Guest: Dr Scott Carollo joins Tom Sena

This is Scott’s second episode with us on Making No Cents and again, this episode could save your life!   I’m actually not kidding.   He’s my cardiologist… and if you don’t have a cardiologist, you really should.  It’s kinda cool.  Just listen to what he says that you aren’t hearing from your doctor.  

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:07

All right, we are here with Scott. You've been practicing. I didn't practicing.

SPEAKER_01 0:14

I wasn't you're there for a moment. You you kind of collected yourself and just no way you can do that. You flip off the end. It's easy. It's just not a crowd.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

It's not a croll up. There you go. Well done. Well done. Doctors got crollo. Cardiologist? Yes. Yeah? Do you have any other are there any other letters you stuff at the end of your name?

SPEAKER_01 0:32

No, I don't like it when when people in medicine do. I mean, it it seems like a little bit like a little certainly boastful, but it's like, why are you even why are you bothering with all the letters and jumbo? I feel like you're like trying to like you've got you you're not sure of yourself, or you feel like you have to I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Get the big car, get the I mean, you weren't it, brother. You weren't it. Anyway, cardiologist Scott Corolo. Uh more importantly, he's my pal. Yes. He's my bud. Yes. Um, so we're gonna go out after this. So FYI, we're going out, we're gonna grab some food. I don't know. I'll be interested to see my pick, your choice.

SPEAKER_02 1:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07

All right, so here's our whole dietary. So here's the here's my cardiologist. Which I wouldn't, I wouldn't, thank God I I have not had the necess necessarily had the need for a cardiologist specifically, but I now, because you have officially prescribed me uh some medication, which we'll get into in a minute, uh I could call you my cardiologist as well. Yeah, so Scott is my cardiologist, he's from California of all places, originally. Originally. And yet he's the guy giving me shit about my vegan diet. I mean, what does that mean? I wasn't giving you crap.

SPEAKER_01 1:42

I wasn't giving you crap. I was just saying I it'll be interesting to see, you know, what path can you guide us on.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Well, it's it is it's an interesting juxtaposition, but you can take me anywhere right now, other than eggs, ham, and peanut butter.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

That's it. Those are my three no-nos. Stop. Your three no's? Those are my three no's.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

As in you don't just like the you don't like the taste, or is there something more?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

I can't eat, I can't just don't like it. Just don't eggs, peanut butter, and ham. Interesting. Not a pork why will it?

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Prosciutto. Okay. Well, of course. Yeah, yeah. All right. Okay, so um, so we ask God on um periodically. Well, we will This is your second foray. We we had you on before, and you uh we I thought it was one of the more interesting podcasts that I've done. Uh now people are a lot of people obviously miss it because they just, you know, maybe think, oh, there's another podcast. What's he talking about? Cardiological? What do I mean? But there's like, in my opinion, some alarmingly important information that I am now you should I you'd be so proud of me, I think. Either that or just freaked out. But I talked to so many people now behind the chair. I have I've so like uh I drank I've drank the Kool-Aid, and thankfully it's the Kool-Aid of Health. So here's the story. Just a quick, quick little backstory. Scott and I were chit-chatting about um my brother had had a heart attack last year. We talked about just how, you know, he walked out of that hospital, not one, you know, person in medicine had talked to him a word about diet or anything like that or health or whatever. And I was kind of going off about that and whatever. Scott, you pointed out it's just like, well, who who's gonna pay for that? You know, who's paying for a who's paying for that discussion, you know, and we can argue all you want about, you know, well, we pay for it, you know, because the medicine's so expensive, whatever. But the truth of the matter is is you get an itemized bill when you're done with the thing, and nothing about wellness is on there because there is no bill for that. Uh, and I think you would agree there's a systemic problem with that.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Yes. Yeah. I mean, the whole we talked about it, the whole system is is upside down. Um, and it's because of the the ignorance of of payers and our paying system, it's very hard to pay for prevention because prevention is cerebral, uh, it's not tangible, and it's not, you can't feel it or see it or taste it or know it for decades. But if I take somebody who's having a heart attack or open up a blockage, they're like, oh, yeah, there was a blockage there. Oh, and now you open that blockage up and fix it. I see that, I'll pay for that, and we're off and running. And and that's all fine and well, but what are we doing in your brother's case to say, hey, what how are we investing and who are we investing in to aid him and so many others to make sure it's a one-off, it's a one-time, it's not gonna happen again. That's what we should be doing, and we should be doing it on the forward end as well, so that we reduce the numbers of people who ever have a cardiac problem.

SPEAKER_00 4:26

So when you say payer, you're talking about insurance companies? Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Um I'm talking about all of them Medicaid, Medicare, commercial insurance. Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

Commercial, private, public, all that. Yeah. No, no, I get it. Um what and then we kind of we kind of threw this out without an answer. And there it probably isn't, but I mean, what would it take for that to change? I mean, is that first of all, is it financially beneficial for an insurance company to have healthier clients? Absolutely. And you'd say yes, there is because they're still paying the premiums to have the insurance and they're not dinging them for all the the type of work that we end up doing is so costly.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

And I don't remember the exact numbers. Everybody can look it up on the internet, but the amount of money that we end up being it's paid out through whatever insurers, Medicare mostly, because it in the last couple decades of our lives, you know, and a lot of that is stuff that's been building, building, building, building, and then boom. The hammer comes down, and then we're playing catch-up for the next 10, 15 years. Yeah. And and what if what if we what if we change the trajectory at 18 years of age and we've I mean, what I'm not talking about making everybody live to 120 years old. I mean, uh that's a whole nother topic, which I'm not really interested in. But what I'm trying to do is extend the healthy period of time. So the quality before we get into that last end segment, which is gonna happen. We've got to accept that. It's gonna happen. But what if we said, hey, what can we do to reduce the events and extend that health healthy cycle length further on? And and that's I think we can do that. We can do that, and we have it all the medicines available to us right now, right now.

SPEAKER_00 6:03

Okay, so that was the inter that so that kind of brings us to the real meat and potatoes, you know, so to speak, of uh of this topic. And that is the the pertinent part that I think you guys need to hear. We talked about it the first time around, and this is the medication that he prescribed me. So I came at this from a health food standpoint of view, from all, you know, watching all the all the documentaries about, you know, forks, overknives, and uh uh food ink, and you know, there's a lot of them out there that were extremely popular, and I ate all of those up, and there's great information in all of those about healthy living, um, whole food, um, you know, vegan is uh part some of some of those talk about that as well. Um, and that's actually how I got started. And there was, but what they kind of labeled in some of those shows as being I I that was the first I had heard of it and learned about it was the statins, because it was just like, oh, um, my my dad had to go on statins because he was, you know, unhealthy and overweight, but he did so good on this diet and so good on his health and wellness, now he got off, you know, now he's even he got off statins and he doesn't even need to do that anymore. And I thought, well, yeah, that's the big win, right? I mean, he doesn't have to take this this drug or whatever it is. Okay, so cut to years later, because I've been a vegan forever. Uh, I'm not a very good vegan, FYI. I never eat meat, chicken, fish, never, ever, ever have I has that since I stopped. But I do cheat on dairy. So, I mean, it's not, and do I have a leather, do I have leather in my wardrobe at times? I mean, so you know, I am not, I mean, seriously, vegan people are very hardcore in that stuff. Bottom, you have a healthy lifestyle, Tom. But you say accepting. And I don't like I don't like it. You're a human being. I don't like animal cruelty. I don't like, I don't believe in the slaughter stuff. I hate all that. I also think it's horrible for the environment, but all right, another day. But so now I start talking to Scott, and he and we get into this discussion and all that, and he starts asking me, ultimately asked me about my LDL cholesterol level, because I had just gotten a checkup on it. They did the blood. And I'm like, oh, uh, my cholesterol. I I it's I said it's normal. I I looked down the list after they gave me my results, which they, of course, you know, my regular doctor didn't say a word on any of this. Uh, just gave me the test. There was no nothing pending like I was gonna die, so I guess I was okay. Um, I told him, I was my he goes, well, let me let me look at it. And so he looks at it, and it's not that it's abnormally high or anything like that. Yeah, but it it's uh it's a number that that even though it clicks off in the normal range, you know, he knows my brother just had a heart attack. So we we you know, we uh immediately we have family history. There's it's undeniable now, uh, whether we knew it or not before. But he's just like, if you so your your your thing, and I'm I'm gonna be talking for you, but go ahead and pipe up here. You you know as there there is a single metric that you can look at among a million other things, granted, it's a huge picture, very complex, and other, but from all of your work, you know that if you can lower your LDL, that will, no matter what else is going on, it will lower your chance of having a heart event more so than it would if you hadn't lowered that LDL. Right.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Am I is that we've known about LDL for decades and decades, and we've been very, very slow to adopt uh an aggressive approach to LDL. But everybody in in medicine knows about it, everybody in science knows about it, and what we know, and the facts are true, every time we lower LDL, and we've been playing this game, you know, back, you know, in the 60s, it was like, well, if your LDL is, if it's under 300 or over three, under 300, you're fine. And then we say, well, wait a minute, that's too much. And we go, well, what about 200? Okay, we bring it down to 200. Well, okay, yeah, now we're starting to see, well, we're lowering heart attack, stroke, death. Well, what about 150? Okay, yeah, oh yeah, we're bringing it down. Well, okay, what about 130? Oh, yeah, okay. I could draw you a graph and it goes straight from here down to here. Every notch you lower LDL, you raise people's health, cardiovascular health. You reduce the risk of heart attack, you reduce the risk of stroke, you reduce the risk of dying. The craziest thing in the world is that we continue to slowly adopt lower and lower and lower and lower numbers. And you and I have talked about this before, and then when I talk to people in the office or wherever, they say, Well, what's the right number? We are all so number driven and the whole bit. And I think I say in total seriousness, but also a little bit of jest, and this is where I lose almost everybody in healthcare. I say my goal for LDL is zero. And they look at you and they're like, that's that's ridiculous, doctor. You're you're you're an absolute idiot. Uh and I get it. The point is that if you look at over history, every time we've lowered that goal, we have goals in medicine. When we've started to adopt direct looking at LDL and lowering it, we always establish goals and we look at risk profiles and we're like, okay, how about this number, this number, this number? Every time we lower that number down, we raise everybody's health, we raise everybody's cardiovascular well-being. Uh, we reduce heart attacks, we reduce stroke, and we make people live longer. So I tell people, if you're opposed, if you're opposed to introducing strategies to lower your LDL, if you're opposed to living longer, reducing your risk of heart attack and stroke, then please do not do anything to lower your LDL. Do not listen to me at all. If you're completely opposed to the idea of living longer and healthier, run away from me. Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

All right, so there's a couple things in there. So that leads us to the second half of this discussion, which was, and here is it's like, yes, diet, all that stuff can contribute to lowering your LDL, but guess what? We have a drug that has been out for years and years, decades that they know if you take this drug, it will lower your LDL. Well, what's the catch? What's the catch? What's the side effects? So whatever. It's just like, well, there may be side effects with some people, there may, but but bottom line, it's a bit proven through by thousands, maybe millions by now, I would think. Millions of people by now. Oh, yeah. Easily. Now that I think about it. Yeah. Just millions in America.

SPEAKER_02 11:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Uh that have proven over time that it's safe. It's a safe way to lower your LDL. Now, should that be the only thing you do? No. Do do everything. Why not do everything? Or or you know, well, I don't need the statins because I'm going to do a health one. It's just like, no, no, you're not, you're not listening. If you do the health thing, great. You'll lower it like this. If you take the statins, it'll lower like that. Even lower. It's like that, no matter what you do, whether you're healthy or not, the statins will lower the LDL. So why not take the statins? And yes, try and do all the other stuff too. But guess what? The statins don't have a cheat date. The statins don't have, you know, whatever it is that you that you may live through and do better or worse in your dieting. And a lot of times on diet, you know, are healthy, these healthy diets that come across the board, and I'm sure you've seen it probably gone crazy. I mean, sometimes they're sometimes they're healthy, and sometimes they're not. Sometimes we learn five years later, oh, that was ridiculous. That was a that was super unhealthy for you. People were, it was a fad. So I mean, the statin works. It's been proven, it's a done deal. I went on them, I did not notice, I did not notice one single little side effect hiccup, nothing. Um right. So that's what he did. He's just he looked at my normal level. He's like, take the statin. I'm like, I'm in, I'm totally in. I want to lower the LDA. Why wouldn't I? That's his point. You know, why in the hell wouldn't you? So right.

SPEAKER_01 13:11

I mean, if you're looking to be proactive, and you and and I applaud you, and I applaud so many other people uh that that I work with and other people work with who are looking to say, hey, hey, Dr. Crow, what what can I do to reduce my risk? And everybody's on the internet and they do the diets and all the things that you just talked about, and I get it. Great, fantastic, knock yourself out. Try to live as healthy a lifestyle as possible. But in my world, I understand us as humans, and I think we've talked about this. It's like I actually preach a lifestyle of moderation. Now, the only because I understand that we're all human and that it's it's very difficult. And and what's the point of living to 95 where you've spent 70 years of your life denying yourself pleasure, the pleasures of life? Okay, now it's every you're on your own. You're an individual, you can choose to do whatever you want to do. If you want to deny yourself all the pleasures of life that, yes, can lead to higher risks and et cetera, congratulations, there for you, but you're gonna die. Yeah, you're gonna die. So I preach moderation and I say, look, I want you to live a healthy lifestyle. Of course I do. Of course, I'm saying, hey, is it okay to have a steak? Yeah. Is it okay to have a steak five nights a week? Of course, you know this. You know this as a human being. You're not stupid. We all know this. Is it okay to go to McDonald's? Of course it's okay to go to McDonald's. Should you be having breakfast at McDonald's every day, five days a week? Of course, you know this. You know this. So do what you think is best for you. Try to achieve a healthy lifestyle, whatever that means to you. So don't worry about what the internet is telling you. Figure out on your own. This is what my lifestyle, what I feel comfortable doing. Pursue it. But, and I think I've told you this, for those who are even the best of the best, the top 1% of healthy lifestyle, you're gonna lower your LDL at best 10%. 10%. So if your LDL, which is in the normal range, less than 130, and you're just like the best. I mean, you can't live a healthy guy lifestyle. Right. I'm gonna lower your LDL 13 points. And that isn't enough. It's is it helping? Of course it's helping. Yeah. Of course it's helping. But is it getting you down to where you want to be? Down to, and what are we trying to do? What's the number we're trying to achieve? Zero. Yeah. As low as possible. As low as possible. Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

And so, yeah, and to that guy or to that person who's busting their ass, it'd be like, great. Yeah, do that. And then take this. Yeah, and it's gonna get even lower. Right. Which will, you know, the the correlation is the lower it goes, the healthier you're the less chance of a heart event. All the other things stroke. Yes, dying. Dying. There you go. You you lower your chance of dying. I'll tell you again if you're opposed to that. Yeah, no, no, turn around. I'll take that all day long. So I mean, it doesn't mean you're not gonna have a doesn't mean you're not gonna have a stroke.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

No, no, no. There's no guarantees in any of this stuff. But if you want to be proactive, if you want to do everything that you can to reduce your risk, drop that LDL. Don't get involved with good cholesterol, this ratios that, all the gobbledygook. Just stay focused right now on LDL. And there's even more science coming, and we're gonna get overrun with it. It's called LP little A, and we're already getting uh in healthcare getting run into it. We don't have any therapies yet to deal with it, but it's gonna be something everybody's gonna hear about. I feel like, and I think we talked about this a little bit, the whole LP little A thing. Yeah, is it important? Yes. It's a niche thing that fits for certain people, certain things. It drives me crazy. I love the research and development in cardiology. It's one of the main reasons I went into it. But I feel like, I feel like, uh like anybody would say, should we be graduating people from high school or grade school who don't know how to read? I think everybody in the country would say, well, of course not, Scott, we shouldn't do that. So why should we be throwing in even next level things, LP little A and all these other things that are gonna develop when we haven't won the battle of LDL? We haven't gotten people on board with that. And e even physicians. We talked about primary care job. Well, okay, you're fine, whatever. 128, you know, you're fine, you're good, it's normal, you know. Uh we haven't won. We haven't won that battle. So I'm afraid already that we're gonna lose people when we start inundating inundating the airwaves and and and and the internet with this whole, well, what about we should be doing LP? I'm like, yeah, okay, but can we can we at least win the first battle? Can we at least win reading?

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah. No, I I get I get it. And then, you know, and then the influencers, these they'll grab old of one little facet of something, and they'll do I mean I don't think that's what we're doing right now, Tom.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

No. I'm talking about bait literally basic science. All right. Well established, umpteen decades old, everybody in the world knows it. Everybody knows drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, drop, LDL, boom, boom, raise, raise, raise, raise, raise, raise, raise, cardiovascular. Right. This is a very baseline truth. Yeah. That that we and we have been very in the in in the in the health industry, we've been very, very slow and in my view, ridiculously overly cautious about addressing and being aggressive about that LDL reduction. And that's why everybody in the world would say, Scott, you can't say zero is the LDL. But I just try and I want to make it simple and useful people. Every number it doesn't matter what number it is. Whatever number you're at right now, where's your lower it? It's an Italian guy already. But it drops. I knocked it down somewhere. Is it inside your shirt? Yes. Oh, it is. Anyway, anyway. So I'm trying to get it. That's why that's why we got these. That's why I'm trying to keep it just simple. And I'm trying to get people just to buy in on the idea. And and and I think I sent you, I think I tried to send you the little notice that came out in the news not long ago where people in science, and this was after you and I had done the first podcast and I had talked about all a lot of these same themes and same numbers. They said, Yeah, we probably need to go lower. So you should probably talk to your doctor and have a discussion and and talk about getting lower. And I'm like, and even the numbers that they're talking about in that lower, again, I'm like, God, still not low enough. That's why it's zero, zero, zero. Now, of course I'm being obnoxious with the zero. We're never gonna get the zero.

SPEAKER_00 19:07

But I but if you that's the deal though. If you check your chart, which you should all be able to do that. If you don't, then you you probably need a blood test. If it's been that long for you, that you know, you don't have a fairly current blood work. Um, you should be able to look at it and look down, look down in the cholesterol, and then look down at the LDL. LDL, that's all you gotta look at. Yeah. The LDL. And uh, even if it's in the in the you know normal zone, why not take a look at getting a statin to lower it that much more? And that's the deal. That's what we're talking about. It's it sounds extreme. Like, well, it says I'm normal. I'm not taking some, I'm not taking some drug if it says I'm normal, whatever. It's just like, well, but just case in point, they just, since we got started talking about this a few months ago, the American Heart Association puts out a new thing and being like, well, I guess it should be a little bit more than I'm gonna do.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

I guess we haven't been we've been a little slow dragging our feet on this whole LDL thing, and probably should be really more aggressive than we are.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

Yes, yes, and Scott is a cardiologist, he's he's worked in this area his you know entire uh professional life, and this is what he's saying. I'm I'm I'm here to take, like I said, I'm drinking the Koolig.

SPEAKER_02 20:07

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:08

And I well, I wish everybody went.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

I'm trying to put myself out of business. I mean, if I have we also talked about if I were running the country, if I were if I were uh uh I wish I were Surgeon General. I wish I were Surgeon General. And you would you would never stop hearing me talk about how we need to get people to lower that LDL. And I would have every 18-year-old in this country, I would, I would say, look, we're paying for it. Everybody get as soon as you turn 18, boom, you go get your lipid profile, and I'll tell you right now, your LDL is not where it needs to be, and we get you good going, and I'm gonna reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke, and death, and likely improve your cognitive stability for way longer than you think is possible.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Okay, I'm gonna not I'm gonna throw you a little bit of curveball. Right. What part, I mean, obviously, dosage has to be a part of that equation. I mean, I'm not saying I'm still I'm still saying take the statin regard. But what so how does the dosage work? I mean, is there you take one, that's good, you take you take more and lower it even more? I mean, what Yeah, here's the thing, you know, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

We're all different. Okay, we all have different responses to medication and all that. We also have different levels of comfort, levels of anxiety, levels of concern. I get that. Okay, all I'm telling you is whatever your LDL is, even on therapy, it's still too high. What is the number we should be trying to get to? What's the number, Tom? Zero. Zero. So do you you I want mine to be zero? You may say, Scott, I'm okay. I'm okay at 125. I'm very comfortable there. That's how I want to be, that's where I'm gonna go, and fine. I have other people who say, you know what? No, I want to be. I want to be as low as possible because I understand that graph and I understand what he's saying, and I that's where I want to be. And I want to do, I want to pull all the all the levers. All right, so how much?

SPEAKER_00 21:55

I'm putting you to it. How much can you take?

SPEAKER_01 21:58

Uh you could you could take as high. I if I if I were in the game, if I were running everybody's show, I I would be driving everybody down as far as I could humably possible down to zero. And we've got the therapies that can almost do that. The easy ones, the oral ones, are the statins. There's a lot of other medications, oral medications, very well tolerated that will help lower things even more. Oh, there are. And then we've got the injectables. And those are game changers. I put them up there with penicillin and insulin as far as uh uh. How does that work?

SPEAKER_00 22:30

How do the injectables work?

SPEAKER_01 22:31

What do you have to do?

SPEAKER_00 22:34

I mean, it's not I don't need to know the actual science. Yeah, yeah, I don't talk about my. No, I mean, so how how often do you take those? What how long do those last?

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Some are available that you could take once a month. There's another one, you only have to take two shots a year every six months. And you take that one. I don't. Okay. I don't. And and I I don't I wouldn't recommend that everybody do that. The point is that those therapies are currently available and will continue to be available and will eventually become generic therapies that, in my view, pretty much everybody should be going to their doctor twice a year and then just getting this little quick shot out the door, and you're good to go. And that's where we stand the statins, or along with it depends again on where your LDL's. Okay, so just dig it, measure it, right. All I'm saying is that we've got a lot of incredible therapies that are available. And I can I can match it to your personal health status, and I can also match it to your own personal health goals and health anxieties and personal anxieties. If you want to be very, very uber aggressive and you're very concerned, I I've got all the therapy. I can do that for you. If you're somebody who has incredible high risk, ridiculous family history, very high LDLs, even statins can help with that. I can help you with that. We all can help you with that, and we should be doing that. And we're not doing that, Tom. So that's settling for hey, you're fine, and when you're not fine, and I get a call to find out that you had a heart attack, and now you want to come see me, now I'm going to be aggressive. I'd hate that scenario. I hate doing that. I hate doctors who aren't proactive, who are nothing but reactive, and they're all out there. They're all out there just sitting and waiting and saying, hey, look, I did what I thought was best. Um I'm so sorry you had a heart attack. I'm so sorry your husband died. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

All right, Doc. I like what you're. I mean, I appreciate what you're hearing because you're not pulling a bunch of, you're telling the truth. And these are the things that we always wonder, us lay people, we always wonder about. And so you're confirming a lot of these concerns that we have had, or you know, wondering, it's just like, could that be possible? And you're and you're here to say, yeah, this is going on. So I wouldn't have even known about this had we not started chit-chatting about it. I wouldn't have known it from my tests, I wouldn't have known it from my doctor. Um, what I mean, that's the question. It's like, what can they do to be like, well, the only thing you can talk to my doctor can do is advocate.

SPEAKER_01 25:02

And this is probably one of the biggest things I've seen in medicine in my entire 30-plus year career, is that I've finally realized that, and I'm not trying to toot my own horn, but I'm just like, I I I thought everybody was was trying to be aggressive and trying to do the right thing. But unfortunately, as physicians, we there's not enough of us doing that. And so what I've been most impressed by, unfortunately, very unfortunately, is patient, self-patient advocacy. Self-advocacy. You you can't assume that Dr. A or Dr. B or Dr. C are all the same. You think we all are, but we're not. We are absolutely not. And the only thing you can do for yourself is advocate for yourself and ask the questions. And if you aren't getting the answers that you feel like you should be getting, and you want to get down to that zero level, and they're like, ah, you don't need to. Ah, you're fine. I don't know. I think maybe you gotta look for other people. And there's I have no skin in the game, Tom. I'm actually trying to take myself out of business. Well, you do have skin in the game. I mean, obviously that the that I have no skin in the game. Well, what's he selling? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 26:13

I appreciate that. I appreciate that. And you know, do you know when most of us, do you know how most of us learn that you have to advocate for yourself? Is when you get to a BR age and your parents are old. And we we we start to we experience that through them firsthand. And I guarantee you, because I talk to people behind the chair all the time about this that are in our age group, that's when you learn. You learn your parents, you're like, God, uh, it's like, had I not asked that uh doctor or that nurse to do this or that or or whatever about my mom or my dad or whatever. And it never got done. And and it's a sad truth, but I think a lot of times we learn that about our folks and then don't realize it's just like, yeah, and guess what? That's exactly what's happening to you, to you and your own healthcare. And why wait, you know, until you're an elderly person uh that's feeble, feebled from a heart attack or whatever the case may be, a stroke. But I think don't wait.

SPEAKER_01 27:02

I I again I'm glad I I got to that point here tonight is because if you don't care about if you don't agree with what I'm saying, fine. I'm totally okay with that. I but I I could debate you till you're blue in the face, but if you disagree with me, fine. But I do think the one take-home message that you need to have tonight, and you touched on it again, and I'm glad I said it out loud, is please, please, please advocate for yourself. Don't assume that all the answers that you're getting are in your favor. And I think you gotta learn to be aggressive. You gotta be aggressive. And I know it could be uncomfortable or problematic. I know, I know, but unfortunately, and I've learned this in my time in medicine.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

We're not all as doctors, we're not always the best. Where can they learn about this? Because there's, you know, we talked about it earlier. There's just too much garbage out there because I wouldn't have known what to advocate for myself had I not met you and started chit-chatting about you and chit-chatting with you about this. And then I didn't advocate. I was fortunate enough to have you in my corner, and you're the one that prescribed it for me. I you asked, I said yes, absolutely. And so we did that. So what are they supposed to do? How are they even supposed to know? I mean, this is what you're you're hearing it right now. Here's one area that absolutely is a is a button that you could go push. And that is your LDL, your statins. Give me something to lower my LDL and then come back in six months and we'll measure it again, and then we'll see if that worked or whatever. They you're saying advocate for that right now with your doctor.

SPEAKER_01 28:29

Yes. Yeah, and I can't tell you, Tom, I can't tell all your listeners like what they should be advocating themselves for and all the other things. All I'm telling you right now is we all know, everybody knows, what is the number one killer of all of us. And it's going to be heart disease, cardiovascular disease. So if if you were gonna ask, if you're gonna ask me, like, okay, Scott, well, what should people be advocating for? I think it's that LDL reduction. Yeah, I mean, what's just heart attacks? Because why? Because if we do that, I know, and science has proven easy now.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

You I don't have to do CPR. It's gonna bothers me. It's gonna prove the point. It bothers me though. Oh no, I guess the answer's right there. It would drive there. It's driving me great because I'm having these conversations now with clients, and they're like, eh, push it back a little bit or whatever. And it does drive, it's like, I can only imagine how much this must drive you nuts. Uh, and there you go.

SPEAKER_01 29:26

So you just touching it yourself, Don't you? I mean, when you have this conversation, again, not as a healthcare professional with people, and they're like, nah, yeah, you you hear a lot of that, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:35

They just kind of don't they yeah, either either there's there are some people that are like genuinely uh interested in in all that stuff. But I mean, I do get a lot of just kind of like, oh, it's another, you know, it's well, because sure it's another thing I can do. I can't do it.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

It's not gonna happen to me. Right. Everybody says it's not gonna happen to me. I'm gonna live fine forever.

SPEAKER_00 29:54

Or they just a lot of guys, a lot of guys I will say, are like, well, it's gonna happen anyway. You know, well, we're not getting out of your life, but whatever. They're just they they just almost have thrown their hands up and they're just like, Okay, but that's why I said that's why I said to you earlier.

SPEAKER_01 30:07

It's like, look, I I I can't do this for everybody because everybody's got their level of of desire. Right. Uh the uh their their level of control, their level of anxiety, their level of concern. Made a heart attack, though. Their level of risk. So I like, okay, people, it okay. If you don't want to do it, then I I tell people this all the time. It's like, all right, fine, don't take the medicine. But you know, I don't know, I don't want to be I don't want to say in a bad way, but I'll see you in the year. But do not look up at me while you're having a heart attack and say, Dr. Carolo, how in the world did this happen? Right. How did this happen?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

You never told me that. I'm like, uh-uh. Uh-uh. Not you. Not me. Uh-uh. God. I hear you. Uh well, there it is. There it is. Yeah. There's your message. I mean, can we have banged any harder on that drum? I don't know, man. Advocate and find out what your LDL is. That's it. It's easy. And just, and no matter, and no matter what it is, honestly, ask for it.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Ask your doctor how can I get it lower? And I tell you what, they may look at you and go, oh my goodness, John, Mary, why are you why do you want to lower this LDL? And I swear to God, just look them back in the eye and go, because I want to live longer and I want to live healthier. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

And they're like, and they'll look at you and go, okay. Oh my God. Or if they put it back on you to be like, to just like, well, eat healthier, you know, watch what you're eating, you know, come back at the eggs or whatever. Don't buy it. Just it's not enough.

SPEAKER_01 31:36

It's not enough, no. They're taking the eating.

SPEAKER_00 31:39

Killer. God, Tom. All right.

unknown 31:41

All right.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I've often said this to my brothers and my because just for being vegan and trying to watch, you know, whatever, and you know, and then we go out to eat with my family, you know, they're all eating meat. You know, whatever. And I was like, I can die. If I have a heart attack before you guys, I swear to God, I'm gonna fucking kill everybody. I'm gonna be so pissed that I did that. And that's to you, kind of to your point of just like, well, you can't balance, you want to live uh you want to still have a happy box. And I do, I do. I told you that before. I get something else out of it. Enjoy life. I am. I am. I'm going out. We're gonna go out to eat and you watch. I'm gonna eat it. Lower your LDL.

SPEAKER_01 32:16

Just fine. Lower your LDF.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Yeah, there you go. Do it! Do it. Do it. All right. I think that we're gonna wrap it up. We're gonna wrap it. And then we're gonna come back uh after I probably after I have my next blood test. If not before, um I want to have them online. But uh, and we're not gonna always talk about the FYI. We got other stuff, we got plenty of other stuff. Uh what what's last week? What do I do too? What are you listening to? I'm a run trick. Whatever. What are you listening to? Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

You know, I continue to uh oh my god! I can I I love Mount Joy, man. I think I told you this the last time.

SPEAKER_00 32:47

I still haven't I think I listened to uh one track after I talked about just find their first album.

SPEAKER_01 32:56

Mount Joy? Yeah, okay, yeah. Because they had I think maybe I told you they had the ultimate trifecta music, right? The song Mount Joy on the album Mount Joy by the band. Wow. Mount Joy.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

So they had a song that they call it. Yeah, Tony on their album. Yeah, yeah. Right on. All right, check them out. Mount Joy. Yeah. What kind of music? Uh well, I don't know. What do you call it now? I mean Alternative Rock. If it's rock. What do you do? What do you call that? How dare you prove it? You heard it, right? I think it was it's rock. Is it? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, yeah. All right. Thanks you guys for watching. What's the number today? The number is zero. How about that? Yeah. LDL. Get a dava zero. Reach for the unreachable star. All right. Love you guys. We'll see ya. Rapid.