In this episode, Angie Austin welcomes Dr. Roizen back to discuss plans for a healthy Thanksgiving, shedding light on the importance of giving ourselves permissible ‘cheat days.’ Dr. Roizen shares insights into new medical discoveries, such as a molecule that regenerates mitochondria to improve energy and a promising gene editing technique capable of significantly reducing cholesterol levels. The conversation underscores how these advancements could revolutionize our approach to health and wellness.
00:00:08 Thanksgiving Traditions and Healthy Eating
00:20:56 Addressing Problems and Symptoms Effectively
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. You know, I talk with Dr. Roizen pretty much weekly about health and longevity. And Doc, since you’re joining us again around Thanksgiving, you and I have talked for years about Thanksgiving meals. And I always like to hear kind of what your plan is for your meal since you are so healthy. So welcome to the show. And what’s what’s on the menu for Thanksgiving, Doc? Well.
SPEAKER 06 :
As you know, I have four cheat days a year where you can eat anything. And always one of those cheat days is Labor Day because I go to a, if you will, a barbecue at my wife’s family’s place. Um, another one is our anniversary. Um, and, uh, so we celebrate, we’re now 51 years together. My wife and I married and the, uh, third one is always Thanksgiving where I go to my sister’s house and, but I try and eat healthy. Um, meaning it is, uh, I’ll have Turkey, I’ll have squash, um, and wine, and then some pumpkin pie, and all I’ll do is eat the filling on the pumpkin pie. It’s a little ridiculous. And walnuts, but I’ll overeat. And that’s the tradition, if you will. And so I’ll try and eat healthy. Will I have some dressing? Maybe. But it is basically… that I try and still eat fairly healthy, but I don’t succeed on Thanksgiving. And so you’ve got to give yourself four cheat days a year, and this is one of my four every year.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I’ve lost like almost 35 pounds, and I have to say that that’s similar, I think, to how I’ve never – I don’t even remember the last time I had a pie crust. You know what I mean? Like I never eat the crust. And my teenagers are funny because they’re like, give me your crust, give me your crust. But anyway, yeah, that’s not really a lot like you, but I have to say my portions are so much smaller. Like I will have stuffing, but I’ll probably only have like three bites and like three bites of mashed potatoes and whatever. But my servings are so much smaller now.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, that’s exactly right. Yeah. I’ve adapted, but again, it is an official cheat day.
SPEAKER 05 :
Official. I like that. All right. So what are your favorite stories out this week in the medical world?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, my favorite one is, and I guess it is both numbers one and two on the list that we sent, which are the first one is the Buck Institute in Michigan. California, which is in Marin County, they almost accidentally came up with a drug that gives you more energy. That is, so far they’ve done it in two animal species and it regenerates your mitochondria. So your mitochondria take fat and sugar and turn it into ATP and that is the energy vehicle that we use, ATP. And as we get older, as we age, that process, kind of like electric lines, degrades the electric line or degrades the power plant, or if you will, the windmill or the solar panel, whatever, Those are degraded by the process of making energy. Well, so are your mitochondria. Well, this new molecule called MIC, M-I-C, they were testing drugs for other purposes, and they saw that this actually caused the mitochondria to recycle itself into new mitochondria that produced more energy. And so this will be moving into human trials again. In other words, what you’re doing is you’re taking a mouse that is old and doesn’t run their treadmill and doesn’t get away from the mouse as fast, and you’re getting it to be, if you will, getting away from the cat as fast as that. And you’re getting it to be more active and have more energy. And that’s what this molecule does. they’re going to be testing in humans pretty soon. Wow. So that’s pretty amazing. So you get more energy without anything else happening, so to speak.
SPEAKER 05 :
So get more energy and possibly extend your lifespan. I mean, I certainly would work out even more if I had more energy. And do you know when this might be? I mean, I know it’s only in a study now, but does it usually take a few years to maybe make it to market?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, if this works, they’ll be starting human trials. And usually… Um, in, in this case, it would probably be about a five year period.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay. All right. So we got a little ways to wait. All right. I have high cholesterol runs in my family. Even when I go to like one of those juice spas and only have like juice or greens for, I think it was three weeks in a row that I only had that. And I still had high cholesterol. So what’s this new gene editing that cuts cholesterol?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, so one of the, one of the, um, targets for gene editing is something that inhibits your taking away your cholesterol. That is you normally return your cholesterol to your, it circles through your liver and what keeps our cholesterol high is there’s a gene that produces, that inhibits the receptor that takes away your cholesterol and gets it out of your body. And so this gene was literally a trial in humans. So this is a phase one trial in humans to prove its safety and to find doses. And with one shot, it cut your the cholesterol by 39 to 55%. And with one shot, and they expect to have one shot every two to five years, they are still tracing how long this reduction lasts with this gene editing. Maybe one shot for your whole life. So this is a and since cholesterol is key in The cholesterol cycle in that liver is key for heart disease, stroke, and dementia. This could be a major benefit.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow. Yeah, I’ve had this issue since my 30s, so that’s really great news to hear. All right, Doc, how do we find you and all your books and apps, etc.? ?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, the books are all, you can get it amazon.com, but the website that were, that is ours is longevity playbook. One word longevity playbook.com. That’s a great, you can sign up for the free newsletter, um, and, uh, get the newsletter, uh, every, uh, it’s twice a week and it’s a wonderful update on what’s new. Um, many of the things it covers, many of the things we don’t cover, or don’t have the time to cover but are important for people to understand how much power they have over how long and well they live.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I love it. Thank you so much, Doctor, for all the great info. Talk to you next week. Look forward to it, Angie. Me too. If you are just joining us, this is Angie Austin with the good news. And the good news is that joining us is Dr. Charles Vega, primary care physician and director of UC Irvine’s program in medical education for the Latino community and Thelma. Thelma is a mom and a two-time kidney transplant recipient. She is the mother of twin boys. Welcome to both of you. Hi, how are you? Thank you very much. You are welcome. All right, so let’s start with you, Doc. Can you talk about, let’s start with chronic kidney disease, and I do have a couple people in the family who’ve had kidney transplants, and one had two, one had one, but I think people might be surprised to hear about people having two, so let’s just start with chronic kidney disease. Let’s start there.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, and so your story is not that uncommon, and I hope your relatives are doing great because CKD, particularly when we detect it early, does not have many consequences. I have lots of folks with CKD who never need a transplant, who never go on dialysis. But part of the reason is because I’m detecting it earlier because I’m going upstream and identifying risk factors and then testing patients with both a urine test and a blood test. So that’s one of our core messages. If you have diabetes, if you have hypertension, a family history, those are all reasons to get a urine and a blood test on a regular basis, at least annually, to screen for CKD.
SPEAKER 05 :
And let’s talk a little bit about the campaign, the It Takes Two campaign. Tell us about that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, so Thelma and I are really here in partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim and Lilly to raise awareness about CKD because we’re not doing a good enough job, unfortunately. Up to 90% of folks with CKD don’t know they have CKD.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, if you have one of those high-risk conditions, talk to your clinician. Ask for the urine and blood test because particularly for the urine test, we’re not doing a great job in getting those done. If you want to learn more about your personal kidney risk and how to have that conversation with your clinician, testyourkidneys.com is the website to go to, testyourkidneys.com.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, one more question, and this is obviously someone who is not educated that much in this arena. Is this something that if your father had this issue that there’s a chance you could, is this something that runs in families?
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, they absolutely can. So family history, especially with a primary relative, that means your brother, your sister, mother, father, or multiple other relatives with CKD absolutely get tested. There are genetic conditions. And I want to call out particularly to the African-American community. There is a genetic trait about 13% of U.S. African-American adults have it that predispose them to not just chronic kidney disease, but worse CKD. CKD that advances more rapidly. So that’s another reason to think about screening.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, Thelma, let’s jump to you. How did you find out that you have CKD?
SPEAKER 07 :
Well, it actually took nearly a decade for me to find out that I had CKD because when I did present to the doctor with symptoms of swelling and fatigue, they push that off to another condition. And so later on in a decade, I go back with flu-like symptoms, and this time they just do a simple dipstick test in my urine, and it shows blood and protein. It’s not supposed to be there. Further testing for lupus, HIV, everything was negative, but then a biopsy showed that I had a rare kidney disease, but then now, not only am I living with CKD, everything spirals and I’m having to live with chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and everything is interconnected and it affects your entire cardiovascular system.
SPEAKER 05 :
kidney metabolic condition so it has been very overwhelming to say the least well no wonder you’re part of this take two campaign if it took 10 years and really all it took was that urine test to find out you had it i mean what a journey you went through for something that could have been discovered much sooner yes ma’am all right let’s talk about your advice then for people at risk for ckd thelma what would you say to them after what you’ve been through
SPEAKER 07 :
That urine test gives you an idea of what your baseline kidney function and what’s happening there, but also if you are at risk for cardiovascular. I have been through so much throughout this journey, so I’m just inspired and encouraged to tell people you have to advocate for yourself. Knowledge is power. Go to the website, testyourkidneys.com. There is more than enough information there for you to learn and to have these conversations with your doctors. because we want to be proactive, and we want you to find out earlier, as you said, what would have it had taken just for that doctor to run a blood or urine test, and these things could have maybe slowed the progression of me needing two kidney transplants and a few years on dialysis, because kidney disease can be a silent killer. So please partner with your doctors. It takes two years. get the two tests and go to testyourkidneys.com for more information and advocate for yourself.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, Thelma, thank you so much. It’s so helpful to have someone who’s already been through this journey to advocate for others. And Dr. Vega, what would you say for you? The key takeaway is that you want us to take away from the interview today.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, I think the key takeaway for me is that Thelma is awesome. She’s a great example of a change agent. And so You should be your own change agent, and don’t be afraid to bring this up to your clinician. We’re here to listen to your concerns. Maybe if you have a longer list of things that you want to talk to your clinician about, make that list, write it down, put your priorities down, and the ones you can’t get to this time that might include your kidneys, make sure you’ve set another appointment. Don’t let it go. Make sure you get tested, particularly if you have those high-risk conditions.
SPEAKER 05 :
Excellent. Well, thank you both so much. And give us the website again for more info. It’s testyourkidneys.com. Thank you. Thank you so much, Thelma, and thank you so much, Dr. Vega. Take care.
SPEAKER 07 :
Have a great day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Arc Thrift needs your large furniture donations. You can either drop off your large furniture at one of Arc Thrift’s 36 locations or schedule a pickup online. Arc Thrift is looking for your gently used couches, chairs, tables, recliners, dressers, entertainment centers, armoires, and desks. Give your furniture a second chance of life. As long as the furniture is in good condition, you can schedule for a large furniture pickup on Arc Thrift’s website. Also, make sure to include at least five bags or boxes of gently used items when your furniture gets picked up. And if you have more stuff to donate, they can take up to 20 boxes or bags at a time, free of charge. And with the holidays approaching, find all of your ugly Christmas sweaters, white elephant gifts, holiday decorations, and gifts for a fraction of the retail store price. Find your nearest Arc Thrift by going to arcthrift.com today. So much more than a thrift store.
SPEAKER 07 :
Pueblo, thanks for tuning in to Colorado’s Mighty 670 KLTT.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hello there, Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with the good news. We’re going to talk about the winner’s wisdom column. But Jim, every year you go at least once a year to your favorite vacation spot, this island in San Diego. And so you’re back. How did it go? Tell us all about this favorite place.
SPEAKER 02 :
Fantastic. It is on a little beach, a resort on an island in Mission Bay in San Diego. And I go there twice a year to give a speech to world leaders that come in from everywhere. And it’s called Compassionate Samurai. It’s a group of people dedicated to giving back in their life and a group of very, very powerful people. And my late great friend Brian Clemmer had written a book called Compassionate Samurai about combining the people in the world that have good hearts and spirits and the people who have a lot of money and power, and you get them together and you can get a lot done. And he passed away several years ago, but he has continued. And this was my 55th one I have done in the last 25 years. And I stay in the same bungalow on the beach, and Crystal and I go. And we always spend four to five days there, and Crystal loves to kayak in the bay. And we walk on the beach, and I give a speech, and we come home. So it’s a wonderful kind of working vacation and vacation. I’m very grateful to get to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
And normally you and I talk while you’re there. And one time you hadn’t hung up and I heard Crystal like saying like, you know, hurry up, we’re going kayaking. Like you had made her wait while we did our interview. It’s so bad that you work while she’s like sitting there waiting to go kayaking. I’m like… This time I actually gave you a break. It wasn’t expected that I gave you a break because we had that little mishap with my mom. I had to fly out to Arizona right away. But, yeah, so Crystal didn’t have to wait this time to go kayaking.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, she went out and had a great time, and all is right with the world. So we get to do that, and we’re already looking forward to next spring doing it again.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, can you give us any of the big names that have come in the past, or is it top secret?
SPEAKER 02 :
You would see some United States senators. You would see people from government leaders from countries around the world or individuals. There’s a few Hollywood types come down from America. And so that’s kind of the kind of people you look at. I’m not supposed to drop any names, but you can kind of fill in the blanks. And, you know, these are people that just want to make the world a better place. There’s no other agenda to it. So that’s what we talk about.
SPEAKER 05 :
And what’s the name of the resort?
SPEAKER 02 :
Paradise Point Resort.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love it. I love it. All right. So today we’re discussing the winner’s wisdom column titled Problems and Symptoms. And you start with it’s funny because you say imagine driving down the road. How long has it been since you stopped driving?
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, only about 40 years. Yeah, something like that. closer to 50 years i guess so were you in your 20s when you stopped driving uh i stopped driving yeah before that i was 17 i stopped driving when i came into contact with the rear end of a police car that i didn’t see oh i never heard this one oh this was the end of my um driving career um Thankfully, he was not in his car. He had gone to check on a burglar alarm at a house, and he’s coming out of the house back to his car, and I rear-ended him and tore up both of our cars, and he made sure I was okay. He was very kind about it, and I said, what do we do now? And he said, believe it or not, I have to call a cop. Oh, no! So we had to wait on another cop to come, and they were all fine about it. And I said, I am so sorry. And he said, no, no, no. He said, I’m the rookie. I’ve had the worst car in the fleet for six, eight months, and now you have totaled it. So he said, it’s all great for me. So he was great. But, no, I haven’t driven since then.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness. So you drove for about a year or two.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, I shouldn’t have. I never – I never passed the eye test. You have to go and take the test. And I did okay. And then they make you take the eye test. I couldn’t even see the chart. So I just said what the guy in front of me said. I just memorized it and said it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Oh, my goodness. You did? Because you were already losing your eyesight, so you memorized the chart?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, yeah. I just said what the guy in front of me said. And she said, wow, that’s amazing, too. Exact same scores. And I said, isn’t it wonderful? Isn’t it amazing? And I will tell you, to this day, I have a valid driver’s license. I have a boy’s kept and use it for ID and stuff like that. But every two years or four years, I go back over there and sign up again, and they let me do it. And they know who I am. They know I’m blind. I don’t know why this happens. So when you’re out driving around, be careful because there’s guys like me out there.
SPEAKER 05 :
You are probably one of the only blind men in the world with a valid driver’s license.
SPEAKER 02 :
I would imagine so, yeah. And I just never gave it up. And I keep thinking they’re going to grab it from me, but they haven’t.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, they know you have a driver, so they probably feel safe. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, you kill me. All right, so problems and symptoms. You start off with saying, imagine you’re driving down the road.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, and I have to imagine, but you’re driving down the road, and one of the emergency lights comes on your dashboard. Check engine. Now you’ve got this problem. You’ve got this light there. And you can either look at it as a problem or a symptom. And you’ve got to fix something. Now there’s two things you can do. Number one, you can unplug the light. There’s a thing under your dashboard there. You can unplug it. The light will go out. And you have dealt with the symptom. or you can go check your brake fluid or your tire pressure or whatever it’s telling you to check, and you can deal with the problem. Now, if you deal with the symptom, it will take care of everything for a short period of time. But in the long haul, you’ve got to deal with problems, and that’s the whole key. And when you start having a bit of success, you have people calling you and wanting money or help with things. And I have a foundation. We try to help as many people as we can. But we are committed to dealing with problems and not symptoms. So when people call me and say… you know, Jim, we don’t have money for our rent or food or we don’t have that. I said, well, bring in all your books. Let’s take a look at it. Well, the reason they don’t have money in many cases, and please, Angie, I understand, bad things happen to good people. People lose jobs or they get medical bills and all that. But a lot of the times these are people that say, I don’t have money for food or rent. And you look back in their bank statement here, that’s because you had money to buy five new outfits at the mall and spend the weekend at the casino. And that’s why you don’t have the money. And they never call you and say, hey, I need some money to go blow at the casino. But if you help their symptom, that’s really what you’re investing in. And, you know, so we have a rule at our foundation, you know, we will help you with your problem, but we don’t help with the symptom. And I had a lady get really, really mad at me several years ago. And she said, you only give money to people with strings attached. You want us to deal with the issues in our life. You just don’t give us money. I said, thank you. You have defined our foundation. That’s what we do. And I am not prepared to to give money to people that are going to continue to do the same thing. I’m not going to invest in their lifestyle. When the earthquake hit Haiti, I was able to combine some efforts with the military and some farmers up in the upper Midwest, and we got 100,000 meals there in 72 hours. I was very proud of our team, and we got it. Well, afterwards, several of the Haitian officials flew here, to America and they wanted to meet with me and we sat in a private room and talked about, and they said, we’d like to have you help us long term. I said, what kind of help do you need? And he said, well, you could continue to help us feed our people. And I said, well, why can’t your people feed themselves? Why is this an ongoing problem? Now, I understand when you have an earthquake. And he said, well, we live in a poor country. I said, why? You share an island with the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is a very wealthy country, a gorgeous place. It’s wonderful. What can we do? Now, if you come here and ask me, can we do something? to create more opportunities and a better place. In Haiti, I’m all over that. But if we’re just going to keep feeding people because they have that symptom, that’s not really where we’re coming from. And they didn’t like that. They were in the hunger business and liked to control that that way. And I just said, guys, I’m very interested in putting an enterprise zone there in your country or doing some other things that would create opportunities for your people. But just to keep feeding people forever, that just doesn’t fit our mission.
SPEAKER 05 :
It’s interesting that somebody was upset with you and saying that you had strings attached when you’re really just trying to – solve the underlying problem. And I know that you help a lot of kids with their education. Are there any parts of this giving? Because I know for you, you wanting to become a multimillionaire, very successful financially had a lot to do with giving. Are there any like kind of favorite aspects to your giving that you all do through your foundation?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, I love the kids. We’ve given 500 college scholarships over the years. One of them I am just so proud of. A young man I gave money to 20-some years ago. We gave him a scholarship for two years to finish his education. Then years later… You know, when we were opening the Stovall Center for Entrepreneurship, they introduced me to Dr. Kevin Schneider. And I said, well, it’s nice to meet you because they said he’s going to be the executive director and he runs the Stovall Center. And I said, well, I’m looking forward to working with you. He said, well, I have to thank you. I said, well. don’t thank me. They’re the one, the university gave you the job. I didn’t have anything to do with it. I think they made a good decision. He said, no. He said, when I was a junior in college and I’d run out of money, you gave me a scholarship for two years. And then I went on and got my PhD. And now I am the executive director of the Stovall Center. And it’s amazing. It just comes full circle all the way back around.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow, that is absolutely so cool. And you said that when your foundation is out of money to give scholarships for that year, that you like to hear about somebody further down on the list that isn’t going to get a scholarship that year so you can work hard to make sure they get one the next year or something to that effect?
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah, that always motivates me. And I don’t care. If you’re going to help people and do things in philanthropy, you have to get used to the fact that – There’s always going to be need. You can’t fix everything. But when I start going through the pile of all the scholarship applications and our committee ranks them, we always get to the one, okay, this is the last kid that gets a scholarship. The next one in the pile is one that always motivates me for the year. And they really, really do. Because I thought, okay, if we can do better next year, then someone like this student will get an application, get a scholarship, and we can get that application handled. But there’s always more. But yeah, the need always motivates you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I would think that that would do. I think that’s a good technique that you use. So in terms of problems and solution and the quote unquote strings attached to the money you give, which you don’t call it that you call it fixing the problem so that you can not just fix the symptom. Do I have that right?
SPEAKER 02 :
Absolutely, yeah. I want to fix your engine, not just turn off the fixed engine light. I remember that old commercial for Fram oil filters, and the guy’s pulling the engine out of a car, and he’s holding an oil filter, and he looks in the camera and says, you can pay me now or you can pay me later. Right now, it’s an $8 oil filter. If you want to wait until later, you can buy a $3,000 engine.
SPEAKER 05 :
All right. So give us in a nutshell the synopsis of what you want us to take away today.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Deal with real problems and not symptoms. And, you know, look at the underlying issue and, you know, fix the real issue. I mean, don’t band-aid things in life. Fix the issue. And if you can do that, you can make a real lasting difference in the world. Otherwise, you’re just treading water and you’re unplugging brake lights and that just doesn’t go anywhere.
SPEAKER 05 :
I was just at one of my best friends, Cindy’s house. She has a second home in Phoenix, and it’s mind-blowing. It’s guard-gated community, golf course, multimillion-dollar homes with these incredible views, and I went into her closets. And she goes, I always know where to go for my outfits because I have different closets, like the golf closet and the going out closet. And we were walking all around the house. I said, wow, it must take a lot of time to stay this organized. She goes, oh, no, this saves me time. And I have to tell you, I’ve come home and I have gone through my pantry, my refrigerator, my closet, because I realized if I keep them more like hers, it does save you time. It’s just me getting organized enough to be that way in the first place. And I guess I’m taking care of the problem. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
In this episode, Angie Austin welcomes Dr. Roizen back to discuss plans for a healthy Thanksgiving, shedding light on the importance of giving ourselves permissible ‘cheat days.’ Dr. Roizen shares insights into new medical discoveries, such as a molecule that regenerates mitochondria to improve energy and a promising gene editing technique capable of significantly reducing cholesterol levels. The conversation underscores how these advancements could revolutionize our approach to health and wellness.
