Up One

Sawyer Stone: [00:00:00] Welcome to Up one, the podcast where we take a deep dive into the science behind supplements, therapies, and diagnostics. I'm Sawyer Stone, your Guide through the Maze of Health Claims. Here to ask the big questions.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And I'm Dr. Bill Andrews With decades of experience in medical research, I've dedicated my career to uncovering.
The real science behind disease, aging, and human health. On this podcast, we don't just skim the surface of scientific studies. We conduct a critical meta-analysis separating credible research from misleading conclusions.
Sawyer Stone: There's a lot of noise out there, conflicting studies, bold claims, and endless marketing up.
One is here to cut through it all and bring you science backed insights that you can actually trust.
Dr. Bill Andrews: We're talking prevention, diagnostics, treatments, and the big questions shaping the future of health.
Sawyer Stone: If you're [00:01:00] serious about understanding the science of health and longevity without the fluff, let's take it up one.
Dr. Bill, how are you today?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I'm pretty good. How are you?
Sawyer Stone: I'm pretty good. It's, it's a heat dome over here in North Carolina. I I imagine that it's much hotter where you are.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Actually, no. 'cause we're close 5,000 feet altitude here.
Sawyer Stone: Oh, I forget that every time.
Dr. Bill Andrews: That's why I've got a long sleeve shirt on.
Sawyer Stone: See, I have long sleeves on 'cause they have ac.
Yeah, I'm grateful for it. All right, well, let's talk about, um, the heart and stress and heat and all the things that are negatively impacting the heart. Alright, uh, I wanna talk with you about some of the like proven facts and then popular mist associated with heart health. And then, you know, just get into some nitty gritty details about our tickers.
[00:02:00] If you, uh, have the time today, sir.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yes. No, I. I've been studying cardiovascular disease for 40 years, so,
Sawyer Stone: oh,
Dr. Bill Andrews: well I should be able to tell you all about the ups and downs and the changes of opinions and things like that, that I've observed. So yeah, let's, let's go ahead for, go for it.
Sawyer Stone: Okay. Well, my very first question is very, very important.
What is your favorite berry?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, taste wise, and so blackberries is my favorite taste wise. Um, okay. But, um. If we're talking about heart health, I would say blueberries are probably better, um, because of. The particular antioxidants that are in there. Um, I personally, so when we talk about antioxidants, I, I personally don't follow the idea of getting your antioxidants from fruits and stuff like that.
Um,
Sawyer Stone: oh, you don't,
Dr. Bill Andrews: because it's hard. It's hard to know how much you're taking and if you're taking the right amount. So I, I, I, I personally [00:03:00] do supplements and adjuvants. Um, now see, I think alpha lipoic acid. One of those is in, I think it's alpha of po acid. '
Sawyer Stone: cause I take it envelope.
Dr. Bill Andrews: PO acid is in blueberries.
Mm-hmm. Uh, and uh, then Alpha toca Triol is. Comes from, um, tomatoes. Okay. So you can get your, uh, those from tomatoes. And then there's also pro Anth cyan cyanogen, uh, another antioxidant. And those, those are, so those three that I just mentioned, alpha lipoic acid, alpha tocotrienol, and uh, pro anthro cyan cyanogen, uh, are are three, uh, antioxidants that are, uh, especially good for your heart.
Um, and, um. About 20 years ago, uh, we created what's, what we call the antioxidant quartet. Oh. Which is made up of those three antioxidants plus caric acid. [00:04:00] Uh, wow. And carna caric acid probably doesn't benefit your heart, but it does decrease risk, risk of cancer. So, so when, so 20 years ago, we, we, here at Sierra Sciences, we did a big.
Critical meta-analysis of peer reviewed studies on, uh, antioxidants and decided what was the best combination to get the best of all possibilities with antioxidants. And we came up with, uh, uh, antioxidant quartet, but we never launched it as a product. Um, because the, uh, investors, uh. Got upset with the, who is the then president of my company, uh, for steering us away from telomere biology.
Sawyer Stone: Ah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: and so on track mind, we totally put that aside. But I, I, I take the antioxidant quartet myself every day. I have, yeah, all four of those antioxidants that I take. Um, so yeah. But, uh, yeah, [00:05:00] blueberries would probably be the best if you, if you're somebody that doesn't wanna take supplements or adjuvants.
But it's then hard to know how much you're taking.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. And that and the sugar that's in a berry. You gotta be balanced and careful with all the different, you know, getting involved with Whole Foods supplements. There's like all the good stuff that comes with Whole Foods and then the sugars that are involved.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I have blueberries every morning with my oatmeal,
Sawyer Stone: uh, so, oh yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I try to keep it. Like when I put blueberries on top of my oatmeal, I make certain it's not larger than the size of an orange. Okay. Yeah. I figure orange is a acceptable amount of sugar and so whatever. Yeah. But I do try to keep my sugar levels low.
Sawyer Stone: Well, that's good to know. How, can you tell me a little bit more about how the antioxidants are protecting our heart cells from damage and how it calms down the inflation? Inflammation. Inflation. Hello? Economy. Well,
Dr. Bill Andrews: antioxidants pretty much don't reduce [00:06:00] inflammation, but they, so antioxidants will, uh.
Reduce the things that can Yeah. Can cause an, uh, inflammation, but you're probably better off doing anti-inflammatories in addition. And there's, there's a lot of blueberries do contain anti-inflammatories too. Um, polyphenols, for example. Uh, so. You're getting your anti-inflammatory and your antioxidants from, from blueberries.
Sawyer Stone: Nice. I, I, they're a super food. They're so good and delicious and rich in color and flavor. Okay. Well, we often hear about eating real food for a healthy heart. Whole food. We always come back to Whole Foods. Um, what is the big difference between like a real whole food and then processed stuff and, and like what?
Does that difference actually affect within our heart cells and like, how do we keep them healthy?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, it's, it's all a question of the types of fat. Okay. Really? Uh oh. Um, [00:07:00] so when you, when you get processed foods, it's usually got a lot of trans fats and saturated fats. Mm-hmm. Um, and, and you know, there's, those are, um, inflammatory.
But one of the things that I like to think about is the fact that trans fats and saturated fats are linear fats. They're they're linear molecules, whereas the ones that are, uh, unsaturated or polyunsaturated depends on if they're cysts. So, so if there's cysts that, so trans fats is a. Unsaturated fat, except that the hydrogens are sticking in the opposite directions off the molecule.
And as a result, it still causes it to form a linear molecule like saturated fats are. Uh, and then so, so I, I like to think of it like if you have a column that has a bunch of beads in it and you're passing a bunch of molecules through it, linear molecules are gonna pass through that column slower than round molecules.
And so, [00:08:00] uh hmm. So the saturated fats and the trans fats, because they're linear, are more likely to slow down the movement of stuff through the blood and actually more likely to collect and aggregate and form pools of stuff that can cause blood clots. Um, but uh, yeah, so, so that's the problem. The main problem with processed foods is the,
Sawyer Stone: yeah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: having the saturated fats and the trans fats.
Um, yeah, though though not all, uh. Unsaturated fats are healthy either.
Sawyer Stone: Okay? So fat clogs our arteries, both good fat and bad. Fat. Clogs our arteries, which leads to, uh, is it, what would you call, is it, um, shoot. What's the word? I'm trying to think of. What do you call the blockage? There's like a fancy word for the blockage.
Plaque. Plaque. Plaque. Thank you. Haha. So once the plaque has built off in our arteries, you know, it's kind of like. [00:09:00] You gotta get scraped out, you gotta put stent in. All the things Is there, there's, there has to be good fats that are good for us, like omegas, and I know there's fish based omegas and then there's plant-based omegas or omega threes rather.
What, can you tell us a little bit about that?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Omega-3 fatty acids, E-P-A-D-H-A. DPA DPAs from plants, uh, they're all really good for you. Okay? They're unsaturated and they tend not to form the linear molecules because that's, that's when I was talking about the fact that the, uh. Saturated and transformed linear molecules, that also makes them more likely to form solids.
Okay. Oh, which is the
Sawyer Stone: plaque.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. But yeah. Well, it's, it's not exactly, I mean, it's a, plaques are a lot more complicated plaques. So plaques are really not originally inside the blood vessel. Okay. They're, they're actually in the space between the, [00:10:00] uh, endothelial cells and the smooth muscle cells, and that's called the intimal media.
And, uh, so it's, so the plaque builds up, but it's, it's, it's a combination of a lot. Lipids, cholesterol, most recent things in the last 20 years, 'cause I was studying the, the, this 20 years ago, is, is the immune cells Okay. Macrophages, things like that are. Really aggregating in inside that area. Between the media and the, yeah, media and intimal so that between the endothelial cells and the smooth muscle cells, that's okay.
It, I mean, it does cause a bulge in your blood vessels, and it does disrupt the flow a little bit. But the problem occurs when that plaque ruptures.
Sawyer Stone: And then
Dr. Bill Andrews: forms a clot. Okay. And that, that can I see clot, I see form a clot in the entire, uh, intimal area, the, the entire blood vessel. Uh, and kill you. Um, yeah.[00:11:00]
And, uh, but boy, there's so much more to it than that. I, I, I've been doing research on that for I'd say 40 years. And I'm one of the discoverers of tissue plasmid in activator and thrombo modlin that are both involved in, uh, preventing plaques and, uh. Breaking down plaques, like, uh, like for instance, if somebody's having a heart attack or a stroke right now today, ambulances, when they find 'em, will inject TPA, which is one of the things I discovered, uh, close to 40 years ago.
Very cool. I, me and my team, team and I discovered it, but, uh, it, uh, it breaks down the blood clots. Um, it's, it's a. Very complicated process. Just, uh, more involved in, you know, than what I just mentioned. But yeah, it's, uh, there, there's, there's so many things you can do to decrease the rate of clot formation, but the most important thing is just have good genetics.
There are people that can do anything they want, eat anything they [00:12:00] want, and they never build plaque. Okay. Um, sure. But you know, there's, uh. Nine P 21 is one gene that's bad for you. Uh, LP little, a Kif six, I think it is, is another gene. So those three. So if you have. Those three or any one of those threes, you have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, but Wow.
So then you have to really be careful about what you're doing. But if you don't have them, you're just lucky. And you can probably go the who your whole life without ever having any plaque buildup whatsoever.
Sawyer Stone: How would you test for a gene like that, just in case somebody's curious that's listening?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Uh, well, you can, you can, you can send, you know, um, Schwabs from the inside of your mouth or blood samples into various places.
I, the, the, probably the world's leading expert on this is, uh, Dr. Amy Donne up in Spokane, Washington.
Sawyer Stone: You mentioned her before.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. I, [00:13:00] I, I talk about her a lot because she's written two really good books. One called The Heart Attack Gene. Oh, and I forget what the other one, the other one's related to the brain.
'cause the brain is also very affected by cardiovascular stuff. Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia are, and stroke especially, are caused by cardiovascular problems. Um, but she talks about all those genes a. And I have that book sitting over on my bookshelf over there, and I can see from here it's got about 10 paper clips in it where I've marked different pages to refer to.
Um, but, uh, I think the, the best test to see if you have plaque is called the CIMT test, uh, which is, uh, uh, carotid intimal. Media thickness. Okay. So it actually, it's a ultrasound that they do on your carotid arteries. 'cause your carotid arteries are no different than your coronary arteries. Really? So if you have, if you don't have plaque in your [00:14:00] carotid arteries, you don't have plaque in your, uh, coronary art is the theory.
It's really hard to mm-hmm. Do an ultrasound on your heart. And the coronary artery is 'cause your heart's moving all the time. Right. But your carotid artery's not so, so. It's called the CIMT. And what it does, it, it's an ultrasound that measures the thickness of the space between your endothelial cells and your smooth muscle cells called the intimal media area.
The thickness of that. And, uh, that's a test that a lot of hospitals and doctors can do. Uh, and uh, it's really probably the best test 'cause things like stress tests are meaningless. 'cause you can totally pass a stress test and the next day a plaque rupture ruptures and you're suddenly having a heart attack.
Since I'm a vegan, uh, I actually don't take fish oils.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, that's what I thought.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And uh, what I do is I take synthetic. EPA, which is called Vascepa, VAS [00:15:00] Cee, PA vapa, uh, which is by prescription. Okay. And you know, it's, I'm not vegan because I'm trying to protect animals, though that is a, uh, ice. It's not about the animals.
Sawyer Stone: It's about me.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. It's, it's, it's about the fact that, uh, uh, there's like a, another, uh, fatty acid called, um, a arachidonic acid, which is an omega six. Which is very inflammatory and yeah. Uh, arachidonic acid is only found in meat and f and fish and dairy, but not in plants. So I'm
Sawyer Stone: telling you, we come back to arachidonic acid almost every single episode.
It's evil. We
Dr. Bill Andrews: do. Oh yeah. It's a, it's because. I just turned out to be particularly sensitive to it. I mean, it's like, uh,
Sawyer Stone: fair.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So I, I, I tend to focus on that, but you know, I get by because of ev all the healthy things I do. So the arachidonic acid doesn't cause me any troubles. But, uh, I do try to, uh, stay away from [00:16:00] a arachidonic acid as much as I can.
Um, and I, I might have mentioned that Floyd Clifton has a book, uh, called Inflammation Nation, where he talks about a arachidonic acid. If anybody wants to know more about that, good to know. So the, the other thing that EPA does, especially maybe DHA also is it does compete with a arachidonic acid. I don't think I've mentioned that before.
So, so that's another so benefit. 'cause E-P-A-D-H-A DPA a, they, they're the opposite of a arachidonic acid in that they're, uh, anti-inflammatory, whereas arachidonic acid is pro-inflammatory. Hmm. And so, so there's a lot of, so EPA, they also changed the membrane lining of your cells. Uh, to make 'em less vulnerable to inflammation, inflammatory responses.
Um, and there there's a bunch of, uh, benefits that I can't remember all of, off, off the top of my head.
Sawyer Stone: That's all right. Okay. So I think we talked a little bit about [00:17:00] how the fats are affecting our arteries. Um. So we talked a little bit about plaque and cholesterol, and you said some things about LDLs and we talked about lipids and all these other things and like when, when you go get your, your cholesterol numbers pulled by the doctor, there are like four or five numbers that they're reading off of and obviously ranges that go with those numbers beyond the cholesterol numbers.
For heart indicators, what are, are there any other like hidden signs or processes inside of our body that scientists are looking at to spot heart problems really early on before stuff becomes obvious?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, inflammation. Yeah, inflammation is another
Sawyer Stone: evil.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. I, I mean, it's the number one cause of aging, inflammation has.
It inflammation's necessary for us, but it's actually one of the big problems for us too. Inflammation helps us fight against infections and things like that, but it just gets outta control, especially when we're older and it, it overdoes things. But, uh, [00:18:00] yeah. So cr, the C reactive protein tests, the TNF Alpha test there, there's a bunch of, uh, markers that.
If you went to somebody like Dr. Amy Donne, she would test you with a whole battery of things. I, I listened to her speak at a Rad Fest conference a few years ago. And, uh,
Sawyer Stone: can you tell us what Rad Fest is for the groups, for the peeps, for the westerns? Rad
Dr. Bill Andrews: Fest is a conference, uh, it actually is coming up in like two to three weeks right now.
Uh, is called RAD, stands for Revolution Against Aging and Death. And whoa. Instead of just being a conference, it's a festival. Okay. So there's more to it than just listening to the speakers.
Sawyer Stone: An anti-aging festival.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. And, uh, it, it's actually, in my opinion, the best conference there is for anti-aging. If anybody it, it's, what I like about it is that.
The quote charlatans, and there's so many in the field [00:19:00] of anti-Asian and health, I love that word. They're, they're just not invited. We go through a i, I'm on the board of directors for the Coalition for Radical Life Extension and Coalition for Radical Life Extension is the one that puts on Rad Fest. And we, we go through, uh, very critical detail to find out who can be a speaker and who can't be a speaker.
Uh, so it's, it's a. It actually has the best of the best. Um, and, uh, uh, so if somebody really wants to know what's the best thing they can do about, uh, their health is, is go to that conference. Um, there are other conferences there, but you'll find that 90% of 'em are sharpen. Well, you won't find it, you won't know it that, but when I go, I know that 90% of 'em are charlatans.
And, uh, the Coalition for Radical Life Extension has just organized a. Uh, March on Washington. Um, that's, uh, protest. They've gotten the approval it's gonna be in. Uh, September of [00:20:00] 2026. Okay. It's gonna be at the Lincoln Memorial. And, uh, uh, we're gonna be, uh, I'm gonna be there. I'm gonna be one of the speakers, uh, and, uh, uh, a few other people.
It's gonna be several speakers, but, uh, it's, it's a whole idea of changing, uh, or revamping the FDA to start allowing people with life-threatening diseases. You know, if you're told you have six months to live. You don't, you shouldn't need FDA approval to try a treatment. You should be able to try anything you want.
So if anybody's interested, uh, go to the. Coalition for Radical Life extension website and, uh, uh, join the march.
Sawyer Stone: That sounds awesome. Yeah, that makes sense to me. They have six months to live. Somebody's telling you that. Like, why not try whatever you wanna try or don't try anything at all. Whatever you wanna do.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. I, I published a paper with, uh, Liz Parrish, uh, on. What's called Best Choice medicine [00:21:00] and it's all about how people with life-threatening diseases or diseases that are not worth living for, uh, to be able to try anything they want, even if it hasn't even been tested in animals.
Sawyer Stone: Okay. Well thank you for our aging tangent.
We always come back to aging too. I feel like it's one of our hot button topics. Well, because if you think about it, that
Dr. Bill Andrews: was talk about Fest. Yeah. Yeah,
Sawyer Stone: yeah, yeah. But if you think about us coming back to aging with everything, like all of the stuff that we're gonna talk about in any and all of our podcast episodes always goes back to how you're treating your body, which has an effect on longevity, which is aging.
So I feel like it's all going in one direction towards aging. Okay, Beth, so back to what I was saying about cholesterol numbers. You get the panel, it's all cholesterol numbers, but what else, aside from the cholesterol numbers. Can doctors look at that might be a sign of like, really bad problems or something that's obvious that isn't just a cholesterol number?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, yeah, as I, I think I mentioned my fear, CIMT test. [00:22:00]
Sawyer Stone: Mm-hmm.
Dr. Bill Andrews: The, uh, inflammation markers, sugar levels, you know, like, uh, 'cause sugar's so inflammatory and so is insulin. There's a whole battery and I can't remember them all. But, uh, there's a whole battery of things that can be, uh, indications of whether you, whether you have cardiovascular disease or not.
Or risk of cardiovascular disease.
Sawyer Stone: Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Well then when it comes to heart health, is it better to get specific nutrients from a mix of foods or can we take supplements for each thing that we need? Does certain nutrients work better inside our bodies? I know like there's even, like we were talking about this with, uh, turmeric and.
Curcumin, turmeric last week where, you know, one of them you take within six hours of each other counteracts the other one's capabilities. Like what can we do? Do we need to take specific whole foods to get what we need for our heart, or can we take some supplements?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I'm a very supplement and adjuvant person and, uh, I don't know if.
Uh, [00:23:00] people know what the word adjuvant means, but, uh,
Sawyer Stone: I, I don't know what it means, so please tell me.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Okay. So, so if you, if your body is already producing some type of molecule and you take that as a pill, then you're supplementing what you already have. Yes. Okay. If the pill contains something that your body doesn't produce, it's actually called an adjuvant.
I can't remember which one. I, I think, uh, aoic acid, for instance, is a. Supplement, but Alpha Tocotrienol is an adjuvant and so is Prothe Cyanides there. That's an adjuvant too, uh, because your body doesn't produce it. Um, and, and on that particular subject, I recommend a book called The Kaufman Protocol.
Which is the best book ever written. We've heard about
Sawyer Stone: her before.
Dr. Bill Andrews: That's okay. Yeah, no, it's like I, there, that's another book I see over on my shelf. There's four books that I really consider, five books. Actually one of them is missing, uh, five books that I really consider the best books ever written. [00:24:00] Uh, and those are two books by Amy Doen, Floyd Chilton, and then somebody who we haven't talked about yet.
Uh, Dr. Caldwell Eston, no, he had not. Um, and that this is very, very important for cardiovascular disease. Um, but uh, before I go there, because you had mentioned to turmeric and Uhhuh Curcumin. Curcumin, um,
Sawyer Stone: yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Turmeric without curcumin is one of the ingredients in this new product called Telo Vital. Yeah.
That, uh, induces telomere expression. But the reason why that's important for heart health is like, I wanna say 40 years ago, uh, back in the 1980s. We did a study with baboons where we looked at, uh, uh, the blood vessels, the arteries, veins by the, um, bifurcation, which is lower in your body. And we, we, we found that it's, it is where the branch branches go off that send [00:25:00] blood to your legs, but that's a very turbulent area.
And so we were looking at that and because of the turbulence, endothelial cells get lost a lot. And, uh, they, they get worn away and other cells have to divide to replace them. And so as a result, the place where the bifurcation is, the cells have shorter telomeres.
Sawyer Stone: Ah, and
Dr. Bill Andrews: we also were able to show in the same studies that no matter where in the blood vessels there are, the on plaque would build up.
It was also at areas where endothelial cells and smooth muscle cells had short telomeres. And, uh, so, so short telomeres does increase your risk of cardiovascular disease, and that's why doing whatever you can to keep your telomeres long would decrease the rate of cardiovascular disease. And
Sawyer Stone: it's all tied together.
People
Dr. Bill Andrews: always wonder why we never evolved away not to have cardiovascular disease. And that's a whole nother subject, which.[00:26:00]
It's ev the success of the species from an evolution perspective is better off if we eliminate the longer live. So we're never gonna evolve a way to, uh, yeah. Not age and not have all these diseases, age-related diseases unless we do it ourselves.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Um, now can we get back to Dr. Caldwell Essel?
Sawyer Stone: Yes. Um,
Dr. Bill Andrews: okay.
Says he is actually, uh, probably tied with Dr. Amy Donne is I think, the best. Cardiovascular doctors in the world.
Sawyer Stone: All righty.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Um, and he's, he's, he is written books on how to prevent and, and reverse cardiovascular disease. But here's, here's the key thing that he says that is very, very different from anybody else.
And I've done a lot of critical meta-analysis of peer-reviewed studies on this, and I really believe Dr. Caldwell Eson knows what he's talking about, and that's that oils. Oils, including [00:27:00] olive oil are bad for you, okay? Because they, and they, olive oil is advertise as something great for your heart and cardiovascular system, Uhhuh, Uhhuh.
But what, what they don't tell you, and even though it's well published by Dr. Caldwell Stein and others, is that oils cause your collateral arteries, your microvascular, uh, in your heart to collapse. And, uh, which is no big deal as long as your coronary arteries are open. Okay? But if you're, if you do get a plaque suddenly rupture and one of your coronary arteries gets blocked and you, you're gonna die with that.
Yeah. You won't die if your, if your collateral arteries are open. So it's so people, there are people who have a hundred percent blockage of their coronary arteries. They just live on a diet that has no oils. They don't even cook in oil. Okay. And their [00:28:00] collateral arteries are so much they, when, when you, so one of, one of the things I liked about Caldwell Essent is he, he one time took a heart and dissolved all the heart tissues.
And so he was only left with the blood vessels, the arteries, the veins, the blood vessels of the heart. It looks still like a heart. Okay, because there's, oh, really so many, uh, collateral arteries, microvascular in the heart that it, it essentially looks still like a heart when you, when you dissolve everything else.
That's crazy. When you have a blockage in your coronary arteries, there's plenty of blood vessels to go around those things. Uh, like, uh. Bypasses and things like that. Yeah. Which are natural bypasses. Uh, so your heart is still well fed with blood vessels unless you consume oils, then your interesting collateral arteries and microvascular is collapsed.
Um, so's
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. I know somebody who like, [00:29:00] who is the ha who had blockage and their heart like rebuilt pathways to get. The blood there like
Dr. Bill Andrews: that. Yeah. No, no, you're right. The, you can, that's, it's a very dynamic situation. You can, if, if they're open to do, if the clot, yeah. Your body can, bladder arteries are open to be able to do so be without killing you before it has a chance to do it.
Yeah, they can, they can make natural bypasses. After all the critical meta-analysis that I've done on this subject, I'm. I'm a big believer in a vegan diet with no oil, so not even cooking. So I, I do that. My identical twin brother, Rick, uh, he has actually started a, uh. Organization called Squeaky Vegans, which Squeaky Quey Vegan because Noy squeaky like, like a squeaky tire.
Yeah, it's squeaky because of no oil. Okay, so it's squeaky vegans. Ah. And it's a Facebook site that's actually got a lot of members, a lot of people are following [00:30:00] Dr. Caldwell diet. Um, and, uh. I think it's, I think it's a very smart thing to do. I recommend it for everybody. Um,
Sawyer Stone: well, okay, but I have a technical question.
Yes. Because you're not having butter and you're not having vegan butter because vegan butter is just oil. What are you cooking with water?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Microwave.
Sawyer Stone: What another, another evil.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I, I, you know, my, my whole strategy with cooking is to, uh, go to Whole Foods and buy things like Amy's dinners, which are vegan.
Sawyer Stone: Ah,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I see. And, uh, but, um, I, I, I, I tend, I'm not a hundred percent. Uh, vegan, no oils, but if I had a clog artery, I sure would be. Um, yeah, sure, sure, sure. I just
Sawyer Stone: was like, like, what are you throwing in a stir fry pan, I guess is what I was saying. Like, you, like I never
Dr. Bill Andrews: do, I never cook stir fry and I,
Sawyer Stone: I see, okay, good.
Dr. Bill Andrews: But, uh, and even the vegan meals have some oil in 'em, [00:31:00] but I, I do, yeah. Cut out, I cut down the oil as much as possible. Um,
Sawyer Stone: okay.
Dr. Bill Andrews: The, uh, um, but you had mentioned butter and that made me think of something. Um. Uh, oh. Yeah. So, uh, I also avoid nuts and I also avoid avocados and really because they're high in oil because of the high oil in them.
Yeah.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, that makes sense. Although I'm sad for you to be without avocados. They're so yummy.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah. Well, every once in a while I do put avocado on my sandwiches, but if I, if I ended up having severe. Coronary heart disease. I would be definitely, uh, stop eating a avocados and nuts and things like that. But I'm on a cocktail party and there's a bowl of nuts there.
I'm gonna grab 'em and eat 'em. Um, there
Sawyer Stone: you go. Okay. Alright, so then my next question is surrounding vitamin K two. There's some evidence that vitamin K two is important for healthy heart. [00:32:00] How does this vitamin work inside our bodies to stop our arteries from getting stiff and make sure calcium goes where it's supposed to instead of clogging up our heart?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Well, you kind of just answered my question 'cause I was gonna say that Vitamin K two actually prevents calcium, interferes with calcium, uh, uh, being deposited on your blood vessels. Um. There, there's another angle to that that's very important. Okay. So we talked about the plaque between your endothelial cells and the smooth muscle cells.
Mm-hmm. Um, if you have a lot of that, for instance, if you did A-C-I-M-T test and you were told you have lots of plaque, the best thing you could do is convert that to calcium. Okay. To make it hard plaque. Okay. I mean, the hard plaque will cause a little bit of. Uh, like maybe your vessel blood vessels won't be as open as before and, and maybe things like beets and uh, [00:33:00] uh, arginine and things like that can help open them with the nitric oxide.
But, uh, and I don't think that's one of the questions you were gonna ask, but I just said anyway. But no, I
Sawyer Stone: say that's a great topic to go down a rabbit hole lot.
Dr. Bill Andrews: So, so, so the, um, uh, the making the hard plaque is actually. Better than having the soft plaque because the hard plaque isn't gonna rupture. Okay,
Sawyer Stone: I see.
And form
Dr. Bill Andrews: a clot like the, so, so if I was somebody that had a lot of plaque, I would be doing everything I could to convert that to, uh, hard plaque, uh, calcium, you know, hard plaque, uh, calcified plaque. And, uh. That might be that I would stop taking vitamin K two, but I gotta look into that. That's something to do a, um, critical meta-analysis of peer review studies on to see if, if, uh, if actually vitamin K two actually prevents, uh, soft plaque from being converted to hard black.
Sawyer Stone: Okay? So we know the diet has a huge, [00:34:00] enormous impact on many things in our bodies, but very specifically heart health. 'cause we're talking about trans fat, saturated fat, and then healthy fats and all those guys. What do things like stress, not getting enough sleep, exercise, all of these other sort of lifestyle factors, how do those impact our heart health, even if we're eating well?
Because I know somebody that eats very clean, has a great diet, works out exercises, but ended up having a heart attack because of stress and probably lack of sleep.
Dr. Bill Andrews: And probably genetics that par prison probably had, and probably genetics, bad genetics. Um, but lack of sleep, um, induces the body's stress response.
Uh, and you just mentioned stress. Sure. But yeah, it's, it's, uh, uh, it, it's, it's a problem that in change, make changes in your hormones and stuff like that. It's a, it's the, that induces the [00:35:00] sympa, sym sympathetic nervous system response and like the fight or flight. Kind of response and those kind of things induce inflammation and, uh, cause problems.
And again, we come back to inflammation. It's mm-hmm. One of the worst things possible, but Yeah. But like, uh, when I think of sleep, I think of one of the biggest problems is sleep apnea. Yeah. Or, or because of the obstructive sleep apnea. Uh, you. You go without oxygen for a while. And so the decrease in oxygen also decreases all those responses I just mentioned, and inflammation and, uh, uh, is just bad for you.
So, getting good, good night's sleep is actually good for your heart, uh, just to prevent the, the, uh, body's stress response.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Can we do a tangent on sleep really quick? Just a quick one. I just read recently somewhere that somebody was talking about how men need like an average of seven to eight hours of sleep every day and female bodies need [00:36:00] between like nine and 10 hours of sleep.
Is that true?
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I have never heard that. Okay. And I would be really surprised if there was a peer reviewed study showing that. Okay. It's, it's one of these things you can hear on. It sounds like the typical thing. There's some press release and somebody wrote a book and mentioned that and the books are not peer reviewed.
Right. But I, I wrote, I will check in that, uh, the second thing we've discussed at this, uh, podcast today, uh, I will. Check into that and, and report back at a, a future podcast on the two things. Okay,
Sawyer Stone: sounds good. And we may need to do a whole episode of sleep. Who knows? Okay. So we know that the stress and the lack of sleep and the, all the things are affecting us.
Now, some people say that they detox for their heart health and that, you know, detox is such a generalized word nowadays. Like you can do a screen detox, you can do a sun detox, you can do. A liquor detox, you could do all these kinds of detoxing. Do you think that detoxing is just like a fad? Do we think that it's actually having a direct impact on heart [00:37:00] health?
Is there some sort of like juice cleanse, detox that's really helping our heart? What do you think?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Yeah, no, detoxing is extremely important in my book. Uh, I mean, toxins come back to the same thing that, well, that a lot of toxins are. Free radicals or oxidants. So the antioxidants can affect those. Uh, but uh, they also cause inflammatory responses, uh, especially when they start doing damage to certain cells and your body starts recognizing those cells as now a foreign body 'cause of so much damage.
So and so, yeah. So detoxing is very, very important. And you asked me if there was a, uh. Solution you could drink or something like that. But, uh, I, well, you
Sawyer Stone: know how some people go on these juice cleanses where all they drink or eat or anything for like two weeks straight is a juice, like a green juice or like a grape for juice or something like that.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I think a, a lot of those are not really [00:38:00] that great. I mean, it's like a lot of companies are trying to promote detoxing protocols that don't really work. Uh, my favorite is zeolite, uh, which is, you know, gets rid of heavy metals. And I know it's a little bit biased towards this podcast, but it is really, I think that one of the greatest things you can do to, to detox.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Get, get rid of heavy metals and, and other charged molecules.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, that's true. We didn't even talk about heavy metals and the air impact on the heart, but we know that is definitely having an impact.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Heavy metals are a major toxins.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah. Well, and we know like heavy metals and toxins are stored fat cells, which impact heart health.
So it's all, tell me what is like a myth that you've heard about heart health that you think you wanna dispel?
Dr. Bill Andrews: The biggest thing that I hear, and this is something that I'm surprised I haven't touched on already, um, is that running [00:39:00] and endurance exercises are bad for your heart. Okay. Mm. That's, that's a, a myth that's so untrue.
It's not, it's not the endurance exercise, it's how you do it that's bad for you. Okay? So if, if you're gonna be running as hard as you can, as fast as you can, uh, trying to break world records and things like that, or personal records, you're doing your body an injustice because. You're inducing a lot of inflammation, but that, that, lemme lemme back up.
That's only partially true. If you were somebody that exercises every day, if every time you went, got up outta your chair and went anywhere you ran, okay, you, you, you would never, ever have any inflammation from running 'cause right? Because just run slow. Keep it fun. Just, yeah. Get, get your body. Don't just stroll slowly.
Just put a little energy into it. To actually get [00:40:00] your heart pumping and things like that. Exercise your heart, uh, that's actually good. But then if you go to the extreme, like you're running marathons and crossing finish lines on your hands and knees throwing up, uh, that's inducing a lot of inflammation.
That's what a lot of what I call inconsistent runners or kayakers, or bicyclists do. Um, yeah, they, they. They, they will go weeks without doing anything and then go run really fast or kayak really fast or bike really fast. And that's not good for you because your body's saying, Hey, what's going on here?
This is, uh, your, you know, of course your immune system doesn't have a brain, but I, it's the analogy I like, kind of pretends we, it does have a brain, but it starts thinking totally, oh my God, it, it. There's something attacking your body, and so it induces an immune response to fight it. Um, yeah. And then immune, as we talked about, immune response is infl inflammation.
That's bad for your heart. Bad for everything. Bad for aging, yeah. [00:41:00] Um, so, but running, if you run every single day, and this rumor that you're never, you shouldn't run every day. You should run every other day. There's not a single peer reviewed study that ever showed that. What's the big difference between running every 48 hours versus every 24 hours there?
It is not. There isn't.
Sawyer Stone: But, and you're here to dispel this myth personally. What's your total run record? Aren't you like in the three hundreds or something?
Dr. Bill Andrews: Oh, I'm, I'm way, I've, I've over five years of not missing a day of running of five years. Um, oh
Sawyer Stone: my gosh. Wow. It's so many days.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I started, you know, I, I used to, when I was really heavily running ultra marathons.
Uh, I would take days off, uh, like once a week or something like that for my running. Yeah, yeah. Just to, to do better In my ultra marathon, uh, I, I, I, I always, I always used say that tapering was the secret weapon tapering just before a race was the secret weapon. But when COVID started, I, I decided to stay.
I did a few ultras and I [00:42:00] was so worried about the risks of COVID when I came to aid stations and stuff like that, that I, I kind of slowed down and just started a running streak instead. So I've now run every day since COVID started, and it's, uh, over five years. I believe. That's really good. I mean, I go out and I run five miles, and when I get done.
Five minutes after I get done, I don't even remember. And my body doesn't even feel like I went out and ran. Okay. Yeah. And I, and I'll run up steep mountains and things like that and, uh, just feel like it's nothing. But that's, that's what your body gets to do if you just take it. I always say when it quits being fun, quit.
Yeah. 'cause your body will, will not induce an inflammatory response. I definitely, I get my inflammation markers measured every three months and I never ever have, uh, inflammation problems. Um, and well, let me add on the subject of inflammation.
Sawyer Stone: [00:43:00] Let's hear it.
Dr. Bill Andrews: I might've said this before at one of the previous podcasts, but.
Everybody should take what's called an ALCAT test. A-L-C-A-T. Yes. If you Google that, you can find places that provide that, but it's not a allergy test. It's a, it's a food sensitivity test. It measures. The ability of certain foods to induce inflammation in you and everybody's different. Okay. Yeah. That's how I found out that I was sensitive to a arachidonic acid.
Mm-hmm. Was taking the ACA test. Okay. But it, it, everybody's gonna find different foods that make, gonna make them sensitive. And plus you, your body changes all the time. Okay. Yeah. If you eat, if you eat oatmeal every single day and then take, and for a year and take the Alcat test, you're gonna find out that you have.
The oatmeal is inducing inflammation in you, uh, possibly is more likely than not. And so, so you, you switch to, uh, cream of wheat for a while, okay? Yeah. And, uh, [00:44:00] then take the Alcat test again, and then you'll find out you're no longer s. Sensitive to oatmeal, but now you're sensitive to green wheat. The solution is to not always eat the same thing every day, which I'm kind of guilty of, but I take the AllCat test every year, so I, I find out.
Uh, but so would you
Sawyer Stone: say that the phrase would be, is everything in moderation? Including moderation?
Dr. Bill Andrews: That's a good one. Yeah. So I, I don't know if it's moderation in terms of quantity. Mm-hmm. But it's moderation in terms of variety. Uh, so you want to, you want to have variety? Yeah. Yeah. Um, but, uh, I kind of keep life simple.
So I do have oatmeal every morning for breakfast with my blueberries and raspberries and blackberries on top of it, uh, and, and with almond milk and, and plus I've, one time the AllCat test show me that I was sensitive to almond milk, so I had to switch to soy milk for a while, in fact that it told me that I was sensitive to all, uh, non-dairy milks [00:45:00] except soy milk.
Which was kind of like weird because soy has got all the bad problems of, I was gonna say, I think we talked about it the, the last podcast we did. Soys got all the bad problems of inducing inflammation in some people. Yeah. And here I am being told that soy milk's the only milk for you can drink. But I'm back to almond milk now.
I think almond milk tastes a lot there. Soy milk.
Sawyer Stone: Yeah, I could see that. Alright, well my last question for you is. Heart health seems like such a large topic here in the States versus abroad. And do we think that's because of processed foods? My assumption is absolutely yes.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Our sugar intake is too high, uh, is way beyond everybody else.
I don't know where it all got started, but somehow marketers try to. Market the unhealthiest foods here in the United States and we all started eating them.
Sawyer Stone: Alright, well Bill, I think, um, aside [00:46:00] from our stress inducing recording today, which our listeners will know about, but we've had the most trouble with our recording today and we've kept it fun, which is reducing inflammation and reducing stress.
I think that our heart episode went well. Yeah, I,
Dr. Bill Andrews: I, I enjoyed it immensely, uh, and yeah. And I'm sure all this stuff about the stress parts that were induced by technical problems will be edited out.
Sawyer Stone: Oh, I hope so. I am sure it will be seamless by the time it reaches our listeners ears. But we know. Well, thanks for joining me here today on our Up One podcast.
Everybody out there stay curious and thanks for listening. Goodbye.
Thanks for joining us on UP one. If you found today's conversation valuable, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with someone who's curious about the real science behind help.
Dr. Bill Andrews: Have a topic you want us to break breakdown. Send us your [00:47:00] questions. We're here to help you separate fact from fiction.
Sawyer Stone: Until next time, stay curious. Stay informed. And let's keep taking it up one.