The Worst Offenders: Expert Advice For Reversing Heart Disease With Diet Modifications

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well everybody hold still, buckle up. Don’t move. I brought you one of the best clinicians that I could ever imagine inviting a reverse heart disease naturally summit a friend for a decade plus and really authentically an expert on the topic we’re talking about. And that’s Dr. Steven Masley. How are you Steve?

Steven Masley, MD

I’m doing great and delighted to be with you.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Thank you. And we’ll officially introduce Steve at a little brief bio in a moment. But I had to say when we were putting together a list of people to interview, I actually believe there are under 50 clinicians in the world that can say I’ve seen plaque shrink, I’ve seen disease reverse, which is of course the very topic of this summit, building belief and strategies and you’re one of those people and you’ve been watching and doing that longer than me. So let’s do dig into that. But I do want everybody to appreciate that you are a physician, your nutritionist certified. I know you and I have talked and I’ve seen you prepare food, you’re a trained chef and you did that before. It got a little trendy for docks. You can handle knives and cutting boards like no other. And you’re a very successful author. 30 days to a younger heart being the book that you and I can share so easily in terms of a cardiac topic and then you just dominated the PPS world with your PBS special by the same name. I mean your fellow of the American Heart Association, American College of nutrition and you’re in St. Petersburg, Florida and uh with the last few months of unsettling whether they’re I’m glad you’re safe and fine and here with us today. So thank you for being here.

Steven Masley, MD

My pleasure.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So tell us, I mean there is a wonderful clinic in St. Petersburg, the Masley optimal health center clinic. Tell us a little bit about how long uh that has carried your name and how you have evaluated patients for the presence of a plaque in their arteries because you can’t reverse what you can’t see. So how did you find plaque and your clinic? Tell us about it. 

Steven Masley, MD

Well I started using carotid I. M. T. Testing back when I was the medical director in the at the Pritikin Longevity Center 22 years ago and about 20 years ago I moved back to St. Petersburg, Florida. And for my own clinic and that was one of the hallmark things I measured from day one was. How old are your arteries? Are you growing black? Is it shrinking? And I followed patients over the last 17 years looking at arterial plaque growth and we had hundreds of patients shrink their plaques by more than 10%. A 10 year typical plaque growth period. And you know our average patient shrunk plaque. So we know that over time that most people are going plaque in about 1 to 1.5% per year, their arteries are closing and our patients were shrinking over time.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So I actually have to say honestly. But embarrassingly I didn’t realize you were at the Pritikin center 22 years ago. Nathan Pritikin, his name has come up, aerospace engineer who changed the world with the belief that he could teach lifestyle medicine and got a group of doctors and published over 100 papers and developed the famous Pritikin longevity center. So wow, you have so many interesting hats that you’ve warned that have culminated in you being the superstar. You are just in case the audience didn’t get carotid IMT. Take two minutes and break down. What is the abbreviation? What’s the test? What are we looking at?

Steven Masley, MD

Carotid IMT is credible, intimate media thickness. We’re basically looking at the thickness of the plaque growing in your arteries, which reflects the important age of your arteries. So I’ve met many people who have had plaque their age or 20 years older or 20 years younger. And you know, so over time as I said, most people are growing black and about one and a 1/2% per year. So every decade they’ve blocked about 15% of their arteries. That’s not good. I met 20 year olds who had the plaque of a 40 year old. So I think it’s the most important test we did in our clinic,

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

17 years. I’m in my eighth year at my preventive clinic. So you’ve doubled plus and I give you credit for that. So this is a simple ultrasound test. No injection, no needles, no iodine, no x-ray technique done in an office comfortably, pretty much seated or lying. Anybody’s capable takes about what 25 minutes, 20 minutes.

Steven Masley, MD

Well maybe 10 minutes to get the data and another 10-15 minutes to analyze it.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And in case anybody’s thinking, you know I’ll just call up my local doctor in my local hospital. I mean how is it different than the prescription? A doctor writes for a hospital based carotid ultrasound which it is different. But you and I know… 

Steven Masley, MD

Joel that’s a really good point because most 95-99% of the time if your local doctor writes for it they’re going to do a carotid duplex study looking at blood flow the hospital setting. They’re hoping to find your arteries block so they can do a procedure to open them. Which has real risk to do this is measuring the thickness the lining of your arteries, something Almost none of the clinics are our hospitals have the software to analyze. So you’d have to find a doctor google carotid I. M. T. And find someone who can do that kind of testing right?

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And it’s so important. People understand that because you know they’re disappointed when I show them though their insurance may have covered the hospital based carotid study you know it’ll say less than 50% narrowed. It doesn’t tell you if that’s 5% or 45%. It doesn’t measure that thickness that you’re talking about and, you know, one or 2000 publications in the research world. It’s nothing you developed or I developed. It’s something we’ve adopted as a tool. So you will make a baseline internal medial thickness, Carotid measurement. And what’s the earliest you’ve seen improvement. You bring people back about a year?

Steven Masley, MD

About a year. I mean, so, you know, we’ve looked at precision and you need if you did the test multiple times on the same person, over and over, your precision rates about 4%. So the quickest. So I’ve had people shrink their plaques by 10, I think my all time record was 16% in one year. And so you would need, so by six you could in a rapid shrinker, you could look at it in six months. But for most people, I think what’s practical, realistic and cost effective is to do it yearly and measure your package over time.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And I agree with that. That’s pretty much the protocol here. You don’t turn the ship around. That’s been going to one direction for 40, 50, 60 , 70 years. You don’t do that in a month, but a year is a good time point. And again, I just want to stress, I don’t want anybody to be sitting anywhere, but on the edge of their chair, we’ve got a clinician we’re talking to over 17 years has proven and you talked about in your books and you’ve talked about it on PBS. You’ve proven that plaque can be reversed as measured by this ultrasound thickness. It’s radical that people should run to their family doctor. I still get excited about this opportunity to help and ask, where can I get a carotid I. M. T. And this is real that you can reverse black. Help me do it. Find me somebody to do it. 

Steven Masley, MD

Now. You said in a month. You know, we’re not going to see a change in plaque. But I love a month. You know, that’s why I called it 30 day heart tune up because at a month people’s cholesterol profiles better importantly their blood sugars improved, their blood pressure’s improved, they’re losing they feel better, they sleep better and their sexual function has improved with their circulation improvement. So you can see a ton of improvement by a month. But I’m total agreement if you’re going to check crowded. I’m here. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Absolutely. And you know, there have been some interviews. We have the new advanced coronary CT angiography, even with artificial intelligence. And it’s an amazing tool. But it is an X ray tool with a fairly measurable dose of radiation and injection of iodine being used in research projects and inching into clinical practice. But you know, more expensive, more invasive chance of allergic reaction. This carotid I. M. T. Scan has so revolutionized my ability to help people. And you know, you’re a thought leader now. I just want to shift a little bit because again, I’m gonna put you on a rare pedestal. We’ve got a Dr. Ornish with a book on reversing heart disease and a Dr. Esselstyn with a book on reversing it. And the Dr. Joel Fuhrman and not too many others, Nathan Pritikin that actually talk about that, but your dietary approach is a little different. And I’ve heard you talk about two foods and you are a certified nutritionist in addition to being a physician. So you’re an authority to foods or food groups that you think just bugger up arteries and cause plaque. So share with us your thoughts on, you know, your top two.

Steven Masley, MD

Well, number one would be sugar. Sugar to me is the number one cause of heart degrees heart disease that we see today in our show plaque growth. You know that whole insulin resistance issue. And number two is ground up flower. I don’t think most people realize that when you grind flour and when you grind the grain into flour, grain flour, it has the same glycemic load as table sugar. So if you had three bowls, one of sugar, one of white flour and one of whole grain flour, one tablespoon causes the exact same rise in blood sugar levels. So those are the two foods I think are most important to get out of our it’s not fat, healthy fats, we want to cut out. It’s the sugar we want to cut out.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

So let’s go into sugar a little bit. We have not talked a lot about sugar in various segments of this summit. Distinguished for us, if you believe in apple and a cookie with a tablespoon of white sugar in it, do you find there’s a difference in those added sugar?

Steven Masley, MD

It’s enormous. I mean, you know, an apple has fiber so it blunts the blood sugar rise and you get energy rising slowly over time, a sugar is a big spike that’s going to cause an insulin spike as well and insulin resistance. So an apple is loaded with nutrients that blocks inflammation and oxidation and you don’t get any of that with sugar or you know, flowers. So on the same…

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

We probably agree sugar sweetened beverages people are, I’m amazed when I take a dietary history for my patients and it’s still, you know, a soda and energy drink, you know, an orange juice off the shelf for the grocery store that has no pulp and no fiber in it. Would you agree with me? Probably the biggest sugar spike to have added sugar in the liquid.

Steven Masley, MD

And the worst thing is to drink it in a liquid. And the only thing I would throw in it, I’m not sure the chemical sweeteners, the blue, pink and yellow packs are better though. So yes, they’re toxic. But those dietary chemical added ones neutral street sweet and low sucralose Splenda, those impact the bowel and kill off the good micro good microbiome. So we don’t want we don’t want sweetener in our drinks. I think we should drink real water, herbal tea. I’m fine with tea and coffee even red wine. But you know give up the sweetened drinks please.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And you and I know there are wines that are as sugar loaded as some sodas and then there are more natural dry farmed European wines. They don’t have to be expensive good old flask. A Chianti is typically a very or no sugar wine so be snobby and particular if you do and enjoy a glass of red wine go a little deeper. Where are hidden sugars in the diet? I mean Dr. Masley. Okay I get it. I’m gonna swear off my mountain dew. But what are the next few that people need to be really really you know focused on.

Steven Masley, MD

Well when you read ingredients, what the companies do is they divide it up hoping to keep sugar from being one number one. So they’ll put like they’ll split it and so they’ll be like rice syrup and rice flour and um it could be you know honey is mostly sugar. Yes if you’re going to have a sweetener on occasion, honey is probably the best one because it has some probiotic to it but it’s still 98% sugar. You know all these still add syrups. You know it’s kind of an endless list so there’s probably sugar goes by at least 20 names and it includes some of the starts like tapioca starch and corn, you know, cornstarch. So all these things are just other names for sugar that you have to be coffee cautious about when you look at these ingredient list for food, you know, but the advantages when you’re eating real food, like an apple, like black beans, like lettuce, you don’t have to read the ingredients. That’s what it is, real food.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

What do you think is the pathway by which a high added sugar diet? I mean, of course it’s often associated with others. A doughnut has more donut, has your refined flour. A donut maybe fried in poor quality oil that’s been sitting in the fryer for hours. And of course a donut had added sugar. So you know, is it that added sugar is associated with so many other factors? Or is there some pathway by which you would explain to the group that sugar itself can promote these carotid plaques that you so carefully measure.

Steven Masley, MD

Well, when we get a sugar spike in our bloodstream, it causes an insulin spike which has a cascade of biochemical events. It makes us inflamed, it makes our arteries constrict and grates more turbulence. You know, there’s nothing good about a sugar spike unless maybe you’re trying to outrun a predator, you know, you need that short burst of energy. But generally speaking, we don’t want these spikes and sugar spikes in insulin which results in insulin resistance and insulin resistance. I mean especially that increase in not not, you know, not just inflammation, but it shrinks our brain cells. It gives us brain fog, it increases cancer risk. You know, there’s nothing good about insulin resistance that comes from sugar spikes. So the problem is not eating an apple that has fiber and nutrients, it would be drinking apple juice. As you were saying juice, you know, there’s not much difference for is soda and apple juice that just causes that very large spike in blood sugar levels. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Alright. And it probably ultimately I think we’d agree is damage to the endothelial. Maybe advanced glorification and products from repeated sugar spikes. I think many people on the summit have heard us talking about the end officially. Over and over and you know, you keep pounding your end officially. With high blood sugar spikes after meals after drinks, you get damage and damage over and over leads to plaque development.

Steven Masley, MD

That’s a really good point because within 20 minutes of an unhealthy meal, the endophilin becomes dysfunctional and it literally constricts and you lose about 20% of your blood flow for up to 6 to 8 hours from one bad meal. So every time you have a bad meal it decreases your athletic performance, you’re so circulation, your sexual performance, All of that plummets. But when you eat real food like blueberries and black beans and kale, you know that apple, your arteries that you enhance the epithelial function and your blood flow increases. So every meal gives us the choice to constrict arteries or to dilate them and obviously we function better with better circulation.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Yes, I want everybody listening to take this advice to heart literally the food industry is doing pretty good. There are a lot of no added sugar foods that you’re probably not buying. I love barbecue sauce, I will put barbecue sauce on many odd food items. My wife cringes that are well cooked meals get covered. But there are so many additives in most barbecue sauces and there under those those names, those multi Adex turns those high fructose corn syrups, those rice syrups and there are a lot of no sugar barbecue sauce is you just gotta do the work, search it out on the big box stores, your local store and become a fan of them and you can still enjoy all the usual taste.

Steven Masley, MD

And if you are going to use a sweetener, you know the ones I think are probably benign or things like stevia monk fruit sweetener or you know in small doses a little arithmetic, taller side of the town. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And certainly there’s nothing controversial at all about what you said about being an expert on the difference between refined grains and whole grains. You know, if it’s not crunchy bumpy brown, you probably shouldn’t eat it as a grain because you know the research in the last few months has shown refined grains are hard toxic, whole grains are hard beneficial. So it’s not just you and I you know teaching the world this it’s well founded.

Steven Masley, MD

So like steel cut oatmeal you know that actually has a there’s a grain that has a low glycemic load in contrast to instant oatmeal which has been ground into flour and has a high glycemic load.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Gotta slow down that slow cooking movement. So Mr. Jones, Mrs. Smith is at the Mosley optimal health clinic. They have signed up for the I will add no sugar I will avoid and eliminate refined grain program. But Dr. Masley I want to get my abnormal carotid I. M. T. You just did. I want to come back and be a star in a year. Are there any vitamins you found in your clinic? Are there some medications you found in your clinic? Of course we’re not gonna smoke and we’re gonna teach body movement fitness, anything off the shelf that you say has been a winner.

Steven Masley, MD

Yes. So we did an analysis on our thousands of patients who went through and when we first met them and those people who are getting adequate doses of specific nutrients like magnesium stink, fish oil, vitamin K, Vitamin D. And fiber. If they were getting those nutrients at a good intake level their arteries were younger than if they were deficient and up to 70% of people are deficient and things like vitamin D. Vitamin K. you know magnesium and when we looked again over time who is shrinking which minerals predicted shrinking plaque with you restore if you went from low to an optimal level in particular the same nutrients magnesium, zinc, vitamin K. Fish, oil, vitamin D. Flower. 

When you added those include and potassium. When people added those as a supplement or from food they were much more likely to shrink their artery plaque over time instead of grow it. So you know we noticed that your nutrient intake was much more important than your cholesterol level. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Now so these food based,

Steven Masley, MD

I don’t I don’t mean to say your cholesterol doesn’t matter. It does matter. But nutrient intake is more important than your cholesterol level from the data published from our clinic.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

But is a patient going to walk out of the Masley clinic with a bag of zinc or a multivitamin.

Steven Masley, MD

What they’re gonna walk out with is a recommendation to eat well the right food to avoid sugar and grain flour. To exercise both aerobic and strength training and manage their stress. And if you supplement that with like a good multivitamin that includes the vitamin D. The vitamin K. The zinc that can all come from your multivitamin and then magnesium you’re probably going to have to add on the side and some form of long chain omega three. If you’re not eating then you’re gonna have to look at algae you know as a supplement.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Thank you. I was gonna say I show up at your clinic and say I get it and I want to optimize my omega three fatty acid level. Do you mind if I do it with algal based capsules?

Steven Masley, MD

They’re great. They’re awesome. And flax seeds, chia seeds have parts walnuts.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I don’t think you’re going to change your long chain omega three’s with chia seeds and flax seeds. They’re great fiber. They have Liggins, they have all sorts of healthy benefits. But if you really want to have the long chain omega three benefit you’re going to need to use some form of C. C. That you know like from seafood which includes algae. You could either eat an algae salad four or five days a week or take an algae oil extract.

Steven Masley, MD

Like a seaweed salad or if you’re doing vegan sushi, the nori roll has all that but of course many providers online provide algal based omega three capsules. I think that’s the easiest way to ensure you’re getting it because probably most people aren’t eating adequate seaweed salad five days a week.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

I agree. And that’s you know ethically Asian it’s an adaptive taste.

Steven Masley, MD

So a multi magnesium and an algae supplement that to me along with you know a healthy plant based Mediterranean diet is really the optimal way of meeting your nutrient needs and your food needs.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Now that’s just excellent. Tell us more about it, I know you do focus a bit on hormone measurement and optimization at your clinic. Any observations, you have a sense that uh that has facilitated the anti aging uh and restoration of more normal arterial vascular aging. Your patients. 

Steven Masley, MD

We looked at testosterone levels in men and estrogen levels in women and we did not find a relationship to credit I. M. T. But having said that in terms of quality of life. For people who have low levels, they feel dramatically better if you restore them to normal. I’m not trying to make teenagers out of, you know, 60 year old men, but I I do believe that if your levels are low and you have symptoms, you your your quality of life, your energy, your zest, your sexual function, your mental function all improved dramatically if you restore them to normal for men and women.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

How about you’re an expert on the microbiome and the link between, you know, all disease begins in the gut. Now, of course, we’re talking a lot about food for plaque reversal, but specifically the microbiome and their measurements. Are there probiotics? How do you handle those patients in your clinic?

Steven Masley, MD

Well, you know, it’s in I had to rewrite this book the 30 day heart tune up because I didn’t have anything on the microbiome when I wrote it in 2016 and in the last 67 years there’s been a ton of published literature. Thousands of articles showing that um your gut microbiome when you add the right species, can lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar, help you lose weight, lower inflammation and lower your cholesterol. All the major risk factors for heart disease except for quitting smoking. So you know and there’s two ways to do that. We can either add these species in and I mentioned, you know, the specific ones that I like the best in the book. 

But you know, we’re looking at multiple ones, not just a single one, at least 10, preferably 25 to 30 billion a day for several months to restore the gut. And then you need to eat fiber, long term plant food, vegetable, fruit, beans, nuts. Those are the fibers that don’t raise blood sugar levels. They help to stabilize them and they feed the gut microbiome and we need to eat you know at least 10 servings a day of these fiber rich foods to support the gut microbes that are good. And then the last thing is we now know that people eat a lot of red meat. Make a compound T. M. A. O. Tri methyl amine oxide. That increases your risk of heart disease by 62%. That’s three times the risk of high cholesterol. You know, so avoiding red meat following more of a Mediterranean plant based eating program lowers T. M. AO. And helps restore the gut microbiome to a more natural state.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well thanks for sharing that. We’re talking to Stanley Hazan from the Cleveland clinic who is obviously the king of TMAO research. And it’s great to hear it from multiple people all over just in case the audience big audience didn’t see the cover of your book. It’s the 30 day heart tuneup published in 2015 but I know it’ll be re-released in 2021. All updated. You did a lot of work and it really is what the title calls it. A breakthrough medical plan to prevent and reverse heart disease. And I would highly recommend that people look for you held back a minute on the comment that in the book you list some specific strains or products in the probiotic world. If you have them on the tip of your lips and you want to share them that’s fine. People are always hungry for… 

Steven Masley, MD

Especially the lactobacillus species in the bifida bacteria and like plant terrorists. Planetarium is really has been shown up with weight loss, blood pressure and blood sugar control.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

All right. I think somebody out there is probably asking the question. All right. You’ve got 17 years of this carotid reversal data. You’ve identified factors you’ve actually pioneered the field uh and all. What about the heart though And you know so talk a bit about your experience the relationship between these carrots I. M. T. Studies and what’s going on in your patient’s coronary arteries and how you believe that benefited them at the same rate.

Steven Masley, MD

Well at first I back in the beginning I was doing a heart calf and a crowded I. M. T. The same day. So initially I did both. But after having done that for several years I actually never had a patient who had a significant difference in their two scores. And every time I did a heart cath I was exposing them to a dose of radiation that over time will increase you know tiny increased risk for cancer. So you know and then there was data that came out where they compared Angio Cath data you know probably our strongest look at the arteries although it’s invasive and it has like a 1% major morbidity risk with credit I. M. T. And they got 97% the same result. 

So yes there could be 3% of people who have something different going on in their heart than they do in their carrots. But you know there’s no risk. As you said you explain very well there’s no risk to this ultrasound technique. There’s no radiation. It’s lower because there’s no die. I mean it’s simple and beautiful and you know it reflects the plaque growth throughout the artery. You’re not just growing it in your right arm and not your left or either growing it all over. We’re not growing it at all. So I mean the data to me was really strong and so I would rarely look at both. I usually just look at carotid IMT

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

We had experience with lipoprotein. Little A. Is that a routine measurement in your lab panels? Your lab panel pretty broad.

Steven Masley, MD

Always looked at advanced lipid profiles. You know if you’re just looking at total cholesterol, you’re gonna miss at least 50% of people at risk, you know of people with heart disease, 50% have normal cholesterol. We need to be looking at the size of your cholesterol. If we’re really looking at less. And that’s a problem with sugar, sugar and grain flour when you eat them. Not only are you more inflamed you get that sugar spike but it creates small tiny little bubbles of LDL cholesterol that are much more likely to be oxidized. And the worst of them all is LP Little A. That’s a very small shrunken form of LDL that causes more clotting, more inflammation and is really a marker for heart disease. But here’s the good news. If you have high L. P. Little A. 

And you follow a program that you and I would recommend you can still shrink your plaque over time. Despite that you still have high LP Little A it’s only a small percent of your cholesterol and doing most things right, allows you to shrink plaque. But if you have high LP little A and you follow the sad standard American diet. You’re gonna grow a lot more plaque than the average person. So watch out that that should be a real motivator, that you have the potential to grow plaque much faster than other people. If you have high LP little A. Or really small LDL particle size. 

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Fantastic. What do you surround your patients with? You found any health coaches, you’re a chef, but you don’t exactly have the time to I get in the kitchen too much nowadays. I’m sure busy, busy life, busy writing, busy practice. I mean, what has pushed them down the road after that initial couple visits at the Mosley clinic?

Steven Masley, MD

Well, you know, I will I do cook often. I think that the most important thing I do in my life is to prepare food and eat delicious healthy food. So I believe in cooking all of us, no matter no matter how busy I am, I’m still going to take the time to prepare our meal with real food instead of something that comes out of a package and my wife and I both cook probably half the time. So I mean, my goal when I meet someone in the clinic is I usually ask, would you like to be younger, trimmer, fitter mentally sharper, have better sexual function and prevent a reverse heart disease. When I asked him that, let’s face it, 99% of people say. Sure yes, I would. What do I have to do? Well you’re gonna eat healthy plant based food real food, you’re gonna meet your nutrient needs, you’re going to be active and you’re going to take steps to manage your stress. And if you do those four things, you’re going to achieve all those wonderful goals. That’s the motivation tool I use for my patients.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

And again, I know that you and I share obviously the constant recommendation of fitness appropriate for the patient and their physical condition. I think we also share an interest in a device that the listeners have heard a little bit about, but a stress management tool off your phone or laptop called heart Math. And maybe just a little bit from you about your experience in the clinic. Maybe you use heart math. But what do you got to say about that?

Steven Masley, MD

Well, in the initial probably 10 years, I wasn’t aware of it and then I started recommending it casually, but in the last few years becoming much more committed and I did it like a vital. Just like measuring the blood pressure. I would check my patient’s heart math score every year. I think it’s that important that it’s heart math is a biofeedback tool that looks at your heart rate variability. You know, it should be going up and down and up and down a gentle smooth slope as we breathe. And when we’re stressed it tends just to be elevated and flat and stiff, just like your arteries get stiff if you don’t have that appropriate variability. So it’s lovely in that it gives you a score. You’re either green, you know how to get calm yellow. You’re stressed or read your frazzled so you can use it and you put it on like you clip it on your finger or you clip it on your ear. It measures your heart rate variability and it gives you a score. So it teaches you how to get calm and relaxed. And I think that’s a beautiful thing because many people are just frazzled all the time and they’re clueless and that’s really harmful to them. They’re burning out. So I think it’s a wonderful tool for people to use. And I thought it was important enough that I used it as a vital sign to assess cardiovascular health.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

It’s great heart rate variability as a vital sign as measured through using this application. This wearable called heart math. It’s brief, it’s 10 minutes once a day twice a day. Little clip, a little smartphone breathing program. And I think you know we’re both attracted to it because of the research going back 40 plus years Children and P. T. S. D. And V. A. Hospital patients and school performance and blood pressure response. And it was, yeah I mean really for something that’s inexpensive because there is a little cost for this clip on to the year but well worth the benefits. And you know something you can do sitting in a chair on an airplane before you go to bed as really don’t do it while you’re driving. That might be the one to be fully aware when you’re driving. Well, any last comments, because I think this has been fabulous. You know, you’re a pioneer, you’re a heart disease reversal slayer and there’s not a lot that I can bring on uh like you to fire up people’s commitment to healthier, better lives and investigation of their health.

Steven Masley, MD

So, as you know, the problem is, you know, if I had a final point I want to make is that most people are in denial and they’re procrastinating and they’re thinking, I don’t need to make a change until something happens, but with heart issues, that’s a really bad choice. As you know, because the third of the time, your first symptom is your dead, a third of the time your person is I think you’ve had a stroke or a heart attack and maybe now you’re in heart failure permanently. A third of people get diagnosed with symptoms or on a test like you and I might do, but that means two thirds of the time something really bad happens to you and your family. And we can avoid that. And not only can you prevent one of those events if you, but you could feel better, You can have more energy better, sexual function, better. Mental function. All these things improve when you follow a lifestyle that matches your genomic makeup and so don’t procrastinate. Get started today and within 30 days you’re going to feel fantastic for doing it.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

Well, I’m going to suggest we take that last minute as a public service announcement, create a ad that’s played all over the world and I think we’ll make more impact. That was so passionate and spot on. So, thank you Dr. Stephen Masley, tell everybody where they can most easily find you and read your books and enjoy your wisdom and experience. 

Steven Masley, MD

The books are available wherever books are sold. And for more information, join me and look at my blogs and recipes at DrMasley.com. www.DRMASLEY.com Thank you so much.

Joel Kahn, MD, FACC

All right, thank you and give my best to your wife.