If YOU Have Belly Fat, You NEED To See This

0:00And how long have you been operating on people's hearts? About 35 years now. And how many hearts do you think you've treated? In excess of 30,000. And what what's the age range of those patients? They we used to be mostly older people over 65. Now, I would say 50%of them are under 65 and 50%are over 65. So, the demographics is changing. The younger

0:26people are developing heart disease. So, the youngest patient you've ever treated? 28. And what was the predicament in that case? He was having a full-blown heart attack. So, that means that one of his arteries was completely clogged up. It had a blood clot in it. There was no circulation past that artery and therefore he was having acute chest

0:47pain, sweating, blood pressure was low. He comes straight to the hospital. I rush to the hospital, take him straight into the cath lab and try to open up that blockage. And we did open up that blockage and we put a put a stent in it and got rid of that blockage immediately to restore that blood flow to the heart

1:04muscle. [snorts] And at 28, how does one get a heart attack? You said it was blocked up. There's a lot of nuance in that. Most people don't understand what a heart attack is. So, in a nutshell, I'm going to tell you what it is. When you have a plaque, a plaque is a build-up of a little

1:23fibrous material inside the artery. And that doesn't cause a heart attack. A heart attack is caused when one of those plaques cracks [clears throat]. Now, in this diagram for example, it's showing that the plaque is closing up the artery and this will cause angina. That means a lack of blood supply over here. So, this patient may complain of chest discomfort or he may not complain of chest

1:47discomfort. Because remember, when you have a blockage like this, only 20%of the patients actually get chest pain. That means that you could have a blockage like this in a patient and you may not have any chest discomfort. And the only way you're going to pick that up is by doing a stress test or a coronary calcium score or some other modality to see whether he has blockage or not. A heart attack is when a minor blockage, which is not causing much flow

2:16disturbance, suddenly cracks. And what happens to the the plaque that that cracks off? And when it cracks open, the blood that's going past it sees the crack and wants to repair it and forms a blood clot on it. So, the final thing that shuts down that artery is a blood clot. It's not the plaque that shuts it off. It's a blood clot. So, a heart attack is caused by a blood clot at the site of a rupture. And what causes rupture is

2:48inflammation. Okay. So, when people say that heart disease is the number one killer of people generally that are that are diseased, is it that process that's causing it alone or is there a multitude of processes that lead to heart disease? There's a multitude of things that lead to heart disease. Look, So, that was a heart attack.

3:08That's right. Okay. So, one, you're making plaque. You shouldn't be making plaque. A plaque is an inflammatory area inside your arteries. It's reacting to something. And I can go into the nuance of what's actually What's the body reacting to? What's inflammation? Inflammation is reacting to something. What is that something? And I think it's important for your audience and everybody to know what that something

3:33is. Now, you got this pimple. Think of it as a pimple on the inside of the artery. Now, one day when there's enough inflammation in your body systemically, that pimple is going to crack open just like a pimple on the skin breaks open. Now, that artery has this little pimple on the inside and it cracks open and a blood clot forms on it and that's a heart attack. So, you don't want plaque formation, you don't want plaque instability, which is rupture of that plaque, and you don't want a blood clot to form on it. There are factors that affect each of these processes and all

4:10three processes are going wrong today. And that's why we have so much plaque formation and instability of the plaque, which then leads, of course, to heart attacks. And [snorts] our blood, in general, we have more coagulation issues today than we ever did before, which means our blood, because of inflammation, is more ready to clot more easily. So, we're

4:33having the perfect triad. It's the perfect storm. That's why we're seeing an epidemic of this and that's why we're not making a dent in it. Yes, you can have a plaque rupture and have a heart attack and we'll put a stent in you. Okay, that's fine. But what did we do to look at the underlying reason as to why you formed a plaque and why did you rupture it? And why was your blood so clotty in the first place that made you

4:57actually seal off the artery? Is this an increasing problem? Yes, it's a it's a huge problem because those factors have been identified now and that's what we go for in my practice. We look for the factors. Why did you make this plaque? Why is there so much inflammation in your body? Inflammation is a reaction to something

5:20foreign. What is that foreign stuff? What is that abnormal physiology in you that your body's reacting against? Cuz that's what inflammation is. And inflammation, of course, whenever there's going to be inflammation, there's going to be increased tendency to make blood clots. So, we go and we chase all these things in patients to find out and that's the real prevention. That 28-year-old that came in um and you treated him,

5:47was it Was that a a surgery you did? We call it a surgery, but it's not. It's a It's a angioplasty. So, we go in from the wrist. Yeah. Or we go in from the groin with a catheter, and we go into the coronary artery. A catheter being like a tube. It's a hollow tube, and we put it into the coronary artery. We shoot the dye inside. We can see where the blockage is, and then we thread a tiny wire into that artery through the blockage, and then bring in a balloon and squash the blood clot out of the way, restore the circulation, and then bring in a stent. A stent is

6:24like a spring that opens the artery up. We leave the stent inside there. We remove everything else, and now you have an open artery, and you have blood flow going down that artery. And what had that 28-year-old done to end up in your surgery? What were the decisions that they had made that brought them there? So, he was number one, he was overweight. But, he wasn't just overweight. The overweight was all in

6:47his belly. And he had a fatty liver, and he had what is known as visceral fat. He was not a diabetic, but he was a pre-diabetic. That means he had a lot of insulin in his body, and his glucose levels were good. So, if you went to his family doctor, they'll say, "Oh, you're not a diabetic. Your hemoglobin A1C, which is a blood test that you do for diabetes, is actually okay." But, actually that patient had a very high insulin blood

7:16level. Now, insulin is a very atherogenic molecule. It causes smooth muscle proliferation. Smooth muscle is in the walls of the arteries. It causes vasoconstriction. It makes your blood more clotty, and it causes inflammation. So, this patient was a pre-diabetic. [snorts] And this is very important. This is what caught my attention. Because when I looked at my patients that were coming in with heart attacks and hardening of the arteries, and when I tried to identify why they're doing

7:48this, none of them were diabetics. But then I did a glucose tolerance test on them. And what happened, it was just by chance that I happened to have these tests in my office where you can measure the blood glucose. So, I had about 120 of them. So, I said, "Look, let's just do some random testing on these patients." And I found that at least half of them had no diabetes, but they glucose intolerance. That means that their sugars went up, but not enough to make them a diabetic, but it did go above the normal range. We did not have insulin

8:22testing at that time. About 10 years later, we started testing insulin in the office, and I bought a machine for this purpose in my office to measure insulin levels. And life was never the same again. Why? Because it's all about insulin when it comes to the metabolic derangement. So, I found that these patients, their sugars were going up 250, 160 after

8:46giving them a glucose drink. Mhm. So, you say, "Okay, he's not a diabetic. Look, the sugar didn't really go high." But when you measure the insulin level, the insulin was off the roof. So, when you say this is an insulin problem, can you explain this to me like I have no idea what glucose and insulin are for for any of my listeners out there that have a inexperienced understanding of these these these terms

9:08and what they what they do and mean? It's crucial. Everybody needs to understand the relationship between sugar, which is glucose, and insulin. When you consume sugar or glucose, the body has to get rid of that glucose very quickly from the bloodstream because glucose actually is toxic inside the bloodstream. Even though it is what the body uses for energy, in the bloodstream, it glycates all the blood vessels and the walls and the components in blood, and the hemoglobin as well glycated. That means a glucose

9:41attaches itself to that molecule. So, now that molecule can't work properly. That is why the higher your blood glucose, all your chemicals don't work well. Your enzymes don't work well. Your hormones don't work well. Nothing works well, and you age prematurely because you're getting glycation. Glycated molecule can't work normally. It doesn't function normally. So, when you consume the glucose, the glucose has to come out of the bloodstream. And how does the body do

10:11it? It sends a message to the pancreas. The pancreas says, "Aha, I'll make some insulin." It pours insulin into the bloodstream. Insulin comes into the bloodstream, pushes the glucose into the cells. And where does it push it in? Into the liver, into the muscles, into every cell in the body. Insulin will push glucose out. Now, how much insulin

10:33is the question? If I'm eating every 3 hours, and I'm consuming glucose, or I'm consuming starchy foods, or I'm consuming carbohydrates. Now, watch where I'm going with this because you're already beginning to know where I'm going with this. I'm consuming glucose and carbs every 2 3 hours. I'm stimulating my pancreas. I'm stimulating my insulin. My insulin goes up, it comes down. But before it even gets a chance to come down, it goes

11:01up again. So, the repeated consumption of and frequent consumption of glucose is [snorts] causing my insulin to stay up because insulin stays a little bit longer in the bloodstream than the glucose. The glucose will come down in about 2 to 3 hours, but the insulin stays higher for about 4 hours. Now, what happens is that you continue this

11:22lifestyle for a few years. Now, the body, because these are all hormones, will say, "Well, you know, it's I'm going to need to make more insulin now. You become insulin resistant. Any hormone that stays in your body for a long time, the body becomes immune to it. So, the next time I eat the sugar, I'm going to have to make more insulin to

11:45produce the same effect. That is called insulin resistance. So, now you got this patient who's been eating carbs, sugar, processed foods. What does that mean, processed food? That means foods that are quickly absorbed into the bloodstream. Processed foods. These are products without fiber. So, the absorption is very quick. So, the poor pancreas has to react just like

12:12that. Produces a whole bunch of insulin. And then the frequent eating and the frequent consumption makes you insulin resistant. So, now you produce a whole bunch of insulin in order to bring that sugar level down. So, then you say, "Okay, well, it doesn't matter because the insulin the insulin is bringing the sugar level down. So, what's the harm

12:31done? Because your A1C is still good. You're not diabetic."No, but it's that background high insulin that is destroying your metabolism. It's that high insulin level in the background. So, insulin pushes glucose into the liver and you develop a fatty liver. It pushes the calories into production of new fats around your viscera. The viscera means in your belly. Around your pancreas. You get visceral fat. Now, this fat is produced from

13:03glucose. It's a different kind of fat. Look, if I gave you a high calorie diet right now of all sorts of foods, you'd put on weight everywhere, okay? But, if I give you glucose, you put it on mostly in your stomach. And your stomach will protrude. And that's called visceral fat. It's on the inside. You

13:21can't pinch it. It's on the inside. Around your organs. Around the organs. This is very detrimental fat and that's the epidemic that we have today. And that's a direct result of eating, you know, starchy glucose carbohydrates which creates insulin which creates this downstream effect on wrong foods and eating too frequently. Too frequently, okay. Because remember it's also the frequency of eating because before that insulin gets a chance to come down you're already popping yourself with more food and hence you develop insulin

13:52resistance. You get a very high insulin. It takes this much insulin now just to bring that sugar level down and then the one day when you cannot control that sugar, now that sugar will go out and now your doctor will say you're a diabetic. But by that time you've already had 10 years of hyperinsulinemia. So what happens and by the time you make a diagnosis of diabetes to say, well, now your sugar is really high. It is high because your body has not had the ability to keep it down. Why? Because even that high insulin could not keep your sugar level down. You became a diabetic. You lost that whole

14:28opportunity of prevention. It's those 10 years. Look, by the time you're a diabetic and you come and see Dr. J in his cardiac clinic, you already have coronary artery disease. Like that 28-year-old. The 28-year-old didn't have diabetes. He already has coronary artery disease. By the time you are diagnosed as having diabetes, you already have coronary artery disease. We have a great opportunity here to actually start screening these patients with insulin levels very early on. But most doctors don't have the ability or knowledge to

15:00do the insulin level testing. But it should be done. If you love the Diary of a CEO brand and you watch this channel, please do me a huge favor. Become part of the 15%of the viewers on this channel that have hit the subscribe button. It helps us tremendously and the bigger the channel gets, the bigger the guests.