009 - 132 Cardiac Arrests, 48% Survival: The Alarming Truth About Pro Athletes’ Hearts | ClearCardio
In this episode of the Prevention Is Power podcast, host J.D. Enright, former NBA player Anthony Tolliver, and preventive cardiologist Dr. John Osborne discuss the hidden epidemic of coronary plaque in athletes and the general population, and how Clear Cardio’s AI‑enhanced cardiac CT platform can detect, quantify, and even reverse plaque. The conversation begins with Enright’s personal case – a 30% coronary blockage that was reduced to zero after a series of Clear Cardio assessments and lifestyle interventions. Osborne walks listeners through the visualizations of the coronary arteries, explaining the three‑color plaque classification (red, yellow, blue) and how AI can reveal sub‑clinical plaque that traditional stress tests or invasive caths miss. They cite a recent European Society of Cardiology study showing that 92% of asymptomatic adults have detectable plaque, and a broader claim that heart disease now affects roughly one in two people. The episode then shifts to the specific causes of sudden cardiac death in athletes under 35 – structural heart disease, anomalous coronary arteries, and early‑onset atherosclerosis – illustrated with historical cases (e.g., Reggie Lewis, Pistol Pete Maravich). Osborne emphasizes that early detection, not just treatment after an event, is the key to preventing death and costly interventions. The trio also touches on practical barriers such as insurance underwriting, the cost of traditional testing, and how Clear Cardio’s low‑cost CT and a $129 six‑lead EKG device can streamline underwriting for pilots, athletes, and anyone with a family history. Tolliver shares his personal experience, noting that seeing his own scan confirmed that his preventive habits were effective and motivated him to maintain them. Throughout, the hosts stress a philosophy of proactive, data‑driven prevention, encouraging listeners to get scanned, understand their risk, and act on the actionable insights provided by Clear Cardio’s technology.
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Darius Morris, a former guard for teams including the Los Angeles Lakers and the Brooklyn Nets, was found deceased on May 2nd, 2024, at the age of 33. Zeki Upshaw, on March 24th, 2018, while playing for the Grand Rapids Drive-In, the NBA G League, collapsed during a game. He was subsequently diagnosed with sudden cardiac death and passed away 2 days later At the young age of 26. In fact, in the last 10 years, according to research published in the Sports Health Journal, there were 132 cases of cardiac arrest among professional athletes. And more than 30% of those cases occurred during playing basketball. And only 48% of those athletes survived their heart attack. Hi, welcome to Prevention Is Power Podcast, the podcast dedicated to empowering individuals with the knowledge to take control of their health. Brought to you by Cleer Cardio with your host, me, J.D. Enright, co-founder and CEO of Cleer Cardio. The Prevention is Power podcast explores the critical role prevention plays regarding your risk of heart attacks and strokes. Today, we welcome Anthony Tolliver, former NBA veteran turned entrepreneur known for his leadership both on and off the court. Anthony has successfully transitioned into business, and real estate. He joins us today to discuss his journey, the importance of longevity for athletes, and the mindset needed for sustained success. And today he'll receive and share the actual results of his Cleer Cardio testing that was performed at the Cleer Cardio Clinic just this morning with Dr. John Osborne. Also joining us is Dr. John Osborne, a leading cardiologist and global expert in preventive cardiology and cardiovascular care, he'll break down the power of prevention and the keys to long-term heart health. Dr. Osborne will be providing Anthony with his test results live for us today. Together, they'll share invaluable insights on optimizing health, extending performance, and taking control of your health. So, let's dive in. Guys, welcome to the Prevention is Power Podcast here at Clear Cardio. How are you guys doing today?
Doing great. How about yourself?
Fantastic.
Fantastic and great to be here.
Yes, Dr. Osborne. You know it's always great to have these podcasts with you, and we've been having some really interesting you know people on the podcast from all walks of life. And today is no difference. We've got Anthony Tolliver here, NBA star, 13 seasons.
13 seasons. Yeah.
Wow! What was that like?
Phenomenal. It was a dream come true. It was something since about 5 years old was, was the plan. And that was— I don't think anybody else thought it was possible besides me, but I was able to get it done and, you know, extend it, extend the career out to well, well beyond what I thought was even possible. So I'm super blessed.
How tall were you? I'm curious. When you were 5, that's when you said, I'm going to play basketball.
I don't know. I mean, I was taller than your average person for sure, but I just knew. I just had a clear vision of what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. And it really took literally dedication from then all the way through in order to give myself a chance. So I was glad that I had a clear vision at such an early age.
Yeah. Well, Dr. Osborne, if you're anything like me and probably a lot of our listeners out there, I remember when I was 5, probably up till I was about 12, where I thought, I want to be an NBA star. Like, you know, I grew up in Massachusetts, you know, playing in the basketball courts in town and things like that. And I just thought I was awesome. And then you realize, you know, at 5'10, 5'11, unless you're Spud Webb— for those of you who don't know who he is, he was about my height— who could slam dunk. You probably don't have a future in the NBA. But anyways, yeah.
I can tell you, if you look at the couch here, yeah, being in the NBA was really never on my books. Yeah, oddly enough.
No, but I think it was at age 5 that you pretty much wanted to either be a pilot or like a cardiovascular surgeon. Yeah.
So, so much like you, I mean, I knew early on kind of what I wanted to do. Plan A was be a fighter pilot. That didn't work out because I had to wear glasses. But I figured that out early. And then after that, pretty straightforward to end up doing what I do. And I've never worked a day in my life. I just get paid to do my hobby.
So I love it.
Kind of like, I'm sure, what you were doing too.
Absolutely. The moment it felt like a job was when I knew it was close to being done.
Right.
So that's— and then my wife also retired. I didn't retire before she retired. She was like, I'm done traveling. I'm done living in different places. You're more than welcome to keep playing, but I'm ready to be done. And I said, well, that means I'm pretty close too.
So, well, that's really interesting. You don't think about that.
And I have to say, it is a testament to our spouses. You know, we do what we do, but we could not do it without our spouses.
I agree.
Amen to that.
Unanimity across the board.
Shout out to Yvette, my wife. Hi. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, so, wow. So You're 5 years old. You decide you're going into the NBA. And, you know, that's miraculous. And then you spend 13 seasons. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
It's an amazing— I know that there's not a lot of guys who, A, are undrafted and then, B, make it 10-plus years. My good, my good buddy Jamie Gruber, he actually did a little, little research and I can't remember the exact number of guys who who were able to, who were able to do that. But it's not too many. Be undrafted. I came from a small school. Creighton now is in the Big East. It's a pretty big-time school now, I would say. But back when I played, it was in the Missouri Valley, very small school, kind of what you call the Division I-AA.
Got it.
So to make it out of there, to not get drafted, and then to stick for as long as I did, it was Like I said, it was, it was very intentional. But also, I know, just very, very blessed and fortunate and a lot of favor that, that was had because, you know, it's just not very common to have that, that much, that much success.
Mm-hmm.
Wow.
What's— what are some of the teams you played for? For those of us that are watching that may not be—
Yeah. So I'll go through the whole gamut. It's a lot. So started in San Antonio, Golden State, Minnesota, Atlanta, Charlotte, Phoenix, Detroit, Sacramento, Portland, Memphis, and Philadelphia. So 11 teams.
Wow. She met a lot of people.
Yeah. So I didn't— I also, I played for Portland. Technically twice, played for Minnesota twice, played for Detroit twice.
The Pistons.
Correct. Yeah. So it's, it's not— I didn't go through the entire journey. I just went— I just told you all the teams.
Fair enough.
So in between, I was with Sac. I went to Sac and I went back to Detroit and I went back to Minnesota and, you know, went back to Portland. I mean, it was, it was a crazy journey.
So now I understand why your wife decided to retire before you did. Yeah.
Yeah. She's like, I'm done. She's like, me and the kids are done, but you're more than welcome to go play. But I'm not going to go live for a long period of time without my wife and kids. So I just knew from then on it was going to be pretty short-lived. It was going to be a very— but at that point, I was already 11, 12 years in. So it was great.
Yeah. And so just like that, it sounds like you just knew that you needed to do something proactive about your own personal health, right?
Yeah.
And as I understand it, in some of our earlier conversations that you and I had, you've always been very pro, like, preventive care, which is unique. Wouldn't you say, Dr. Osborne?
Oh, absolutely. I wish there were more people like you.
Yeah. Yeah, it's been something that's meant a lot to me. Family history, my mom passed away when I was 23. We don't know exactly what from, but So what happened with your mom? 56, had a checkup, I think maybe 4 or 5 months before. Nothing was found. Like nothing was— the doctors weren't saying, oh, you need to be careful here or take care of this or anything. I'll actually never forget October 22nd, was playing against the Milwaukee Bucks. I was with the Spurs at the time, kind of had a good enough game to where I knew that That I was going to make the team because I still had to make the team at that point and had a conversation. She saw the game. It was kind of like every other game where I talked to my mom right after the game and said, good night, say love you. And the next day I got a call that she was no longer here. Oh, wow.
So it's completely sudden, out of nowhere.
Out of nowhere. No warning signs. No, hey, you need to take care of this. Otherwise, there could be something Wrong. So unfortunately, you know, looking back now after, you know, after that all happened, they asked us if we wanted to do an autopsy, and I— we declined because at that point it didn't matter. She's gone, right? But now looking back, I'm like, dang it, I wish we would have just so we have clarity on exactly what happened.
And a family history kind of thing.
Yeah. And so, but on my dad's side, my dad has had 2 heart attacks, and he has A stent, and he— I think he's done open-heart surgery. I mean, he's done it all. Like, it's been— but he's about to turn 80 this year, right?
How old was he when he had his first heart issue, stent or heart attack?
His 50s, I believe. Yeah, I was young. I was maybe 10 or 12.
Wow.
Whenever he had his first—
So you lost mom at 23, and your dad was starting to have heart issues by the time you were 10?
By the time I was young, before I was a teenager. I remember I remember pretty vividly being young in the hospital saying, well, my dad had a heart attack, but he's still alive. So like, thank God. But at that point, I didn't know how big of a deal.
How would you at that age?
Yeah, like, I didn't know. I was just like, oh, is he okay? Yeah, he's still alive. Okay, well, good. Like, you know, like that's—
He had a cold.
Right. Like, I mean, it to me at that point, it wasn't really too much different. But looking back now, I'm like, wow, just knowing some of the— even some of the stats that I've heard from you over the last week or so. Knowing that how often that's not the case.
He's a very lucky man.
Yeah.
And clinically, right, as a cardiologist, I'm always fascinated with genetics of this and family history and all that, because in reality, our parents— and I'll say something about our siblings too— but our parents are truly our pathfinders, right? So whatever happens to them doesn't mean that's going to happen to us 100%. But stuff like heart attacks or cancers or things like that, if they get that, particularly if they have it at a young age, that's a big warning signal that that could be in our cards too, right? So I'm so glad you got your scan today.
Yeah, and it's just, it was already on my heart, right? It was already—
No pun intended.
No pun intended. It was already on my heart.
We have a comedian, folks.
To be proactive with it all. With that happening to my mom, with my dad having a couple of heart attacks, being— just being very proactive on the cardio side of things has always been kind of my standard. Like, every day I'm walking, I'm running, I'm doing things to just, like, stay in shape and eating well and just being very intentional with my health because I know there are some things that I am pushing a boulder uphill, like I was saying earlier.
Mm-hmm.
I just know that There are some things that are working against me. So for me, I'm a worker. And so I'm going to work right back. And anything that I can control, I'm going to do that. And that's why all of this coming up and everything else, it just made a lot of sense to go down this path.
So as the only professional athlete in the room, you know, all those years of being around other professional athletes, what is your sense of the general attitude, for example, in the NBA? I think if anybody can speak to it, you can. Because you've been to so many different teams and so many different states and cities and your longevity, 13 years, that's remarkable. What is your, like, what are your thoughts about, you know, your opinions on proactiveness in men's professional sports, in particular NBA?
You know, I think that with there being some issues that have happened over the years, with even guys like Bronny James having his heart issues at such a young age, I think there's been a lot more attention towards it.
How old was he, do you know?
19.
Oh my goodness.
Yeah, he didn't like— he had an episode. I'm not sure exactly what it was. I can't—
But it was heart-related.
Yeah, it was 100% heart-related. I'm pretty sure he had surgery.
Okay.
What kind, I'm not sure. Like, I don't know all the details, but I do know That, that happening to him, obviously being the son of, you know, one of the most famous players of all time, that also brought a lot more eyes towards it all, too. But even before then, the NBA, I think, is one of the most proactive leagues, if not the most proactive league, in at least trying to implement things to, to have guys be more proactive with all the heart issues and stuff like that.
So I've got a question. So you're in the NBA. Right. You're in the limelight, an incredibly highly selective group. Money's not an issue, right? So what did they have you do to show you're okay or your other team members? Right. What kind of screening testing?
Yeah.
What did they do?
I mean, our, our yearly screenings of our entire body, of everything. Are pretty extensive. They're, they're quite a bit more than you would do for just a regular physical. I mean, the full—
So they probably did like an echocardiogram?
Yeah, all of that.
An EKG.
Stress tests.
Stress tests.
Which we started doing those in college, actually.
Sure.
So that's been something that I've, you know, that's kind of the— well, it's about to start the season. That means we got to go run up this treadmill for as long as we can until we feel like we're going to die.
Some people do, actually.
Yeah.
I mean, it's, it's crazy.
So, you know, just being able to, um, you know, go through all those testings and stuff like that. That's why, you know, like I was saying earlier, whenever I had the issue with the life insurance, that's whenever I was like, wait, like, I'm— there's no way, like, this is an issue because I've been doing all these testings every single year and there's never been a situation where—
Well, yeah, I want to hear more about that.
Yeah, so Just, you know, really quick because it's something that I'm super passionate about and has kind of directed a part, a big part of my path forward because of the things that I came across. Well, I was 36 years old, fresh out of the NBA, so still in incredible shape. Like I said, I take that very seriously. So, but still just fresh out of the NBA and I Hey, I had a nice portfolio of businesses and different things, and I had some life insurance but didn't have enough to where I felt like, okay, like my family, if something were to happen to me, then they can take care of everything and replace my income and then do all those things, right? And so I was like, I need to go get some more. And so I got connected to, uh, who is now my partner in my company, AthLegacy, Keith Beggs. And he, um, We started going down the path and did some unofficial kind of applications at really the largest health or life insurance companies on the planet. And they were all coming back no. They all kept saying nope, nope, nope. Well, this doesn't make any sense. And so for me, I actually got a little worried because I thought Maybe there's something wrong with me. There was actually something wrong with me, and they just didn't catch it.
What were they saying? What were they saying was wrong with you?
Well, they wouldn't tell me at first. That was the craziest part. It was they were denying me, but not without cause.
They wouldn't give you a cause.
They wouldn't. They wouldn't. It was like pulling teeth. It was like, okay, you denied me.
Why isn't there a piece of paper that at least just says this is a trade secret?
Correct.
That's why we don't take insurance.
Right. It was like the most outrageous, like, process just trying to get my information back.
Hmm.
Anyways, we finally were able to do it, you know, not naming any names of insurance companies or whatever it may be, but finally got some feedback. And then I actually approached a sports cardiologist that worked with the NBPA. I told him the issue. I'm like, hey, how can you help me here? Because there's, you know, I need, I need for you to read my stuff just to make sure I can just sleep at night and I feel good. And anyways, long story short, he reads all my stuff. He's like, actually, let's redo all the tests just to make sure. So we redo everything and he reads everything. He says, this is completely normal for you, right? For athletes, this is completely normal. You have an enlarged heart ventricle, which they are viewing like you're a 65-year-old desk worker, overweight, obese with an enlarged heart ventricle. He's like, that's not you. Right? You guys— and he's like, in general, high cardio athletes develop this enlarged heart ventricle on a regular basis. Like, I was like, well, how many?
It's like an adaptation.
Correct.
Right? That helps you perform at a higher level.
Correct. Like more blood, more—
It's an advantage, actually.
More blood, more oxygen, everything else to your heart allows you to breathe more, perform better. Right? And so that's what was happening. And so he said that over a third of NBA guys and over a fourth of NFL guys And, and that's the, that's the only data they have is because a lot of the other sports don't really do any preventative things or have a lot of cardio type of information.
Mm-hmm.
So he's like, we know for, for a fact NBA and NFL, there's, there's issues there. And so I had to make a choice. I said, either I can ignore it. Once I get my insurance, I can ignore it and move on, or I can go try to tackle something that most anybody else wouldn't, which is go try to become a solution or create a solution specifically for athletes, but also, I mean, for a lot of people. I mean, we do things for companies and regular people too. But for me, my passion is to help athletes specifically. And so we actually are in the process of trying to create a model that will cover the athletes as a whole, like the entire league. Wow, that's fantastic. And have life insurance for every player. So that's, that's our BHAG.
I think we can play a role in that.
So, so just out of curiosity, during this whole process, right, set of tests. This is all after you got out. You're just getting your insurance, set of tests, then repeat all the tests. Did they ever put you in a CT scanner?
You know, I don't think so. I'm trying to think of all the things.
So you remember what happened today, the flush?
Yeah, yeah, I didn't, I didn't do that.
So that was novel?
No, that was the first time I've done that, and it was definitely unique and different. And which I've— I feel like I've done every test.
Hold on, we're gonna tell you all about it in a minute.
Yeah, but I feel like I've done every test, and today was definitely different. It was definitely unique. It felt like an MRI. So I've done MRI, so that was the closest thing to what I've done today.
Got it.
But yes, we did not do that. So that's not— definitely not a requirement for the insurance companies and stuff. Right. Right.
Are you familiar with what causes heart attacks and strokes, like the actual physiology of it? And it's OK. And it's OK.
I'm not trying to put you on the spot. Yeah, no, no. It's all right. I'm not the type of person that says, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm going to try to act smarter than I am. If I don't know, I don't know. This is not something that I'm familiar with. I mean, obviously, just some of the general information that is You know, kind of information that people tell you or you learn over time about heart attacks and strokes and stuff like that, but definitely not an accident.
You'd be surprised, you know, Dr. Osborne being one of the experts in the world in this space, obviously, you know, you'd be surprised when he and I have a conversation how few people actually know what causes a heart attack or stroke and, you know, what may have been the cause of your mother's death. And so, John, would you like to just describe briefly what was— what the actual physiology of the action that goes behind a heart attack or stroke?
Yeah, so a little history. I think medical history is always fascinating for me, but up until really not long after World War II, really even the '50s, '60s, it was felt that heart attacks were just what happened when you got old. Now, I would argue your mom wasn't old. Your dad wasn't old, right? But that was sort of, it fell under the crap happens category, right? Nothing to do about it. You get old, you keel over, you die. That's it, right? Which is pretty—
Archaic.
Archaic, right?
Considering what we know now.
And it's ridiculous, right? Particularly understanding that 40% of our risk of death, all comers, 40% of all deaths are due to fatal strokes or heart attacks, right? As it turns out, the stuff that causes it, just not having birthdays, getting old, right? It's plaque, right? That is what causes heart attacks. And also too, we're talking about stuff that occurs in your blood vessels. If it occurs in the heart, we call it a heart attack, right?
Right.
That can cause heart attacks, stents, blockages, narrowings. Or can show up like your mom as sudden death, right? But the ultimate nidus of it, the cause of all that, the downstream cause of that is plaque. And the plaque, as it turns out, is detectable, is present literally decades before we get in trouble.
Hmm.
And just like plaque in the heart causes heart attacks and may require stents and balloons and surgery, But again, has been there decades, right? The same thing can happen with strokes. Stroke is really a heart— a brain attack, right? It's, it's a blockage to the vessels in the— going to the brain.
Right.
We call it a stroke, but the cause of that is plaque in the blood vessels. So whether it's plaque here or plaque here, that is responsible for a mere 40%, as I say facetiously, of all of the deaths in the United States. In fact, heart disease, strokes and heart attacks, death from those, are responsible for more deaths than the next 7 causes of death, including cancer. So that's why I'm a pretty strident, aggressive, proselytizing preventative cardiologist, right?
Right, right.
If we detect the plaque and stop the plaque, which we certainly can, we can stop plaque, we can reverse it, Heart disease, strokes, heart attacks, blockages thereof, all the things that that causes people— heart failure, balloon stents, bypass surgery, all that— is pretty much about 99.9% preventable.
Wow.
So, yeah, that's why we're here today.
Yeah. And to go on to build on to Dr. Osborne's comments, what I also found, because he's my doctor as well, he saved my life. Effectively, which is why I co-founded Clear Cardio, was to bring the message to people like yourself and myself and others, like my brothers and sisters and moms and dads, right? So we don't have heart attacks and strokes unneededly. But what I also found out was that plaque doesn't build up inside your artery, like on the inside wall of your artery and clog it up eventually and then break loose and create a clot. That's not how it works.
Mm-hmm.
And, and, you know, and again, I only because I, I'm a, I want to survive. I don't want to have a heart attack or stroke. So I really listened to Dr. Osborne when he speaks. Um, and it builds up on the inside of the artery wall. And so it's invisible to anything except a CT angiogram, which is what we do at Cleer Cardio. And then combine that with the AI technology to actually quantify the type of plaque. Which I didn't even know there was a type of plaque. Like, it's okay. First of all, I didn't know plaque. I thought it was in your teeth and you brush your teeth to get the plaque out. So now I know. So I now realized you have plaque that can literally— we've got sirens going off in the background.
Well, perfect sound effects.
Perfect sound effects. Yes. Yes. Someone's having a heart attack right now.
Heart attack right now.
How convenient. But, but it builds up.
Avoid that.
Avoid that. Yes. At all costs. But it builds up in the arterial wall. And so even if you have a heart cath, that's not going to see the plaque. And it can't— certainly can't tell you how much plaque or what kind of plaque it is. There's stable plaque, like calcified plaque, and then there's soft plaque, which is what Dr. Osborne is going to discuss today. And that's the really dangerous stuff, which you don't want at all.
Right.
And so, you know, that understanding that we now have allows us to, for the first time, I think, in history, to really give people a look under the hood, metaphorically, and understand what heart disease is, how heart attacks and strokes kill you, and how we can not only identify it, but treat it and reverse it, right?
Yeah.
And so, you know, what I got from you, Anthony, was you came to us. We were introduced through a mutual friend. And then you were interested in meeting with Dr. Osborne and the Clear Cardio team and coming to our clinic. You did it this morning because of your family history, because of also because, you know, you've had some challenges obviously with insurance companies, which I, as I mentioned earlier, John, I think we could probably help with because we can show that you have—
Well, and it's interesting just beyond you, This scenario, can't get insurance, my EKG looks funky, my stress test looks funky, or whatever, and I can't get insurance, particularly for key man insurance.
Yes.
And, you know, big policies and stuff like that.
Yeah.
It happens all the time, and I can't tell you how many people I've helped who've had that scenario, right? Family history, you got a funky EKG, or your echo shows a big heart, or whatever, which it is, which is, but only for good reasons, right? But we've been able to use the scan, the CleerCardio scans, and actually show the heart's perfect, right? So it really is a great tool. I mean, it will show you if there is a problem, we will see it.
Right.
If there's not a problem, there is not a problem. And part of this is garbage in, garbage out, right? We throw a whole bunch of tests at people. We throw spaghetti on the wall. We see what sticks. Sometimes what sticks isn't the truth. And that happens all the time, particularly in the insurance space as well.
But not with us.
Not with us. No, we got the tool.
We have the tool.
Clear Cardio.
Got it.
Yes. Clear Cardio.
Clear Cardio, exactly. Clarity, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
So Anthony and Dr. Osborne, do you think now is a good segue into taking a look a little bit about your adventure this morning with Clear Cardio?
I would love it.
Okay. Okay. All right. Well, I've got the— I've got the master controller here, and I'm going to— if you walk in and look at the screen, everyone, we're going to walk through and wait. There you are at the Clear Cardio Clinic.
There we go.
And that's you. If you can see there on the screen, you're actually inside the donut right now.
We call it the donut of destiny. The magic donut. The donut of destiny.
And there you are, all 6 foot—
8.
6 foot 8 of you next to—
Well, the crazy thing is that lady's 6 foot tall.
Yeah, there you go. With some of the Clear Cardio staff. there, um, getting ready to go in. It looks like you're looking down and going, you want me to get in that?
Yeah, yeah.
But how— what, what was the experience? What was going through your mind right there, if you remember?
You know, I— like I said, I've done MRIs and stuff, so this was not intimidating. You know, it's kind of, you know, a familiar space. But whenever they're talking about the dye and different stuff, I was like, I've never done that before. So there were some Some things that were a little bit unique or different that I've never done before.
We prefer the term contrast, not dye.
There we go.
Not dye.
That's actually a good point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
D-Y-E for the people out there. But we like the term contrast.
So contrast, the contrast.
I couldn't avoid that.
And all that stuff. So yeah, I was just kind of— I'm a pretty nonchalant guy.
There you are. Look at you.
Yeah, they asked me.
So they put an IV in your arm. You can see the IV there.
Yep, IV.
Where we give the contrast.
Yeah, they got the, um, the EKG leads, the, uh, the heart— not the, uh, what's it called, uh, blood pressure cuff that goes on there. And they do that every 5 minutes. And they kept asking me, it's like, hey, is your heart rate normally this low?
I'm like, yep.
I have an enlarged ventricle and I've got a heart the size of a gorilla and I'm so— yeah, because you're so healthy.
Yeah, so it just, uh, Yeah, just absolutely. I'm not a pretty nonchalant— I'm a very nonchalant guy. And my wife gets onto me sometimes about it.
There you are, just chilling out.
Well, and I want to point out, this is more for the audience, right? We use a CAT scanner, a CT scanner, CAT scanner, right? Very different from an MR. You've had MRs, right? I call that the coffin. It's constrained.
It's very tight.
You're in a deep hole, right? You're in there for a long time too, right?
And it's loud and noisy.
You'd probably spend half an hour, maybe an hour in there.
Yeah, I'd take naps.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. Whereas you can see a CAT scanner, whole different deal. We call this, the hole is called the bore, right? So big bore, you can see your head's out of it, right? It's not, you're not constrained in it.
Correct.
And by the way, the scan itself to actually get the data is about a second, okay? Takes a few more minutes. We position and make sure the heart's in the right place and all that stuff. But yeah, but I always like to point that out. You know, people always say, it's like an MRI. No, it's very unlike an MRI. It's very fast.
Like I said, it was the only thing I could compare it to was an MRI. But I was even able to get a pillow, put it underneath my knees so that my back could be in like— because of the weight, like I have really long legs. and not a very long torso, so it's easy for my back to get a lot of pressure on it just from laying down. And so, I mean, in MRI you don't have the opportunity to like adjust, but we were able to adjust, and so there's plenty of space. And I'm a big guy.
You are a big guy.
Yeah.
Yes, they were all commenting. I was getting text messages and comments and phone calls. He's really tall! Will he fit? And yes, you did fit.
Well, as long as we put him in this way, not this way.
Yeah.
Yeah, it worked out well. We got her done.
And this is the net of that. So there's a beautiful picture of your heart. Usually I say this is not actual size, but you might not be far off. And there it is. We can turn it, flip it real quick.
I think that's actually the size of your heart.
Takes up my whole chest.
Exactly.
But that's your heart, Anthony. That's your real heart. And those are all the different arteries that go around your heart.
And so these little structures here that we're gonna look at with a microscope, I like to say, in a moment, are the coronary arteries. This is what goes wrong in people who have heart attacks, blockages, narrowings. Those are the vessels we put stents in. Those are the vessels we do bypasses. It's these little— that little network, that little spider web, if you will, of vessels. That's what we're talking about.
Awesome.
But I'll show you, we get a lot of other data from this. Our main purpose, of course, just make sure the vessels are okay, there's no blockages like what Clearly, Dad had, and probably Mom.
Yeah.
But I'll show you later, we get a whole host of free data, I call it, because when we do the scan, we're really getting a very high-resolution, 3-dimensional scan of everything inside the chest. So we can look at your aorta, we can look at your esophagus, your stomach, your spleen, your lungs, your spine, we can look at your bone density. So we get a whole bunch of free data.
Yeah.
Of course, our main purpose cardiac-wise is to look at the blood vessels, but we'll circle back to that later. I'll show you some images of that.
That's awesome.
Yeah.
All right, now should we dig into the results, Dr. Osborne?
Yeah, let's do it.
All right, we're going forward.
So this is just the Cleer Cardio, uh, first page, by the way, but, uh, the report— there's a lot of data in here, but just, I, I pulled out this picture because I think this kind of gives a better idea or appreciation of— there's the heart. If we took the vessel out cut a little window in it. This is an image. That yellow stuff there is the plaque that we were talking about before.
Mm-hmm.
And by the way, what causes that ultimate event, right, the ultimate acute, sudden, catastrophic event, a heart attack or sudden cardiac death, is actually caused by the buildup of this yellow fatty plaque, Right? It's kind of buttery type stuff that's soft. And what happens is that that plaque, which has been there for a long, long time, right? What occurs that causes the acute catastrophic event we call a heart attack or sudden death is that plaque ruptures.
Hmm.
That's the term we use. But if you want to think of it as breaks off, flakes off, pops like a pimple, Like a blister leaking liquid bloodstream. Like a blister. That is what causes the heart attack, or again, in the neck, a stroke, and also can then cause a cascade that can rapidly develop into sudden cardiac death. And the key thing is that that plaque that causes that is not a— there usually is not a blockage. Right? It's usually—
Whoa, whoa, sorry. You said it's usually not?
It's not a blockage.
You'd never have a symptom?
Prior to that heart attack, right?
Wow.
If I were to scan you, we're showing this process occur. So there's a plaque, right? It takes at least a 70% blockage before we ever have symptoms, chest pain, we call it angina, or flunk a stress test. So you need a 70% blockage of the channel Till you flunk a stress test or have symptoms. However, we know the vast majority of heart attacks are not caused by 70-plus percent blockages.
Wow.
They are caused— they are plaques that are preexisting that generally tend to be 20, 30, 40, maybe 50%. Nothing that would ever cause symptoms. Nothing we'd ever see on a stress test. Right.
So you'd never know you had heart disease.
That's literally what this is showing. There is a plaque there. You can see that yellowish stuff there. Hopefully that shows up well here, but there's no severe blockage. There's plenty of room for the blood to flow down the vessel. Again, no symptoms, no chest pain, normal stress test. But on a given day, what that— after that arrow shows there is that is trying to illustrate plaque rupture.
Hmm.
So on a given bad day, that plaque full of this fragile, fatty, buttery stuff will suddenly pop like a pimple or whatever, Or like a blister, and will then, again, we use the term rupture, but will rupture, and within seconds to minutes, before any blockage occurs, within seconds to minutes, you rupture that plaque, the body responds, treats it as a blood clot, forming a blood clot that then blocks off that vessel. Now we have no flow down the vessel, and you're either, if you're lucky, just having a heart attack, and we get to the hospital and put a stent in. Your dad, or if you're 50% of the people, that's only the top half of the class, I call it. They have symptoms, they get to the hospital, we fix them. Yahoo! The bottom half of the class, the first symptom is death, plaque rupture, and they die. And that's probably what happened to Mom.
Wow. And it usually happens, as you mentioned, in the morning when you're sleeping because you're dehydrated and a few other things. Your blood pressure is the highest it's ever, you know, is typically.
You're a good student.
I listen very closely.
He listens.
Yes, I have.
He's got skin and plaque in the game.
Yes, I have plaque in the game.
Yeah.
So, yes.
So, but I think that's really important. You now know a lot more than most all people, probably even some docs, about kind of what is the final common pathway? How do heart attacks occur? What we can now do with the imaging. This just shows you the kind of imaging we can do with the AI, which we'll get to. We can not only determine if there's a blockage, if there's a narrowing, but here's the other key thing that most people don't even know, even a lot of docs. Plaque always forms and starts not in the channel, but in the wall. So I always think of this as a donut, right? So the problem is not in the donut hole. The problem is in the donut itself.
Hmm.
Right? So imagine these are all donuts. What the— when plaque initially forms, it'll form in the donut, in the wall of the vessel. And as a response to that, right, your blood vessel will literally, literally actually expand outwards. Okay. So the channel's fine. So there's no problem with the channel. Channel looks perfect. It's all happening in the donut.
So you could have a heart catheterization.
Yeah.
Put the camera and all that stuff up to your arteries and it'll look clean as a whistle and you're perfectly fine, clean bill of health.
And I can't tell you how many people I've had. In fact, we just had one recently, had a heart cath, was really worried because both of his brothers, mom and dad both had heart disease, brothers both either had stents or bypass surgery in his 50s. He's 59, he feels fine, so he gets a heart cath.
He's a doctor as well, isn't he?
And he's a doc. And heart cath looks great. He goes, what a relief. Well, within the year, he comes down, sees us, we put him in the scanner. He has an ungodly amount of plaque, plaque all over the place, right? And it's all in the donut.
Wow. And he ended up having a heart attack, and he died on the table, and then they resuscitated him, and he's still alive today, but he's aggressively attacking That stuff.
Yeah.
Wow. Because he just waited too late.
Yeah.
Yeah. Well, and he went with old technology, heart cath, angiograms, whatever you want to call them.
EKGs.
That literally is 1950s technology.
Right?
Exactly. Wow. We need to get you guys in every NBA team, every NFL.
Only the ones you care about.
All of them.
All of them.
None of the rivals.
This needs to be the new technology.
100%.
You know, I, I'm looking at your shoes, right? I mean, Converse, right? That was something, right? Yeah. When I was a kid.
Yep.
'70s, right? Yeah. But I don't think they wear like high-top Converse on the court these days. Nope. They're probably pretty high-tech, pretty expensive shoes.
Well, he's wearing some Jordans over there.
Yeah, these are the OGs.
These are the OG Jordans.
There you go. Right.
These are the ones he got fined for every, every day.
How much technology do you use from the 1950s, except maybe the boards, in basketball, in modern-day basketball, right?
Very— I don't know.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just like the rules, the rules on the piece of paper. Some of them.
Right.
Not even all those. Right.
I hope we don't go back to the uniforms. But remember Larry Bird with the tiny, little tiny green shorts?
No, we'll keep the longer shorts going.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But it moves on, right? Technology moves on, right? How many people have an iPhone 1? Well, nobody, right?
Right.
So anyway, so back to this. So what this is showing, this is a picture of the donut and the donut hole, right? So there is the donut hole, but look where all the plaque is, right? It's out in the wall. And what we're seeing is that vessel literally expands outwards. And look how much plaque there could be in that vessel wall with the donut being normal. What the AI will do, and we'll get to this, is it will identify it, it'll see it better than what we can see with our eyes. It will do this cool color coding because there's different kinds of plaque. The red plaque there is actually the worst plaque. That is like the really deadly bad, you want to avoid this plaque at all, uh, at all costs. Uh, the yellow plaque is the lipid-rich plaque. That's not good either. And then interestingly, the blue stuff here is what we call hard plaque, calcified plaque. This is old plaque. This is an extinct volcano. This is a cinder cone. This is the lava. And that's the super hot lava.
Right.
What AI will do, and we'll show you, is we can not only see the channel, see the hole, most importantly, we can see the donut and then do a biopsy, if you will, an autopsy on that vessel and see, well, what kind of plaque do you have? Is it lava? Or is it an extinct volcano? And we can see all that with AI now.
Yeah, because it's all calcified and you don't have any blockages and it's all stable, right, Dr. Osborne?
It's not going anywhere.
You don't have to worry about it.
Which in my head, whenever, as you're going through that, in my head, that would have been way worse. Like, I don't know. I guess just from how I understand how it all works, it's like you have calcified plaque in your artery. Like that seems and sounds like it would be worse.
It's intuitive, but it's But this is just the opposite.
Correct. And that's why, you know, when you're explaining that, that actually blows my mind a little bit.
Well, and it's interesting. So a technology that we've been using since the '80s, right, is called a calcium score, right? We do that with a CAT scanner. Doesn't need to be a sophisticated CAT scanner like we used with you today. And there's no contrast, right? So just, we put you in there, we do the same kind of thing you had, but there we're just looking for any calcification, right? So the only kind of plaque we can see or detect is the calcified plaque, okay? I can't see the channel, I can't see the hole, but I can see if there's any calcium in the blood vessels. And I will tell you, if we see any calcium in the blood vessels, you have plaque, 100%.
Yeah.
End of story, it stops there. However, the problem is 2 things. Again, you can't see the channel, so it could be all out in the wall of the vessel like this and no blockage, that's fine. And the hard plaque, the calcified plaque, is the old inactive plaque. It's no longer growing. It's not progressive. It doesn't rupture. Okay. So we do use a calcium score sort of as a mammogram to say, oh, you have calcium. Now we need to do the biopsy. Right. What you had today was the biopsy.
Right.
Right. So this will show us everything because 10 to 25% of people with a zero calcium score. Right. So if you see calcium, you got plaque, end of story. We just don't know how much, we don't know is there any lipid-rich plaque or LAVA, we don't know if there's blockages.
Right.
But a non-zero score, the trouble there is 10 to 25% of people, even up to 30% of people, particularly in young people, will have a zero calcium score going, I'm perfect. Yeah, but you could have lots of lipid-rich plaque that is lipid, it's soft, it's cholesterol-rich, with no calcium, and have lots of lipid-rich plaque and still have a zero calcium score.
And be at a risk of a heart attack or stroke.
Absolutely.
Way more than that.
Way more.
Absolutely.
Well, that's not—
you're not at risk at all.
Yeah, there's no risk really. Yeah, right.
This tells you, okay, you were at risk 20 years ago, you got through it, nothing happened. Yahoo to you, right? But now the other thing too is a lot of people can have calcified plaque and lipid-rich plaque all at the same time. Older plaque, younger plaque. That's where AI really, the rubber hits the road, the scan hits the heart, and we can now see all that.
And that's what Clear Cardio's all about.
Absolutely.
It's making sure we definitively look under the hood.
So I think that, okay, so here's you, okay? So let me walk you through this. So over here, we're looking at the 3 major blood vessels of the heart. Remember the vessels coming off the heart? Those are the 3 major blood vessels. Now, a couple of things about AI. Having done over 20,000 cardiac CTs over the last 25 years, I think I got pretty good eyes to see plaque, all that kind of stuff, right?
Mm-hmm.
I'm going to tell you, the AI is much better, and I'll tell you why. When we do CAT scans, MRIs, you see chest X-rays, whatever, that kind of stuff, we call that grayscale. Grayscale means it's just scales of gray, right? From black to white, gray in the middle. Our eyes can see or differentiate 50 to 100 shades of gray. Okay. Now, as it turns out, all of those millions of pixels that are coming out of the machine and into the computer, every single one of those millions of pixels encoded in it electronically encode over 2,000 shades of gray.
Wow.
I can see 50 or 100, maybe at best. But there's over 2,000 shades of gray in there. So there is data that we're leaving behind that our eyes can't see.
Tremendous.
That's where the AI comes in. Thousands of things. Plus, it can take those millions of pixels, see things we cannot see, and then quantify it down as far as how much plaque there is in the heart, whole heart, per vessel, per segment, as we call it, down to a 10th of a cubic millimeter. So how big is a 10th of a cubic millimeter? Think of a period at the end of a sentence. Think of that as a sphere, as a 3-dimensional sphere, right? If we cut that sphere into 10 pieces, one of those little slivers of that sphere would be 1/10 of a cubic millimeter. We can now measure plaque to that level. Okay?
It's impressive.
So what we're seeing is that in one of the vessels called the left main LAD, That's what that abbreviation is. You can see there's an itty-bitty, teeny-tiny plaque. Now, I will tell you, and I'll show you later, as we look at the vessels, I look at the vessels, having done 20,000 of these scans, it's normal. I mean, I can't see it.
Right.
The AI can see it though, okay? So there's a tiny little itty-bitty amount of plaque there. Again, no significant blockages down here. This just shows all the different vessels of the heart. You can see there's no significant narrowings or blockages.
Congratulations, by the way.
Exactly, right?
This is great news for you.
This is the value, right? Even people who have genetically high risk of heart disease, genetically high cholesterol, with diet, exercise, not smoking, doing all the good stuff, right? That alone, lifestyle, can easily reduce that risk, even if it's elevated, by at least 50%. So there's a huge amount of things we can do without drugs. So despite your family history, right, likely mom, definitely dad, with what you have been doing, you know, there is a teeny tiny bit of detectable plaque, but only detectable with AI.
Right.
Okay. Also, too, by the way, we can then note the other 2 vessels are zeros. So in my view, if you're zero, you're a hero. So that's awesome. We then break it down into different kinds of plaque. We have what we call low-density non-calcified plaque. That's the really, really, really bad plaque.
Okay?
You got zero. Okay? You have a little tiny bit of calcified plaque, but I would tell you, even on a calcium score, that wouldn't show up. It's so small that even with a calcium score, you wouldn't see it. We're going to detect it and quantify it with AI.
First time you got zeros and felt good about it.
Exactly. First time.
I was hoping I would see all zeros up here.
Exactly.
Yeah, fair enough.
No, but I'm close.
I'm close.
I always tell people, This game, and I used this before, right? This game is golf, not basketball.
Correct.
Right?
Oh yeah, we want low scores.
Lower wins, right?
Low scores.
And then you can see a little bit of that lipid-rich plaque, 14.5 cubic millimeters, which again is incredibly small. And lastly, we can put people into categories. With this technology, now we're really sort of mimicking oncology, right? We can do early detection. We can find the polyps, take care of the polyps, treat the polyps, stop the polyps, reverse the polyps. Now, I will say, I'm going to gloat for a moment, my GI colleagues that look for cancer and polyps, if they find a polyp, they do not have tools or drugs or treatments to stop or reverse polyps. All they do is keep scraping the polyps out, just staying ahead of the polyps.
Mm-hmm.
But that's purely mechanical. In my world of plaque, we have proven tools that will stop and actually reverse plaque. The key thing is early detection, right?
Don't wait too long.
Yeah.
But like oncologists, we can put people in stages, right? So if you're zero, which I will tell you is actually shockingly pretty rare, right? We had a guy that was zero this last week. But it was like, wow, it's kind of shocking to see an adult with a 0 score.
Right.
But that's really a testament.
I think we have like 4 patients total in the history of ClearCardio that have had 0.
That is a testament to how sensitive this tool is. If you're not 0, that's between 1 up to 250, you're 19. We'll call that stage 1, mild. And then there's stage 2 and 3. But we can now stage people And then if we want to look down the road, so this is important for people who have more plaque than you, frankly, we can now understand where you're at. We can begin the appropriate tools, diet, exercise, lifestyle, whatever, perhaps medications to stop and reverse plaque. And for the first time ever, down the road, we could put you back in the scanner a few years later and say, not only are the numbers better and your cholesterol's better and— Your weight's better, your blood sugar's better, cholesterol's better. But for the first time ever, I can look someone in the eye and say, yes, your plaque is better. And we could never do that before.
So Anthony, what do you think about this so far? Because there's more to come.
It's mind-blowing already. It's, you know, like I said, I'm a perfectionist, so I'm just trying to get that number down to zero. I'm joking. No, I mean, it's just, it's really cool to quantify it, right? Like, it's, it's really cool to see it, you know, it's, it's—
And have it explained in terms. So, for example, I'm not a medical doctor, and I used to go, you know, my story is, and the reason why I was fortunate enough to meet Dr. Osborne and become his patient and go on to create Clear Cardio was because I was an executive for a company that required me to have keyman insurance, and that it was a $50 million life insurance policy, and they required me to go to a very expensive clinic. I don't think everybody is required to do that, but I ended up going to an expensive clinic here in Texas, one of the best in the country, and I was paying $15,000-ish, $10,000 to $15,000 every time I walked in the door. I'd have to go 4 times a year, once every quarter, in order to get the life insurance policy approved.
Own his whole day.
Yeah, my whole day. I'd be there for about 10 to 11 hours. I'd get there 6 in the morning. I'd leave at, you know, 6 o'clock at night and I'd walk away with a big binder, you know, and they did everything. They did MRIs and CTs and, and get in running on treadmills and EKGs and stress tests and turn your head and cough and bend over and smile and all the stuff that goes along with it. Right. You walk out of there feeling like a pincushion, right? And I'd get this binder and I'd walk in the door and I'd say, you know, Yvette, I'm here. She'd be like, honey, how did it go? I'm like, same as always. I got a binder and they wouldn't— I didn't know. I heard I had some high cholesterol, but my good cholesterol was high, so don't worry about it. Or my calcium score was normal or whatever, zero or whatever it was. And I went on for years. And it wasn't until my neighbor, Dr. Raju Khosuri, who is an interventional cardiologist, he's the guy you don't want to see.
Right. He's the one that does He fixes things after they occur.
Yeah, after the fact, which is what the insurance companies want to see. They just— they're reactive. They don't want to be proactive, right? Preventive, God forbid. But, um, but it wasn't until he intervened and said, JD, you really got to come talk to Dr. Osborne and see what we're doing now, what's state-of-the-art. And, and I got upset. I, I said, you know, after I saw what I saw and the fact that I had— I was a stage 2 I had plaque in, and I say had, and that's a keyword, soft plaque in my arteries, in what they call the widowmaker. I know you don't like to hear that, John, but, 'cause it's not a clinical term, but it happens. It's a descriptive term. It creates widows or widowers, right? Both, right?
Right.
It affects men and women alike. But it was, you know, and I had a 30% blockage, but it wasn't the blockage that matters. It was that the size of the blockage, it was, I was right in that age range where that 30% blockage is a higher risk than the 70% blockage or whatever. But I had no symptoms. And so fast forward to now, and I've had a couple of the CLEAR Cardio programs gone through, and I did the CLEAR assessment with the AI, and I've since taken all that lava away. That hot lava is now gone, thanks to John.
Yeah, it's amazing on his scan, really just over a couple years, 'cause there's a couple years difference between the two. We put him on all the right tools and blah, blah, blah. All the numbers look good, right? His cholesterol numbers and all that. But we put them back in the scanner and we literally can see the lipid-rich plaque, the lava, the growing active stuff, the stuff that ruptures, literally reversing.
Wow.
Yeah. No more red. Yellow's gone.
Which is, by the way, yes, it does. This stuff works. I mean, we've known that, but it's so great to be able to share that, not just statistically and likelihood and blah, blah, blah, but to show it to JD and go, This is your plaque here. This is your plaque here.
Yeah.
And it's that great sucking sound.
And I'm a show me guy.
Ross Perot would say.
Like, I'm a show me guy. Like, show me. Don't just tell me. Show me.
Yep.
And all the time I spent going to those places, they didn't explain really anything to me.
Right.
They treated me like a mushroom.
Well, nor did they do anything about it.
And they didn't do anything about it. Right. So, and so here we are. So I'm so pleased that you were able to go through this process, but I know we have more to come.
And by the way, getting back to that discussion about insurance, JD and I are more than happy to underwrite you for whatever number based on this.
No problem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I mean, because we just did your virtual autopsy. There is nothing there. Yeah.
That's it, right? Yeah, thank you.
No concerns. I will show you. So just to get in the weeds a little bit. So we've taken each one of your vessels, we've straightened it out. This is the right coronary artery, a couple of smaller vessels. And what this does is actually show how much plaque is in that vessel. And then break it up into the 3 different kinds of plaque, the red, the yellow, the blues. And you can see in this vessel, there's nothing there. The channel is wide open.
Clean as a whistle.
And you're all zeros, right? Yahoo. We'll go to the next one. Now here is we see that little bit of baby plaque. And let me see, you can see towards the right-hand side, you can see a little bit of blue. There's some yellow in there too. But note, it looks like a, sort of like a pimple, right? It looks like something you you put on the outside of the vessel, because that plaque is, as plaque does, it is growing outward.
Like a blister on top of it.
Yeah, so if you did a stress test, completely normal. If you did a heart cath, $20,000 invasive heart cath invented back in the '50s, we still do about 2 million of them every year, it would be completely normal.
Yep.
Non-detectable.
Right.
Right? So little tiny bit of baby plaque, important for us to know, blah, blah, blah. But the only tool that could be able to detect this and then do this kind of quantification is what we did.
Right.
Yeah.
And now we— now you are, as Dr. Osborne mentioned, you are the exception. We see—
Oh, gosh.
I'd say 98% of our patients have quite a bit of plaque.
Yeah.
And they have no symptoms. Some have symptoms and then they come to us through a referral, but most of them don't have symptoms. They just say, I really want to do this. I want to be proactive. I'm concerned. It's in my genetics because my dad had a heart attack or my mother had a heart attack or stroke, my brother or my friends. I'm nervous. You know, they're worried well. And then they come in and then they go, oh, boy. Yeah, thank goodness I came in.
So last year at the European Society of Cardiology meetings, they actually did a really, really big study of using Cleerly in people who had no symptoms, felt fine, no issues. When you use Cleerly to detect plaque, 92% of adults will have plaque.
92%.
92%.
That's crazy. Yeah.
And plaque is something we can, once we detect it, we can stop it, we can reverse it. We have great tools. The problem is historically, it's been there for 20, 30 years. You feel fine, so therefore, why do anything about it? Why look? Then an event happens. Again, I always tell people, Top half of the class, they have an event, right? They get stents, balloons, surgery, you know, bad day, but you recover. Then we go ahead and start treating your plaque aggressively.
Right.
About 20 to 30 years after it started. The bottom half of the class, though, probably your mom, their first symptom was death.
Right.
And that's it. And that is not acceptable anymore, right? In a 56-year young woman, right? That's why I am a Hardcore preventative, proselytizing preventative cardiologist.
Which makes him pretty unique, because there's not a lot of that going on right now.
No, I mean, most of my colleagues, I'm sorry, I gotta speak the truth, are basically just waiting for the event to occur, and yeah, we're gonna sacrifice about half the people, 'cause their first symptom is death, but then the other half then get $50,000 stents, $70,000 stents, $150,000 bypass surgery, and the hospital's happy, My banker's happy and everybody's happy. And you go, you saved my life. Well, yeah, maybe, but you never should have gotten that sick in the first place.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, it just blows my mind that there's something like this that exists and can essentially reverse heart disease.
Yeah.
Right. Like it's—
right.
And it's being the number one killer that it is. It just blows my mind that this is not, well, yet, it's not yet out there. Standard of care. The standard of care, like you said, on the insurance side, it's kind of a tricky situation 'cause that's a whole different monster to go down that path. But especially for people who have a family history and different people who have knowledge of them you know, of their family history, then it— to me, that's why I wanted to do it. I, I wanted to see it with my own two eyes and say, hey, look, obviously I've been very proactive. Yeah, which is probably—
It's paid off.
But it, it's, it's, it's definitely rewarding to sit here and see that so far so good, right? And to me, I'm gonna continue on that path. I think it's really easy You know, I've never really been like a big supplement guy or anything like that, but I started doing regular blood tests where, you know, do the biomarkers and all different type of stuff.
Sure.
So there's obviously a ton of different things that they, they test. And so I've never been a big supplement guy, but once I started testing on a regular basis, then I was able to take supplements for specific things, and then I see The results. I see, you know, this particular thing start to lower because of this supplement.
Or elevate.
Or elevate, right? Like, so to me, being able to see it with my own two eyes made all the difference in the world. Because I think that if you're taking supplements and, like you said, there's no symptoms and there's no— I don't feel any different or whatever— guess what's going to happen to that supplement? You're gonna stop taking it.
Of course, absolutely.
Right, like, that's human nature.
And we've done these studies, and it shows if you take the time, do the study, do the scan, and walk the person through the pictures, right? Not shocking, more likely to lose weight, exercise, take their medications, quit smoking. I mean, do all the right stuff, because we've changed it from a could-be, maybe theory of a disease to You got it, right? Or you show people they have a completely normal score, then they go out and they start smoking, gaining weight, not exercising. Just kidding.
I mean, I'm free to do whatever now, I guess.
So how does that feel?
Like you're starting from a clean slate.
You know definitively, 100%, that your risk of heart attack or stroke now is very, very, very low. Like, Dr. Osborne, what would you say?
I like to say rounds to zero.
Rounds to zero. So before this, no one could tell you that.
Right.
Now you're seeing it for yourself.
Well, in fact, you had testing done that said, ooh, you got a heart issue.
Right.
And you didn't.
Correct.
Right.
And that, to me, that kind of tells you how it all goes typically.
Yeah.
And what tools you use, right?
Right.
So I set this image up specifically. This is very relevant to athletes, right? So this is from a review article where they looked at What causes, particularly younger people, and this is professional athletes, but also high school and college athletes too, what causes, what are the causes of sudden cardiac death or near sudden cardiac death? So we really break it up at about age 35.
Mm-hmm.
So less than 35, so this is all your athletes, amateur and professional athletes, We have a couple different causes that can cause you to have sudden cardiac arrest, to keel over dead or try to exit this mortal coil.
Like a lot of these athletes are doing. You see them in high school and in college and then now in professional sports. They call it sudden coronary death. Isn't that what they call it or something like that?
Sudden cardiac death, right? Sudden coronary death, exactly.
They're on the court or they're on the field and they just drop dead.
I think probably many of you may have seen Damar Hamlin, right?
We were watching live.
It was crazy.
Shocking.
Right. Fortunately, we had a good outcome there.
He survived after being in a coma for days.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so that's, that's certainly one example. I will say, too, it's a little sad, admittedly, but so I trained up in, up in Boston. And when I was a fellow, I don't know if you— I'm sure you know this name, but when I was a fellow, we had a famous basketball player from the Celtics. Sorry, Celtics. that had a cardiac event and collapsed on court, came to our hospital. We checked him all out. And unfortunately, later on, he had another sudden cardiac event and he passed. That was Reggie Lewis. So he was at our hospital a long time ago. This is long before we had cardiac CT.
Right.
Had we had cardiac CT, I think we probably would've had a different Things would've been different. Or Pistol Pete Maravich, right? So of the things that cause sudden cardiac death in our athletes, and by the way, if you particularly look at a couple populations, more commonly in African Americans and more commonly in Division I NCAA basketball. And if you look at the combination of those 2, that's 1 in 2,000.
Wow.
Which for a young, healthy population, that should be perfect, right? 1 in 2,000 is a pretty high number.
It is.
Right? So this is what causes it in our young athletes, right? We have cardiomyopathies. This is a variety of different things, but basically, it could be enlarged heart, could be myocarditis, could be inflammation, could be something called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. But these are things that if we look at your heart, and I'll show you, we'll show you that here in a moment, when we look at your heart, You can see all of these, what we call structural heart disease, right? It's within the heart itself.
So congenital stuff is what we call structural heart disease?
Yeah, congenital, exactly, right? The other big category, which again, we can see that on cardiac CT, the other big category is what we call anomalous coronary arteries. That means that the branching of the vessels of the heart that go to the heart muscle and supply muscle are abnormal at birth, right? It literally forms in utero, in mom's womb. But again, we can very easily, readily see that with cardiac CT, right? It's the virtual autopsy. We can also see coronary disease. So coronary disease does occur in people younger than 30, right? I've, you know, we put stents— I've put stents in, or my colleagues have put stents in kids of 18, right? So that's out there too. But of course, with AI—
Genetic, though.
Yeah.
I mean—
Versus lifestyle.
Lifestyle, genetics. Choosing the wrong ancestors, all of those things.
Right.
As I like to say. But again, with AI, we can readily see all that as well. So these 3, the big circles are basically representative of the percentages, right? These 3 we can all see with Clear Cardio and AI, 100%, right? And, and, and not just say, well, yes, we can say very much binary yes and no. It's there. It's not.
100%.
Not, well, I had this big workup, I did all these tests, they were all then repeated. They looked funky the first time, repeated them, they looked fine the second time, right? It's just black and white. Now, you can also have channelopathies, right? Now, that's an electrical issue, but I'll show you, here is the tool, okay? This is called a Clear Cardio device. This will give you a medical-grade 6-lead EKG, costs $129 from Amazon. This is all you need to detect most all these channelopathies. So cardiac CT for these 3 circles, this little easy, quick device will pick up the channelopathies.
And all our patients will eventually get one of those.
Exactly. Now, over 35, look at the size of these, right? Still have the same culprits, right? But coronary disease, obviously. And this is at 35, not 45, 55, 65. This is above 35. After 35, it's mostly coronary artery disease.
So the size of the circle signifies the number of these—
Is proportionate to, exactly, right?
Very interesting.
The suspects are the same, but the instance changes as we get older. But again, I wouldn't say 35's old. You wouldn't say that either.
No.
But—
By the way, how old are you?
39.
39. So you're in that space.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
And you'll now always be at 39.
Absolutely. Never crossing over.
Exactly. Exactly. But anyway, I thought this was very relevant to everybody, but also relevant to trying to detect early problems that we can prevent, particularly in our athletes.
Absolutely.
So now we're going to do sort of a deep dive and look at the The raw data that comes out of the scan.
So this is— okay, so what we're looking at right now, Dr. Osborne, explain it to the audience, the viewers, and to Anthony. I've seen this, Anthony, in myself. I've seen it in a lot of my friends and colleagues, and it never— for me, it never stops being miraculous because it really is such an amazing tool. And Dr. Osborne is like da Vinci when it comes to this stuff. What you're looking at right now is pretty spectacular. So for those of you, can you explain what we're looking at right now, John?
Yeah, so I agree. I mean, I've done over 20,000 cardiac CTs over the last 25 years, but every time I do it and every time I share it with somebody, for me, it's just like the first one, and it's always pretty jaw-dropping.
Awesome.
So let me hope you get that experience as well.
Sit back, relax, grab your popcorn.
Exactly. So what we're going to do, look down here. This is basically a diagram of your coronary artery. So we've removed everything except the blood vessels of the heart. There's 3 major blood vessels in different colors here. The yellow one is the one that we're going to look at here in a moment, but then we can click through the others.
Let me just clarify real quick. This is not an example of what it looks like. This is you.
This is Anthony.
This is Anthony right here.
Yep, this is him. And again, we can click on these different vessels and pull them all up, but I'll start with this vessel here. So the heart has 3 major blood vessels. There's this one here, this one here, and this one here, and there's some branches. that come off those. And this is where plaque starts, begins, and causes its damage, right?
Mm-hmm.
So we can click on that vessel here. It's now shown in yellow. What the computer will do, and here's where the magic of computer comes into play, is it will take that vessel, which exists in complex 3-dimensional space, it's going down, it's curving, and all that kind of stuff. Imagine I took that vessel, laid it all out in the same plane. Okay, which you can't do. And then I took that vessel and sliced it right down the middle. So what we're looking at here is literally the inside of your right coronary artery. As I tell people at home, please don't try this at home. Okay?
Like precooked spaghetti, how it's straight and narrow and long, you can just like look at it all at once, versus after you cook it, it all gets wound up. Oh yeah, he's uncooking the spaghetti and stretching it out.
Exactly. And again, because this is All based on 3-dimensional high-resolution data. We can turn you, spin you, rotate you, look at that vessel from any conceivable angle. And again, also too, as you heard before, when we look at the vessel, there's the channel, which is the bright white or the gray-white area, right? That's the channel. That's where the blood flows. But plaque always forms out in the wall of the vessel. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
So to be able to make that even easier to look at, Here's again, that is that vessel. See this red bar here?
Yep.
What I can do now in this window is this bar is the cross-section right at that moment, right at that spot in that vessel. This is the cross-section of that blood vessel right there. So we're looking down now the barrel of the vessel, the barrel of the gun, if you will.
Wow.
So this is that vessel. The computer will identify the channel. We call it the lumen. It's the channel. So this is the donut hole. But if you did have any plaque, which, which you don't in this vessel, but if you did have any plaque, you'd see that outside of that yellow line. Okay.
A little blister attacking itself. Exactly.
So here we are putting it all together, flying down your right coronary artery, and it is pristine. It is beautiful.
Literally flying down your artery. I mean, it's incredible the technology that we have.
That's incredible.
Uh, I'm going to switch over to this vessel. Okay. And again, there's that, that view. And oh, by the way, if you like, we can even straighten you out.
Okay.
So here you are straightened out.
You've been straightened out.
In a physical way, not a psychological way.
No more shenanigans with you.
Exactly. And here you can see that vessel. We can turn it, spin it, rotate it, look at it from any angle. I'm going to do and add some cool AI here. So what the AI is now going to do is to be able to see plaque that we can't see with our eyes. So if you look all the way down here, there's a little plaque sitting on the outside of that vessel.
So, Anthony, I'm sorry to say you're not perfect, but you're very, very close. Very close.
I won't share this with your wife because she'll never let it live down. And then here we are. We're going to start at the front of the vessel. We're flying down that vessel. Looks perfect, no plaque, everything's awesome. And then way at the end of it, and bottom, and if you do have any plaque, you want it at the end of the vessel, not the front part of the vessel. And here you can see a little bit of that plaque. The AI will color code it.
It's yellow, so you know it's normal.
There's the channel, the channel's perfect. So if you did a heart cath, it'd be normal. Exactly, see, you're already up to speed. There's a little calcified plaque, and not uncommon. These are called mixed plaques, a little bit of both. And then you got a little bit of lava surrounding it, a little bit of the yellow, softer cholesterol-rich plaque. Okay. But again, if you look at that plaque, you can see it's all out in the wall of vessel. Okay. There's no other test that could detect this except what we did here. And then the last major vessel is called the left circumflex. And again, that vessel is perfect. I do have to say, you're just as good looking on the inside as you are on the outside.
And thank you.
And we have the pictures We have the pictures to prove it.
Okay?
And here we are flying.
And that's the key for everyone who's watching today. We have the actual pictures to prove it. We have the technology to be able to show you definitively whether or not you have plaque in your arteries, i.e., heart disease, and are you at risk for a heart attack or stroke? And what level is that risk? Because everybody has a different level of risk. So we can do that for the first time. And so that's what we're seeing here. With you is we're showing you, and Dr. Osborne and the Clear Cardio technology is able to show you, and either, you know, and I'm a big fan of knowing the truth, right? Some people are afraid to see what's under the hood. You know, when we had that conversation before, you know, Dr. Osborne, when Anthony and I were having conversation prior, you know, he was very much, I want to know.
Mm-hmm.
Like, I'm a little nervous to know, but I still want to know.
Yep.
And I think that's reflective of most people. They're nervous about knowing, but let's not let that stop us from going out and finding out what's going on, because once we know what's going on, then we can do something about it. Then extraordinary men like Dr. Osborne can then take the steps that they already are taking and have proven to work to reverse that heart disease. And prevent you from having a heart attack or stroke.
Yeah, and 2 points. One, let's just say death from heart disease, I'll make up numbers to make this point, was 1 in 1,000, right? You go, you know what, I feel lucky. 99, 999 times nothing happens to me, I'm fine. Okay, I get that. Well, what if it's 1 in 100? You go, okay. What about 1 in 50? 1 in 25. Well, heart disease is 1 in 2.
Mm-hmm.
So—
Half.
Right.
Yeah.
And on top of that, if I couldn't do anything about it, if all I could do was detect it, and you could say, okay, well, I know now I need to, you know, get, get right thing, get things right with my kith and kin and write a will and all that stuff, then okay, you could still debate whether you want to know this or not. But we have unbelievably effective tools to stop and treat, and yes, we can reverse plaque. So there's absolutely no reason— that's why I do what I do and why I'm a passionate preventive cardiologist— is we have the tools to detect it, we have the tools to treat it if we do detect it, and it's just killing too many of us.
Yeah.
And it just has to stop.
That's right.
And that's just talking about its impact on our life and our family's life and all of that stuff. And then you get into issues of insurance and costs and all of that kind of stuff.
Which can get in the way and create barriers for us, actually, for those of us who want to be proactive and get involved and figure out what's going on under the hood. Those can be pretty significant barriers to getting in there.
Right.
And so, you know, John and I, Dr. Osborne and I, have been working hard to knock those barriers down. And so we're, you know, we're extremely, extremely pleased that you were able to visit with us today and to meet with Dr. Osborne and the Clear Cardio team. And so, you know, for those— for the viewers that are watching, what would you say to us right now, or to them for that matter, About your experience and what you've seen today. And then going forward, what do you recommend?
I mean, the experience has been top-notch. Definitely has been an amazing experience to now see it and know. Before, like we said before, I felt pretty good about what I was doing, right? I was taking care of myself, eating healthy most of the time, right? Well, I think we're going to have some wine tonight.
Exactly.
I don't care what you do once in a while. I care what you do every day.
Correct. Right?
That's a great point, Dr. Osborne.
And what I do every day is I walk and I run and I make sure that on the exercise side, I'm taking care of things, but also just do a lot of everything that I can. Right? That's what I've been focused on. And before today, I didn't have clarity on whether or not it was working. I didn't know. I assumed. I felt pretty good. everything else. But now having definitive knowledge of, okay, now I know whatever has been happening, I'm gonna continue.
Yeah, keep doing what you're doing.
Correct. Because it's, it's the whole point of all of it was to make sure that I didn't want to become another statistic or, you know, have, have these—
Not on my watch.
Right. These things that have affected my family directly continue to affect my family. And so that's why I'm just super excited now to To be able to, you know, be able to have these results, be able to see that the things that we— I've been doing is working. And as far as just like, you know, everybody else that's potentially thinking about doing it or has never heard of this and wants to explore it, I mean, it's— to me, it's kind of like, like you said, like knowing that 1 in 2 people have heart disease, essentially.
Die.
Yeah, 1 in 2 people die from plaque from heart. Yeah, it just, it's crazy, right?
It's hard to even fathom.
Yeah, it really is. And so, but to just know that there's a test and that there's something out there that you can do to then either, you know, get the results that you want or get the results that you don't want. But either way, you're getting results. And then now if it's the results you don't want, You can do something about it. Absolutely. To me, that is—it's a no-brainer. And that's kind of how I feel. That's why I said whenever you told me about it, I said I want to do it. Like I absolutely want to do it because to me it's a no-brainer to know either way. Even if these if I was riddled with plaque, at least I know.
Yeah. Now, and it's fixable.
We can we can we can we can do something about it. And, you know, being 39 years old and still feel really good.
You're so young.
Yeah. So, you know, I just, I just love the fact that I have this as a baseline and understand where I'm at. And hey, in the future, come back and do it again or whatever it may be. Then I know, hey, that, that plaque increased by 50%. Now it still might be really, really low in the grand scheme of things. But, you know, if it increases by 500%, I'm like, okay, something's going on.
Yeah.
Right? But now I know and I could see it and just be able to test it and verify it. So yeah, it's an awesome deal.
Well, fantastic. John, any last comments you'd like to say to—
Well, you know, I can tell you, just like I said before, every time I review these images, for me, it just— it's like the first time I've ever done it. And it— and just because I take such great joy in knowing that I can communicate with someone And know that you're really understanding this at an unbelievably high level, right? 'Cause the pictures allow us to do this.
Yep.
And so my ultimate goal, as I love to say, is, you know, I wanna eliminate heart disease. That's it. The only way we're gonna do it is with early detection. We have lots of tools to treat plaque. Those are only getting better. Our major failure in preventative cardiology is early detection. We wait until the disease is really severe, that either results in death or results in a lot of procedures and things you don't want happening to you.
Exactly.
So I want to thank you, Anthony, for working today by doing this, by going through this, by letting me review with it, by working to a small part to help put me out of business.
Yeah, I mean, that'd be good.
I agree. Unfortunately, it's gonna take me out of business for a lot of decades, but eventually we'll get there.
But it's one of those things too, and I think you were sort of saying it. I'll try to say what I think I heard you hear. When you see this, you go, this is amazing, this is mind-blowing. You can't believe they can actually do this today, which we can. Right, that's why we have Clear Cardio. And once you see it, you want to just sing it from the mountaintop, right?
Yeah, you can't unsee it.
I'm glad that we helped you today, which is great. I add some degree of peace of mind and just absolute certainty, right, or clarity in a Clear Cardio way. But, but I think a very common emotion as well is you go, this is great, but we need to Yeah, you got a believer here.
Like I said, this is something that just as we have more conversations and talk through different things, I mean, any way I can be of help or, you know, can make any connections or whatever it is.
Well, it's interesting. So, with your— what we talked before about your insurance journey and all that, you know, if I had the tool, right, to say, hey, How do I want to underwrite people? Right? Get in the donut. Get in the scanner. Right? And it's here. All that other stuff you did, kind of a waste of time and money. Right? This is the oracle. This is the truth teller. Yeah.
There's any concerns here? It's binary. Yeah. So for any of you out there, if you're athletes at any level—
Or mathletes.
Or mathletes. But any— well, anybody for that matter. That's a good point. Anybody out there who is struggling to get Yeah. Either life insurance or type of health insurance and you're getting rejected for whatever reason, if it's specifically around cardiovascular-related issues, give us a call because, you know, this is the perfect example. You know, you, Anthony, and some of your struggles, and we're certainly going to work together with Dr. Osborne to help resolve some of those issues for you. And I would say any of your colleagues who are having similar issues, bring them over and, you know, let them talk to Talk to us here at Clear Cardio and meet with Dr. Osborne, and we can do what we've done for you. And that is definitively show either you do have an issue or you don't. I would go so far as to say, I mean, Dr. Osborne, among the million things that you are really good at, you're also a private pilot, right?
Yeah.
And we have patients who were commercial pilots. And I would say to You know, all of the insurance companies out there, including, you know, the owners of, you know, of Delta and United and all those guys. As a, as a, as a, as a passenger, when I'm flying in an airplane, I'm nervous enough. Then you have to look at, okay, who the pilots are, right? This isn't an automated AI-controlled aircraft. There's human beings flying this thing. And even to my knowledge, you need human beings to land and fly planes for the most part, right? So, um, the last thing I want is my pilot or copilot or both having a stroke or heart attack because they did what everybody else does, um, to date. And that is these antiquated tests to see if you're healthy, if you, if you're at risk for a heart attack or stroke.
Right.
Which we know they don't work. So unless they're coming to see us here at Clear Cardio and really look under the hood, they don't know. And that unknowing weighs heavily on me now when I fly. Now that I know and I've seen behind the looking glass—
Every year, year in, year out, there will be the pilot or the copilot who has sudden death.
That's right. That's right. That's right. And so, you know, whether you're a private pilot and you're flying your family around, the last thing you want is that. Or you're a commercial pilot and you're flying hundreds of patients— passengers around the world. That's the last thing you want on your mind.
So, um, one of my fellows, when I was a fellow, is now the chief medical officer at Delta.
Well, there you go.
So I won't, I won't say who he is. He knows who he is. But, but I'm just saying, um, Henry, check it out.
Yes, give us a call. So whether you're, you know, you're an athlete or just someone in general who's having some challenges there, or you're concerned with your family history, you have one of the risks that I mentioned when I opened up the podcast, or just worried, well, give us a call. Click on the icon below and reach out to one of us here at Clear Cardio and let us look under the hood with you and definitively define whether or not you're going to have— you're at risk of a heart attack or stroke. So with that, I'd like to thank you, Dr. Osborne, once again. I'd like you— Anthony, amazing. And man, you're tall.
Great size.
But thanks again. And for all of you who are out there who stuck with us through this fantastic podcast, thank you for joining us for another Clear Cardio. You know, being proactive is key. It's power. So prevention is power podcast. So, and tune in for future podcasts where we'll have additional folks that I think you'll find are very interesting.
Keeping it clear at Clear Cardio.
Yes. Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good night. Cheers.
