Overview
Research shows that adhering to four simple behaviors can prevent 80% of heart disease. They are: not smoking, exercising 3.5 hours a week, eating a healthy diet, and maintaining a healthy weight. Unfortunately, fewer than 3% of Americans meet this criteria. And while traditional medicine relies mainly on medication to treat and prevent heart disease, we know that the way you eat, how much you exercise, how you manage stress, and minimizing your exposure to environmental toxins can all be much more effective levers for treating and reducing the risk of heart disease.
In this episode, Dr. Hyman sits down with Dr. Cindy Geyer to discuss the Functional Medicine approach to treating heart disease. They dive into the root causes of inflammation, the role of cholesterol, insulin, and gut health in driving heart disease, and much more.
Dr. Cindy Geyer received her Bachelor of Science and her Doctor of Medicine degrees, with honors, from the Ohio State University. She completed residency in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. and is triple board-certified in internal medicine, integrative medicine, and lifestyle medicine. She joined The Ultrawellness Center in 2021 after practicing and serving as the medical director at Canyon Ranch for 23 years. She has served on the Board of Directors for the American College of Lifestyle Medicine and is a recently elected fellow of ACLM. Dr. Geyer has been a core faculty member at The Center for Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) for 20 years, teaching physicians and other healthcare professionals how to use food and lifestyle to address health concerns in their own lives and those of their patients. A clinician, educator, and avid hiker, she is passionate about collaborative approaches to health and wellness: from the integrative team model in working with individual patients to community partnerships that together can affect healthy changes in the places people live and work.
This episode is sponsored by ButcherBox and RupaHealth.
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Rupa Health is a place for Functional Medicine practitioners to access more than 2,000 specialty lab tests from over 20 labs like DUTCH, Vibrant America, Genova, Great Plains, and more. You can check out a free live demo with a Q&A or create an account at RupaHealth.com.
In this episode, Dr. Hyman and Dr. Geyer discuss:
- The four basic characteristics that predict low risk of heart disease
- What causes inflammation?
- Traditional vs. Functional Medicine approaches to testing for, diagnosing, and treating heart disease
- Why the quality and size of cholesterol matters
- The relationship between poor metabolic health and heart disease
- The role of insulin and gut microbiome health in driving cardiovascular disease
- How environmental toxins drive heart disease
- Patient cases that Drs. Hyman and Geyer have treated
- Sleep apnea and heart disease
- Eating for heart health
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