Speaker 1: Hello Sunshine, Hey bessies.
Speaker 2: Today on the bright side, it's Wellness Wednesday, and we're
Speaker 2: tackling a topic that affects millions of women every year,
Speaker 2: heart disease. Cardiologist doctor Jennifer Haith is here to drop
Speaker 2: some truth bombs and share a few surprising tips that
Speaker 2: honestly could save your life. It's Wednesday, February twelve. I'm
Speaker 2: Simone Voice, I'm.
Speaker 3: Danielle Robe and this is the bright side from Hello Sunshine.
Speaker 2: All right, besties. All week we are talking love and
Speaker 2: relationships as we look forward to Valentine's Day this Friday.
Speaker 2: We hope you've got your Gallantine's Day plans in order.
Speaker 2: And for today's Wellness Wednesday, we're talking about the one
Speaker 2: thing that symbolizes all things love and romance.
Speaker 3: Our heart be still our hearts. Okay, this is actually serious.
Speaker 3: February is American Heart Month, a time when everyone is
Speaker 3: encouraged to focus on their cardiovascular health, and for good reason.
Speaker 3: This may come as a surprise to everybody, but heart
Speaker 3: disease is the leading cause of death in the United
Speaker 3: States and unfortunately the leading killer of women, more so
Speaker 3: than breast cancer, and estimated one in four women will
Speaker 3: die from some form of the disease.
Speaker 2: I mean one in four women. That is a truly
Speaker 2: shocking number. And I was also surprised to learn that
Speaker 2: even though heart disease is the leading cause of death,
Speaker 2: an estimated eighty percent of cardiovascular disease is preventable. Just
Speaker 2: to say that one more time, it's preventable, it's mind blessing.
Speaker 2: So if you are as surprised by these statistics as
Speaker 2: we are, just know that there are a lot of
Speaker 2: things that we can actually start doing today to feel
Speaker 2: empowered on this journey of lowering our risk for her
Speaker 2: heart disease.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and I think it goes without saying that we
Speaker 3: all know the importance of eating well, exercising, sleeping well,
Speaker 3: and our guest today is building on that. She's sharing
Speaker 3: some lesser known ways that we can protect our hearts
Speaker 3: and improve.
Speaker 1: Our cardiovascular health.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jennif for Haith is a cardiologist and Columbia University professor.
Speaker 3: She specializes in heart failure, cardiac transplant, and women's cardiovascular disease.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jennifer hath Welcome to the bright Side.
Speaker 4: Hi, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: We're really grateful for your time today.
Speaker 3: The stats around heart disease are equal parts terrifying and empowering.
Speaker 3: We just mentioned that cardiovascular disease is the number one
Speaker 3: killer of women, but it's also preventable eighty percent of
Speaker 3: the time. I just want to reiterate that eighty percent
Speaker 3: of the time. Can you help us make sense of
Speaker 3: that contradiction. If heart disease is so preventable, why is
Speaker 3: it still the leading cause of death in the United States.
Speaker 5: It's a really good question, and it's probably the most
Speaker 5: important thing we should talk about today, which is that
Speaker 5: most of heart disease is in fact preventable and also
Speaker 5: very treatable, which is part of why I picked cardiology
Speaker 5: as my profession. The reason that people develop heart disease
Speaker 5: is usually.
Speaker 4: The combination of factors.
Speaker 5: So there are risk factors that predispose you, and it's
Speaker 5: a lot of women and men, but women especially where
Speaker 5: since we're talking about women, don't necessarily take care of
Speaker 5: these risk factors. And so when you have unchecked diabetes,
Speaker 5: high blood pressure, obesity, tobacco use, sedentary lifestyle. I mean,
Speaker 5: the list goes on high cholesterol, and you don't treat
Speaker 5: those from an early age. Those things add up and
Speaker 5: you end up with having heart disease. But if from
Speaker 5: a young age people were paying more attention to these
Speaker 5: risk factors and modifying them, you really would see a
Speaker 5: dramatic reduction in heart disease in women.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 3: I also learned through researching for this interview that there's
Speaker 3: been an increase in heart attacks for women ages thirty
Speaker 3: five to fifty four. Thirty five to fifty four is
Speaker 3: very young, and that's increased over the past two decades.
Speaker 3: What does that increase about.
Speaker 4: There's a couple of different reasons.
Speaker 5: One is that women are now working in the workforce
Speaker 5: in a similar capacity to men, and so for a
Speaker 5: long time, you know, when women were not as much
Speaker 5: a part of the workforce, cardiac disease was more prevalent
Speaker 5: in men. Thought to be you know, in part related
Speaker 5: to stress of you know, having a job and you know,
Speaker 5: manual labor and things like that.
Speaker 4: But women are also now falling.
Speaker 5: Victim to the same risk factors that men have had
Speaker 5: for years.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: So smoking obesity huge problem in this country, and we're
Speaker 5: seeing it younger, So women have those risk factors younger.
Speaker 5: Diabetes again goes hand in hand with obesity, so women
Speaker 5: developing insulin resistance at younger ages, higher blood pressure is
Speaker 5: a result. So all of these things are really wrapped together.
Speaker 5: And when you have a more sedentary lifestyle or you
Speaker 5: are now working more longer hours overnight shifts, not not
Speaker 5: aware that you are now at risk for diabetes, hypertension,
Speaker 5: high cholesterol. Those things are all putting women at increased risk.
Speaker 5: Women are also at higher risk for something called SCAD,
Speaker 5: which is spontaneous cornary artery dissection. Is something you know
Speaker 5: you may read about or hear about in the news
Speaker 5: where the blood vessel wall actually splits apart and kind
Speaker 5: of causes the blood vessel to close and cause a
Speaker 5: heart attack, and that is common in women, particularly women
Speaker 5: in the peripartum period. It's a very poorly understood phenomenon
Speaker 5: where hormones may play a role, stress may play a role.
Speaker 5: You know, we don't really know, but we know that
Speaker 5: it affects women more than men, and that it's scary
Speaker 5: because it's not so easily treated. So you know, there's
Speaker 5: a lot of different things that play But you're right,
Speaker 5: and being younger and being more aware of your risk
Speaker 5: of heart disease is so important because it's when you
Speaker 5: start young taking care of yourself. You're really preventing so
Speaker 5: much misery down the road.
Speaker 3: I was looking at your Instagram account and it says
Speaker 3: that you encourage people to eat using the Mediterranean diet,
Speaker 3: which I'd like to get into more. But I do
Speaker 3: think that that seems like that's something you can do
Speaker 3: at a young age. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I mean, unfortunately, our diet is terrible in the United States,
Speaker 5: and I think we're very fixated on being very intense
Speaker 5: about different kinds of diets, and that's why there's.
Speaker 4: Been so many diet books.
Speaker 5: And you know, it's not sexy to just eat like
Speaker 5: a balanced, normal diet, but that's actually the best thing
Speaker 5: for you, you know. So what I tell patients is,
Speaker 5: you know Mediterranean diet, like avoid butter, use olive oil,
Speaker 5: have salads, have vegetables, have fruits, have nuts, try.
Speaker 4: To limit meat, you know, takee.
Speaker 5: You can have chicken, white meats, very focused on fish.
Speaker 5: It's not so hard to stick to it.
Speaker 4: It's pretty simple.
Speaker 5: You just have to commit to like a healthier diet,
Speaker 5: not eating fast food, fried food.
Speaker 4: It's so part of our culture. Unfortunately.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about genetics here. If your grandmother or
Speaker 1: your mother suffers, are you more likely to suffer.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So genetics of heart disease is fascinating. Some of
Speaker 5: the diseases are clearly genetically based, are inherited. There's such
Speaker 5: a bigger push for genetic testing. And so not only
Speaker 5: is that helping us identify, you know, causes for some
Speaker 5: of the syndromes we're seeing, but it also helps women
Speaker 5: know that they should screen their children, or that their
Speaker 5: parents should be screened, you know, if they have something
Speaker 5: that their parents may not have known about, or their
Speaker 5: siblings should be screened.
Speaker 4: And it's fascinating.
Speaker 5: I mean, there's genetic associations with almost every single heart problem.
Speaker 4: We know some more than others.
Speaker 5: And it is crucial for women to talk about their
Speaker 5: family history with their family.
Speaker 4: And it's interesting.
Speaker 5: Women are embarrassed historically to talk about their heart disease.
Speaker 5: They feel like it's a man's disease, you know. I
Speaker 5: always say in the movies, you see a woman like
Speaker 5: playing tennis and then having a heart attack or having
Speaker 5: a heart attack in the middle of having sex.
Speaker 4: Right, that's so true.
Speaker 5: Right, And also this association with this like overweight, smoking,
Speaker 5: cheeseburger eating man, you know, and that is not the case.
Speaker 5: And there's many women who do not fit that profile.
Speaker 5: I mean even people who run marathons, who are healthy
Speaker 5: and who have maybe, like you're saying, this very strong
Speaker 5: family history of early heart attack that may have nothing
Speaker 5: to do with how much shape you're in, and maybe
Speaker 5: entirely genetically driven, and it's important to be screened. So
Speaker 5: I tell women, talk to your mothers, talk to your siblings, like,
Speaker 5: try to talk about it with your friends.
Speaker 4: Don't have it be embarrassing.
Speaker 5: You know somehow it's not embarrassing to talk about breast
Speaker 5: cancer or other kinds of cancers, but heart disease feels shameful, in.
Speaker 4: Which we as a community are really trying to reverse that.
Speaker 3: Is there a way to override your genetic predisposition? I'm
Speaker 3: thinking obviously lifestyle facts. But can people with a family
Speaker 3: history reduce their risks significantly by doing anything?
Speaker 4: So it depends.
Speaker 5: So if you are inheriting a significant like autosomal dominantly
Speaker 5: inherited genetic abnormality that leads to certain kinds of heart
Speaker 5: failure syndromes like no, probably not, You're maybe predisposed like
Speaker 5: hypertrophic cardimiapathy, you are going to get hypertrophic cardomampathy. But
Speaker 5: what you can do is be screened early so that
Speaker 5: you don't miss it and have a catastrophic event. Know
Speaker 5: what you have, there are medications available like start treatment
Speaker 5: sooner and be aware of it. It's always better to
Speaker 5: be prepared than to have something catastrophic or sudden happen.
Speaker 5: Then you're in much sicker situation. There is a huge
Speaker 5: amount you can do, though, if your genetics predispose you
Speaker 5: to more like athrosclerosis. So if your father was thirty
Speaker 5: five and drop dead, or your mother and was running
Speaker 5: and was otherwise a totally fit person, you know, that
Speaker 5: makes you wonder there's some genetic predisposition. And there's certainly
Speaker 5: some cultures that have much earlier cornary vascular disease than
Speaker 5: other cultures. And so what I recommend for those people is,
Speaker 5: besides you know, eating healthy and taking pills for your
Speaker 5: blood pressure and taking cholesterol medication and making sure you
Speaker 5: don't smoke and exercise, you also should get screened because
Speaker 5: even if you're doing all those things, you can still progress.
Speaker 5: And so if you catch that early and treat it,
Speaker 5: you will be okay, okay and fine.
Speaker 2: So in addition to genetics, when we think about our
Speaker 2: anatomy as women, when we think about our hormones as women,
Speaker 2: what role does all of that play in heart disease.
Speaker 5: So we know that women seem to be protected from
Speaker 5: athoskerotic heart disease until postmenopause, which prompted a big study,
Speaker 5: you know, over twenty years ago now where they looked
Speaker 5: at the use of hormone replacement in women as a
Speaker 5: mechanism to prevent heart disease. You know. The feeling was
Speaker 5: that there was something about estrogen that was protective and
Speaker 5: that once women went through menopause their risk for heart
Speaker 5: disease was the same as men. And so they did
Speaker 5: that study and then they found a higher risk of
Speaker 5: cardiovascular events and the women who were taking estrogen. So
Speaker 5: after that everybody said, oh my god, we can't use
Speaker 5: hormone replacement in women. It kills women, actually gives them
Speaker 5: heart attacks and strokes. And so for like the last
Speaker 5: twenty years, they've taken away hormone replacement for a long time,
Speaker 5: until a few vocal doctors and scientists said, well, actually
Speaker 5: the study was really misinterpreted, and yes, if you have
Speaker 5: risk factors for heart disease, strong family history, hypertension, diabetes, obesity,
Speaker 5: high cholesterol, smoking, and then you take hormone replacement, may
Speaker 5: be increased.
Speaker 4: But if you are a fifty five year.
Speaker 5: Old woman who's otherwise healthy, doesn't have a lot of
Speaker 5: cardiac risk factors or any and you're suffering from horrible
Speaker 5: hot flashes and insomnia, that taking hormone replacement is totally safe.
Speaker 5: Whether or not it's going to prevent you from developing
Speaker 5: heart disease maybe still be up for some debate, but
Speaker 5: its safety is certainly clear. And that you know, I
Speaker 5: think we deprived women of hormone replacement for a long
Speaker 5: time because of sort of this misinterpreted study, and people
Speaker 5: are recognizing that now. So you guys are a little young,
Speaker 5: but when you hit like your late forties, early fifties,
Speaker 5: you'll see, you know, my friends are all asking me, like,
Speaker 5: what do you think about hormone replaces? When you think
Speaker 5: about hormone replace and then tell them like, if you don't,
Speaker 5: you know, we go through their risk factors, and if
Speaker 5: their risk factors, okay, it's definitely okay and can cause
Speaker 5: a lot of relief from a lot of horrible symptoms
Speaker 5: of metopause.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's talk symptoms, especially for heart attacks. This part
Speaker 2: of this conversation is so important. I've heard that women
Speaker 2: are less likely to experience some of the same symptoms
Speaker 2: as men, some of the classic symptoms that we've been
Speaker 2: trained to look for. So what should we be looking for?
Speaker 5: So the number one symptom for a heart attack in
Speaker 5: men or women is going to be chest pain and pressure. Remember,
Speaker 5: it can be a sharp pain, but the traditional what
Speaker 5: we call angina or angenal chest pain of a heart
Speaker 5: attack is often described as like a pressure on the chest,
Speaker 5: like an elephant sitting on your chest, and it's this
Speaker 5: heaviness that you can't quite like, never felt before, but
Speaker 5: also can have pain. So women are more likely to
Speaker 5: have these atypical symptoms, which I say they're not really
Speaker 5: atypical because women can also be typical, but they call
Speaker 5: them a typical.
Speaker 4: So pain in your left arm radiating up to your jaw.
Speaker 5: The reason why we always hear about that, and people
Speaker 5: always don't understand it is that the nerve bundles.
Speaker 4: From your arm and into your jaw. They travel with
Speaker 4: the cardiac nerve bundles.
Speaker 5: So it's not that your arm actually hurts, it's that
Speaker 5: your brain is confusing the pain from the nerves traveling
Speaker 5: from your heart with the nerves traveling from your arm
Speaker 5: and your jaw, So you're feeling a sensation of pain
Speaker 5: in your arm and your jaw, but it's really just
Speaker 5: it's originating really from the heart and it's being misinterpreted.
Speaker 5: Does that make sense, So we call it like referred pain.
Speaker 5: Women are very likely to feel short of breath. I
Speaker 5: try to tell people. It's the kind of thing where
Speaker 5: every day, let's say you walk three blocks to get
Speaker 5: to the subway, you go down the subway stairs, you
Speaker 5: come up the subway stairs. Sometimes everyone feels a little
Speaker 5: short breath when they go upstairs. But if you start
Speaker 5: to say, like the last couple days, or when today
Speaker 5: I walked to the subway and I just couldn't catch
Speaker 5: my breath and I went up the stairs, I couldn't
Speaker 5: catch my breath, that is when I feel worried.
Speaker 4: Take it really seriously.
Speaker 5: Another thing that women feel more commonly is mid epigastric pain.
Speaker 5: So you know, sometimes when you're having a heart attack
Speaker 5: and a certain part of your heart, it can be
Speaker 5: referred to the mid epigastric region. So they were like,
Speaker 5: you'll hear people say, like I didn't feel well. I
Speaker 5: felt the little nauseous. I felt like this kind of
Speaker 5: like I thought I had reflux again. That's also an
Speaker 5: atypical symptom back pain, chest pain, lightheadedness, whoa palpitations. And
Speaker 5: also this, I think this is always an interesting one,
Speaker 5: like a feeling of doom.
Speaker 4: Which feels very strange and sort of like a little.
Speaker 2: Bit sounds like a Sunday to me, like, yeah, Sunday scaries's.
Speaker 5: Exactly, but there is something about this, like I feel
Speaker 5: like there's something not right with me, and I can't
Speaker 5: quite figure out what it is, but I know something's wrong.
Speaker 4: I tell people to take those things seriously.
Speaker 5: So if you don't feel okay, go to a doctor,
Speaker 5: and if you're not happy with what that doctor provider
Speaker 5: told you, get another opinion, or take yourself to the
Speaker 5: emmergence sea room. You know, I've seen a lot of people,
Speaker 5: women in particular, be told that they're having an anxiety attack,
Speaker 5: they're having a panic attack, and maybe some of them
Speaker 5: may be having a panic attack. But before we decide
Speaker 5: it's a panic attack, let's do an EKG and let's
Speaker 5: check your blood work, and let's do a proper evaluation.
Speaker 5: And then only then say it's maybe anxiety or panic.
Speaker 5: Before jumping to that conclusion.
Speaker 3: I want to double down on the anxiety part. I've
Speaker 3: done several interviews in the past about heart health, and
Speaker 3: most of the doctors or researchers that I've talked to
Speaker 3: have said, if there's one thing that you could take
Speaker 3: away from today, it's that if you feel like you
Speaker 3: are having an anxiety attack, make sure that you are
Speaker 3: also making the hospital look at your heart.
Speaker 5: It could save your life one hundred percent. You can
Speaker 5: message of the day, yes, and not always the hospital,
Speaker 5: even if you go to your regularly. If you wait
Speaker 5: and make an appointment with your regular doctor, make sure
Speaker 5: that they're taking you seriously too well.
Speaker 3: A lot of times they dismiss you if you ask
Speaker 3: for that because they're busy or other reasons, and it's
Speaker 3: hard to stand up for yourself in that moment, but
Speaker 3: you really I've now learned anxiety check for heart health.
Speaker 3: I've known a woman who saved her life because of.
Speaker 5: That, and I know people who've lost their lives because
Speaker 5: they haven't done that. And it's sad and terrible, But
Speaker 5: if you don't feel right, go and see someone, and
Speaker 5: then if that person doesn't make you feel like they're
Speaker 5: really taking your symptoms seriously, or you still don't feel
Speaker 5: good after you see that person, go somewhere out go
Speaker 5: to the er, like, yeah, please call nine one one
Speaker 5: and have them take you to the emergency room. If
Speaker 5: you're sitting in your house and you can't breathe and
Speaker 5: you're having pain and you're like nervous, just call numb
Speaker 5: one one. Put yourself first for once, you know it's
Speaker 5: really it is life or death.
Speaker 3: Haith, I just want to underscore everything you just said
Speaker 3: with a statistic I came across that seventy two percent
Speaker 3: of women who had a heart attack waited more than
Speaker 3: ninety minutes to go to the hospital or call nine
Speaker 3: one one. In your experience, I can't imagine that all
Speaker 3: of that is shame.
Speaker 1: Why are women not calling for help?
Speaker 4: I think there's also fear.
Speaker 5: I mean I think there's a you know, there is
Speaker 5: a shame part or a I don't want to bother anybody,
Speaker 5: or I have other stuff to do and I'll deal
Speaker 5: with it later. But I think people are scared, right, Like,
Speaker 5: having a heart attack is scary. And what I think
Speaker 5: is important for me to convey to your audience is
Speaker 5: that there's all different kinds of heart attacks. Right, there's
Speaker 5: really big heart attack that could chill you right on
Speaker 5: the spot, but there's also small heart attacks.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: The heart has three big arteries, but there's branches of
Speaker 5: vessels off of all of those arteries, and some of
Speaker 5: them can be small and they can do damage. But
Speaker 5: I don't want people to be scared that the outcome
Speaker 5: may be that they go to the hospital and that
Speaker 5: they get a stent and that they have to take
Speaker 5: some medication, you know, for their cholesterol and a baby
Speaker 5: aspen for the rest of their life, or a few medications.
Speaker 4: And I think there's this avoidance and denial of what
Speaker 4: those symptoms are.
Speaker 5: And so it's really important to try to push that
Speaker 5: to the side and recognize that if you keep doing that,
Speaker 5: either you could have a catastrophic event or over time,
Speaker 5: even if it's little heart attacks, like for instance, in
Speaker 5: diabetics who may not feel this heart attack the same
Speaker 5: way as other people because of how diabetes works, that
Speaker 5: even though the heart attack may not be actually killing
Speaker 5: them on the spot, they are developing a heart failure syndrome.
Speaker 4: And so what our goal is in taking care of
Speaker 4: people is really we want you.
Speaker 5: To be like super healthy, healthy, exercise and then like
Speaker 5: drop dead when you're ninety five, right, like fall die
Speaker 5: in your sleep.
Speaker 4: That would be everybody goal, right.
Speaker 5: They don't want to suffer with some kind of chronic
Speaker 5: illness and they want to be active. I mean, another
Speaker 5: important thing that I want to tell women about being
Speaker 5: active is that it's so important to start when you're
Speaker 5: young and stay active through your life. I understand that
Speaker 5: there are times where you can't always be as active
Speaker 5: as other times, but even just practicing standing up from
Speaker 5: a seated position in a chair. You know, we know
Speaker 5: that women and men who have more core strength and
Speaker 5: can do activities in their seventies and eighties like stand
Speaker 5: up by themselves from a chair with no hands or
Speaker 5: you know, have that inner strength, have a longer life
Speaker 5: expectancy and do better. And so that is also really,
Speaker 5: really maybe the most important thing for people to be
Speaker 5: aware of.
Speaker 2: We've got to take a quick break, but we'll be
Speaker 2: right back to our conversation with doctor Jennifer Haith and
Speaker 2: we're back to Wellness Wednesday with doctor Jennifer Haith.
Speaker 3: Well, I want to speak next about something that I
Speaker 3: know you get excited about talking about which is prevention,
Speaker 3: so exercise food.
Speaker 1: Can we get into the nitty gritty of that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, it's funny what you said before.
Speaker 5: But like I was like one day, I was like,
Speaker 5: I think I'm going to write a book that's called
Speaker 5: like eat Less, Move More.
Speaker 4: And then I was like, but that's kind of like
Speaker 4: that's it. I don't know what I put in the rest.
Speaker 2: Of the book.
Speaker 4: I don't know how many pages there are for that story.
Speaker 5: I just I think my message for people is, well,
Speaker 5: first of all, we haven't even talked about the whole
Speaker 5: glip one, Munjaro and all of these you know, ozembic
Speaker 5: and these drugs, which, by the way, you know, I
Speaker 5: know some people feel are controversial, but from a cardiovascular perspective,
Speaker 5: the data suggests an incredible mortality morbidity benefit.
Speaker 4: So really, yes, very.
Speaker 1: That's wonderful to hear.
Speaker 5: Yeah, very protective cardiovascular, so they have a lot of
Speaker 5: cardiovasterlar benefit. Weight loss, I know is very hard for people,
Speaker 5: and I think the concept of exercise is very hard
Speaker 5: for people who are overweight.
Speaker 4: But there are ways to do it, you know.
Speaker 5: I don't expect anyone to jump on a treadmill and
Speaker 5: do forty five minutes of running. I tell people to
Speaker 5: start really slow and try to incorporate it with something
Speaker 5: they'd like. So if you like to listen to podcasts,
Speaker 5: or if you like to listen to books on tape,
Speaker 5: or if you have a really best friend that you
Speaker 5: like to talk to, like start with just all you
Speaker 5: really need is a pair of sneakers and just start
Speaker 5: by taking a walk.
Speaker 4: And if you're really obese or really out of shape.
Speaker 5: It can be ten minutes and then make it, you know,
Speaker 5: fifteen minutes and it's just you got to just start
Speaker 5: somewhere and it can take a long time, but you
Speaker 5: will see a dramatic effect over time.
Speaker 1: Does it matter how high you get your heart rate?
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, you know, look not in the beginning,
Speaker 5: Like my goal is to first get people off the
Speaker 5: couch and just moving a little bit. If we're talking
Speaker 5: about peak fitness, you know, to twenty minus your age
Speaker 5: is supposed to be your peak heart rate during max exercise.
Speaker 5: You know, everybody has I wear this whoop. You know,
Speaker 5: everybody has a different bringing on or Apple Watch or
Speaker 5: whatever they like. And it can tell if you want
Speaker 5: to wear one of those fitbits or one of those devices.
Speaker 4: It can check your heart rate.
Speaker 5: So you're you said you're thirty four, so your you know,
Speaker 5: max predicted heart rate is two twenty minus thirty four.
Speaker 5: And then you know you're not supposed to stay at
Speaker 5: that the whole time. That's your max. So if you
Speaker 5: go for a run or you do a hard hit class,
Speaker 5: you want to hit that maybe a couple times, but
Speaker 5: you're probably going to settle in somewhere a little bit
Speaker 5: lower as you're sustained, you know, high level activity. You know,
Speaker 5: the American Heart Association they want people to exercise, you know,
Speaker 5: five times a week, you know, forty five minutes.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I was reading it said one hundred and
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes a week of moderate exercise or seventy five
Speaker 3: minutes of vigorous exercise. Which that's I mean, that's considerable.
Speaker 3: That's a commitment.
Speaker 4: It's a commitment.
Speaker 5: But I don't like to say that to people who
Speaker 5: are doing nothing, because I'd rather you do something and
Speaker 5: build up to that. So if you even get if
Speaker 5: you have a peloton or you want to sit and
Speaker 5: watch your favorite TV show on an exercise spoke. It
Speaker 5: doesn't even have to be a fancy one and just
Speaker 5: sit there and get on it and just like pedal
Speaker 5: for twenty minutes. That makes me happy, you know, because
Speaker 5: people actually feel so much better when they do exercise.
Speaker 5: And my husband I always have this joke when we're
Speaker 5: talking about whether or not to work out, and I
Speaker 5: don't want to work out, I'm tired, and then we
Speaker 5: have this joke like no one ever regrets a run.
Speaker 5: You don't come back and be like, damn, I shouldn't
Speaker 5: have taken it. Yeah, it just like never happens. It
Speaker 5: always ends up where you're like, I'm so glad I
Speaker 5: did the run, you know. So I try to rewind
Speaker 5: myself of that, but you know, it's hard to motivate.
Speaker 4: I get it. You know.
Speaker 3: Is there a hierarchy of exercise if we're talking about
Speaker 3: the next level here and not just like trying to
Speaker 3: get up off the couch and and make a little
Speaker 3: bit happen. Is it jogging, swimming, walking? Like, what's your
Speaker 3: hierarchy cardiovascular fitness? I mean, there's a lot of different
Speaker 3: ways to get your heart rate up. There's all different
Speaker 3: philosophies about it.
Speaker 5: You know, we want someone to have to be like
Speaker 5: in a sustained high heart rate, you know, for at
Speaker 5: least like what thirty five minutes. But it can be running,
Speaker 5: it could be swimming, it could be tennis, it could
Speaker 5: be playing basketball, it could be you know, anything where
Speaker 5: you're running around and being physically active.
Speaker 4: It could be on the rowing machine, it could be
Speaker 4: a hit class.
Speaker 5: It's not the same as lifting weights, right, Lifting weights
Speaker 5: is not going to make your heart rate be sustained.
Speaker 4: Lifting weights is good for.
Speaker 5: Core strength, but that's not as a cardiologist my main focus.
Speaker 1: That's what I was curious about. How about frequency?
Speaker 3: What if you are a person who doesn't like to
Speaker 3: work out during the weeks, but you go hard on
Speaker 3: the weekends.
Speaker 1: Is does that matter for your heart?
Speaker 5: I mean it's hard because the week it's only two
Speaker 5: But yes, I think as I would I take any exercise.
Speaker 5: I'm happy if you're doing anything, so I'm not going
Speaker 5: to judge. I think, you know, if you could get
Speaker 5: in three days a week would be great. The other
Speaker 5: thing to remember is that on the other days that
Speaker 5: you're not maybe going to the gym per se, can
Speaker 5: you stay like moving a lot? Like I work at
Speaker 5: a hospital, I don't sit at a desk. I mean
Speaker 5: I'm sitting at desk right now to talk to you.
Speaker 5: But for the most part, I'm not at a desk.
Speaker 5: I'm like walking through the hospital. I'm seeing patients, I'm
Speaker 5: on rounds, I'm standing up. I mean, at the end
Speaker 5: of my day with doing zero exercise, I'm at like
Speaker 5: fifteen thousand steps sometimes yeah, and I haven't broke a sweat.
Speaker 5: So if I'm doing that three days a week, and
Speaker 5: then three days a week I go and ride the
Speaker 5: peloton for thirty five minutes, that's pretty good, you know.
Speaker 4: Like I'm moving around a lot.
Speaker 5: I don't think people need to get this is where
Speaker 5: we get into the obsessive culture.
Speaker 4: We go like all or nothing.
Speaker 5: It's very hard for us to stay in the middle,
Speaker 5: which is actually what's probably the best for you. Right
Speaker 5: Like eat it, eat like a normal healthy diet, and
Speaker 5: then every now and then you can have a beat
Speaker 5: that and you get on this and exercise, like.
Speaker 4: Do thirty five minutes of exercise a couple days a week.
Speaker 5: Instead people are like become crazy. They go, you know,
Speaker 5: they have to do fitness freaks.
Speaker 4: You know, it's like you don't have to get so crazy.
Speaker 1: It's time for another short break.
Speaker 3: But we'll be right back to Wellness Wednesday with doctor
Speaker 3: Jennifer Haith, and we're back with doctor Jennifer Haith.
Speaker 1: So, doctor Hath, my dad was a dentist.
Speaker 3: And growing up, he would come home for dinner and
Speaker 3: we would ask him about his day, and probably about
Speaker 3: once a week or once every two weeks, he would
Speaker 3: say that he caught some form of cancer in somebody's mouth,
Speaker 3: or some indication of much larger illness. And I learned
Speaker 3: that there's actually a link between oral health and heart disease.
Speaker 3: Why is taking care of your mouth so important to
Speaker 3: your heart.
Speaker 4: Well, there's a couple things.
Speaker 5: One is that that gingivitis and gum disease is like
Speaker 5: a chronic problem, right, and so it's associated with a
Speaker 5: high level of inflammation, and there is a link between
Speaker 5: this chronic inflammatory state and cardiovascular disease. There may even
Speaker 5: be a link between certain bacteria that grow in your
Speaker 5: mouth and cardiovaster disease. And also we know that when
Speaker 5: you go to the dentist, if you have existing certain
Speaker 5: kinds of heart disease, you need to take prophylactic antibiotics
Speaker 5: because when you get your teeth cleaned or have your
Speaker 5: teeth worked on, bacteria is transiently released into your bloodstream
Speaker 5: and a normal person clears that bacteria and you don't
Speaker 5: get a horrible infection. It's just to get your teeth cleaned.
Speaker 5: There was maybe a little bacteria for a second. Your
Speaker 5: natural white blood cells take care of that and it's fine.
Speaker 5: If you have had rheumatic heart disease, or you have
Speaker 5: a defibrillator wire, or you have a valve replacement, your
Speaker 5: doctor should have instructed you to take prophilactic antima biotics
Speaker 5: prior to getting your teeth cleaned so that when that
Speaker 5: bacteria is released into the bloodstream that the antibiotics will
Speaker 5: take care of it and it won't stick, because that
Speaker 5: bacteria can sometimes stick onto the valves and cause a
Speaker 5: condition called endocarditis, which is an infection of the heart valves.
Speaker 3: So yeah, is there a link between alcohol and heart disease?
Speaker 4: That is such a hard question.
Speaker 5: As a heart failure doctor, we know that alcohol can
Speaker 5: cause heart failure syndromes. If you're an alcoholic, like if
Speaker 5: we have an alcohol use disorder, as we say now,
Speaker 5: you can develop a heart failure syndrome that can reverse
Speaker 5: if you stop using alcohol. So for heart failure perspectives,
Speaker 5: I tell patients not to drink. We also know that
Speaker 5: using a lot of alcohol leads statial fibrillation now in
Speaker 5: the Mediterranean diet, and there is a lot of data
Speaker 5: that one glass of red wine a day is okay
Speaker 5: for you, and that it may actually be protective. So
Speaker 5: there's conflicting data. My advice, you know, rather than being
Speaker 5: a teetotaler, is to tell if you have a real
Speaker 5: heart problem. I tell you people that they shouldn't drink,
Speaker 5: but if you're otherwise healthy, I stick to the guideline
Speaker 5: recommendations and minimize excessive alcohol use.
Speaker 4: But it's okay to have a drink.
Speaker 3: Now in that this is not necessarily having to do
Speaker 3: with heart health.
Speaker 1: It's more about longevity.
Speaker 3: But I'm obsessed with this study I read years ago
Speaker 3: about centurians who were they studied their sleep, and people
Speaker 3: that lived to one hundred basically slept on average seven
Speaker 3: point twenty five hours a night. And sleep is super
Speaker 3: important for longevity. Is sleep important for your heart health?
Speaker 3: Is there a recommended number of hours?
Speaker 4: Yes? So actually the AHA just changed this.
Speaker 5: Yes, they want you to get like more sleep than
Speaker 5: they use to, and they will include naps in that.
Speaker 5: So sleep is now listed as one of like the
Speaker 5: big cardiovascular important risk factors that we know that lack
Speaker 5: of sleep earned some yet now general sleep is a
Speaker 5: time to repair and restore and it is really important
Speaker 5: for stress.
Speaker 4: And you know when you wake up in the morning.
Speaker 5: You know a lot of heart attacks happen in the
Speaker 5: early morning because as you come out of sleep, your
Speaker 5: heart rate comes up, your your cortisol levels increase, your
Speaker 5: blood pressure goes up. So when you're asleep, you're in
Speaker 5: a relaxed what we call your parasympathetic nervous system is
Speaker 5: in control.
Speaker 4: Your heart rate is slower.
Speaker 5: You know, people might say, like when I'm asleep, my
Speaker 5: heart rate went down to forty and like I'm like
Speaker 5: that's normal because you're like really relaxed. Or my blood
Speaker 5: your blood pressure is much lower. So all of those
Speaker 5: things are protective of your heart and important.
Speaker 3: So the Mediterranean diet, some movement during the week, no
Speaker 3: process foods and moderation in alcohol, dessert, all those types
Speaker 3: of things, all that common sense stuff.
Speaker 1: Is it ever too late to start.
Speaker 4: No, definitely not too late. You can always start.
Speaker 5: You can always go to the doctor, you can always
Speaker 5: start treating whatever your risk factors are. You can always
Speaker 5: start doing more activity and get stronger.
Speaker 1: My grandmother at eighty nine years old, it's not too late.
Speaker 4: For her, No, definitely not.
Speaker 5: If anything, well, actually, her life expectancy is probably higher
Speaker 5: than it was a few years ago. So if you
Speaker 5: make it to eighty five, your life expectancy actually goes
Speaker 5: up because it's a J curve, So if you make
Speaker 5: it to a certain age, your chances of living are
Speaker 5: higher than your chances of dying in the next year. Yeah, yeah, cool, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I mean, I'll think you should put her on like
Speaker 5: a rowing machine, but depending on how fit she is.
Speaker 5: Always walking and practicing strength exercises is good. And you know,
Speaker 5: we didn't talk about depression as a risk factor, but
Speaker 5: you know, being depressed is also a risk factor for
Speaker 5: heart disease. And actually sometimes people after they have heart
Speaker 5: disease and a diagnosis of it, or have a heart
Speaker 5: attack and become very depressed. So it's important to treat
Speaker 5: that and help people get through that.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought that up. Thank you for
Speaker 1: adding that.
Speaker 3: I was at a health panel years ago and people
Speaker 3: were talking about the health of meat and one of
Speaker 3: the experts said something I'll never forget somebody asked what
Speaker 3: type of cows or meat do we need? Is it organic?
Speaker 3: What should we be looking for? And the expert said,
Speaker 3: you need to eat a happy cow. And I thought
Speaker 3: that was the weirdest answer at the time, and now
Speaker 3: I understand what she means, because the happier the cow
Speaker 3: was in their life, the healthier the cow is, and
Speaker 3: then the healthier the meat is for you when you're
Speaker 3: eating it. My question for you is is a happy
Speaker 3: heart a healthy heart?
Speaker 1: Is there a link there?
Speaker 5: I think there is a link, and the mind heart
Speaker 5: connection is major. There is actually a condition called stress cardiomyopathy,
Speaker 5: and what it is is someone who's had a severe
Speaker 5: traumatic emotional experience, could be the death of a child,
Speaker 5: a breakup, a horrible fight with someone. They develop chest pain,
Speaker 5: their EKG looks like they're having a heart attack like
Speaker 5: the same changes.
Speaker 4: They are rushed to the hospital.
Speaker 5: They do a cardiac catheterization, but they don't have any blockages,
Speaker 5: but their heart has this ballooned out appearance and it's
Speaker 5: actually caused purely by stress. It usually recovers with good
Speaker 5: treatment and it doesn't stay forever.
Speaker 4: But so yes, if breaking up.
Speaker 5: With a significant other or having some loved one die
Speaker 5: can cause a heart failure syndrome. Then we know that
Speaker 5: there's a link, and so yes, happiness keeps your heart happy.
Speaker 3: Doctor Hey, thank you so much for joining us today.
Speaker 4: Thanks for having me.
Speaker 3: I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 3: You're such an excellent communicator.
Speaker 5: Well, I hope we can help women out there get
Speaker 5: what they need and get treated properly.
Speaker 3: Doctor Jennifer Haith is a cardiologist and associate professor at
Speaker 3: Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
Speaker 2: That's it for today's show. Tomorrow, we're keeping our Week
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Speaker 2: aka the Queen of rom Coms, in her new book
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