Dr. Joel Kahn - Practicing cardiologist, Clinical Professor, & Author

Today I am talking with Dr. Joel Kahn. Joel Kahn, MD, FACC of Detroit, Michigan, is a practicing cardiologist, and a Clinical Professor of Medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine.  He graduated Summa Cum Laude from the University of Michigan Medical School. Known as "America’s Healthy Heart Doc", Dr. Kahn has triple board certification in Internal Medicine, Cardiovascular Medicine and Interventional Cardiology. Dr. Kahn has authored scores of publications in his field including articles, book chapters and monographs. He writes health articles and has five books in publication including Your Whole Heart Solution, Dead Execs Don’t Get Bonuses and The Plant Based Solution. His 6th book, Lipoprotein(a): The Heart’s Silent Killer, is about to be published. He has regular appearances on Dr. Phil, The Doctors Show, Dr. Oz, Larry King Now, Joe Rogan Experience, and with Bassem Yousef.

www.drjoelkahn.com

 

This series features conversations I conducted with individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to Vegan research, businesses, art, and society. This podcast series is hosted by Patricia Kathleen and Wilde Agency Media.

 

TRANSCRIPTION

*Please note, this is an automated transcription please excuse any typos or errors

[00:00:00] In this episode, I had the fortunate opportunity to speak with America's healthy heart doc, Dr. Joel Kahn. Dr. Kahn is a practicing cardiologist and a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. Key points addressed were Dr. Kahn's books, titled The Plant Based Solution, published in 2018, and his most recent book, Leipold Protein Little, a published in March of 2020. We also conducted a Q&A with Dr. Khan regarding some of the most common inquiries. Our audience had regarding cardiovascular health and Vegan diets. Stay tuned for my informative talk with Dr. Joel Kahn.

 

[00:00:45] My name is Patricia Kathleen, and this series features interviews and conversations I conduct with experts from food and fashion to tech and agriculture, from medicine and science to health and humanitarian arenas. The dialog captured here is part of our ongoing effort to host transparent and honest rhetoric. For those of you who, like myself, find great value in hearing the expertize and opinions of individuals who have dedicated their work and lives to their ideals. If you're enjoying these podcasts, be sure to check out our subsequent series that dove deep into specific areas such as founders and entrepreneurs. Fasting and roundtable topics. They can be found on our Web site. Patricia Kathleen, dot com, where you can also join our newsletter. You can also subscribe to all of our series on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, Pod Bean and YouTube. Thanks for listening. Now let's start the conversation.

 

[00:01:42] Hi, everyone, and welcome back. I'm your host, Patricia.

 

[00:01:45] And today, I'm delighted to be sitting down with Dr. Joel Kahn. He is a practicing cardiologist and a clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. You can find out more about all of his endeavors on his Web site. W w w. Dr. Joel Kahn, K. H and dot com. Welcome, Joel.

 

[00:02:05] Thank you very much. Excited to be here.

 

[00:02:08] I am excited to have you on as well. We were talking prior to recording and you're involved in an insane amount of endeavors. But today I'm going to kind of forecast for everyone listening. We're going to unpack a couple of Dr. Kahn's works and then get into some general questions that our audience has reached out and kind of wanted to know on the medical forefront. Before I get to all of that, for everyone listening, I will offer a brief bio on Dr. Khan, as well as a roadmap for today's podcast. Let me start with the roadmap. We'll look at unpacking a couple of books, as I mentioned. One being the plant based solution published in 2020. And then we'll look at another book, Libro Protein A and kind of is the latest launch. And then I'll get into the general questions that a lot of you have reached out regarding some of the covered 19 pandemic inquiries and future scientific research being done as it relates to the Vegan diet and heart health prior to getting into all of that. Let me quickly do a bio on Dr. Kahn. Joel Kahn, M.D., F.A. of Detroit, Michigan, is a practicing cardiologist. Any clinical professor of medicine at Wayne State University School of Medicine. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Michigan Medical School known as America's Healthy Heart Doc. Dr. Kahn has triple board certification in internal medicine, cardiovascular medicine and interventional cardiology. He was the first physician in the world to certify and metabolic cardiology within a four m m m I and the University of South Florida. He founded the Kahn Center for Cardiac Longevity and Bingham Farms, Michigan. Dr. Kahn has authored scores of publications in his field, including articles, book chapters and monographs. He writes healthy health articles and has five books in publication, including Your Whole Heart Solution Dead Exacts Don't Give Bonuses and the Plant Based Solution. His sixth book, Lipoprotein A., was just released, I believe, in March of this year. The Heart Silent Killer. He has regular appearances on Dr. Phil the Doctor Show, Dr. Oz, Larry King, now Joe Rogan experience and with Bassem Youssef. He has been awarded a Health Hero Award from Detroit Crain's Business. He owns GreenSpace and Go, a health restaurant in suburban Detroit, and he serves as medical director of the largest plant based support group in the USA. W w w dot p and s g dot org. Dr Con again can be found at w. W. W. Dr Joel Corn. Dot com. So I'd like to launch straight into your book and the inquiries that we have within that, namely the plant based solution that was published in 2020. We grabbed a quote from online. That's no disease that can be treated. Oh I'm sorry. It's the dedication that you did in this book that I found to be so pertinent after reading it. And it's no disease that can be treated by diet, should be treated with any other means by an old philosopher in the 12th century. I can't remember. Moloney's how do you pronounce that?

 

[00:05:17] My Munadi My Money is a Spanish Moroccan born rabbi. Physician and I lived in Egypt most of his life. Quite a remarkable history in and of itself.

 

[00:05:30] Yeah. And I like the quote. It reminds me a lot of like let food be thy medicine. People getting into some of the Aristotle and things. The book is described as a passionate, compelling and scientific argument for plant based nutrition.

 

[00:05:45] You get into. For everyone who's listening and hasn't read it or would like to get a brief overview on it. It explores weight loss, how most people get it wrong when it comes to calcium protein, carbs. It's a relationship between lay people's knowledge and the heart health. And then you kind of unpack these different areas. The links between Vegan diet and your sex drive, gut health, brain chemistry, why plants might hold the key to better aging, eating out, stocking your pantry. And the whole thing is kind of wrapped up with this 21 day meal plan and advice for, as I call them, action items or this implant implementation into one's life. And my first question for you is in in your previous book, Dead Exists, Don't Get Bonuses, you focus on the coronary heart disease and you talk about a lot of the statistics and the science behind it. And this one seems to be like an application guide as you and. Talking about earlier. And I'm wondering what the impetus for the change in that was, what what the kind of inspiration behind writing this was.

 

[00:06:50] You know, I spent decades practicing as a cardiologist. And that book called that exact I don't get bonuses and even my previous book, first book called Your Whole Heart Solution at a Real Cardiology Focus. It's my training. It's my practice. It's my primary avocation. But I had not written a book that went deep into plant based nutrition, that went deep into the science and went beyond her disease because the plant based solution goes well beyond our disease to speak about some other entities you talk about. And I wanted to do it. I just needed a resource to give to my patients. And people were asking in a way that didn't require, you know, a month to read, wasn't thick enough to know if your table were shaking. It was the heavy book you'd pick to balance it out. So I wanted it to have content and medical support, of course, but to be an easy read for people. And as you say, to be practical. So it ends with recipes. It ends with pantry, stocking solutions or the very challenging what do you do when you go over family or go to restaurants? Well, you know, very, very grounded in the science literature. I was always amazed. You know, there are a growing number of plant based cardiologists and there should be a growing number of plant based nephrologists and pulmonologists and gynecologists and all the others. I don't like dividing the body into organs. It all works together in one symphony when it's working well. But there really wasn't a book by a cardiologist. And with all respect, Esselstyn trained as a surgeon and Dr. Ornish trained as an internist and others. It just wasn't a bug out there with the experience I had over decades of treating heart attacks and congestive heart failure. And now I'm being part of hospital faculty. So I put that all together. And thank you for your kind words about it. I think it's a practical book.

 

[00:08:47] Absolutely it is. I'm wondering how you chose. How did you curated?

 

[00:08:50] Was it combined from patients that you had over the years or was it from areas that you found to be most integral for the person picking up an informational moment about diet and cardio health?

 

[00:09:03] It was clearly based on, you know, by the time I wrote that book, it came out. I think you mentioned 20, 20, but actually came out in twenty eighteen, to be fair. No problem. I wrote most of it in late twenty seventeen. I mean I've been plant based since nineteen seventy seven. I started cardiology practice in nineteen ninety. So literally by the time I wrote that book I had twenty seven years of experience recommending to heart patients, high blood pressure patients, weight challenged patients, cholesterol patients, diabetic patients, auto immune patients. That there was science to suggest I would add multiple sclerosis patients. There was science to suggest shifting their diet to a complete or nearly complete whole food plant based diet would be of some potential therapeutic benefit. I had so many wonderful results and stunning results and people that avoided surgery and people that hit their goal, reduced their medication. Ever get on a medication, avoid surgery? So it certainly was based on that. This is the real deal. There's nothing theoretical about the science base and the practical application of whole food plant diets. The frustrated group is the small group that are trying hard and don't reach that goal. They're not getting enough blood pressure meds and they're not getting off cholesterol medicine. And that's what I try and help them with in my clinic in suburban Detroit is what are we missing? You know what's missing in their physiology, their chemistry, their genetics, their toxicology or their diet itself?

 

[00:10:29] But majority people respond dramatically well and really just need a little push. A book like mine, watch a couple of videos, have a couple simple recipes. And, you know, you don't need to hold their hand for 30 years. They'll get it because they're gonna feel better in two, three, four weeks. The majority of the time.

 

[00:10:49] Yeah. And ideally, there wouldn't be a lot of handholding, particularly between your clinic. What I like about the book is it talks a lot about prevention and not just treatment of heart disease. I feel like, you know, and when one goes into a cardiologist, there's already an issue. You know, you have a specialty that a lot of people don't talk about prevention. It's more about treatment once there becomes a problem. And so I like the idea of a book coming from the concept of prevention.

 

[00:11:17] Do you feel like we are moving towards that as a society, into a prevention based model, or are we still based in a treatment moment when it comes to cardio health or crawling or crawling if if a average person walked into or maybe you say if a person walked into an average cardiologist office and said, I feel great, I just want you to check me. They probably would be told we don't do that here. Yeah, it's that in every case, in a large practice, there might be one cardiologist in twenty five that has that preventive interest. You know, you'd end up getting a stress test you probably don't need and some routine bloodwork. It's what I do know every day of the week in my clinic and people don't need to have a problem. In fact, I had a wonderful follow up phone call today with a woman who we went through the process of checking her advanced labs. She already was on a excellent diet of plants. And all we did was celebrate the fact you're healthy, you're healthy or healthy. You'll see in 10 years. I mean, that is a wonderful thing. And it ends the relationship and it ends anxiety. Allow these people have a family history like she did of a father with a heart attack at a young age and able to share such good news. But very often it's not such good news. There is heart disease, there is inflammation, there is metabolic abnormalities, vitamin abnormalities, and there's just lots to do. And food is the basis and food fix is most of it. But if you're low in vitamin D, if you're missing, I have to. I mean, I got to be very specific with some of the testing we do. I know nutrition science. Just you know, the reason I wrote the book in part, nutrition science is tough and that's why we see this war of Quito Paleo, you know, Mediterranean diet. There's a Mediterranean diet aren't as aggressive as the pro paleo pro Iquito. Prokhanov for the vegans are weak ninnies and meat eaters are strong and incredible. It's just amazing how contentious it is. It's also difficult to do good nutrition science. It's hard to get a thousand people to eat in different patterns for 20 years and really make measurements. So you've got to do the best with what you have from basic science, from epidemiology, from the few randomized studies like Dr. Ornish. Just you got to take a jam, put it all together and try and be very honest with the data. I mean, once in a while, an article comes out that low fat dairy may be decent for your blood pressure. Well, I'm not going to recommend my patients start drinking milk if they're not. But after recognizer is some data out there. So you got to be fair and authentic.

 

[00:13:52] Yeah. And you mentioned in a previous interview, I think it was a podcast or something we dug up on YouTube. But you talked about and it was kind of a divisive rhetoric, you know.

 

[00:14:02] I think was it more aggrandize than when I watched it at a Google talks between yourself and some experts with them? The names are escaping me, but with Anderson from what?

 

[00:14:13] The Health and Dave Asprey from Bulletproof Coffee. Yeah, well, reporters in California.

 

[00:14:20] Yeah. You talked a lot about in the clip I saw the divisiveness is concerning for someone who's trying to get, you know, good health out of good health information and things like that.

 

[00:14:30] Because you stated in this clip your concern was that if if you hear one camp saying one thing, one camp saying directly opposite the, you know, the client or the public walks away and does nothing and they're walking and they walk and they walk into McDonald's in one days because they say the experts can't figure this out.

 

[00:14:48] I'll just eat what I want to eat and doesn't seem to really matter. So it does really confuse the public. I just give an example. 60 years, a science suggests the more saturated fat, rich foods you eat butter, cheese, pepperoni, bacon, the more likely to develop heart disease and a lot of other things. Diabetes, cancer, dementia. Decades of science. The last 10 years that got very muddied by some very poor science that got big headlines like Time magazine butter's back cover in 2014. But about four or five weeks ago, the most prestigious science group independent of funding did a review paper. Saturated fat causes heart disease. When you cut back butter and cheese and pepperoni and croissance and pizza, you will reduce your cholesterol. You reduce your risk of having a heart attack or stroke. This is the most respected group. So I wrote a couple blogs. I did a interview. All that stuff came on the last week. It did nothing to bring any real unity, even though the science is pretty well unified. If you're entrenched, meat, cheese, butter, eggs, pro science are good for you. You know, you ignore the science. You find some flaw in it even when there really isn't much of a flaw. So it's unfortunate that food wars exist. But it really what I always come back to when I lecture and I'll be quiet. And if you look at the Harvard School of Public Health, they have a food plate from 2011. Fruits, vegetables, whole grains, healthy protein. If you look at Canada's food plate, 2019, same beautiful food plate. We look at peace. Cierra physician, Kabbani, responsible medicine, all plant food. There actually is tremendous unanimity around the world by reasonable people that your diet should be brightly colored, whole fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes. I don't add in small amounts of extra meat. Some of these food plates give you the option of adding in small amounts of eggs and meat. I think diets are better when they don't include that. But we're really talking about truly a very tiny debate with tremendous unanimity. But, you know, if you've got a platform and a, you know, a YouTube channel, Alhurra, a blog, you can create a mountain of what is really a molehill of differences.

 

[00:17:09] Yeah. And I like the celebration of unifying factors. You talk a lot about how a lot of these people, you know, everyone is in unison that white flour, sugar, processed foods, these things should not be in one's diet. And beginning from that standpoint, I think is good. And yes, the the visual representations that have come out since 2016 and the advice they're all very similar to looking can turn the old food paradigm where it needs to be, which isn't just on its head.

 

[00:17:37] I think just to complete rubbish. I want to look at the book like a protein A and I told you before we started, I hadn't thought it had launched yet. I was corrected. You said it's been out since March. I think I've been in a little bit. There it is. I think I've been in a little bit of a cave. But what I did see, what I did do is find research from you yourself online, making up a recipe of overnight oats. I'm always amazed. I fancy myself as a very adventurous Vegan cook. And I've been doing a search for 10 years. And it's always amazing to me how there's just this the overnight oats I haven't ever made. And it's so ironic. But I think that it's it points to the utility of books like this. And I'm hoping you can speak because I haven't read it a little bit about the impetus for writing it and what it contains, aside from recipes.

 

[00:18:27] But as I say, started out writing kind of cardiology books for the public, wrote a couple books directly on the Vegan topic. This actually brings the two together. It's a very interesting story I'll blurt out in about two minutes. But it turns out about 60 years ago, a kind of cholesterol. This we get a little science, see that you can inherit from mom and dad was identified in the blood and it is called it's a terrible name. If you're were in the marketing field, Lifebook Protein Live Olay. Anybody can see the cover, the book. The word liberal isn't there. It's lowercase A.. But that's how it's pronounced scientifically. Lipoprotein Little A, you could ask your family doctor, your internist, your gynecologist next routine physical. Can you add a light poke protein little a blood level to my standard blood. It's a form of cholesterol you inherit from your mom and dad. And if you inherit it and if it's high, it can clog up your arteries. It can lead to heart attack, stroke, erectile dysfunction aneurysms and even destroy one of the heart valves in the heart. And it does it very slowly and very progressively because since you inherit it, it's in your blood. From the time of conception forward, the dramatic statement is 25 to 30 percent of people inherit it. So that means 90 million Americans, one point eight billion people worldwide and hardly a doctor in the United States checks the little box to measure it. It's been researched. There's hundreds and hundreds of very high quality research articles and it has been mentioned. If you have a family history, if mom had a stroke at age 48, if dad had bypass surgery at age 52, maybe your doctor should order this. But that's rarely done, even though that's been in the mainstream. But just recently, there's a growing incentive. Maybe everybody should just ask, is it twenty or thirty dollar blood tests? It's not like a fancy genetic test. It's just a blood test. And find out early in life. Did you inherit it or not? It's kind of that's why it's a silent heart killer, because it's silent in part because we don't test for it. And also, by its nature, it's slowly, slowly, slowly can damage vessels. And this tradition also you can get your routine cholesterol. Your cholesterol is one hundred and eighty and your HDL, your LDL. It won't show up on that. And it could be that your lipoproteins is still very high, the standard treatment of cholesterol. Exercise. Change your diet. Take your lipid tour. Take your Crestor or do very little to lower it. If you inherit a high level, I have a whole practice full of people with very high blood levels, and many of them have had a bypass, heart attack, a stroke and other problems, heart valve surgery. The vitamin niacin can lower it, but there's at least some science at a Whole Foods plant. Diet can also lower it. And even if it doesn't lower it much, it'll probably lower the blood pressure to lower the blood sugar, to lower the more commonly checked LDL cholesterol at a lower inflammation. So, you know, that's why the book is Half Science and half beautiful recipes, including the overnight out recipe that I did a little YouTube video on.

 

[00:21:41] I mean, I brought in one of my favorite plant based recipe writers, Beverly Lynn Bennett. I've worked with her before. So it's kind of like the plant based solution, their science. And then there's some practical steps. There's all this gorgeous food and the food and the recipes were specifically selected to be very likely to help control cholesterol, blood pressure, inflammation, blood sugar. They're delicious, but they emphasize things like oats, oats, lower cholesterol by the soluble fiber and the glue cans and a lot of chia hemp flax seeds, which can lower cholesterol and blood pressure. So there it's kind of a heart healthy, delicious diet book with some fascinating science and probably somebody listening right now. Undoubtedly, somebody watching this has a high lipoprotein egg because it's come it's the most common genetic heart risk that exists. But we never talk about it. I'm trying to break that there. But, you know, somebody is going to benefit just by thinking, God, my whole family's riddled with heart disease and they keep telling me we don't know why. No, nobody smoke and nobody has insulin required diabetes. I'm telling you. Check your libro protein, literally.

 

[00:22:53] It reminds me when you're saying this.

 

[00:22:55] We've spoken to a few autoimmune experts about veganism, you know, the vegan diet and the auto immune triggers and things of that nature. And I know from the sound of it, it's going to build regardless, except for, you know, these these things that you can do with diet and maybe niacin.

 

[00:23:13] But he isn't similar. It's not a trigger. It's not a switch that's getting switched on like the autoimmune. Right. It's just destined to build more than genetic.

 

[00:23:22] We know what chromosome we know and which genes are involved. And the trigger is conception. Right. Unlike the idea that there might be a gut issue that triggers lupus or a toxicity from Roundup that might trigger an auto immune disease, a gut damage. So nothing triggers us. It just sits there circulating in the blood, knocking into arteries, knocking in the Arpels, causing a reaction that, again, slowly, slowly, slowly. But by the time you're forty five, you might be sitting on a little ticking time bomb you didn't know about without scaring anybody. But it is possible. Yeah. You talk about the big famous just so people can relate. A lot of people used to watch The Biggest Loser show and there was Jillian Michaels looking repped and there was Bob Harper looking. Well, three years ago, Bob Harper at age 51, had a massive heart attack and almost died. And he announced a couple months later when he had recovered from a very long illness, that he found out he had inherited a very high level of late pope protein, little ache, and he was under treatment now and very optimistic for the future. But what if he found out 10 years before we can argue? What could he have done about it? There is a drug in development that will be the answer to the problem. But in the meantime, get your diet right exercise. Get your weight right. Know your numbers. I mean, take super good care yourself.

 

[00:24:47] Yeah. You talk a lot about kind of affecting. I think it's important, especially for scientists as well. Particularly when you get into book writing and things like that to consider all groups and industries within, you know, the people they are talking about, which are all masses of people in your society. And to that end, I was curious, you know, you talk a lot about fast food. And in even in something I watched you talked about, you know, just as the sad irony of having a Wendy's or McDonald's in their hospital green room before the rat reception. Yeah, but I'm wondering to that end to kind of speaking to everybody, all socioeconomic classes and things of that nature in the book, Libo Lipoprotein Little A.. When you went to form your recipes, did you consider like the nationwide availability of the products of the ingredients that you were putting in those recipes, income, status or other like necessary moments to think about when you were trying to make. Accessible to everybody, but also have the same or the necessary ingredients to help the condition.

 

[00:25:53] You know, in general, a well constructed whole food plan diet is an inexpensive and widely accessible diet. You just got to get back to basics. A lot of the recipes have brown rice. The recipes have Ghinwa. The recipes have beans and peas and lentils. The lagoon family, which if you know, you go to a bulk store and you buy big bags of dried rice and dried beans, you know, you need access to produce. Could be frozen big bags. The book doesn't stress organic because that becomes a price point. Many people get it. It's a nice add on when it's available and when you can afford it. But nonetheless, any well constructed whole food plan diet, even if it's not organic, is going to beat out from a total health standpoint. Almost any plant based plant, animal based meal, whether it's organic or not. So I think it is sensitive to all that. And there are other great resources. I wrote a book two ago with coauthor Ellen Jaffe Jones. She has a great paperback called Vegan on Four Dollars a Day that I would recommend anybody who's really trying. And it was written probably seven, eight years ago. So maybe it's Vegan and six dollars a day now. But there are so many tips in a book like that that you could adapt a few. But it takes a little preparation and, you know, a little bit of courage to dove into these recipes if you're coming from a place that has never really cooked. You've just got to have a chopping board and some good nice.

 

[00:27:25] You mentioned on one of the episodes I saw that an average C.T. scan tips to obtain artery health reports and calcium scan ESAN.

 

[00:27:35] Seventy five to one hundred dollars in most major hospitals. And this is a piece of information. I had no idea. I think you get thousands. I don't have a great idea about how much medical tests cost since the bills. Always astronomical from anything I hear about. And I'm wondering if you have a basic elevator pitch style pieces of advice like that within the cardiac health industry that you give people who kind of run into you and are looking for like your top type five pieces of advice. You talk about men being between the ages of 45 and 50, getting there for a C.T. scan if they haven't had one. And things like that. You have other little pieces of information that you like to give off to people as quickly as possible when you run into them.

 

[00:28:12] Yeah. You know, I have a few little things that roll off my tongue over and over. And one of them is, you know, we can talk about recipes and food, but it takes technology added to great lifestyle to really cement the security that you and I are going to have a sudden medical adverse event or particularly cardiovascular heart adverse event. And, you know, talking about getting a blood test for Lipoprotein Little A is actually a very technical topic. I could go on and on and refine that about the genetics of it, but we don't need to simply just check a box and get it. Similarly, you know what I bring up all the time with patients. Just think about it. You know, somebody recommended you to get a mammogram at age 45. If you're a woman, somebody recommended you get a call and ask could be at age 50 at an annual physical. Did anybody want to check your heart in all that? And even if you say, I know my father had a stent at age 59, did anybody recommend anything? So that's where the entree is to talk about that. There actually has been a test, quick CAT scan, no dye, no needle, no pain, no claustrophobia. It used to be a thousand dollars 20 years ago, but in the hospitals in suburban Detroit and usually around the country, it's one hundred dollar range and you just pay out of pocket and you immediately know I'm weathering life well with clean cut, flexible arteries that are degraded by calcium deposits, which make your arteries hard, hardening of the arteries, or there's a problem. Something's going on. I'm walking around with heart disease. I didn't know about it. You need to find that preventive doctor in your community and work with him or her and get a handle on it and get your diet. You know, the plant based solution done of approved diet. So test, I guess, comes out of my mouth. Prevent, not stent. Lot of people are getting invasive procedures. Stents bypass. All the data, including just in the last six weeks is for the majority of people. This is hardcore science data at the best centers in the world can be approached with medication, diet, fitness and avoid stents. A bypass or prevent that stent is a nice little one. You know, you mention, you know, I just like the word reversal. So many people come to me. They've had heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, erectile dysfunction, gut issues. And just to open Pandora's box, that it may be related to their lifestyle and it may be possible to reverse some or all of it is to most patients an idea that's never been brought up with them before. You know, I had no idea there's a chance I might be able to reduce my blood pressure, blood sugar, blood. Heart medication, if you worked very hard at it, you're going to have to work very hard at it. But gives people a lot of hope and a lot of actually empowerment to know that they know it's not all about the prescription pad the doctor has. It's a lot about the pantry, the grocery store, the fridge aerator, the freezer, the treadmill, the sidewalk, the pillow. You've got to sleep at night. The whole lifestyle that I educate patients.

 

[00:31:17] Yeah. And speaking to lifestyles, I've been on YouTube. And it seems like some of the videos since the Cauvin 19 pandemic has really set in and the stay at home quarantine has been advised.

 

[00:31:29] You have a lot of little I like your videos, the very brief, very succinct, and I'm very diversified. You have a lot of things, combination of exercise and stacking, a combination of exercises, movements, connection to the earth, conquer thing. You talk about melatonin and the recent research being done in treatment, or at least alongside the Kovik 19, the microbiome of an Apple nutrition of sprouts and the sprouting book with a colleague of yours that came out nitric oxide. Are there any other things that you're kind of looking at right now? Vitamins, exercise, et cetera, that you do like that that are kind of at the forefront of what you're what you're looking at with health as diversified as they might be?

 

[00:32:11] Yeah. You know, so just since you brought up the word covered, 19, you know, nobody can authentically say we actually know how to prevent it or treat it. We're struggling to find that pathway. There's a lot of people talking about that. There isn't prominent professor of what's called pulmonary critical care medicine in Norfolk, Virginia, who suggested it might be reasonable to add in some vitamin D, some vitamins, C, some zinc. These are supplements. You can do it in your food. Of course, you know, zinc is a quite rich in soy like hemp and tofu template of melatonin at night is one of his recommendations. And there is finally an antioxidant called quercetin, which is finding garlic and apples and onions and cherries. But there are people that are taking a course. It's an supplement based on reasonable recommendations. Do we know? Has it been studied? We don't. These are very safe, very inexpensive supplements. Pennies a day. Good night's sleep. Maintaining proper body weight, excess body weight has been a risk factor for not doing well if you do contact Koven 19. You might be in a state of constant inflammation. Here you got a virus that triggers massive inflammation. If you started a high point, that's going to be a little easier to reach a critical inflammatory status. And of course, wash your hands and physical distance as appropriate and wear your mask as appropriate for sure. Those are all interesting. There is actually just to mention there's a theory. Again, remember, 25 to 30 percent of people have lipoprotein little they elevated in their blood. One of the bad actions of this special cholesterol inherited Mollica is it can cause blood, the clot. And one of the tragic circumstances in a lot of cases, sick people with Cauvin, 19 in the ICU is all of sudden there's clotting everywhere. There's clotting in the heart, there's clotting in the lungs, there's clotting. It's a theory that lipoprotein the delay may be partly to explain why some people just explode with this terrible issue and others don't. So not now, but maybe the God forbid, the next pandemic will have more people that are where they have lipoprotein little a inherited problem. I'll have a better therapy for MRSA or anything else. I'm working. I'm always working on something. I'm deep, deep right now into the endocannabinoid system. You know, the fact that we have a chemicals in receptors in our body, that when you access cannabis or hemp or know CBD, why does that activate reactions and about. I'm just reading a lot about it. Oh, it is. These are phyto cannabinoids, plant based chemicals that are hacking into our own internal system. Most people don't know we make a series of chemicals in our body that are the authentic cannabis like chemicals, and it just happens to be many plants. But cannabis is the most famous plant. You don't have to smoke it. It could be a hemp oil capsule or A-S, but many plants have a response in the body, just like our own internal system. Some people there may be the future diagnosis. Maybe you have a hypo cannabinoid system. You better add in some cannabinoids like hemp oil. It's a fascinating pathway right now being looked at in anxiety, poor sleep. Some metabolic issues, some pain issues. So I'm pretty deep into learning as much as possible on that.

 

[00:35:50] Excellent. I look forward to your findings. And I reached out to some of our audience members and colleagues when I knew I was going to be speaking with a cardiologist today. And I asked them about any questions that they had late or not. I told them I wasn't going to quote any of them. And I have a few I'd like to run by you. One is and kind of a general inquiry that how would one know without pain or some kind of a cardiac arrest moment if there was an issue with their heart.

 

[00:36:22] Yeah. So I don't wait for the cardiac arrest. Very bad way to find out. You have heart disease because recovery from that is very low. Again, just succinctly. Get a few extra blood tests, get blood tests. Go see your doctor. Get your blood pressure check. Get the routine stuff. Maybe ask for the lipoprotein little lei and maybe a test of inflammation. The C reactive protein.

 

[00:36:46] But I'm going to reach over. And just so a visual is always better. This is a practice for sure. But again, if people aren't familiar, there's a great documentary you can find on Netflix called The Widowmaker movie, and I'm not in it. It's about seven, eight years old. But this is a picture of a CAT scan of the heart. That's the bones on the outside. The lungs are black, the heart and the metal. And there's a yellow arrow. If you want to know if you're walking around with silent blocked arteries that you're not aware of, you get is called a coronary artery calcium scan. And you need a prescription generally from your doctor. And you spend, as I say, seventy five. One hundred dollars. If you're being charged more than that. Just call the next hospital. And if you want to learn more about it. The Widowmaker movie, Boom, you'll have all the data you need. And that is now recommended by the American Heart Association and others. This is not a unique viewpoint that I have. Yeah.

 

[00:37:44] OK. And how so? Olive oil, coconut oil and other plant based oils have been something that a lot of people that we've reached out to feel like they've had misinformation about.

 

[00:37:55] And how do you feel about these particular oils when added as condiments or sources to a vegan diet?

 

[00:38:03] So very hot topic when I know a lot about. And I'll give you again a quick answer. You've got to go back to science. Number one, people have been using olive oil for thousands of years. That's not true of coconut oil. It's a basic component of the Mediterranean diet, which we learned in the 1950s resulted in a much lower rate of diabetes, cancer, dementia and heart disease than junky Western foods. So you could ingest in Crete and the island of Crete off of Greece. They drank olive oil like a liter a week. It constituted 40 percent of their calories of their diet. And they had very low rates of these diseases. But it wasn't butter and it wasn't lard and it wasn't ghee. And there's no coconut trees in Crete. It wasn't coconut. There is also very strong data from the Harvard School of Public Health that if you're using butter or if you're using lard and you switch over to extra virgin olive oil, you will def. And actually, it's also true of other plant oils. You will definitely drop your risk statistically of developing heart disease. So olive oil has gotten a very bad rap in some portions of the Vegan world because if you're the very small slice of the pie. It is terrible heart disease. And when somebody comes to me and says, I'm supposed to have bypass surgery next week, what do I do? I'm going to definitely advise them. Whole food, plant based, no added oil diet, because that's consistent with the studies by Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Mr. Nathan Pritikin and such. But that's a very small slice. If you're sitting at home and you're healthy. Maybe if add your calcium score down and it's great and you want to drizzle some extra virgin olive oil on your Froogle a salad. God bless you. Enjoy it. It's a delicious way.

 

[00:39:47] And it may actually help you absorb fat soluble vitamins like vitamin D, invite him and even vitamin A out of your foods a little better. So I'm not as rigid that nobody can have oil. Coconut oil has a unique position. It's very high in saturated fat where olive oil, avocado oil and canola oil are very low in saturated fat. And there's just no data that coconut oil actually supports healthy heart lifestyle. It's not part of the Mediterranean diet. Some people mentioned that it just doesn't exist. It's a it's a tropical plant. It's not a Mediterranean basin plant. And there is concern that oil raises cholesterol. The official word to the American Heart and American College of Cardiology Associations is we're concerned avoid eliminated from your diet. Put it on your skin if you want, but don't eat it. There was this trend by Dave Astbury. Here's a cup of coffee. Here's a couple tablespoons of coconut oil. Your brain will be fired up for super function, but some people's cholesterol go insane with that approach. Two hundred to five hundred in three weeks. So if you're going to do it, do it with an experimental mind to at least check your blood work. But I don't use coconut oil. I do use extra virgin olive oil. But I know my arteries are wickedly clean. Thank you.

 

[00:41:09] Absolutely. Well, and to that end, yeah, I did. And once I heard it was going to produce all sorts of brain clarity, I myself down just a straight tablespoon, never felt any clarity. There's that personally.

 

[00:41:21] Try getting a lot of it. You will find clarity in your colon because it causes a very rapid diarrhea. You do.

 

[00:41:28] I did not do enough. That would have stopped me as well. I'm wondering. We've had a lot of feedback from people who've spoken to either advisors, health advisors, to people that said they spoke with doctors, just general M.D. and that said that they shouldn't fast because their calorie intake as vegans is both a little bit more fickle and different from that. They're carnivorous or milk eating counterparts. And Dan, a lot of vegans that are watching the show and listen to it have a relationship with fasting. You yourself have talked about what the doctor, Longo and Autophagy, those things, you know, kind of have been heated conversations even in the Vegan community with cellular repair and things like that. How do you personally stand about vegans fasting from, oh, mad one meal a day, too intermittent or longer? Fast.

 

[00:42:26] On average, a well constructed plan diet has fewer calories in a day than a general American or meat based diet. It's, you know. The food is nutrition dense, but not very calorie dense. If you're eating big salads and beans and peas and grains, you will change up a little bit of use, too much extra virgin olive oil because of the density of calories. And you can bring it up. So we are some people talk about we are like leaning towards fasting naturally day after day after day, because even if it's two or three hundred calories a day, less than our compatriots are eating meat day after day after day, that is less of a metabolic stress on the body. But there is a magic to going a period of time and it may take three or four or even five days of reduced or no calories. I don't do no calorie fasting. I don't do water fasting. I could I'm healthy enough to some people are not healthy enough. Too frail to diabetic to nutritionally imbalanced for heart failure. Some people should. So Dr. Longo created this five day, 800 calorie day plant meal based program called the Fasting Mimicking Diet. That's a trademark name or prolon. That's a trademark. And I'm a big, big advocate because there's some magical responses when you deprive the body of glucose and protein for five days. And this program is a very low glucose, very low protein, high fat, high complex carbohydrate program. With all the food provided, you can you can inhibit some pathways that cause damage and aging. You can activate some pathways that cause rejuvenation, regeneration. You can stimulate stem cells. It's all very high level science. And you will see in 2020 that this particular program, fasting, mimicking diet, combined with cancer, chemotherapy, combined with other programs, is revolutionary, revolutionary, revolutionizing the way we're using nutrition as an adjunct to treating serious disease. But it's a perfectly great choice for somebody just wants to enhance their health. So, you know, there has not been a study. You've got a perfect plant based diet. Will adding on fasting give you some even further health advantage? But there are some people, as I mentioned, they're struggling, they're eating all food based diet, but their weight still isn't at target. Their blood pressure still isn't at Target. Doing fasting with that whole food plant based diet may be the key to turn on metabolism the way they want and get the results they want. Interesting.

 

[00:44:59] Yeah. And finally, we had just a general inquiry as to what your personal thoughts were. And there's been a lot of people a little bit more shocked than not regarding how little their personal doctors or cardiologists and specifically know about nutrition. And I'm wondering if you can speak to your own personal testament as to whether or not you feel like the majority of your colleagues are educated in the science of nutrition and particularly latter day nutrition.

 

[00:45:30] You know, the answer is generally no. There are some that are just completely resistant to the topic and you're not going to get them away from their steak and potato diet. There are some of the younger ones that just can't help but notice the game changers movie they heard about or Tennessee Titans football team or Serena Williams. I mean, it's just too much in the public culture. So they're aware and they may have done some readings from research. There's a growing number of plant based doctors and plant based cardiologists that as many as there should be. But it's growing. But it is frustrating. And again, when you walk into a hospital and there's a Wendy's or you walk in the doctor's dining room and there's fried chicken on a regular basis, you know that there's mixed messages and inconsistent education, that the board exams to become a doctor rarely have any nutrition questions. So that means the curriculum is not going to have much nutrition because one of the goals are going to training is to pass the darn test. And why spend too much time on a topic that's not been tested for? So there's a movement to get more nutrition questions on these board exams, forcing the curriculum to be more nutrition based. I think everybody listening should buy a copy of the plant based solution and gift it to their doctor and we can start a revolution. You know that it's going to take things like that. I mean, I've had the pleasure of giving grand rounds at cardiology departments on nutrition as recently as last week by Xoom and other ways. And it's frankly now 10 percent of the audience has any clue what I'm talking about. And the rest of them are just blown away that there's data about this. But are they blown away and they're going to make changes or are they blown away and they're on to the next topic? I'm only hopeful that it's altering some of their opinion about spend four minutes of your 20 minutes talking to people about nutrition or just tell them to watch forks overnight. I mean, that's what I did for years. I had 15 minutes. One minute was prescription pad. Please watch this movie. I usually actually had at that time DVD they could take home. Now it's just online. So one little statement to a patient can change your life forever.

 

[00:47:41] Is there any index to find or locate cardiologists who are open to or entertaining Vegan or vegetarian diets?

 

[00:47:50] A cardiologist, not exclusively. There is a website article on it called Plant Based Doctors Dot Org. And if you type in your zip code and twenty five mile radius, you know, it might be a therapist, it might be a nurse practitioner and it might be a general internist or cardiologist. But at least from the meetings I go to, there's a few dozen cardiologists, maybe, maybe there's one hundred, but that's out of thousands in the United States.

 

[00:48:18] That's terrifying. Well, I want to say thank you so much, Dr. Khan. We're out of time. I do appreciate you indulging me in our questions and unpacking your books. I really appreciate everything and all of your candor today.

 

[00:48:32] Well, I always appreciate the opportunity. I'm very passionate about talking about what we talked about as one, two, three, four, five people that are listening and maybe 10 times. And many are going to you'll find out something. And even if it's just that blood test lipoprotein little. Hey, but, you know, if you're eating plant based, you are making a quality decision. Don't give up. And if you're having a struggle with it, reach out to somebody in your community or, you know, my clinic does cancels. Let me help you figure out why I click in for you.

 

[00:49:00] Wonderful. Thank you for everyone listening. We've been speaking with Dr. Joel Klein. You can discover more about him, all of his research on W WW, Dr. Jill Concow. You can also purchase all of the books mentioned here on Amazon until we speak again next time.

 

[00:49:17] Remember to eat clean, eat responsibly, stay in love with the world and always bet on yourself. Slainte.