Full Transcript Why Cholesterol Needs a Root-Cause Look 0:00 Your cholesterol comes back high. 0:01 The usual response by the cardiologist, eat less fat, likely take a statin drug. 0:06 But who's asking how your cholesterol got there in the first place? 0:10 Asking questions like, what are you eating? 0:11 How are sleeping? 0:13 What's happening with your blood sugar? 0:14 And most importantly, What is happening inside the blood vessels that we're really trying to protect? 0:20 Sugar consumption belongs in the conversation, but telling someone to eat less sugar is a sound bite. 0:26 It's not a plan. 0:27 My framework is simple. 0:29 Too much bad stuff and not enough good stuff leads to all disease. 0:32 Things like too much processed food, environmental toxins, stress, artificial light at night, and non enough real food. 0:39 Sunlight, sleep, movement and meaningful connections. 0:42 Those factors affect how your body performs and your cholesterol panel can reflect that. 0:49 I'm cardiologist Dr. 0:50 Jack Wolfson and I am going to go through four things you need to understand about sugar, cholesterol and most importantly getting to the root cause of 0:59 cardiovascular disease. 1:00 First, I want you to know what happens when sugar becomes a daily habit.
How Sugar Affects Cholesterol and Triglycerides 1:05 Things like a soda with lunch, sweetening your coffee, packaged snacks, dessert before bedtime like everybody does. 1:12 Your body has to process all of it. 1:15 Insulin helps manage that incoming energy and it also participates in regulating cholesterol production. 1:21 One of the enzymes activated by insulin is called HMG-CoA reductase and that eventually makes cholesterol. 1:30 But the story goes beyond that enzyme. 1:32 Excess added sugar, especially when it exceeds excess calories, can drive your liver to make more fat and release more triglyceride-rich particles into 1:41 your bloodstream. 1:42 Over time, that can contribute to fatty liver, insulin resistance, higher trigrycerides, and changes in your cholesterol profile. 1:50 Now that doesn't mean every carbohydrate is a problem. 1:52 A piece of whole fruit or a sweet potato is different from soda pop and ice cream. 1:58 What it does also mean is that we need to start asking questions about what you're eating and how well your bodily body is handling it. 2:05 An abnormal result should start with an investigation. 2:09 What is driving the change in your numbers? 2:12 And what does your body actually need a function better? 2:15 Second, we to understand that cholesterol is part of a much bigger story. 2:20 Your body needs cholesterol for cell membranes hormone production, digestion, brain function and everything else. 2:27 That's why the body makes it. 2:29 And it doesn't mean that we need to ignore an elevated result.
Cholesterol in Context: Blood Sugar, Inflammation, and Vessel Health 2:33 It means we to interpret cholesterol in context. 2:36 But I want to know about your blood sugar, insulin resistance, inflammation and oxidative stress and so much more. 2:42 I also want understand the health of your endothelium, the delicate lining of you blood vessels. 2:47 Here's where my root cause framework comes in. 2:50 It's all about too much bad stuff and not enough good stuff, and how this disrupts the gut, impairs metabolic function, promotes inflammation and oxidative stress. 3:00 Those processes can damage the vessel lining and contribute to cardiovascular disease. 3:06 Sugar can be one contributor, so can poor sleep, environmental toxins, chronic stress, processed foods. 3:13 The goal is a healthier person with healthier blood vessels. 3:17 A cholesterol panel does give us some information, but it doesn't tell us what you need to know about your heart attack risk. 3:24 Third, give your body a better environment. 3:26 Start by removing the obvious sources of added sugar, soda, sweetened drinks, candy, and the processed foods you eat out of just sheer habit. 3:35 Replace those foods with foods that actually nourishes you. 3:40 wild seafood, pasture raised eggs and meat, vegetables, whole fruit, avocados, nuts and seeds. 3:47 If your afternoon snack is a candy bar, try a handful of nuts, maybe a couple dates. 3:52 if breakfast is pastry and sweetened coffee, build your meal around eggs, and other real foods. 3:58 But don't stop at the plate, get outside in the morning, move throughout the day, prioritize sleep, reduce artificial light after sundown, 4:06 preferably eliminate it, make time for people you care about.
Building a Better Heart Environment 4:11 This is eating well, living well thinking well. 4:13 That's our 100 year heart method. 4:15 You're removing the bad things that interfere with health and supplying your body with the good things it needs to work optimally. 4:22 Cutting sugar is one useful step within that bigger plan and now you understand why sugar belongs in the cholesterol conversation. 4:29 You can also have changes that you can start making that are small. 4:33 But there's a question about cutting back on sugar that cannot be answered by itself. 4:38 What else could be contributing to my risk? 4:40 You don't want to spend months doing one thing right while overlooking the poor sleep, chronic stress, and other important factors that we've already mentioned. 4:49 You want your effort to be part of a plan to protect your heart. 4:52 That's why I don' want this conversation to end with just eat less sugar. 4:56 I want you to start looking at the bigger picture. 4:59 Our free Heart Attack Risk Quiz gives you a place to begin. 5:04 It helps you consider possible drivers of oxidative stress, inflammation, and ultimately the things that lead to a heart attack so you can start asking 5:15 better questions about your own heart health. 5:18 The quiz won't diagnose a Heart Condition. 5:22 but it can help you recognize what you might be overlooking. 5:27 We're going to stimulate some things you never thought about. 5:30 And when you understand what deserves attention, your next steps have a purpose. 5:35 You're building a real plan around your health instead of wondering whether cutting out one more food is the answer. 5:42 we've all been there done that. 5:44 So check the link in the description below about how to take our free heart attack risk quiz. 5:49 So now let's get to number four. 5:52 How do you know whether your changes are helping? 5:54 Well, what we do is here at Natural Heart Doctor, we call it test don't guess.
Testing Progress and Measuring Heart Risk 5:58 Before you make changes, understand your starting point, then document what you actually changed. 6:03 Did you eliminate the daily soda? 6:05 Replace the processed snacks? 6:06 Did your improve your sleep, your physical activity, movement, mindset? 6:11 That information helps us to interpret your follow-up results. 6:14 Reducing added sugar may improve triglycerides and your blood sugar regulation. 6:19 That's true. 6:19 LDL may respond differently depending on your starting point. 6:23 LDL deserves a much more in-depth conversation. 6:26 If you replace sugary snacks with foods high in saturated fat, for example, LDM may rise, but good quality LDl. 6:33 And we can see triglicerides improve. 6:35 So all this deserves very thoughtful review. 6:37 You look at the whole pattern. 6:41 Look at markers of insulin and resistance like blood sugar, insulin, hemoglobin A1c. 6:46 Check the inflammation and oxidative stress markers that matter and look at the person attached to those results. 6:51 How do you feel? 6:52 How's your energy? 6:53 how's you sleep? 6:53 or your happiness quotient? 6:55 If something remains abnormal, keep investigating. 6:57 This is called root cause cardiology. 6:59 What is still interfering with your health and what can we do about it? 7:02 Sugar consumption is part of the cholesterol story, but root cause cardiology goes further. 7:08 It's understanding what's driving potential disease. 7:11 Remove the bad inputs, supply the body what it needs, then measure your response. 7:16 We call this the 100 year heart method. 7:17 Eat well, live well. 7:18 Think well test. 7:19 Don't guess. 7:19 That's the foundation. 7:20 And that's how we work toward better cardiovascular health on your way to the one hundred year. 7:26 Heart.
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