There are some big studies out and leave out some key points. This is a must-listen for anyone concerned about your heart, stroke potential, and overall body wellness. Ask your questions at questions@chalmerswellness.com and our team will get you the information you need. Dr. Matt Chalmers.

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:08] Hey, Welcome to Wellness Insights with Dr. Chalmers and I’m Dr. Chalmers. So today I want to talk a little bit about heart attacks and strokes. So lots and lots of people come in and they say, Oh, I’m good. I don’t have to worry about heart attacks and strokes my cholesterol’s where it’s supposed to be. That’s pointless.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:29] Cholesterol, Blood Cholesterol, Blood Lipid levels have nothing to do with heart attack and stroke. People woow, Well, it’s not a plaque made of cholesterol. Yeah, it is. But however much cholesterol you have in your blood is completely irrelevant to how much plaque your ended up having.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:00:47] If you care about your health, if you care about your your heart attack and stroke risk, you need to go get a Calcium C.T.. If you’re working with somebody and they draw your blood and they tell you what your cholesterol is and then they try to make any reference to heart or blood vessel health. So plaking, heart attack, stroke, something like that, you need to not listen to them.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:10] They don’t know what they’re talking about there probably trying to just sell you drugs, statin drugs, that type of thing. Quit. Quit talking to them.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:19] What you want to do is you want to go get a cCalcium CT, take Calcium. C.T. is an X-ray of the chest that shows how much plaque is in and around the chest, around the arteries. If you have a specific worry about your the blood vessels in the veins and arteries, in your neck or in your femur down around your groin, give me a Doppler ultrasound. You guys can do that pretty easily those aren’t super expensive you can do them with dye you can do all sorts of fancy ways, but start with just the normal Doppler that will tell you the plaque that’s coming out of there.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:01:49] .Now. There’s a big study that came out that talked about how a lot of people who had heart attacks and strokes and actually died from them had on autopsy good or normal cholesterol levels.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:02] And so people were trying to figure out how is that jive? I thought that cholesterol was the thing. What actually causes parking is inflammation. So it would be quick, quick rundown of what we normally really see.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:17] See in an increase in what’s called reactive oxidative stress or free radicals. So those things go through the body and they beat up the blood vessel and, you know, they cause it to weep things like tissue factor, heparin, fibrinogen and things like that sorry fibrinogen that happened.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:34] .And what ends up happening is that any cholesterol in the area, whether you have low cholesterol in the blood, high cholesterol, the blood, whatever it is, it sticks to that chemical that comes out because again, of the reaction of oxidative stress.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:02:49] So now we start forming this patch, this this plaque over where the damage to the blood vessel was. And as that cholesterol starts to bind, it gets stickier and the stuff starts seeping through even more. So the plaque gets thicker and thicker and thicker over time.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:06] So instead of cutting back on the amount of cholesterol we take in or taking drugs that shut down our liver’s ability to create cholesterol, which then shuts down hormone function D3 function CoQ10 which puts a massive, massive pressure on the heart.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:24] What we should do is we should look at one do we have blocking with Calcium C.T? Yes or No? And again, I don’t care what your cholesterol levels are. If you do that, we need to start massively increasing oxygenation.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:36] My first choice be Hyperbaric it’s a little expensive there $10,000 to get one, get one and stick it in your house use it, you know, four or five times a week it will fix your issues over time.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:03:46] The other one, we use nitrous oxide it’s a supliment that works really well. Nitrous oxide increases oxygenation throughout the body and that oxygen will help kill in the nature of things. CoQ10 is another great one. Bio flavonoids, the color part of fruits. If you’re a Keto, you can still take them as a supplement, don’t worry.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:03] So those type of things, we got to get that reactive oxidative stress as free radicals, denatured and flushed out of the body obviously, extra water waters can be a piece of this. If you’re low on testosterone, we might want to talk about testosterone everything will heal. But the number one thing is we got to get the ROS out.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:20] Now, what is one of the main causes of this Sleep Apnea, if you have a sleep study and it shows that you’ve got apnea, don’t screw around going to CPAP and alleviate the problem of the apnea, which is decrease oxygenation.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:36] So. At the end of the day, if you look at yourself and you say, I am in fact worried one day about maybe having a heart attack or a stroke, Cool. I’m going to calcium ct see what your number is. Even if you’re not worried, I’ll get one they’re not very expensive. Like I’ve seen them for anywhere from 100 to $1000 it could save your life go get it.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:04:55] Half a million people a year die from heart issues 300,000 of them are women. Here’s the fun thing. We’ve all heard about breast cancer before. We talked about breast cancer. You can’t go anywhere without hearing about it at least once a week.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:08] 40 to 50000 women a year die from breast cancer and we hear about it all the time. 300,000 women a year die from heart disease. How many times have you heard about a calcium ct?

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:20] Most people the first time I talk about the first time they’ve heard about it. Most of the time, a lot of these women who are quote unquote fit and healthy, they’ve never had a sleep study. I make me forget when all of a sudden we find out they’ve got Apnea. These are the things that are killing people, not cholesterol levels in your blood.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:35] So if you if you want to worry about heart attack and stroke calcium, c.t. Doppler ultrasound, pull your plans. Panel blood pannels for inflammation, not for cholesterol and then we can kind of move on.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:49] Now here. I do want to throw this out because we’re talking about heart attacks in terms of cholesterol so that drugs are quite possibly the worst possible thing you can put in your body, especially for heart attacks and strokes.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:05:59] So let’s say you you you don’t do a Calcium C.T. and you just decide because you have mildly high or high cholesterol that you’re going to take a statin. What happens? Well, it shuts down your liver’s ability to create cholesterol however, it also shuts down your body’s ability to utilize CoQ10.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:19] CoQ10 is how we make ATP. ATP is how we make the heart work. So you’re cutting off the major fuel source to the heart in order to protect the heart. That makes literally zero sense to me. That’s dumb. Cocu ten is also one of the most powerful antioxidants, which means it kills free radicals.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:42] Remember that reactive oxidative stress issue we were talking about? More CoQ10 less ROS. So again, if we’re worried about placking, removing CoQ10 is literally the last possible thing you’d want to do.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:06:54] It also shuts down cholesterol function well, what do we use cholesterol for besides placking Hormones all of them Testosterone, Estrogen, all of them. Well, what makes the heart heal? Testosterone it’s the healing hormone.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:08] So. All right. So we’re going to decrease health of the heart, the regeneration, the healing of the heart and the healing and the regeneration of the blood vessels. And in order to increase heart health, that that makes no sense to me.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:23] And then we go through and what else do cholesterol drugs do? They screw up D3 function. What does D3 do? D3 tells your body, Hey, see that calcium iron, absorb that, bring it over here. We need to make more bone out of it. Hey, see that sodium absorb that sodium brings to the heart we need to make sure that sodium get it channels function properly.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:42] So, again, food for your heart Ions for your heart things that make your heart function are being suppressed because you don’t have D3.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:07:52] So by taking cholesterol drugs, we’re going to decrease the testosterone to heal the heart. We’re going to decrease the amount of ions that go to the heart to make it work through D3, and we’re going to decrease the overall fuel supply that we need CoQ10 for.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:08] We’re also going to increase free radical damage, which increases plaque issues because we’re removing CoQ10 as well.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:15] This is a terrible plan, guys this is legitimately the worst plan I have ever heard in my entire life. And you if people come into my office feeling like trash because they’re on statin drugs and I send them for calcium ct and their calcium ct is zero, which means they have no planning at all. But they’ve been on statin drugs for two years because nobody did the right tests to begin with.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:38] And so now these people have to be on testosterone they don’t have a choice. They have to take tons of supplements. They’ve got to slowly come off their statin drugs. It’s a giant, giant pain in the ass that was created just because someone thought that cholesterol levels in the blood somehow meant that you were going to have a heart attack or stroke. NO!

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:08:56] Now, on the other side of this, don’t think for a second that because your cholesterol levels are low or good, that you’re not going to have a heart attack or stroke. You might lots of people die every year thinking that they’re safe and they’re not.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:11] So go get these studies done and if you don’t have anybody to walk you through them, get a hold of us now I will help walk you through them. But you should be able to find somebody to help you get through these studies.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:22] Now the only caveat to that is if you go to your primary care physician and you say, Hey, Doc, I’ve been with you for five years, can you get me a Calcium C.T.? And he says sure. but the hospital, it’s just one floor below us and he sends you for calcium C.T. and it comes back and you have a problem.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:40] Why did he never do that before? or She. Why didn’t they do that? It’s super easy. Well, you know, we were like, Well, that’s not what we do on a daily basis that’s not what I do as kind of on a daily basis as a nutrition guy that’s what I do on a daily basis.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:09:57] The reason I’ve chosen to do it, even though it’s a kind of a pain in my ass, I make no money out of it. The reason I’m trying to do is because I’m taking care of people and I don’t want to look at you and say, I’ve done my best to take care of you and your family and then have someone have a heart attack and they go, Oh, sure, Calcium CT. Why the hell didn’t you tell me that when my dad was alive?

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:19] So when people come to me and they’re like, What should I do? I’ll tell you and I’m not going to care about finances. Like, if something cost 100 bucks or 100 grand, I’m going to tell you what I think is best. You make your decisions on finances, but I’m not going to withhold something from you for whatever reason and then have you die six months later.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:40] If I tell you, you should get a Calcium C.T., like I’m telling everybody here, don’t work with me work with us don’t care go get a Calcium C.T. tomorrow if you haven’t had one.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:10:48] Now, if you choose not to do that and you have a heart attack and die in six months, I’m going to feel bad. I’m not going to feel as bad. I’ve done my job. I’ve told you what to do. I’ve given you the information.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:02] If you’re not going to take the personal responsibility to Google it and find me to do it for you. If you’re not going to call your Doc and say, Doc, help me out I don’t know what to tell you. But these are critical tests to get done don’t worry about your blood level. If your doctors pushing you through pressure, you try to get you to cholesterol drugs and you tell them you want to do calcium CT. And he says, no, find another doctor. That’s. That’s all I can tell you. Don’t. Don’t. Let’s see.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:29] If your calcium C.T. comes back bad and you got high cholesterol, you might need to be on drugs. I’m not telling you never on drugs. I’m just telling you get a calcium ct first and if you’re a zero, you’ve got some time figure out how to fix the other issues first.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:43] If your cholesterol’s good and your calcium ct is crap and your doctor goes, we’re gonna put you on some drugs. So we figure this out. Cool. Great plan. Jump on those drugs, man. Figure it out. Fix the issue, then come off.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:11:54] But don’t don’t just jump on there willy nilly. Figure out what’s actually going on in the Calcium CT.can be the way to do that. So that’s my big piece that’s my soapbox on cholesterol drugs, statin drugs and calcium.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:12:08] So if you haven’t gotten the calcium, make sure you get one. If you’re on certain drugs and you have a lot of calcium ct, see to go tomorrow and get a calcium ct.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:12:17] If you have very low or little lacking in the artery, you might want to talk to a cardiologist or you might want to talk to somebody about getting off those statin drugs and kind of rebuilding your life.

Dr Matt Chalmers [00:12:25] So if you guys have any other questions hit us up at Questions@ChalmersWellness.com and we’ll get them all knocked out. Thanks.

Ask your Questions at Questions@Chalmerswellness.com