Cardiologist Dr Scott Murray discusses what we can all do to reduce our risk of heart disease.

I think many of us are familiar with the idea that elevated levels of the so-called bad cholesterol - low density lipoprotein or LDL for short - have been linked to cardiovascular illness. (Although, in fact there is a group of scientists who argue that LDL levels are unconnected with heart disease.)

But Scott argues the picture is actually far more complicated than looking at just one factor and we need to be examining all the different elements that make up our cholesterol and fats. That means looking at our figures for total cholesterol, high density lipoproteins (HDL), LDL and triglycerides, not solely focussing on LDL to get an accurate picture of what is really going on in our bodies.

And there is one other factor that is often overlooked, but that Scott believes is an even bigger risk for heart disease and that is a high blood sugar level.

But as Scott reveals, the good news is that there is preventive action you can take.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Professor Sarah Berry discusses her research in personalised nutrition, which is uncovering the hugely varied effects different foods may have on one particular group or individual compared to others. This variability can be due to our genetics, metabolism or a number of other factors.

This may well have important implications for what, when and how we should eat.

For example, research is revealing that as we age, many of us have a worse tolerance for eating carbohydrates in the evening compared to earlier in the day. And while some blood markers have a strong genetic effect, many others can be heavily influenced and changed by lifestyle.

Professor Sarah Berry is a nutrition scientist based at King’s College, London University. She has particular research interests in individualised nutrition, food and fat structure, and the metabolic changes that happen after eating. She is also the chief scientist for the nutrition company Zoe.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Dentist Dr Victoria Sampson argues that while the gut microbiome gets a huge amount of attention, funding and publicity, the oral microbiome gets almost entirely overlooked, yet it is essential to our health.

As she explains in this podcast, it has a close symbiotic relationship with our gut biome, so changing the composition of one affects the other. And perhaps most importantly of all, poor oral biome health is linked to a range of illnesses from heart disease and Alzheimer's to diabetes and arithitis.

Remarkably even our fertility can be affected by the health of our mouth. But the oral biome is usually disregarded as a possible cause or aggravating factor in all of these conditions.

So what can we all do to ensure that we have a healthy oral biome?

Dr Victoria Sampson is a co-founder of the Health Society.

In addition to all the standard dental services, the Health Society also offers oral diagnostic testing. And anyone wantting to join the waiting list for a new oral microbiome test which will shortly be available can do so here.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

This week's guest is Dave Feldman, who unusually for this podcast is not a doctor or a medical researcher, but actually a software engineer.

For a long time, there has been concern that those on a very low carb or ketogenic diet are pushing their cholesterol to very high levels. This is something that Dave experienced personally, when he noticed the amount of his so called bad cholesterol - the low density lipoprotein, known as LDL - shoot up on a keto diet.

And when he found others reporting similar findings, he decided to set up an organisation called the Citizen Science Foundation to fund research to find out exactly what was happening in the particular case of people like him - what he has labelled as lean mass hyper-responders - who are slim, metabolically healthy, but see their cholesterol levels rise substantially once they are on a ketogenic diet.

Perhaps surprisingly, the early results from this work, suggest that this group - contrary to what has been thought in the past - may not be endangering their health.

At the very least what this research clearly demonstrates is the large gaps in our current understanding of the role of cholesterol in metabolic health.

One illustration of this is an experiment carried out by one of Dave's colleagues, Nick Norwitz, who found that eating Oreo cookies while on a keto diet actually lowered his LDL cholesterol more than a statin, which I don’t think I need to add is not a recommended medical intervention!

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Oncologist Professor Robert Thomas, argues along with standard conventional cancer treatments - all of which he uses - that exercise and diet can play a pivotal role in improving cancer outcomes.

Robert says for the newer biological therapies which require a patient to have robust immunity, research is revealing that a healthier lifestyle and gut health, can improve the chances of responding well to these biological agents by 30-40%.

He discusses his research using supplements which have shown significant benefit in the treatment of cancer patients.. One of which has also been shown to help those with long covid. Here are the links to the supplements discussed in the podcast:

https://yourgutplus.com/prostate-research/

https://yourphyto.com/scientific-study

The podcast receives no financial benefit or incentive from any of these products or companies.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Author and journalist Tom Mueller, after meeting whistleblowers working in the US dialysis industry seven years ago, decided to investigate further. Tom argues what he found is a cautionary tale not just about dialysis, but about the impact on healthcare of for profit medicine in general.

His book How to Make A Killing: Death, Dollars and the Business of Blood, contains one statistic that I found extraordinary. Although the US has one of the most sophisticated health care systems in the world, around 22% of US dialysis patients die each year, yet in Europe the figure is only 9-12%.

So what could possibly explain this?

How to Make A Killing: Death, Dollars and the Business of Blood by Tom Mueller is published by WW Norton and Company.

Before publiciation, Tom contacted organisations, both private and public, involved in the US dialysis industry about the material contained in his book, most did not respond but DaVita one the two companies responsible for 80% of US dialysis healthcare did.

It said that its company’s principles rendered many of Tom’s assumptions incorrect or downright impossible.

It states that patient welfare is paramount in its facilities: “The first consideration in every decision we make is patient safety….We are committed to providing a comfortable, therapeutic environment for all patients.”

Tom Mueller's work has appeared in The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere. Previous books include Crisis of Conscience, a cultural history of whistleblowing and fraud.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Investigative reporter Michael Moss has spent many years uncovering just what it is about processed and fast food that makes it so hard for many of us to resist.

This is the final podcast of three that I am doing in conjunction with the International Food addiction Consensus conference held on 17th May.

Michael says he now believes from his decades of research, that particular combinations of flavour, texture, fat, protein and carbohydrates can create food that has the potential to be addictive.

He argues the evidence is clear and believes the food industry is facing the same challenges the tobacco industry once faced, when it argued cigarettes were not addictive.

Michael Moss is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist. He's a former investigative reporter for The Wall Street Journal and New York Times. And he's written two best-selling books about processed and fast food, the most recent is Hooked: Food, Free Will And How The Food Giants Exploit Our Addictions (US title) published by Random House; Hooked: How Processed Food Became Addictive (UK title) published by Ebury Publishing.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/

Psychiatrist Dr. Anna Lembke discusses how addictive substances like alcohol and drugs cause our dopamine levels to rocket, and reveals - perhaps surprisngly - that highly processed, high sugar food can also have a similar effect on our brains. This is the second podcast of three that I'm doing in conjunction with the International Food Addiction Consensus conference held in London on 17th May.

Anna argues we've transformed our world into a place of overwhelming abundance, where we're constantly bombarded by triggers - whether that's food, drugs, social media or other addictive substances that continually stimulate high dopamine release in our brains.

She believes we're becoming addicted to pleasures that make us sick. Anna reveals the neuroscience of food addiction; the impact of constant dopamine hits to our brains; the value of a month long dopamine fast; and what we can all do to lead healthier, more balanced lives.

Dr. Anna Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic.

The host of the podcast, Liz Tucker is an award winning medical journalist and former BBC producer and director. You can follow Liz on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lizctucker and read her Substack newsletter about the podcast at https://liztucker.substack.com

If you would like to support this podcast you can do so via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/WhatYourGPDoesntTellYou or via PayPal at https://www.whatyourgpdoesnttellyou.com/support/

What Your GP Doesn’t Tell You has been selected by Feedspot as one of the top 20 UK Medical Podcasts https://blog.feedspot.com/uk_medical_podcasts/