The Biggest and Worst Pandemic?

There is a CURE. We can stop the Catastrophic Unseen Reversible Epidemic of Cardiometabolic Disease.

Arterial and cardiometabolic disease is the chronic condition with acute manifestations most responsible for destroying our population of INDIVIDUALS. It continues to shorten and ruin more lives than COVID and all cancers combined.

It starts (earlier than we tend to think) as arterial injury leading to inflammation and plaque formation.  It becomes symptomatic as a stroke, heart attack, dementia, kidney disease and peripheral vascular disease.   It is preventable, reversible and yes Curable in the sense of long term stable remission.

Forty years of practicing medicine has taught me that most of us are NOT MOTIVATED TO CHANGE TO BECOME MORE HEALTHY, especially when addicted to toxic food and behaviors that are highly promoted and subsidized by cultural propaganda and public policy.  Public health recommendations are making the problem worse, not better, by incompetence and corrupting industry influence. 

We are more often and more urgently motivated by pain, suffering and fear of loss to seek help and make sacrifices, giving up the “good” to get something better.  This is why we buy life and disability insurance.   We should be investing in health assurance.  We improve not by a transformation but by a series of nudges. This is the strategy of those who would change our culture for the worse. Why not use it for the individual and common good?

While prevention is the best approach to any problem, most of us are past the point of prevention.  We need to see it, measure it and stop progression to achieve/sustain remission by healing the injury for a long-term CURE, individually and as communities. 

The contribution of oral inflammation (infected teeth/inflamed gums) is almost universally overlooked.  Dental professionals have the opportunity to offer a medical home alternative when working in collaboration with proactive medical professionals who look beyond the traditional risk factors of hyperlipidemia, smoking and hypertension.  These include insulin resistance (a feature, not a bug for our hunter gatherer optimization), exposure to oxidative stress from the environment, vitamin D deficiency, homocysteine elevation, lipoprotein(a) and others. 

This should be an option for anyone, for those making a living as well as those with the luxury of living a “lifestyle.”  Success comes most often not from a radical change in behavior.  Instead, it comes from a series of nudges to improve reinforced by seeing measurable progress in response to change: 

• Body Composition measures of insulin resistance: Visceral/% Body Fat 

• Blood test indicators of inflammation: hsCRP, LpPLA2, Microalbumin/Creatinine ratio 

• Ultrasound measured arterial intima media thickness/age/inflammation 
  

Case in point:  Recently, I performed carotid ultrasound scans with a Butterfly iQ+ point of care ultrasound and body composition analysis using the InBody 570 on 39 employees of a rural business.  This took place in my motorhome office parked in their parking lot. 

The CEO, a patient in my proactive medicine practice, leads by example.  He invested an average of $172/employee to offer the opportunity to see their individual threats (arterial plaque and inflammation) and pursue the opportunities to heal.   This is consistent with providing his employees with free access to vitamin D, C, zinc and other supplements and letting each employee decide whether they would benefit from COVID mRNA injections.

These are hard working skilled blue collar and agricultural workers with less than average access to mainstream healthcare.   The majority have no college education.  This does not predict lower intelligence or insight.  Quite to the contrary, there is a preservation of common sense and critical thinking skills

The age range was 18-79.  Job descriptions ranged from CEO to janitor.   

With the support of our CureCoach.app, the Butterfly ultrasound cloud archive, templated reports and my office manager, reports were out in 1 day digitally and securely on CureCoach.App with email and text reminders to access their report on the secure CureCoach.app. 
 

Findings are typical of the population at large:

• 23 of the 39 (59%) have visible arterial injury that can be healed, postponing indefinitely disabling strokes and life ending/changing heart attacks, rehabilitation, stents or bypass surgery.   

• 20 of the 37 (54%) tested on the InBody 570 (pacemakers and pregnancy not allowed) had a visceral fat level consistent with inflammatory insulin resistance.  This is the metabolic derangement that is the most prevalent driver of chronic inflammation and progresses to prediabetes and Type 2 Diabetes with all its complications. 

• Everyone with arterial injury or elevated visceral fat has been offered an opportunity to have a 30 minute video appointment to review reports and discuss process of further testing and lifestyle/supplement/medical intervention, including cost.  Most cost of further evaluation and treatment/monitoring are covered by third party payers.   

Discovery Zoom Calls can be scheduled by clicking here.   

Discovery Zoom Calls are being scheduled and completed and most are pursuing further lab assessment and consultation.  Arrangements have been made to have the Quest and Cleveland Heart Lab blood tests drawn for Quest pickup at the local health department within five minutes from the business.   

Labs are billed to insurance or to the practice if direct payment is preferred and then billed to the patient at a significant discount off list prices.  We meet with them to review results by video conference when they are ready, and reminder emails and texts can be sent to the procrastinators. 
 
Lessons learned: 

• We TALK about prevention but we ACT to intervene when motivated by pain, suffering or visible or palpable evidence of injury or illness.    

• We need less talk and more action.  Scan and measure first, address questions later. Replace the risk model with a measurable disease model.

• Risk calculation is replaced by disease revelation, measurement and monitoring of the changes from intervention.  A proactive lifestyle and medical intervention strategy outperforms a prevention or intervention strategy for those already afflicted by silent but deadly progressive arterial injury. 

• A small efficient team with digital cloud-based tools can accomplish more at a lower cost (time and treasure) than the current bloated reactive system that depends on chronic disease and its complications for revenue to support bloated facilities, teams and bureaucracies that have nothing to do with care and everything to do with optimizing profit/margins.

• The key to success is motivation provoked by awareness and concern, open mindedness, and coachability, not education, wealth or social status.  Many highly educated, wealthy and high-status individuals lack the qualities for success described above. 

• A picture is worth a thousand words; a video is worth far more.  Personally seeing ultrasound images of arterial injury with an opportunity to heal it motivates change.  Simply seeing reduces risk scoring for heart attack and stroke by 50% in 1 year.  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(18)32818-6/abstract Talk about a blockbuster intervention! 

• Population improvement can begin organically, one individual at a time, then at scale.   

• We should not wait for the government or other authorities to act.  They won’t change themselves. We don’t have the time.  People are needlessly suffering and dying for lack of access to optimal but achievable remedies and results. 

• Focus on arterial injury (Inflammation and plaque) and reduction of visceral fat (insulin resistance) is achievable and improves general wellness by measuring reliable indicators of chronic inflammation due to oxidative stress.   

• Rural and blue collar workers deserve this as much as urban executives and the laptop class.  They are just as, or perhaps more, likely to succeed with the right kind of coaching. 

• Rural communities are more likely to succeed than urban and suburban populations because they are less controlled by the current mainstream health care system controlled processes and incentives. 
   

This is just the start.  This is scalable, effective and far more affordable than the alternatives.

Finally, in the past 10 years with well over a thousand patients, NO PATIENTS FOLLOWING OUR PLAN for arterial disease remission have suffered a stroke or heart attack. The only medically beneficial stent was needed to correct the failure of a stent placed for no good clinical indication 18 months earlier. And the one patient who needed coronary bypass deteriorated after 3 or more COVID mRNA injections. Compared to historical control experience, this is dramatic evidence of efficacy and a huge threat to the medical industrial pharma payer business model.

Lifeline Screening

Lifeline Screening offers nationwide access to carotid artery ultrasound screening for arterial disease. It is a good service that should be better. It calls attention to arterial disease and other signs of cardiometabolic disease. But it could have more impact than it does.

When they identify atherosclerotic disease, their recommendation to “monitor annually” supports the monitoring business plan but misses the best opportunity to reverse arterial disease when it is “mild.”

Calling arterial disease “mild” is as logical as referring to “mild cancer.”   Would you accept a recommendation to monitor your early cancer and wait for advanced stage disease to intervene?

If the disease is advanced and they suggest referral to an interventional specialist, consider a consultation with The CureCenter.  But if you have even the earliest findings on your Lifeline report in a drawer somewhere, we should have a discussion about it.

If you have a Lifeline Screening report, register at CureCoach.App, scan and upload the report to the message thread. Or fax it to 866-594-7830 or mail a copy to The CureCenter for Chronic Disease, 2131 W. White Oaks Dr. Suite A, Springfield, IL 62704. Include contact information (mobile phone and email) so we can reach out to you. Or register for a Discovery Zoom Call.

We will review it and use it to advise you how it can motivate and support efforts to reverse your disease and get rid of the threat of stroke and heart attack by finding and mitigating your specific root causes with a Personalized CurePlan. 

What is Cardiometabolic Disease?

Cardiometabolic disease, also known as atherosclerosis (arterial disease) dyslipidemia and metabolic syndrome, refers to a cluster of conditions that increase the risk of developing cardiovascular diseases and type 2 diabetes. It is caused by a combination of factors that affect metabolism, chronic inflammation and the cardiovascular system. These include obesity, high blood pressure (hypertension), hyperinsulinemia (insulin resistance or diabetes), and high oxidized LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels.

The exact cause of cardiometabolic disease is not fully understood. It is likely a result of a combination of genetic factors, adverse lifestyle choices, and environmental toxins that create oxidative stress. Sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy diet (processed foods, starch and sugars), smoking, excessive alcohol consumption, and chronic stress are among the contributing factors. 

When you have cardiometabolic disease, you are at a higher risk of developing serious health complications, such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. These conditions can lead to significant disability and mortality rates if not identified and proactively treated.

The diagnosis of cardiometabolic disease is typically based on the presence of specific risk criteria, including abdominal obesity (measured by body composition or waist circumference), elevated blood pressure, high blood sugar levels, elevated oxidized LDL and triglycerides, and low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol. 

Reversal of cardiometabolic disease includes lifestyle modifications, such as adopting a low carb diet, regular physical activity, weight loss, and smoking cessation. Medications may also be prescribed to control blood pressure, blood sugar levels, oxidized LDL cholesterol and, most importantly, INFLAMMATION. Supplements are recommended to treat identified deficiencies like vitamin D and folic acid to reduce homocysteine.

Preventing and reversing cardiometabolic disease requires a comprehensive approach that addresses the underlying risk factors. Promote a healthy lifestyle, educate individuals about the risks associated with cardiometabolic disease, and provide appropriate medical interventions to reduce the impact of this condition on individuals' health and well-being by putting it into remission.

For more information, and to begin the process of reducing your threat from cardiometabolic disease, request a complimentary Discovery Zoom Call with Dr. Backs.