22:32So when I tell my clients, look, you got to manage your
- 22:34stress, you got to eat a healthy diet, you got to exercise,
- 22:37you have to get good sleep and rest, they get a little frustrated and
- 22:42they say to me, doctor Garko, I can't do all of those things.
- 22:47You know, what can I do right now? What can I do
- 22:48right now. And they make a good point because many of the things I'm
- 22:52recommending to them require a little bit of time to change some behavior. So
- 22:57what I do is I take them myself and my family, my friends,
- 23:00and my clients. I put them on Strausshart Drops. That product is just
- 23:07terrific. It contains all of the necessary herbs including age, garlic extract,
- 23:17hawthorn, root and so on, cayenne and whatnot. There's several of them
- 23:22in there that all work together to help with maintaining the structure and function of
- 23:30your heart. And I highly recommend it, and people can get in touch
- 23:34with me and learn more about it. To go to Strauss Naturals s t
- 23:38R a U s S. Strauss Naturals dot com. There's a link there
- 23:44that says ask doctor Garko. You click on that link and I'll answer your
- 23:49questions, I respond to your comments. I answer everybody. And there's a
- 23:53lot of information there about the Strausshart Drops. I'm a big fan. They
- 23:59work that product. Victors. They're out of Canada. Strauss is out of
- 24:03Canada, great company, family run company. That product's been on a market
- 24:08over forty years and so I know it works and I encourage people to really
- 24:15consider it. It's got age gardic extract in it offborn fruit flower and leaf,
- 24:21motherwork, cayenne fruit, bill berry leaf. And if you go to
- 24:26PubMed dot gum and type any one of those ingredients in, you will sit
- 24:33there for a long time reading their beneficial effects, especially age gardic extract.
- 24:38You'll be there for hours. Hundreds, if not thousands, of studies have
- 24:42been done on an age garlic extract. So I encourage people to do it.
- 24:48And by the way, Strauss is one hundred percent guarantee, no questions,
- 24:53asks money back if you're not satisfied, one hundred percent. And they're
- 24:57just wonderful people. They have own number there you can call. And I'm
- 25:03a big fan of that company. I like them a lot. So you're
- 25:06going from pumpmed to clubbed based on I haven't been a clubbed. I'm on
- 25:11pumpbed every day, but there's no palm trees there, Victor. My guest
- 25:15is doctor Michael Garko. We'll be back with more after these words. On
- 25:18the Old Times Radio Network, the cutting edge of conscious radio, Home Times
- 25:23Radio IOWM FM. Ome Times Magazine is one of the leading online content providers
- 25:30of Positivity, wellness and personal empowerment. A philanthropic organization, their net proceeds
- 25:36are finnled to support worldwide charity initiatives via Humanity Healing International. Through their commitment
- 25:41to creating community and providing conscious content, they aspire to uplift humanity on a
- 25:47global scale. Home Times co creating a more conscious lifestyle. This is the
- 25:52story of a very special woman. Just a few knew about her superpowers.
- 25:56In a matter of seconds, she turned herself into a great mathematician. She
- 26:00masqueraded as a regular person at work, but as a superhero at home.
- 26:06Everyone knows her as Gabriella. I still call her mom. Your hero needs
- 26:11you now, and AARP is here to help find the care guides you need
- 26:15to help. Complete with tips and resources at AARP dot org slash Caregiving brought
- 26:21to you by AARP and the ad Console. If I could be you and
- 26:23you could be me for just one hour, if you can find a way
- 26:27to get inside each other's mind, walk a mile in my shoes, Walk
- 26:32a mile in my shoes, Walk a mile in my shoes. We've all
- 26:36felt left out, and for some that feeling lasts more than a moment.
- 26:41We can change that. Learn how it Belonging begins with us dot org.
- 26:45Brought to you by the AD Council. Welcome Mile and back on Box Novus.
- 26:53My guest this week is doctor Michael Garko. We're talking about heart health
- 27:00significant and you're sort of touched upon this, but let's go deeper into it.
- 27:03Is lifestyle modification in the prevention and management of CAD compared to medication.
- 27:11Ah, well, you know, good question, Victor. Genetics is always
- 27:18in play, and then there's diet and lifestyle genetics accounts. You know,
- 27:25depending on what expert you read, genetics will count for about forty percent or
- 27:29so of your health status. The rest of it is diet and lifestyle that's
- 27:36relatively cardiovaster, the disease and everything else. So much of our health destiny
- 27:41is in our own hands. The medications. I know that some people,
- 27:48some of my colleagues, who are, you know, naturalists in a sense,
- 27:52I guess, criticize medications and criticized doctors and whatnot. I don't.
- 28:00That's not my approach. I'm trained in functional medicine. I get that,
- 28:06I understand it, but I seek all available means of therapy to help my
- 28:11clients, nutraceuticals, pharmaceuticals, diet and lifestyle and dietaries. You know,
- 28:18the nutricugals who do dietary supplementation. And I have clients that are taking high
- 28:22blood pressure medications and they're also taking the heart drops and some other botanicals that
- 28:29I have them on and dietary supplements, and of course they clear that with
- 28:32their cardiologists. So together you can have nutraceuticals and pharmaceuticals work together. Sure,
- 28:41drugs have side effects, so do dietary supplements when they can. When
- 28:45they are abused, too, can have side effects. But you know,
- 28:52I'm just not inclined to want to say that's banish all drugs. Many people
- 28:56are alive because of the high blood pressure medication, then you know they do
- 29:02Okay. Now, nutraceuticals can help as well, and there's evidence and research
- 29:07that support their use in cardiovascular health, especially the age barlic extract and other
- 29:12compounds that I mentioned, So I think they have They certainly play a role,
- 29:18and they need to be considered. We touched upon this briefly, and
- 29:22I know that for many families, cholesterol levels are a genetic thing, and
- 29:26in my case, my cholesterol was always perfect. Why is managing cholesterol levels
- 29:32crucial in preventing CAD and what are the best strategies for achieving this? Cholesterol
- 29:38is in spite of what some may say is a recognized risk factor for coronary
- 29:45artery disease period full stop, one hundred percent if your body makes the cholesterol
- 29:53your liver. But cholesterol is found in food only animal products. Victor Ca
- 30:00obtained cholesterol as and however, cholesterol content is not as much of a concern
- 30:07too as the fat content and food saturated fat uh. They see the cholesterol
- 30:14and saturated fat seem to travel travel together, right, and you need to
- 30:22watch the saturated fat content in food and saturated fat uh without getting into all
- 30:29the details, contributes to you having too much cholesterol in the system. So
- 30:36you want you want to decrease your saturated fat and cholesterol intake for sure,
- 30:41because they are major risk factors for coronary artery disease. In terms of cooking,
- 30:48is there a cooking oil which is preferential in this regard? I like,
- 30:52I like olive oil, uh, extra virgin olive oil, high grade
- 30:57olive oil, and you want to avoid with any of these oils. You
- 31:04want to avoid cooking at high temperatures because then you oxidize the oil and that
- 31:10that is like drinking. You know that now you're putting a major risk factor
- 31:15into your body by your own hand. So you know, I like olive
- 31:21oil. You can cook with olive oil. Again, you don't want to,
- 31:23you know, set the pan on fire. You have it, it's
- 31:26so high. And that's the oil that I use. And in terms of
- 31:32other methods of food preparation, is there anything else that's preferential? Things to
- 31:40avoid? Deep frying, frying at high temperatures you just damage the proteins and
- 31:48you oxidize the fats. You just alter the foods so that it becomes them
- 31:52with pathogenic. Cooking at lower temperatures, baking is good, right, you
- 32:01bake the chicken. Don't eat fry the chicken fried in the frying pant.
- 32:06Things like that. Common sense. If you're prone to eat meat, just
- 32:09you know, just use that kind of good common sense. How does diabetes
- 32:15oversight play a role in cat prevention, especially for those who have type two
- 32:20diabetes? Yeah, Type two by diabetes usually is correlated with being overweight or
- 32:28obese, and type two diabetes damages the arteries it is considered a major modifiable
- 32:38risk factor for coronary artery disease. And what's interesting too here, Victor,
- 32:47people that have heart disease often have kidney disease, and people that have kidney
- 32:53disease often have heart disease. The kidneys, the heart, and lungs all
- 33:00interconnected, especially when it comes to blood pressure, which is a story unto
- 33:05itself. So the people on your podcast, if you have coronary artery disease
- 33:10or high blood pressure, you should talk with your cardiologists. And I'm sure
- 33:15your cardiologists already pointed out to you that you might want to consider, you
- 33:20know, having your kidneys checked and make sure that your kidneys are okay.
- 33:24So it's something to consider as well. I was thirty five when I had
- 33:31the flu, and when I had the flu, in those days, I
- 33:35used to spoke, and of course when I had the flu, I didn't
- 33:37smoke. And when I was thirty five, my daughter, who was a
- 33:39child at the time, said, Daddy, you don't need these anymore,
- 33:43and she took the pack of cigarettes that was on my desk. She crushed
- 33:46it and she threw it in the garbage. And I said, you know,
- 33:47honey, you're right, and I never looked back. I was very
- 33:51fortunate. I went cold Turkey, and I never looked back. Considering the
- 33:55risk and the link between smoking and CAD, some successful quitting strategies that you
- 34:01would suggest, go to lords and pray it is. It's an insidious habit.
- 34:14It's a psychological addiction, it's a biochemical addiction. It's you. It
- 34:20gets ritualized into your life. People smoke at certain moments, it becomes so
- 34:29integrated into their into just the way they exist their phenomenological life. It's one
- 34:36of the most difficult things to do. Quit losing weight and quit and quitting
- 34:44smoking are if you if you can do If you can do either one or
- 34:47both of those things, I dare say you can become an astronaut and do
- 34:52anything else you want in your life. Because if you can, if you
- 34:55can learn to do those two things, quit smoking and lose weight and keep
- 35:00this, then Stace, don't smoke ever again, and lose the weight and
- 35:05keep it off. Trust me, you are in a very elite, small
- 35:10minority of people. Most people the truth be told. I tell you the
- 35:15truth as I know it. Most people can't do it. They just can't
- 35:19do it. You know. It's interesting when my daughter coaxed me into quitting
- 35:22smoking and said, Dottie, you don't need this. When I ever had
- 35:25a craving for a few days that followed that period of time, I would
- 35:29have a glass of hot water or a cup of tea, and I found
- 35:31that those things satisfied me good, whatever it takes. You know, the
- 35:37tea had caffeine in it, and I'm a fan of caffeine, by the
- 35:42way, up to a certain point. I like coffee. Coffee has a
- 35:45lot of nice antioxidants in it. Most people in the Unites get their antioxidants
- 35:50from drinking coffee, by the way, but too much of it, of
- 35:53course, is not good. What some people will find certain things that sort
- 35:58of moderate their temptation and desire and habituated propensity to smoke. Usually people give
- 36:07way when they're put under stress, because when under stressed, they probably smoked
- 36:14a lot that they reached for a cigarette, and when the stressful moments appear
- 36:17again, their natural habitual tendency now is to reach for a cigarette. It
- 36:24takes a lot of discipline. Your daughter must have had a profound impact on
- 36:29you, because you are in a very elite group. But many, many
- 36:32people have tried. You know, it's that old joke. Yeah, I
- 36:35can put smoking. I've done it many times. You know, Really is
- 36:40it's a tough thing to do. Your relationship with food is behaviorally and emotionally
- 36:49driven. Your relationship with cigarettes is a behaviorally and emotionally driven so and it's
- 36:58an addiction. I say that it's easier to quit heroin. I have some
- 37:01a friend who was a heroin addict, and he said it was easier to
- 37:06quit heroin than it was for him to put smoking. Physical activity, exercise
- 37:14the dirty words for some people. Regular physical activity contribute to reducing the risk
- 37:21of CAD. And what types of exercises are the best? All right,
- 37:24See, you have to put it in context. Think about our ancient ancient
- 37:29ancestors. They didn't need a sedentary life. If they had a sentary life,
- 37:36they were going to die because they had to be on the move.
- 37:38They had to hunt, they had to gather, and they had to defend
- 37:43themselves and run from prey predators they were trying to kill them and need them.
- 37:47And so we evolved to be on the move to keep moving. We
- 37:52did not evolve, We did not naturally select to sit for hours on end.
- 37:59Think of about the number of hours Victor people sit. They drive to
- 38:02work, maybe it's a forty five or an hour commute one way back two
- 38:07hours a day commute. Then they get home, the eat dinner, they're
- 38:12sitting, then they sit and watch TV. Well, by the way,
- 38:15they were sitting at work for seven or eight hours as well. Now they're
- 38:20ready to go to bed. They spent most of their days sitting. I
- 38:24go to the gym six days a week, train an hour and a half
- 38:29each day. I've done that most of my life. It is one of
- 38:31the most singular important things you can do. It supports your immune system,
- 38:39cardiovascular system, neurological system, and every system of the body, digestive system.
- 38:45There's no substitute for it in terms of cardiovascular health good There are different
- 38:52kinds of exercise. There's you know, resistance training and duran's training. You
- 38:58know, you want to do cardio respiratory fitness training, walking, running,
- 39:04jogging, getting on a treadmill, elliptical machine, dancing. Anything that can
- 39:09get the heart rate up, anything that can get your heart pumping and your
- 39:14lungs working is good for your cardiovascular system. By the way, you can
- 39:17lower your blood pressure significantly if you start to do a little bit of walking
- 39:23and jogging, and of course with your cardiologist's approval, you don't have to
- 39:28be an Olympic runner. Even walking will help lower your blood pressure absolutely.
- 39:35What are APO B and CRP levels and how do these markers reflect heart help
- 39:40and how often should they be checked? Yeah, did you mention cortosol?
- 39:45Did you say portosol? No? I didn't. The appo LiPo proteins.
- 39:53You know, we pay a lot of attention to the the you know,
- 39:59l d L and HDL and all of that, I get it, I
- 40:04think, and triglycerides and you and you need to pay attention to those,
- 40:10right that they're significant. Appo lipoprotein A is a protein carried an HDL cholesterol,
- 40:19so it helps start the process of removing the cholesterol. HDL cholesterol takes
- 40:29cholesterol from the cells back to the liver. So that appo lipoprotein A is
- 40:34a protein carried in the HDL that good cholesterol, and so, as I
- 40:38said, it start the process for HDL to remove bad types of cholesterol from
- 40:44your body. And Apple, the APPO protein apple lipoprotein B h that that
- 40:52one is one that you want to pay attention to. That that that is
- 41:00correlated with, you know, heart disease and your propensity for heart disease,
- 41:05and you should make sure that your your doctor is attesting you for that.
- 41:10The lipids are very complicated and a lot of people get confused. They don't
- 41:15know you know what they mean, and you should. You should not hesitate
- 41:22to ask you your cardiologists to ask questions. Your cardiologists will love you for
- 41:27asking the questions. Appo protein, apple protein B or APPO B is a
- 41:31protein that helps carry fat and cholesterol throughout the body. That's why it's so
- 41:37dangerous. It also attracts the negative types of cholesterol. It causes plaque build
- 41:42up in your blood vessels, so knowing what those are are important. You
- 41:46asked about another lab, the CRP level. Yeah, ce reactive protein C
- 41:53reactive protein is another big deal. Uh. You know, if you can't
- 42:00interpret a lab, go on Google and you use all kinds of information there
- 42:07to help you interpret those labs. And then it's still if you don't understand
- 42:10it, ask your ask your cardiologist through your doctor to help you understand what
- 42:16it is. CRP is a protein produced by the liver in response to inflammation.
- 42:22So when you're running, it can indicate heart disease by the way,
- 42:25autoimmune disease, and other conditions. So when you're running a high CRP,
- 42:31that's not a good thing. That's indication that you're running high inflammation levels.
- 42:37One of the keys to aging successfully victor is to manage your insulin levels and
- 42:43blood glucose levels, managing inflammation levels. Inflammation is a is a paradox.
- 42:51It's generated by the immune system. With the immune cells, it helps heal,
- 42:55it helps them fend off viruses, helps you from injury and infection.
- 43:02But when the inflammation, when that inflammation switch is left on, it damages
- 43:08tissue. Arthritis is an inflammatory disease. It's destroying the tissue. Autoimmune,
- 43:15it's autoimmune. The body's attacking itself and the very thing that helps heal can
- 43:20help kill you too. My guest is doctor Michael Garko. We're talking about
- 43:25hard help. We'll be back with more after these words on the Old Times
- 43:30Radio network. Humanity Healing International is a small nonprofit with a big dream.
- 43:36Since two thousand and seven, HHI has been working tirelessly to bring help to
- 43:40communities with little or no Oh. Our projects are not broad mandates, nor
- 43:46are they overnight solutions, but they bring the reassurance then no one is alone
- 43:52and that someone cares to learn more. Please visit Humanityhealing dot org. Humanity
- 43:59Healing is there, Your heart is Hello. I'm Sandy Sedgeby, a host
- 44:04of m Times Magazine's flagship radio show What Is Going On. My passion is
- 44:08sifting through information, research and innovations from new thought teachers, speakers, and
- 44:14researchers, pushing back the boundaries of what we know about life, energy,
- 44:19metaphysics, and the universe. I love shifting perceptions about who we are,
- 44:23why we're here, and how quickly impossible becomes normal when we open our minds,
- 44:29expand our awareness, and accept that the only limits that exist are those
- 44:32we place upon ourselves. So, if you're the kind of forward thinking,
- 44:37eager investigator of what lies beyond the current reality that most perceive, why not
- 44:42make a date to come play with me in the Field of Possibilities at four
- 44:45pm Pacific time seven pm Eastern time every Thursday, and together we can discover
- 44:52what's really going on. Imagine yourself being transported to India. One of the
- 45:00banks of the Ganga and an ashram in Rishikesh. Visualize that you were welcome
- 45:05to Satsan with an American Sanyas who shares the wisdom of her Guru. Your
- 45:10visualization has manifested. Joined Satfi Bagawati Saraswati for inspiration and transformation every Thursday at
- 45:20eleven am Eastern on Old Times Radio. So I'm a cat and I just
- 45:25moved in with this new human and she's got this little toy she's always playing
- 45:30with all day long. Tap tap tap tap, blue bloop. She can't
- 45:32put it down there it is. Oh and get this, She even talks
- 45:37to it. Last week she asked it for Chinese and guess what. Akrol
- 45:42showed up. Like magic, humans have cool toys. A person is the
- 45:45best thing to happen to a shelter pet be that person adopt. Brought to
- 45:50you by the ad Consul and the Shelter Pet Project dot Org. Back on
- 45:54vox Nobus, My guest this week is doctor Michael Karko Garco getting back to
- 46:00dietary changes. There's been a tremendous buzz about two diabetes injections and weight loss.
- 46:07What's your take on these and is there a better way. I tell
- 46:13you, I operate on the principle again. I think pharmaceuticals serve a purpose.
- 46:22I think that you know, you can moderate some of the side effects
- 46:29and risk factors for diabetes and cardivascudar disease with pharmaceuticals. I agree with that,
- 46:37But at the end of the day, at the end of the day,
- 46:44diet and lifestyle are really going to account for the ultimate success. You're
- 46:49going to have a better outcome if along with whatever pharmaceutical you're taking, injections,
- 46:57pills, powdered, whatever they're giving you, You're going to have a
- 47:00better outcome if you can learn to eat a healthier diet and live a healthier
- 47:07life period. I wish there was an easier way, and it's very difficult
- 47:14when you're starting to do this later in life. I get it because you're
- 47:16so habituated to live and behave in a certain think in a certain way.
- 47:20It's hard to change. But I try to tell people, as I said
- 47:25to you, I look for every available therapeutic means of trying to help my
- 47:30clients, and people should think the same way. Don't just rely on the
- 47:35medications. Please, given the severity of the cad epidemic. What more can
- 47:40be done at the community, the healthcare and policy levels to raise awareness and
- 47:46lower the incidence of cronary artery disease in the United States. When I was
- 47:52doing my show, it was called Let's Talk Nutrition. For fifteen and a
- 47:57half years, I was on two hours a day, five days a week,
- 48:00coast to coast, around and around the world. We streamed it,
- 48:04it was on TV. I didn't know what if I was doing any good
- 48:08or not until they had me start to do public appearances and we would do
- 48:15remote broadcasts from different parts in different parts of the country and whatnot, and
- 48:21people would walk up to me and thank me, And I didn't realize what
- 48:24an impact the show is having on people. Radio shows such and podcasts such
- 48:34as yours make a wonderful contribution. All the efforts in the community by these
- 48:39organizations to help people do make a difference. It's difficult. You're not going
- 48:45to convert everybody. Even Jesus Christ had a hard time converting people, right,
- 48:52So if it was hard for him, it's hard for anybody to get
- 49:00to make a conversion, whether it's one of a spiritual nature, religious nature,
- 49:04or a health nature. We are creature at old at old Saw,
- 49:07we are creatures of habit. We are creatures of habit, and that there's
- 49:13a lot of reasons for that. The story unto itself. I just I'm
- 49:17a big believer in the process of persuasion. It's never a one off.
- 49:22It takes more than one attempt to raise children and to persuade them to do
- 49:27this and that. In our relationships, we know how how difficult it is
- 49:31to persuade a partner and so on throughout our lives. So but I believe
- 49:37in the process, and you just keep after it. And that's why I
- 49:39keep doing shows such as yours. Sometimes you'll say something and it just causes
- 49:45a trigger. If you can only if you help one person, you were
- 49:50a success that day, just into your question. You know, I came
- 49:57on to your show. Most people would would supposed to be a day off
- 50:00for me. I wanted to do your show because I saw an opportunity here
- 50:07to help others, to be in better service for others. Your health,
- 50:14I used to end my show, Victor. I used to say, your
- 50:15health is your wealth, and your health is the wealth of those that care
- 50:22about and love you. That's those are not cliches. Just think about when
- 50:28you get the flu or cold. I think how disruptive that is and how
- 50:32your lifestyle and your quality of life gets upset. Try to imagine what it's
- 50:38like for people who have battling cancer and have all the Parkinson's and all of
- 50:45these other horrible, horrible diseases. Their health and their life is just sideways.
- 50:53And your health we take it for granted. And I beseech your audience
- 50:58to think about that your health is your wealth. I often say a day
- 51:04of health is a day of wealth, and it is true. This life
- 51:08is to be enjoyed and and to find our way and follow our destiny.
- 51:15It's hard to do that when you're distracted with some chronic disease and aging being
- 51:22what it is. Victor sooner or later we're going to be confronted either with
- 51:27an accident or some disease process. The question is you may have practiced prevention
- 51:31along the way, maybe, but did you practice preparation. Are you prepared
- 51:37to take on a battle with cancer or some other disease? You can prevent
- 51:45a war. We often see that we can bargain, we can bribe,
- 51:49we can bully people not to go to war. But once we go to
- 51:53war, are you prepared to fight that war. You can't prevent everything from
- 51:59happening, So you've got to prepare for the eventuality of an accident or getting
- 52:05sick at some point and your turns out that your cardiovascular system will serve you
- 52:12well if you take care of it now. If in the event in the
- 52:15future, and it probably will happen, no doubt. You get sick if
- 52:21you are if your cardiovascular system is impaired, it's going to be so much
- 52:24harder for your body to engage that battle. So that's why I put a
- 52:29lot of emphasis on your cardiovascular system. So it's prevention and preparation. As
- 52:36a card carrying member of the group called the Golden Age to use sir,
- 52:39I say amen. As we began the discussion with Valentine's Day and Heart Health
- 52:49Month, what romantic gifts would you suggest? Rather than candy and extravagant dinners,
- 52:55maybe you give your partner and yourself a membership to a gym and start
- 53:05to go together. I see that all the time now, couples, young,
- 53:08middle aged and elderly couples in the gym. Twenty years ago, you'd
- 53:13have never seen it. That would be one nice gift. Also, if
- 53:16you have heart the heart, I know it sounds crazy, you know how
- 53:20romantically giving somebody a bottle of Strauss park Drops. Well, you know what
- 53:24if they have high blessure, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, I
- 53:28would get them to bottles. How about that? I think that that's you
- 53:34know. And then and taking your partner out to a restaurant where they serve
- 53:37Mediterranean food, that would be I love that diet. It's a heart healthy
- 53:42diet. Also, the dietary approaches to stoft hypertension, by the way,
- 53:49is also another good diet. But take your partner to a nice restaurant where
- 53:52they serve Mediterranean food, have nice Mediterranean dinner. How about that? Absolutely?
- 53:57My guest is doctor Michael Garko. Doctor gark one more time, please
- 54:00share with our listeners wink and find out more about you and your wonderful work.
- 54:05Thank you. Go to Strauss Naturals s t R a U S S.
- 54:09Strauss Natural dot com. There there's a link that says ask doctor Garco.
- 54:14I get people contacting me all the time. I just had a man
- 54:17contact me at triple artery disease eighty percent blockage, and the three main coronary
- 54:22arteries reached out to me and seeking my help and guidance, and so I
- 54:30answer every single one and you can learn more about the Strauss Park Drops and
- 54:34there are other fine products. They are a wonderful company, one hundred percent
- 54:37money back guarantee, no questions asked, and you can contact me there ask
- 54:43doctor Garko. My articles are there. They're free, sprolled down once you
- 54:46click on that link. There are a couple of articles there, two or
- 54:50three about party vascular health. Much of what I talked about today, and
- 54:53even more are there. Their research heavily referenced, so they're there for your
- 55:00edification. Victor, thank you so much for the opportunity to be with you
- 55:04and your audience today. Doctor Garko, thank you. And one more thing,
- 55:07tell us where we can hear your former podcasts. You can go to
- 55:12YouTube. I had my producers. YouTube is a place to archive the shows.
- 55:17If you type in doctor Michael Garko, Let's talk Nutrition, you'll find
- 55:23you'll find the videos there. The shows were two hours long, had a
- 55:29famous guest on that show. We covered everything from A to Z and they're
- 55:36still up there. And they're there for people to again take charge of their
- 55:40health so they can live a long life with the quality of life. Doctor
- 55:44Garko, our heartfelt thanks for you joining us and sharing your wisdom with us
- 55:47today. Victor, thank you, and you can always reach out to me.
- 55:52Victor, you know how to get in touch with me. If you
- 55:54want some nutrition guidance, I'd be happy to do it for you. It
- 55:59would be a play measure. And thank you for joining us on Vox Novus.
- 56:02I'm Victor the Voice Furman. Have a wonderful week.