The Weekly Show: 2/8/25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to the weekly show here on iHeartRadio
on ninety three nine LIGHTFM, one O three five Kiss FM,
and Rock ninety five to five. Today, I'm the Show Melissa.
Four min chats with Susan Rocky's communication and product program
for Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana, and
Army staff Surgeon Cody mcale and Master Resilience Trainer will
also offer tips for combating loneliness as well. And February

(00:23):
is American Heart Month and heart disease happens to be
the number one cause of death for Americans. So here
to discuss this with us is doctor Clyde Yancey, Chief
of Cardiology, Northwestern Medicine, Bloom Cardiovascular Institute. Let's kick off
the show.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
There are headlines on a regular basis. Public health officials
like the Surgeon General is called attention to what he
refers to as the epidemic of loneliness and isolation in
our country. If you're constantly surrounded by family and friends,
I salute you. Sadly, there are millions of Americans who
don't have that support system. The question is how do
we deal with it? How do we combat it? Let's

(00:57):
bring in an expert to discuss it. Staff Sergeant Cody
McCall is an Army soldier a master resilience trainer. Staff Sergeant,
thank you for your time.

Speaker 3 (01:04):
Oh thank you for having me this morning.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
Let me start off by asking you what is a
master resilience trainer.

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Master resiliency training is just one of the many programs
we have here in the Army. So it teaches us
how to be more resilient. So there's a many, many
different steps that you kind of learn. The one that
most people know is how to hunt the good stuff. It's,
you know, if you have a bad situation, how can
you take that situation and see the brighter which is

(01:31):
one thing that many many people don't really have a
very good grasp on. Normally, when something bad happens, they
do another one of the skills called catastrophizing and they
just keep spiraling or like thinking of all those worst
case scenarios. So it's always, you know, it's intriguing. Sometimes
it gets you know, teach these people how to use
these skills as a resiliency trainer, you know, make them

(01:52):
better for the future and in their lives.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
I think for some people, Staff Sergeant it might be
hard to understand that you could be surrounded by people
and still be lonely or feel alone, or you could
be alone and not necessarily feel lonely. Is that right?

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Speaking personally, it is one percent right. You know, technology
is absolutely amazing in this world. There's so many ways
to connect with people. But I first hand know what
it's like to be alone. You know, I live alone there.
You know there there was points where I didn't even
want to live on the world anymore. Like I one
hundred percent know what it's like to be alone.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Tell me about that journey. Then how do you get
from that point where you didn't even want to be
on the world alone to now that you're doing what
you do when helping others who've been who were in
that place.

Speaker 3 (02:39):
So kind of to paint the picture, I guess to
really put it in. So a few years ago I
lost my god daughter and they lived with me for
three of the five years of her life, and it
was just one of those things like I didn't know
how to cover. I called my boss and I told her,
I was like, I'm not I'm not coming to work today.
And I hung at the phone about forty five minutes later,

(03:01):
she was banging on my door, and at the time
I told her everything was okay. In small sight, it
really was not. So it was at that time I
kind of like took two days where I really grieved.
I mean, we all have to take that time. But
then I kind of like looked back on all of
the things that I had learned, whether it's from that

(03:23):
mass resiliency training, whether it's through my you know, the
religious side of my life, and I kind of tried
to piece everything back together. So I used a lot
of those skills that I learned in that mass of
resiliency training, but I also use some of the other
amazing programs we have here in the Army. I went
over to, you know, my friends over at the BOSS Program,
did some stuff with them. I kind of started to

(03:43):
do those little pieces, one little step at a time,
to pull myself out of that not so great area.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
I want to talk about the BOSS Program and some
of the other things that you do and that you
implement there in the military. We're speaking with Staff Sergeant
Cody McCauley's an Army soldier man, a resilience trainer. But
what you just told me brings up something interesting that
I discussed quite often, and it is mental health issues
not only within law enforcement, but also among members of

(04:10):
our military. And you are in this macho atmosphere, right,
Men aren't supposed to talk about their feelings, much less
say something like you're sad or lonely. How do you
combat that? Because I think that may be even the
greater issue in dealing with this problem.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
No, So, you know, you bring up a really good point.
And a lot of my friends are law enforcement. You know,
obviously I'm a military guy. I'm around military people all
day long, and I hid that I was hurting for
the longest time. You know, like you just said, as men,
it's not something that we're comfortable doing.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
It's vulnerable.

Speaker 3 (04:45):
Sometimes it's not in a man's vocabulary. So I remember
when I reached out for help that first time. It
was it was super inspiring because when I reached out
for help, then my phone just started flooding with all
of the you know, my other male friends saying hey,
I'm feeling the same thing. You know, one of the
greatest things as being a man is accepting the fact

(05:08):
that it's okay to not be okay sometimes. You know,
I know a lot of very influential people that are
very honest and open about it is one hundred percent
okay to not be okay sometimes.

Speaker 2 (05:20):
The United States Army is dedicated to tackling this problem
of loneliness in our country. Look, technology has made us
more connected than ever before, but according to the CDC,
as many as one in three Americans still experience symptoms
of loneliness. And how how big a problem do you
find that that people are so attached to their technology

(05:41):
that we don't have that human to human contact like
we might have forty years ago when I.

Speaker 3 (05:45):
Was a kid. You know, you made a great point,
and it's one of the things I like to harp on.
So don't take this as me bashing social media. I'm
on it. I love it, you know, it's part of,
you know, my everyday life. But you also said a
very good point that I agree with. You know, when
I was growing up, you know, I'm early thirties, so

(06:05):
you know, right on that cusp of technology coming out.
But some of my greatest childhood memories growing up in
a small town in northern Ohio was going outside and
you knew you had to be home by the time
the streetlights come on. If you weren't home by the
time the streetlights come on. There was a pillow and
a blanket sitting on the porch. Mom would see you
in the morning. But the other thing that I loved

(06:26):
about growing on up in that timeframe was, you know,
technology was growing. I remember on Saturday mornings, we'd go,
you know, over to my neighbor's house and we would
grab two extension cords. We would grab you know, a
little you know at the time box TV, and we
grabbed the GameCube and we'd literally run the extension cord
out to the treehouse and we would play Mario Kart

(06:47):
with our you know, little circle of friends out in
the treehouse. You know, that was just something that was
normal to us. Now I can send a message to
those same exact friends and we can all sit from
the comforts of our couch, some of us five to
seven states apart, and do the same thing, but not
say one word to each other.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, I'm much older than you are. I was growing
up in the seventies, so we didn't even have those
things to turn to. But you do bring up an
extra excellent point, and it seems like it's the younger
generations that are experiencing these these incredibly increased levels of
loneliness isolation. We saw it really kind of blow up
during the pandemic. So what can be done about it?
What are you able to do about it?

Speaker 3 (07:27):
So personally, I always reach out to friends. There's a
lot of things that you can do. You know, all
of these communities have social events, activities going on. One
of the amazing things we have about being in the
Army is there's many things that you can turn to.
You know, we have the frgs, we have the amazing
programs that you know, like the Boss program that I

(07:49):
mentioned earlier that can kind of help get you in
and Taylor to you know, if you're an outdoorsman, you
can go to your outdoor recks do stuff with them.
There's all of these programs that can get you out
from you know, not just sitting in your house all
day long.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
Explain these things, and for listeners that want to find
out more about this and how the Army supported soldiers,
you could go to go Army dot com. That is
the website. We've got a few more minutes here with
Staff Sergeant Cody McCall. How do Army programs like the
Master Resilience training that you've been through and explain what
the BOSS program is as well. How do how do
those impact the wellbeing of soldiers?

Speaker 3 (08:27):
So Master Resiliency training, it really teaches, you know, us
to teach our peers a wide variety of skills, you know,
whether it's introducing that self awareness, that self regulation, optimism,
you know, all of that stuff to help us build
a more resilient force. Then the BOSS program, it holds
a very dear place in my heart. But what we
do is, you know, tailor to that eighteen to twenty

(08:49):
five year old first time away from home and help
introduce them to a lot of the you know, local
activities where they are, but also teach them a lot
of the things that just really aren't anymore home. It's
not a thing from what I'm hearing, So you know,
its main target is to enhance their morale and their
welfare for their first duty stations.

Speaker 2 (09:09):
Going back to what we originally talked about. And again,
you grew up and are living through a different time
than I did. I remember when I first went away
for army training back in the late eighties. Very different
world than we live in today, but I remember those
first I don't know the first month or two, even
though I was surrounded by other guys my age who
were going through the same thing, I felt incredibly lonely.

(09:32):
And your mind does crazy things to you when you're
in that moment. And it wasn't until I made a
personal connection with a couple of the other guys in
my company, in my platoon that I started kind of
feeling like myself again. Is that a normal experience for people?

Speaker 5 (09:48):
You know?

Speaker 3 (09:49):
It is? You know, personally, I've been a drill science
so like I've seen just about every aspect of army life,
whether it's you know, those the soldiers getting introduced to
you know, at the time, the shark attacks. I've been,
you know, a drill pre and post shark attack. But
seeing them go from I'm so excited to be here

(10:11):
until the first word comes out of the drill sartn't
mouth and then they're here for their life. Yeah, I've
seen all of it. So, you know, the biggest thing
that they can do is just get out there, just
talk to somebody. You know, you don't need a little
mobile device to get to know somebody. You can actually
go up and use this thing that you're given. It's

(10:31):
called a mouth and actually talk to people.

Speaker 2 (10:34):
Yeah, and that applies whether you're in the military or not.
Many people obviously were at the beginning of New Year.
What are some techniques that can apply to anybody, no
matter what situation they're in, to kind of encourage belonging, right,
so to help people feel like they're not alone.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
You know, I think about that all the all the time,
and you know, coming up to prepping to sitting here
with you, one of the things that I would honestly
ourage to everybody is just prioritize those authentic connections. You know,
we mentioned it earlier. You and I kind of grew
up in that era where there wasn't really technology. So

(11:11):
you know, call a friend and say, hey, you want
to meet up for coffee? Hey do you want to
meet up? And you know, go for a walk, Hey
do you want to meet up and really just sit
there awkwardly because none of us know how to have
social conversations. Prioritize those authentic conversations because you know, emotions
are real and they're really hard to detect through technology.

Speaker 2 (11:33):
Talking last thing for you, what can a parent a
grandparent do if they kind of sense that kind of
loneliness in their child or grandchild.

Speaker 3 (11:45):
So that is going to be a very difficult one.
Speaking personally, my mom asked me if I was all
right because she sensed that something wasn't right, And it's
just one of those things you're not going to feel
comfortable telling your parent. So if you know, if I
was a parent, I would encourage them to try and

(12:05):
get them to open up. It is going to be hard.
It took me almost a whole year to open up
about why I was down. But you just have to
kind of take those small steps. If you feel that
there's an urgent crisis, there's places to go for that.
Sometimes that person child, whether you know they're a child,
young adult, post adult, they're not going to feel comfortable

(12:27):
in that first time. Give it a second time. I
wasn't comfortable my first time going in, right, Give them
that second opportunity because at first opportunity to talking to
someone is going to be awkward.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
And don't just drop it either, right, Yes, you have.

Speaker 3 (12:41):
To keep with it. You can't just go that once
be like Nope, it was awkward, I'm not going back.
You had to have that mental fortitude to go back
that second time and then keep going.

Speaker 2 (12:50):
Our listeners can go to go army dot com to
find out more about how the Army supports its soldiers,
and we could find a lot of information. They're a
staff sergeant. That doesn't just apply to the military. Correct.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
That is very correct.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
All right, Staff Sergeant Cody McCall, thank you very much
for your time. Thank you very much for your service
as well.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Sir, thank you you too.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Sorry for calling you sir. It tabit, It's just a
respect thing. I appreciate the time, bro it.

Speaker 6 (13:15):
Yeah, hold on, we need this little Dinny Stout cookies.
Thank you for you. Are you singing, Susan?

Speaker 4 (13:23):
Oh?

Speaker 5 (13:24):
Absolutely?

Speaker 6 (13:25):
Do you know that song by heart?

Speaker 4 (13:27):
Or no?

Speaker 5 (13:27):
I'm singing and dancing and I could teach you so
many Girl Scouts songs. You're a whole time on the radio.
We could just sing girls Stout Cookie song.

Speaker 6 (13:36):
I love it. I might remember them from wearing that
little green uniform.

Speaker 5 (13:39):
You never know, all bet you will.

Speaker 6 (13:41):
So we have my friend, my dear friend, Susan is
on Susan Rachis from the Girl Scouts. Yay, Susan, I
have you on every year because it is officially cookie time, cookie.

Speaker 5 (13:55):
Time, and I'm it is cookie time.

Speaker 6 (13:57):
I told you already that I'm like five boxes in
it's bad. And I don't mean just ordering them. I
mean like I've eaten five.

Speaker 5 (14:05):
Well you know what me too, I've until five minutes
already I have right out of the freezer. You can't
have a better cookie than that.

Speaker 6 (14:12):
It's the best. All right, let's I wanted everyone to
know where can we get Girl Scout cookies? If we
don't know a Girl Scout, just tell us a little
bit about what's going on. What do we got to The.

Speaker 5 (14:21):
First thing I wanted to say was definitely go and
check out your neighborhood and see if there's any Girl
Scouts that you do know. If not, you may see
them at millions of booths that we have all across
the Chicago land and Northwest Indiana area. And then what
we do is we also have one online where you
can go to Gscookies noow dot com, put in your
zip code and all these booths come up, so you

(14:44):
can get cookies anywhere almost anytime.

Speaker 6 (14:47):
GS as a Girl Scout cookies. Now, So like if
you're sitting at home and you're starving, like what do
I do? Will you go to GS? Like Girls Scouts cookies,
So gscookies now dot com and then you can gragg
Oh wow.

Speaker 5 (15:00):
So convenient. And there's so many kids out there, thousands
of kids out with their cookies right now.

Speaker 6 (15:05):
Is there a new cookie this year? I think we
have all just the good time standards, right.

Speaker 5 (15:09):
Yeah, well it's a good time standards. But I can
give you a little secret. I love the secrets. Yeah,
me too. I don't tell anybody.

Speaker 6 (15:17):
I will tell I don't know anyone.

Speaker 5 (15:18):
No one can know.

Speaker 6 (15:19):
Nobody listening would tell anyone. All five of people listening,
they won't tell anyone.

Speaker 5 (15:24):
Oh yeah, there's millions of them because I get calls
after these interviews. Take good whatores? This is the last
year for some moores? I know. Yeah, yes, So make
sure that you buy as many as you can fit
in your freezer because this is going to be it's
Oh yeah, I forgot.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
We talked about that in the news. I did bring
that up.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
Oh you did.

Speaker 6 (15:46):
Oh yeah, I can't believe it. But now I have
to put mine in the freezer, buy more.

Speaker 5 (15:49):
Yes, exactly, exactly. So yeah, and then next year we're
going to get a new cookie, and we don't have
any kind of inkling of what it is yet, hopefully
we'll find out soon, all right.

Speaker 6 (16:00):
Also tell me really quick, thin Mint Frosty is coming
to Wendy's. They did finally confirm it, right.

Speaker 5 (16:06):
It is. I know what I think. I really think, Melissa,
that they must have gotten it from me because I'm
always dipping thin mint cookies and ice cream. They must
have seen me do it.

Speaker 6 (16:19):
Right, Yeah, you could dip anything into frosty. So those
are going to be a va and that'll help out
the Girl Scouts too, I'm assuming, right.

Speaker 5 (16:26):
Absolutely absolutely all right, and just even talking about cookies
helps the Girl Scouts. So I really appreciate these opportunities
you give us, and I hope I get to see
you real soon handing you your cookie order.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
I love you, Susan. I love the Girl Scouts, and
I love everyone who supports them. Gscookies NOOW dot com.

Speaker 5 (16:45):
And you guys.

Speaker 6 (16:46):
Still waiting on my excessive eating patch that I earned.
But it's fine, all right, you hold on Gscookies NOOW
dot com. We love the Girl Scouts.

Speaker 2 (16:57):
February is American heart month, and heart disease happens to
be the number one cause of death for Americans, Yet
more than half of us don't even really know what
it is. So how about we get some clarity on it,
why it's so deadly in our country, and what we
should all know about being able to take better health,
the better care of ourselves and our loved ones. Let's
bring in doctor Clyde Yancey. He's chief of Cardiology, Northwestern Medicine,

(17:20):
Blum Cardiovascular Institute. Doctor Yancey, I appreciate the time.

Speaker 4 (17:25):
Happy to be here, Mannie, Thank you so much. Bill.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
Let me start off with this, what exactly is heart
disease and what are the different types?

Speaker 4 (17:33):
Mannie. Let's think about the way you framed this to
begin with. You talked about this being a deadly condition.
Let's let the first takeaway for the audience be this,
It doesn't have to be a deadly condition. Let me
tell you what heart disease is so we can start
from the same point. Anytime the heart are blood vessels,
and particularly the two together are functioning abnormally, we are

(17:55):
at risk for heart conditions. What does that mean? It
means heart attacks, it means strokes, it means heart failure,
it means a regular heart rhythms. You can see that
there are any number of ways in which heart disease
can be experienced. But it all starts from a floor,
a floor of any scenario, any circumstance where the heart
or blood vessels are the two together are no longer healthy.

Speaker 2 (18:17):
Why is heart to use the number one cause of
death here in our country? What makes it so widespread?

Speaker 4 (18:24):
So that definition allows us to really address what's important.
When the vessels become unhealthy, when the heart becomes unhealthy,
we start to have these conditions, and because of our lifestyle,
in particular, because of the way in which we engage
with our communities of our society, it means that we
have these burdens of risk. It also means that these

(18:44):
burdens are risk and modifiable. What are those risk factors?
Thinking about how we engage in life, Smoking definitely a
risk factor, high blood pressure, obesity, our dietary choices, physical inactivity.
We need to understand all of them, taken together, put
us at risk. In add family history to that, and
now you can begin to understand that is this whole

(19:05):
assortment of different exposures that puts us at risk for
these heart conditions, but they all are modifiable, and that's
the really good messaging We want to share.

Speaker 2 (19:13):
Is this a uniquely American problem? Do they have the
same levels of heart disease in other countries for example?

Speaker 4 (19:21):
Yeah, heart conditions vary across the world. It turns out
that high blood pressure is the number one heart condition worldwide,
but in all communities, particularly in westernized communities Northern Europe,
for example, the Pacific Rim, we see the same kind
of profile of heart disease. But this is not just
in economically resourced countries. Low and middle income countries are

(19:42):
having more and more awareness of heart disease in their
communities as well. So let's think about this. Heart disease
is ubiquitous, it doesn't vary according to geography in any
great extent. We should all hear these messages.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
I'm guessing one of the problems is that so many
of us, and especially men in our conry, try to
avoid visiting the doctor at every turn, and there's early
warning signs and symptoms that people often probably overlook as well.

Speaker 4 (20:09):
No, so there are three things embedded in what you
just said, Manny. The first is that because we're so
intimidate about the deadliness of heart disease, then we kind
of de select, we kind of step away. That's part
of the hesitancy. I wouldn't just drop that on the
back of men. The other thing is that we don't
elevate the risk of women nearly enough. We need to
do that because the risk factors apply for both sexists.

(20:32):
So that's yet again another very important thing. If we're
talking about how do we address this condition.

Speaker 2 (20:38):
You mentioned men and women there, but I do know
heart disease is a different between the two.

Speaker 4 (20:44):
So let's get to this issue of signs and symptoms
and the way it becomes we might say manifest, So
the way you might say it becomes experienced, it is
experienced differently in men versus women. That is correct. That's
why we need to have these conversations, and so that
women recogniz is that anytime they feel not at ease,
not well, particularly in the central chest, we should think

(21:06):
immediately about heart conditions, whether it's typical or not. For
healthcare providers and particularly for doctors like myself, we should
realize that women can have different presentations than they can have.
So that's important across the board. Though, what are the
signs and symptoms, well, the symptoms of what you experience.
If you're experiencing just discomfort of any sort. If you're

(21:26):
experiencing inexplicable or uncertain amounts of weakness, that requires a conversation.
If you have any shortness of breath that requires a conversation,
palpitations that requires a conversation. The conversation is with your
health care provider, your doctor, your family practitioner, the people
that help you restore your health and improve your health.
Those are the symptoms. The signs are things that we

(21:48):
identify at the bedside. What's your blood pressure, what's your
clusterol level, what does your heart examination sound like? We
put the two together and then we'll be able to
understand who's at risk and what can we do about it.

Speaker 2 (22:00):
What are the biggest misconceptions about heart disease?

Speaker 4 (22:02):
Doctor, There are several misconceptions that we just have to
eliminate right now. Women are at risk for disease. That's
incredibly important. But the second misconception is two people. Too
many times people feel as if there's nothing you can
do about it. That's wrong. Eighty percent of heart disease
is preventable. The third thing people think, well, they're just

(22:22):
going to prescribe a pill, a dual procedure. No, so
much can be done with lifestyle so that you can
control this on your own. So those are three very
immediate mess that I want to dismiss. Women do have
heart disease. There is something we can do about it.
Eighty percent of it is preventable and it doesn't always
require a drug ard procedure. Lifestyle coaching, lifestyle changes can

(22:46):
make a difference.

Speaker 2 (22:46):
I want to get back to that lifestyle thing in
just a moment. Here we're speaking with doctor Clyde Yancey,
Chief of Cardiology, Northwestern Medicine Blum Cardiovascular Institute. Why is
American Heart Month so important? And drawing attention to heart disease?
And what has been the impact of heart disease awareness?

Speaker 4 (23:06):
So two important things in your question, and the keyboard
was attention. One of the unique things about having a
designated window like February as Heart Month is because it
gets all of us to centralize our conversations first about
the heart, yes, but more broadly about our health. That's
incredibly important because health is our most precious asset. When

(23:28):
we have health, we can do anything. If we don't
have our health, there's nothing we can do. So that's
the first thing. But the second part of the question
is really quite insightful. What can we do about it?
What's been the result of this awareness. It turns out
that over the last three decades, we've seen a fifty
percent decrease in deaths due to heart disease. We should

(23:48):
celebrate that, we should applaud that, but we also see
a worrisome increase in the burden of risk, and those
curves are going to begin to change. So that's why
Heart Month is great because it's allowed us to get
the message out and we've seen this reduction. But Heart
Month is also necessary because we see more risk factors
coming along.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
One of those reasons I imagine that we've made such
great strides, as you mentioned over the last three decades,
is not only the diagnosis.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
But treatment exactly. We've been able to do more for
heart disease than ever before. The therapies we have the
procedures are incredibly effective, again than ever before, but also
for prevention. But we also know this that reduction in
depth due to heart disease, over half of that has
come from heart healthy messaging, taking subs to prevent heart disease.

(24:38):
Treatments are terrific today, better than they've ever been, but
prevention is powerful as well.

Speaker 2 (24:43):
Let's go back and talk about something you've already mentioned,
but I want to re reiterated the biggest risk factors
for heart disease that we can control.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
We need to be more active because physical inactivity, sedentary lifestyle,
sitting puts us at risk for heart disease. To think
about our diet, I want to articulate the things you've
heard before. You know about fresh fruits and vegetables and
low fat, but I want to give you something simple.
Think about just eating less. If we can just think
about eating less, that gets the journey started to what's

(25:14):
becoming healthier. If we can completely avoid tobacco, that's incredibly important.
Weight management is incredibly important. Medical obesity is a risk
factor for disease. So to be very clear, smoking, physical activity,
a hard, unhealthy diet, diabetes, particularly hypertension, and your family history.

(25:35):
All those are risk factors. And like you, let's just
focus on one thing. High blood pressure. If you don't
know your blood pressure today, you should go and have
it checked. It's just that important.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
Some of the best things in life are the things
that are bad for you, right, Red meat, I love
to drink my wine, love fried foods, You're not suggesting
that we completely deny ourselves those things, but everything in moderation.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
So some of the best things in life are health
and happiness and health streiche. But what I'm also suggesting
is that it's all about moderation. No one is. You
don't hear me telling you don't do things with the
exception tobacco. Everything else is moderation. Everything else is about
eating less, about doing more about positive things we can

(26:21):
do to gain our health.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
A little bit of movement more better than no movement
at all. We've talked about diet and exercise are the
most significant impacts on preventing heart disease. I want to
ask you something that is still kind of taboo to
discuss in our society, but I think we're making great
strides stress and mental health because both of those things
do have an effect on heart health as well.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
There's nothing taboo about talking about a risk factor that
we know is important for heart disease, and that's particularly stress.
It used to be a vague sort of consideration, but
now we understand this stress when it becomes manifest as inflammation,
is in fact a risk fact of a heart disease. Now,
what does inflammation mean, it's a big fancy word. Imagine
getting an insect bite, looking at your hand and seeing

(27:07):
a red circle around that bite. That's inflammation. When that
happens in your blood vessels, that puts your risk of disease.
That's a visual that everyone can understand. Stress does, in
fact cause heart disease working through inflammation, and so we
can find ways to manage stress. Well. It adds to
our understanding of what we can do to reduce this burden.

(27:29):
But one other thing adds to our understanding, and that's knowledge.
We have to know our numbers. We can't measure stress,
but we can measure blood pressure. We can measure closterol,
we can measure chemoglobin A one C, we can know
our weight. All of the things we're talking about, All
of these things can reduce this exposure to heart conditions.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
How effective are medications these days? Cholesterol, blood pressure, we
hear a lot about it these days. Lowering your A
one c, maybe.

Speaker 4 (27:54):
Losing weight incredibly effective. I want to be very clear,
all of the things we know to do are based
on evidence, not storytelling matt antidotes, but based on evidence.
Lowering the blood pressure those at risk of thirty percent
reduction in death. We know that lowering the cholesterol, lowering
the LDL fraction in particular, the lower the better, the
lower the better, the lower the better. There's no mystery there.

(28:17):
We know that reducing the burden of weight. Now, with
all of the brilliant work going on to help us
understand medical obesity, we know that that makes a difference.
We know that this trio of our metabolism, our kidney,
and our heart work together. When we treat that trio
call it cardio kidney metabolic conditions. We know that two works.
We're no longer guessing. We know that there are effective

(28:39):
therapies that change our exposure to heart conditions.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
I asked you a moment ago about stress and mental
health and what role that can play in heart disease.
We're so different in the United States than many other countries.
Fast pace of life, we don't take time to take
care of ourselves. How important is sleep in maintaining a
healthy heart.

Speaker 4 (29:00):
So you're bringing up a good question because we know
that despite our resources, we are unhappy, we are unhealthy,
and we're not well rested, and that's a bad trio.
But we understand that if we are able to get
seven hours of sleep per night. That's equivalent to preventing
heart disease almost in total. It's just that beneficial target

(29:24):
seven hours of sleep as a major step to reduce
heart disease. If you put it in an entire portfolio,
being more active, eating less, knowing our numbers, and getting
more sleep, that's seven hour threshold. That's the big step
forward towards reducing our exposure heart disease.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Final couple things for you, because someone in our country
does die from heart disease every thirty four seconds, and
there's a reason. It's called the silent killer, right. I
think it's in forty percent of heart attacks. The first
symptom is sudden death, and there's no treatment for that.
So what are the symptoms that people other obviously go
to the doctor, getting a check out, knowing their numbers.

(30:02):
What are the things people should look out for.

Speaker 4 (30:05):
So the first thing is don't wait for the symptom.
We know that all of us are at risk. No
one is protected, no one is privileged, all of us
are at risk. So understand early on what's my exposure.
It's very simple in the beginning. Measure the cholesterol, know
your weight, knowing your blood pressure. Let's start it there.
But if we are thinking about symptoms, anytime you feel

(30:25):
not well, anytime you have justice comfort, shortness of breath,
skipped heartbeats, palpitations, you can fill them almost as hiccups.
Anytime you have these conditions, speak up. It's much easier
to speak up and be reassured than to dismiss this
and then have something much more worrisome occur. Don't fear
this condition. It's more treatable now than it's ever been before.

(30:47):
Let's get the idea of deadly out of our vernacular,
and let's think about the opportunity to have ideal heart
health going forward.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
It's all on us, I guess Doctor Clyde Yancey, Chief
of Cardiology, Northwestern Medicine, Blum Cardiovascular Institute for American Heart Month,
thank you so much for the time and all the
wonderful information. I appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
I appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (31:07):
Thank you, thank you so much for tuning in, and
thank you for always being a part of the weekly
show here on iHeartRadio. We place this episode in all
other episodes up on our free iHeartRadio app. Just search
for the Weekly show. Stay safe, Chicago, talk to you
again next weekend,