Welcome to Dr. Warrick's podcast channel. Warrick is a practicing cardiologist and author with a passion for improving care by helping patients understand their heart health through education. Warrick believes educated patients get the best health care. Discover and understand the latest approaches and technology in heart care and how this might apply to you or someone you love. Hi, my name is Dr Warrick Bishop and I'd like to welcome you to my podcast and videocast station and of course to the Healthy Heart Network. Today I'd like to touch on a question that was put to me, which is what would a cardiologist say to their grandchild? Well, if I were to have the chance to sit down with my grandchild and give them some insight into how I would like them. to live their lives not only for cardiovascular disease prevention but for just general good outcome. I would say life is short and make the most of it. Opportunities come and go. Time is precious. Please don't waste it. I would tell my grandchildren that depression is a significant contributor to coronary artery disease and optimism is a serious protective agent when it comes to heart attack and stroke. So please keep your chin up, please keep that optimism happening and keep finding new challenges and excitement every day. I would say know your genes, know the family strengths and weaknesses. Some families have premature coronary artery disease in the family. Some families have high cholesterol in association with that. Some families have a history of early cancer. Whatever that risk might be for your family, be aware of it and be proactive, not reactive. Don't put your head in the sand and think, well, it's just a family thing and I don't want to know about it. Go and get checked out. The amazing thing these days is that we can do great things if we are given the chance to put preventative strategies in place. See your doctor, share that history and ask what needs to be done. I would be telling my grandchildren to focus on their lifestyle. Exercise is great. Do it as much as you can and enjoy it. Our research tells us that regular exercise is as effective as a mild antidepressant medication. So keep yourself Keep your mood up, keep regularly exercising and really it will pay dividends in the long term. If you can exercise and look after your mind then you might be someone who enjoys yoga and the flexibility to do that with some regularity there's no question health benefits will flow. As part of your lifestyle you must look after your weight. keeping a healthy weight is critical and my strong recommendation is that you become aware around your ideal weight and once you start to move a little bit from that respond to bring that weight back there is no doubt that letting your weight drift only one or two kilos and then bringing it back is much easier than letting it drift five or ten kilos and then trying to make amends so please Keep it front of mind. Keep a healthy weight. Keep active. Keep positive. When it comes to what you put in your mouth, the fuel you're going to choose for your body, then the data these days is really supporting the role of a Mediterranean style diet, particularly olive oils, particularly supported by things like mixed nuts. With that fish, with that plenty of greens, I generally invite people to keep their carbohydrates down because carbohydrates represent sugars and I think minimising sugars in the longer term always makes a bit of sense. When it comes to your drinks and your beverages, of course sugary drinks should be out or at least recognised as a treat. Tea, coffee in moderation are very acceptable. most situations. Some people with palpitations of their heart or some people with blood pressure may be very sensitive to coffee or even the caffeine in tea and for that reason it may need to be moderated but most of the time a couple of cups here and there is really quite acceptable for most cardiac related issues. And then there's alcohol. Well most of our research would say if you drink too much it's not good for you and that makes perfect sense. There probably is a sweet spot where one or two glasses a day for men and maybe one glass a day for women is likely to be beneficial. And generally I will say to people, if you do enjoy your alcohol, halve your consumption but double the quality of what you're drinking. I think one or two glasses of wine at the end of the day to help relax, lowers blood pressure, can alter your cholesterol profile. It can even alter... some of your inflammatory markers in the body. So alcohol, small amounts, too much will raise blood pressure or raise heart rate, won't be a good thing. The other thing I'd tell my grandchildren is to make sure you maintain your body as you maintain your car. Keep in touch with your general practitioner from time to time. Do get your blood pressure checked. This is so important. Do get your blood sugars checked on a regular basis. Again, we need to know where they are. And lastly, get your cholesterol checked. This gives us all sorts of insight into what may be ahead. Of course, my own grandchildren, I would tell about imaging the heart because this is one of the things that I'm particularly interested in. And there may be situations where taking scans of the heart may provide more information about best management. preventative strategies into the future. So for my grandchildren, I hope they go out and live a long, healthy, exciting and optimistic life. I hope they look after themselves. I hope they understand the limitations of the genes they've received. I hope they enjoy good, healthy, nourishing food, particularly with good oils, good nuts and plenty of greens. But if they do drink alcohol, They enjoy good quality and a little bit. And I hope they keep locked in with their doctor for a good maintenance strategy. Well, I guess that's my advice to you as well. I'm going to wish you the very best. And until next time, please don't die from a heart attack. Goodbye. You have been listening to another podcast from Dr. Warrick. Visit his website at drWarrickbishop.com for the latest news on heart disease. If you love this podcast, feel free to leave us a review.
