Ep. 2: You’ve Got Coronary Calcium: Now What? — with Dr. Regina Druz, MD, MBA, FACC, FMCP-M, integrative cardiologist
In this foundational episode of Own Your Heart Health, holistic cardiologist Dr. Regina Druz lays out what heart disease really is, why cardiovascular aging is the master clock of longevity, and where mainstream cardiology gets cholesterol and statins wrong. She then walks through one of the most misunderstood tests in heart care — the coronary artery calcium (CAC) score: what it measures, why it can’t be reversed, why it often rises with treatment, and how to use the free MESA calculator to put your real risk in perspective before you ever book the scan.
Watch on YouTube: A video version of this episode is available on the Own Your Heart Health YouTube channel. Subscribe to be notified of new episodes.
Episode Chapters
[00:00] Welcome & Launching Own Your Heart Health
[02:30] Why Heart Health and Longevity Are Inseparable
[05:00] The Four Major Types of Heart Disease
[10:30] A Cardiologist’s Path to Integrative Care
[16:30] Cholesterol, Inflammation & How Plaque Really Forms
[19:30] What Is a Coronary Artery Calcium Score?
[24:00] How Calcium Forms: The Scar Analogy
[26:00] The Real Role of Cholesterol
[28:30] Can You Reverse Coronary Calcium?
[33:30] Putting Your Numbers in Context
[35:30] The MESA Calculator: A Worked Example
[48:00] Should You Get a Calcium Score?
[54:00] Closing Thoughts & What’s Next
Transcript
[00:00] Welcome & Launching Own Your Heart Health
Dr. Regina Druz (00:00): Welcome to Own Your Heart Health. I’m Dr. Regina Druz, your holistic cardiologist. This week we’ll dive into common heart health concerns, uncovering root causes and unpacking scientific discoveries and controversies. The information provided does not constitute medical advice. Please contact your healthcare practitioner before making any changes that may impact your health.
Dr. Regina Druz (00:30): Today is the day I get to launch Own Your Heart Health. I’m your host, Dr. Regina Druz, and I’m thrilled to bring you the ideas I find most fascinating and impactful — the ones that can help you take care of your heart and change your healthcare trajectory.
Dr. Regina Druz (01:00): On this podcast, we’ll debunk some of the myths people hold dear — pun intended — challenge a few established dogmas, and clear up the confusing information that can jeopardize how you care for your heart. Some of my guests will be other practitioners, both in cardiology and outside it; others will be patients. I’m profoundly grateful to the many patients who have trusted me over the years and who pushed me to become more than a conventionally trained cardiologist — to become someone who can deliver on the promise of holistic cardiovascular care.
Dr. Regina Druz (02:00): One of my goals is to bridge the gap between traditional cardiac thinking and a broader view — to look at cardiovascular issues in the context of a person’s entire life, and at the opportunities each of us has to improve heart health and, with it, longevity.
[02:30] Why Heart Health and Longevity Are Inseparable
Dr. Regina Druz (02:30): Why do I put heart health and longevity in the same sentence? You might think of them as two different things. They are not. The aging process is, first and foremost, reflected in the cardiovascular system. You can find people who look wonderful — great skin, optimal body composition — and yet, when you investigate further, they carry a significant burden of heart disease. The aging of the cardiovascular system is the primary aging process, and heart disease remains the number one cause of death in both developed and many developing countries.
Dr. Regina Druz (03:30): So what can we do about it? Are we all bound either to die from heart disease or to die with it? I tell my patients it’s roughly a coin flip — you either die with heart disease or from it. But what we really want is to live a healthy, full life at any age and to protect ourselves from the serious consequences of heart disease: the events that rob us of the ability to enjoy our families, to travel, and to feel well. That means asking what the root causes of heart disease actually are — and what heart disease even is.
[05:00] The Four Major Types of Heart Disease
Dr. Regina Druz (05:00): When most people hear ‘heart disease,’ they picture a heart attack, a bypass, or a stent. That’s not wrong, but it’s not the full picture, because heart disease comes in several varieties.
Dr. Regina Druz (05:30): The first affects the coronary arteries — the situation behind most heart attacks, stents, and bypass surgery. We call this coronary artery disease, or CAD, and you’ll see it referenced everywhere online and in the medical literature.
Dr. Regina Druz (06:00): The second is structural heart disease, which is rising rapidly in the United States. It involves weakness or inefficiency of the heart muscle, and the clinical syndrome is heart failure. From an integrative perspective, there’s a great deal to say about the root causes of heart failure and what can be done — alongside medications and devices — to optimize these patients.
Dr. Regina Druz (07:00): Structural disease also includes problems with the heart valves. This is less common than coronary artery disease but no less significant. As we live longer — into our eighties, nineties, and beyond — more people develop valve disease, often aortic stenosis. There are now elegant procedures, including non-surgical options, that can help these patients live longer, healthier lives.
Dr. Regina Druz (07:30): The fourth type involves the heart’s electrical system. The heart isn’t only a muscle that pumps blood; it also runs on a precise sequence of electrical events that produce each heartbeat. Sometimes that system goes off the rails. One of the most common and impactful conditions — because it raises the risk of stroke — is atrial fibrillation. Across this series we’ll talk about what atrial fibrillation is, what options exist to cure it, and what can be done holistically to lower your risk.
Dr. Regina Druz (09:00): A quick note before we go on. I know the opinions on nutrition for heart health and longevity are contradictory, and the conversation often gets heated — low-fat and low-cholesterol on one side, ketogenic on another, and many voices pushing vegan or vegetarian eating. To cut through the clutter, my team and I created Holistic Heart University: on-demand courses and resources on nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements, plus open office hours and a Q&A feature where you can put us in the hot seat. The link is in the show notes — use promo code OWNER20 for 20% off an annual subscription.
[10:30] A Cardiologist’s Path to Integrative Care
Dr. Regina Druz (10:30): I want to start with coronary artery disease, because it’s where the most controversy still lives — and that controversy plays out in two big arenas. Let me back up. When I began my journey into integrative and holistic cardiology five to seven years ago, I was very much a conventional cardiologist.
Dr. Regina Druz (11:00): I worked in a large healthcare system and led the group responsible for stress testing. In a stress test, we connect a patient to an ECG, put them on a treadmill, and monitor heart rate, blood pressure, and the ECG as they exercise. For patients who can’t exercise, we can do a non-exercise version. Over my career I’ve supervised or performed more than ten thousand of these tests.
Dr. Regina Druz (12:30): At a certain point I noticed something. Some older patients did beautifully — good exercise tolerance, few abnormal findings — while some younger patients, whom you’d expect to do well, did poorly. So I started asking them what they did: Did they exercise? Follow a particular diet? Take supplements? The answers were all over the map — running, gardening, weightlifting, supplements.
Dr. Regina Druz (13:30): But eventually a common thread emerged, and it was very specific. It almost didn’t matter what they were doing — what mattered was consistency. The patients who did well, regardless of age, were consistent about their lifestyle: some combination of nutrition, exercise, sometimes supplements, stress control, and attention to sleep. And it clearly had an impact. Even when these patients still needed cardiovascular medications to stabilize chronic conditions, they were healthier despite — and alongside — those medications and procedures.
Dr. Regina Druz (14:30): So I started learning on my own about integrative and holistic cardiology. There’s a funny story from early on. I happened upon a gathering of natural practitioners, and they gave me a litmus test: did I use statin medications in my practice? I said, ‘For some patients, of course.’ Half the room peeled off immediately. I learned to know my audience — but I also learned there’s a real need for an informed voice in this space. I’m not anti-statin or pro-statin. I’m a hundred percent pro-patient. My goal with this podcast is to give you reliable, science-grounded information, infused with the experience I was lucky to gain from so many patients.
[16:30] Cholesterol, Inflammation & How Plaque Really Forms
Dr. Regina Druz (16:30): One of the most common controversies in coronary artery disease involves statins — and, more broadly, the role of cholesterol. Cholesterol has sat at the center of cardiovascular risk estimation for decades, and the cholesterol-lowering hypothesis has dominated our thinking.
Dr. Regina Druz (17:00): But we now understand that the primary driver of coronary artery disease is not cholesterol itself. It’s injury to the arterial wall and the inflammation that follows. Inflammation begins in the artery, and cholesterol arrives to patch or repair the inflamed spot. That’s how coronary plaque starts. It’s a simplified picture, but it will serve us here.
Dr. Regina Druz (18:00): Within that story sits a more complex topic on which cardiologists have not reached consensus: the coronary artery calcium score. I want to bring cholesterol, statins, and calcium scoring together, because patients are so often handed one of these findings — an elevated cholesterol, a recommendation for medication, or a suggestion to go get a calcium score — without a framework for what it means.
[19:30] What Is a Coronary Artery Calcium Score?
Dr. Regina Druz (19:30): So what is a coronary artery calcium score, how is it measured, and what does it mean? It’s exactly what it sounds like. Using a very low-dose CT scan, we measure calcium deposits inside the coronary arteries. Most of that calcium sits on the inner lining of the artery — the endothelium — as part of atherosclerotic plaque. We can loosely call these ‘blockages,’ though they don’t always interfere with blood flow. Occasionally calcium also deposits in the middle layers of the artery.
Dr. Regina Druz (20:30): But a calcium deposit is a sign — and this is the key point — of a prior inflammatory process. If you’re listening on audio, you won’t see the image I’m referencing, but you can watch this episode on our YouTube channel to follow along. The illustration, courtesy of the Cleveland Clinic, is on the Holistic Heart Centers website.
Dr. Regina Druz (21:30): I want to help you understand that coronary artery disease is a lifelong process. It begins at birth. We know that even young people who die from accidents already show very early areas of arterial damage on autopsy — what we call fatty streaks. This lifelong process damages the endothelium, the inner lining of the arteries, and we can measure its stages, and the body’s repair, with specific blood tests and with imaging.
Dr. Regina Druz (22:30): In the diagram, the white specks represent calcium. The illustration also shows what happens when that inner lining ruptures or erodes and a clot forms — which is what typically produces unstable angina or a heart attack. You’ll notice most of these buildups are rich in cholesterol — the yellow areas. Cholesterol comes in to repair the damage, but as it accumulates it becomes a promoter of further injury, getting caught up in inflammatory reactions. That’s plaque remodeling, and it’s an active inflammatory process.
[24:00] How Calcium Forms: The Scar Analogy
Dr. Regina Druz (24:00): So where does calcium fit in? Calcium is the end stage of inflammation in the coronary arteries. The process doesn’t always end in rupture and a catastrophic event. Over time, many plaques become sealed with calcium.
Dr. Regina Druz (24:30): Think back to scraping your knee as a child. At first it’s red, raised, and tender. As time passes, a scar forms. If the cut was deep enough, a faint scar may never fully disappear — but that scar doesn’t bleed, it isn’t hot, and it isn’t inflamed anymore. It’s a done deal.
Dr. Regina Druz (25:00): That’s exactly what calcium represents in a coronary artery. It means the inflammation in that specific spot has run its course and, in doing so, has stabilized that area by calcifying it. And we want that stability, because calcified, stable plaques don’t tend to rupture or erode. They don’t set off the cascade where a clot forms inside the artery to cause a heart attack — or, in the brain, a stroke.
[26:00] The Real Role of Cholesterol
Dr. Regina Druz (26:00): What, then, is the role of cholesterol? There’s a free patient resource I’ll mention — knowyourrisk.com, from Cleveland HeartLab. I bring it up because the process matters, though I don’t fully agree with how the information is framed there. It remains very cholesterol-centric, stating that cholesterol injures the vessel wall.
Dr. Regina Druz (26:30): Cholesterol can injure the wall — but the initial surge of cholesterol is an attempt to repair. Every cell in our body makes cholesterol; we need it to survive and to maintain cellular integrity. What actually drives the early micro-damage on the endothelial surface is lifestyle: poor diet, smoking, diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic stress — and, in the integrative view, oxidative stress, hormonal imbalances, and environmental exposures. Even the sheer force of blood flow causes some micro-damage over time.
Dr. Regina Druz (27:30): Here’s a striking statistic well known in cardiology: about half of people who have a heart attack do not have a cholesterol problem. It’s nearly a coin flip. But essentially all of them have inflammation — whether detectable in the vessel wall or systemically through blood work. If inflammation is the core driver, cholesterol gets deposited into the walls to build plaque, and calcium is the final stage in that progression.
[28:30] Can You Reverse Coronary Calcium?
Dr. Regina Druz (28:30): So can we reverse the calcification? I’m asked this constantly: Can my calcium score go down? Can the calcium in my arteries be reversed? The answer to whether the calcification itself can be reversed is a firm no. There’s no known means, in any form of medicine, to fully reverse inflammation that has reached its final, calcified stage.
Dr. Regina Druz (29:30): What we absolutely can do is reverse the root-cause drivers of that inflammation, reduce the inflammation itself and its impact on the arteries, and slow the damage that accumulates with age. This is where lifestyle is so powerful — in arresting or reversing the process that damages the coronary arteries, of which the calcium deposit is the end result.
Dr. Regina Druz (30:00): Here’s a counterintuitive consequence. When patients commit to lifestyle change — especially those also taking statins, which stabilize the vascular lining and promote plaque healing and calcification — we often see their calcium score go up. A score of zero means the end stage of inflammation hasn’t been found, and the literature tells us people with a zero score are generally in good shape, at least for a while. We’ll cover in a later episode what a zero score means and when to consider repeating it.
Dr. Regina Druz (31:30): Once the score is above zero, though, we generally don’t repeat it, for a few reasons. First, once someone commits to lifestyle change or medication, the score is likely to rise as previously inflamed areas finish calcifying — that’s just a function of time and treatment. Second, calcium scoring, even on modern scanners, carries some measurement variability, which is meaningful in the mild-to-moderate range. So a repeat could read somewhat higher or lower for reasons that aren’t clinically real.
[33:30] Putting Your Numbers in Context
Dr. Regina Druz (33:00): If we can’t reverse the score, what can we do? We can work on the root causes — inflammation, oxidative stress, autoimmune activity, toxic exposures — that drive arterial inflammation, and in doing so reduce the arteries’ tendency to keep building plaque.
Dr. Regina Druz (33:30): How should you think about all this? One of my frustrations is seeing patients fixate on a single number — a calcium score, an LDL value, an ApoB — without guidance on how it fits with their other risk factors. It breaks my heart to watch someone chase one parameter with extreme diets or a cabinet full of supplements, sometimes even forgoing treatments that would actually help, in pursuit of a number that may not move the needle.
[35:30] The MESA Calculator: A Worked Example
Dr. Regina Druz (34:30): That brings us to cardiovascular risk prediction. There are many risk equations, but I’ll introduce one I use often with patients. It’s completely free, and the link will be in the show notes — so if you’re listening, please also watch on YouTube and check the show notes for access.
Dr. Regina Druz (35:30): Let’s work through it together as a thought exercise, using a scenario I see all the time — not one specific patient, but a composite. I’ll walk through the calculation of coronary artery age, which is based on a landmark study called MESA, the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis. MESA enrolled people who had no heart disease at the start, deliberately representing different genders, races, and ethnicities, so the findings reflect the diversity of the U.S. population.
Dr. Regina Druz (36:30): The MESA risk score and coronary age calculator are well known, free, and available from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) — you can even download it as an app. Most of these estimators are designed for middle-aged adults, and the patients we see most often are between 45 and 65.
Dr. Regina Druz (38:00): Take a hypothetical 52-year-old man who heard — on a podcast, online, or from a neighbor — that he should get a coronary calcium scan. Let’s say he’s Hispanic, not diabetic, and a non-smoker, but an uncle on his father’s side had a heart attack at 57, which counts as a family history. We’ll give him a total cholesterol of 220 and an HDL of 45 — men often run a bit lower than women. His blood pressure is 118, under 120, and he’s on no cholesterol or blood pressure medication.
Dr. Regina Druz (39:30): First we calculate his 10-year risk of a coronary heart disease event — a heart attack or cardiac death — without a calcium score, since he doesn’t have one yet. His 10-year risk comes out around 5%, landing him in the intermediate-risk zone. But notice his coronary age: based on these numbers, the calculator estimates his arteries are 59 — seven years older than his actual age of 52.
Dr. Regina Druz (41:00): Now let’s add a calcium score. If he gets the best possible result, a score of zero, his risk drops from intermediate to low, and his coronary age falls to 46 — younger than his chronological age.
Dr. Regina Druz (41:30): But many middle-aged people already have some calcium, because small deposits are common — they’re the final step in resolving earlier inflammation. Calcium is graded two ways: by category, or ‘bucket,’ and by your specific number. A score of zero is the lowest risk. Above zero but under 100 is somewhat higher; 100 to 400 higher still; over 400 high; and over 1,000 very high. The exact thresholds vary by study, and we’ll dig into them in future episodes.
Dr. Regina Druz (44:00): For our example, let’s give him a score of 119 — not especially low, not especially high — and recalculate. Without a score, his family history and lipids put him at low-to-intermediate risk with a coronary age of 59. With a zero score, his 10-year risk dropped by about half. But with a score of 119, his risk rises substantially — high enough to discuss pharmacological treatment alongside lifestyle change. And from MESA we know that a score of 119 is, on average, what we’d expect in a 75-year-old Hispanic man — not a 52-year-old.
Dr. Regina Druz (47:00): One more quick note. Many of my colleagues and I are seeing patients arrive with self-ordered blood tests. I thought this trend would help — who doesn’t want more access to testing? — but too often it leads to confusion, with patients holding a pile of labs and no clearer path forward. That’s why we created HeartWell Toolkits: a curated set of blood and genetic markers focused on heart and brain health that you can collect at home, giving you the data you need to make informed decisions. You can order them from the shop at holisticheartcenters.com — the link is in the show notes — and use code TESTING10 for 10% off and free shipping.
[48:00] Should You Get a Calcium Score?
Dr. Regina Druz (48:00): So before you go get a coronary calcium score, plug whatever numbers you have into the MESA calculator. As you just saw, these aren’t hard numbers to find — your last physical likely captured your total and HDL cholesterol and your blood pressure, and you know your family history and medications. That gives you the context for a conversation with your doctor about whether a calcium score, or other cardiac testing, makes sense for you.
Dr. Regina Druz (49:30): Some practitioners feel that if a patient won’t accept treatment no matter what — say, someone who will never take a statin regardless of the score — then maybe they shouldn’t get the scan. I tend to think more information is better. The calcium score is easy to get, uses very low radiation, and is widely available, even in smaller towns. The cost is variable but usually no more than about $300, and sometimes much less. I have a colleague in Fargo, North Dakota, whose group offers it for free — they call it a heart scan — hoping patients will take the opportunity to learn whether they need more intensive prevention.
[54:00] Closing Thoughts & What’s Next
Dr. Regina Druz (51:30): If you do get a calcium score and it’s zero, congratulations — that’s the best possible result. Does zero mean you have no coronary artery disease? Hint: no. But the chance of a heart attack or cardiac death with a zero score is negligible — across the board, roughly one in ten thousand in the near term. It’s a great category to be in.
Dr. Regina Druz (52:30): If your score isn’t zero, that’s your cue for a thorough conversation with your practitioner about how to slow or stabilize the process. Remember: you won’t make the calcium disappear. What you can and should do is identify the root causes driving inflammation in your arteries, measure how much inflammation you have, and act to reduce it — protecting yourself from the scenario where an inflamed area becomes unstable, ruptures, and causes a heart attack or something worse.
Dr. Regina Druz (54:00): We approach this with a principle borrowed from my imaging days: ALARA — as low as reasonably achievable. Interestingly, the European Society of Cardiology meeting that just wrapped in Paris applied the same idea to lipids, urging that for patients who can’t tolerate a full medication regimen, we still do everything possible to get their numbers as low as reasonably achievable.
Dr. Regina Druz (55:00): So if you’re on the fence about a calcium score, talk it over with your doctor. Share your thoughts with us on social media — I genuinely want to hear from you, especially if you disagree. I can’t give individual medical advice, but this is a collaborative learning space, and you’ll hear more about our private community, Holistic Heart University, in future episodes.
Dr. Regina Druz (55:30): Thank you for being here for this foundational episode of Own Your Heart Health. Next time, we’ll go deeper on statins and LDL cholesterol — how low should we go, and should we go low at all? Stay tuned, and I’ll see you soon.
Dr. Regina Druz (56:00): Thank you for tuning in to Own Your Heart Health with Dr. Regina Druz. This podcast is powered by Holistic Heart Centers. If you enjoyed the show, please rate and review us on your favorite podcast platform. To learn more about our services, visit holisticheartcenters.com and subscribe to our YouTube channel — the link is in the show notes. See you next week.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a coronary artery calcium (CAC) score, and what does it actually measure?
A coronary artery calcium score uses a quick, very low-dose CT scan to measure calcified plaque in the walls of your heart’s arteries. It does not show soft, non-calcified plaque or measure blood flow directly. Instead, it reflects the cumulative footprint of past arterial inflammation that has stabilized into calcified deposits. The result is a number: zero means no detectable calcium, and higher numbers indicate more calcified plaque. Scores are also grouped into broad categories — zero is lowest, above 400 is high, and above 1,000 is very high. Importantly, the score is one input among many. It is most useful when interpreted alongside your age, sex, ethnicity, cholesterol, blood pressure, family history, and lifestyle, rather than in isolation. A calcium score can meaningfully shift your estimated risk up or down, which is why it can change the prevention conversation with your physician.
Can a coronary calcium score be reversed or lowered?
No — the calcium itself cannot be dissolved or reversed by any known treatment. Calcified plaque represents the final, stabilized stage of an earlier inflammatory process, much like a scar that remains after a cut has healed. In fact, your score may rise over time even when you are doing everything right, because previously inflamed areas continue to finish calcifying — and statins, which stabilize plaque, can accelerate that healing. This is why a rising score on its own is not necessarily a sign of worsening disease, and why most clinicians do not repeat the test once it is above zero. What you can change are the root causes that drive arterial inflammation: diet, blood pressure, blood sugar, smoking, stress, and sleep. Reducing those slows the formation of new plaque and lowers your risk of an event, even though the existing calcium stays put. The goal is a stable artery, not a lower number on a scan.
If cholesterol isn’t the root cause of heart disease, are statins still worth taking?
Cholesterol is part of the story, not the whole story. The process that builds arterial plaque begins with injury and inflammation of the artery wall; cholesterol then arrives to help repair that injury and, over time, can become trapped and contribute to further inflammation. About half of people who have a heart attack do not have a clear cholesterol problem, but nearly all show evidence of inflammation. That does not make statins useless — beyond lowering LDL cholesterol, statins help stabilize plaque and reduce the chance of rupture, which is what causes most heart attacks and strokes. Whether a statin is right for you depends on your overall risk picture, not a single lab value. The most productive approach pairs any appropriate medication with the root-cause work: nutrition, movement, stress, sleep, and metabolic health. This episode reflects clinical opinion and is educational; decisions about starting or stopping any medication should be made with your own physician.
Should I get a coronary calcium score, and what should I do first?
Before booking a scan, it is worth estimating your risk with a free tool such as the MESA risk calculator from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, which also estimates your coronary artery age. You only need numbers most people already have: total and HDL cholesterol, blood pressure, age, sex, ethnicity, smoking status, and family history. That estimate gives you and your doctor a starting point for whether a calcium score would change your plan. A CAC scan is widely available, uses very low radiation, and usually costs no more than a few hundred dollars — sometimes far less. Many people find it most useful when their risk is uncertain or intermediate, where the result can tip the prevention decision one way or the other. If you are undecided, bring your MESA estimate to your practitioner and decide together. This guidance is educational and not a substitute for personalized medical advice.
Show Notes & Resources
Guest: Dr. Regina Druz, MD, FACC
Dr. Regina Druz is a board-certified holistic cardiologist and the founder of Holistic Heart Centers. Trained at elite academic institutions and a longtime cardiac imaging specialist who has performed more than 10,000 stress tests, she blends conventional cardiology with integrative, root-cause medicine. Her focus is cardiovascular aging and longevity, personalized prevention, and helping patients understand tests such as the coronary artery calcium score in the context of their whole health. She is the host of Own Your Heart Health and the creator of Holistic Heart University and the HeartWell Toolkits.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
MESA Risk Score & Coronary Heart Age Calculator — free from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI); also available as a mobile app
knowyourrisk.com — patient education resource from Cleveland HeartLab
Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA) — the landmark study behind the risk and coronary-age calculations
Cleveland Clinic coronary artery disease infographic — referenced on the Holistic Heart Centers website
Holistic Heart University — on-demand courses and resources on nutrition, lifestyle, and supplements (use code OWNER20 for 20% off an annual subscription)
HeartWell Toolkits — at-home heart and brain health lab panels, available at the holisticheartcenters.com shop (use code TESTING10 for 10% off and free shipping)
Key Terms Referenced in This Episode
Coronary Artery Disease (CAD): Narrowing or damage of the heart’s arteries from atherosclerosis (plaque buildup); the most common cause of heart attacks.
Coronary Artery Calcium (CAC) Score: A low-dose CT measurement of calcified plaque in the coronary arteries, used to refine estimates of heart-attack risk.
Atherosclerosis: The lifelong process in which the artery wall is injured and inflamed, accumulating plaque made of cholesterol, inflammatory cells, and eventually calcium.
Endothelium: The thin inner lining of blood vessels, where arterial injury and plaque formation begin.
Atherosclerotic Plaque: A deposit within the artery wall containing cholesterol, inflammatory cells, and calcium that can narrow the vessel or rupture.
Fatty Streaks: The earliest, microscopic stage of arterial damage, detectable even in young people.
Plaque Remodeling: The active, inflammatory process by which plaque changes over time as cholesterol and inflammatory cells accumulate.
MESA (Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis): A large U.S. study of people without heart disease that underpins widely used risk and coronary-age calculators.
Coronary Artery Age: An estimate of how ‘old’ your arteries are compared with your chronological age, based on your risk factors and calcium score.
Structural Heart Disease: Disease of the heart muscle or valves (for example, heart failure or aortic stenosis), as opposed to the arteries.
Atrial Fibrillation: A common irregular heart rhythm that increases the risk of stroke.
ApoB (Apolipoprotein B): A protein that carries cholesterol particles in the blood and serves as a strong marker of cardiovascular risk.
LDL & HDL Cholesterol: Low-density (‘LDL’) and high-density (‘HDL’) cholesterol particles; both factor into cardiovascular risk assessment.
Statins: Medications that lower LDL cholesterol and help stabilize arterial plaque, reducing the chance of rupture.
ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable): A principle borrowed from radiation safety, applied here to keeping cardiovascular risk factors such as lipids as low as is reasonable for each patient.
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Medical Disclaimer
The information in this podcast is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. The discussions reflect the clinical experiences and opinions of the physicians involved. These treatments are not FDA-approved for all applications discussed. Please consult your licensed healthcare practitioner before making any changes to your health regimen.
