029 - Our Patient RETURNED- Healthier Than Ever! | ClearCardio™️ #podcast #clearcardio

Let's treat the root cause, the problem, in which case then we probably don't need mechanical fixes.

There's a quick fix for you mentally, and that's the bypass, the stents, the balloons. And then there's the hard fix for you personally. And the hard fix, in my opinion, I think is going to be the only way to cure this disease.

Hi, and welcome back to another Clear Cardio podcast with Dr. John Osborne. Prevention is power, that's our motto, and we're here with Dr. John Osborne today at our podcast studio at Carrollton Regional Medical Center here in Texas with one of our patients, Mark Kozart from Fort Worth. You may have seen him prior on prior podcasts where he was here as a new patient and Dr. Osborne did his live results. So he's back now, roughly what, a year and a half later now?

A year, yep.

Oh, fantastic. So sit back and enjoy the Power Is Prevention podcast with Clear Cardio and Dr. John Osborne. Dr. Osborne, welcome. It's great to have you here again on the Prevention Is Power podcast.

How are you doing? Always a pleasure, and we have an exciting story to tell today.

All right. Mark, how you doing?

That's fantastic. Great to be alive.

Great, great. You look like you've lost some weight since the last time I saw you.

Lost some weight, feel good, put on some muscle.

Yeah?

Yeah, everything's good.

Okay, fantastic. Well, I'm gonna sit back and just listen like our audience is today and let you guys have at it.

So, Mark, I remember, I distinctly remember when we first met and you had kind of come through, I think, second, third, maybe even fourth opinions. So tell me about all that journey. I found it very, very interesting. And that's the first time we met.

100%. First opinion, second opinion, third and fourth. And there's real consistency in the real medical world, and that is if you're sick, we're gonna cut you. And depending on the cardiologists that I've talked to, it's only a matter of how quickly I can get in for them to save my life. And I look at those people and I'm thinking, you know, I may be a little overweight. I'm only 60 at that time, 66 years old, and I feel pretty dang good and I can outwork anybody on my crew. And, but you're telling me I'm about to die. So I think I'll get another opinion. So that after 1 and then 2, same thing. And then 3 again. And then the 4th one was, man, you're wasting time. You've already talked to 3 repeaters.

You're still alive?

You're still alive. I said, yes, sir, I'm still alive, but I'm just not buying it. So a buddy of mine told me about Dr. Osborne and I went to see him. And this was the new approach that I needed. I know that I'm not gonna die tomorrow. I know that I'm not gonna die in 5, and I know I'm not gonna die in 10 years, 15, 20 years.

As long as you don't fall off a ladder.

As long as I don't fall off a ladder.

Not from heart disease, heart attacks, or strokes, but you might get hit by a bus. We don't want that to happen, right?

And I think the odds are better with all of those, all of those above than with a heart attack. Yeah. So I'm grateful. I'm looking forward to the results of my yearly scan. I know they're gonna improve, and I can't wait to tell everybody how much they've improved.

Hello everybody and welcome. This is Dr. John Osborne, the Chief Medical Officer of Clear Cardio, and I have something really exciting I wanna share with you. We now have a newsletter. So this newsletter is all of the great science that I look at every day and read and scour the medical literature for. Important studies, important outcome studies, new tools, new drugs, new data on nutrition, all of the different things that I commit my life and have committed my life to and am passionate about in helping me to further preventive cardiology from New diagnostic tools, to new blood tests, to new medications, to the latest on intermittent fasting and dietary approaches to help people live longer and better. So it will all be in our newsletter.

It is great reading.

The price is right too, because it's free. So please subscribe to our newsletter. Go to clearcardio.com, or you can click down below and get access to our newsletter. Whether you're one of our patients or not, it's all good. But I, I love reading, I am a voracious reader, I love medicine, and I love finding all the little charms, little treasures out there that make me a better doc, that better inform me, and ultimately help people along the way. So please, please support my habit of finding the greatest, newest, most important literature, and I'm delighted to share that with you. So please click below, subscribe, we'll get you on the newsletter list, And I think you'll really find it fascinating. So again, click below, join our newsletter, and we'll be really excited to help educate, or as, 'cause we're in Texas, I like to say edumacate you on preventative cardiology and what the latest and greatest tools, tricks, and treasures are.

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Thank you.

So you just had your scan this morning.

Yep.

About an hour ago. Now we're still waiting for the results, so we're gonna— we will do some production room editing and magic and bring those to you later. But really wanted to focus on kind of your journey here. Before you saw your first cardiologist, how was it that this issue got uncovered?

I have to think back. I think the issue got uncovered because I went to get a checkup and the doctor, my primary care doctor, asked me if I'd had my heart checked. And I said, no. He said, well, let's do that. So that really kind of started the boulder. I'm not going to say the pebbles falling from the mountain, but the boulder falling from the mountain. And pretty much before I knew it, I'm near death.

So, no symptoms, no chest pain, no breathing issues. I mean—

None.

You were fine?

Absolutely fine.

And I know because I remember when we first got together, I was asking about what you do and your work and you're quite the builder and all that. And I particularly remember you telling me, yeah, I'm going up in ladders. I'm going up and down like big ladders, right?

I mean, 15, 20 feet, 25 feet up and down.

Right, right, all 12 times a day, right? And it's all fine, no issues, been doing that a long time, right? And, uh, but interesting, you know, no symptoms, and then next thing you know they're saying, we got to cut you.

Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and sooner, sooner better than later. And, and, and, and I can't tell you how mentally disturbing that is That was for me because, because once I found out that I was sick, that started feeling bad.

Well, once we tell you you're sick, you better behave like you're sick.

Exactly.

Yeah. That's not, that's not being kind or polite. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. So yeah, it was, you know, that, that, that, that kind of slowed my entire life down, you know, finding out this news. And that's another reason that I just wasn't going to buy this diagnosis. I mean, there's got to be— this is the 21st century. I mean, we have something out there that's better than what you guys have been practicing for 20 or 30 years. And I hate to say it, but, you know, making you wealthy. And honestly, I think that's the primary goal. Is, is, is to, is, is to, uh, spend my money.

Uh, wealth transfer.

Wealth transfer.

So from your wealth.

So for, so for our audience, um, just as a, an overall recap, oh, because I didn't do a good job in the beginning. So, um, Mr. Cozart, Mark here, um, who's from Fort Worth— I gotta make sure I say that because he's not from Dallas, he's from Fort Worth— um, He was not showing any symptoms. He saw his regular doctor. His doctor said, hey, you know, you haven't had your heart checked out before. We should probably do that as a routine kind of a checkup. Is that correct?

That's correct.

Yeah, so he goes to see his routine doctor, a general practitioner, right? And then goes to see a cardiologist, whereby the cardiologist does a series of tests. And through those series of tests, tells him that he has what he believes is you're at risk of a heart attack or stroke. Then, you say, I want a second opinion, and you hear the same thing by another cardiologist. And then, he goes to another cardiologist to get a third opinion and hears the same thing only worse, and then all of whom wanted to do some form of invasive procedure, heart catheterizations, bypass surgery, something like that, correct?

That's correct.

Okay. And so, then, he goes to a So you go to a 4th doctor, and that 4th doctor basically validates what all 3 of those other doctors were saying, is that you needed some surgery.

That's right.

In order to save your life because you're at significant risk for heart attack or stroke, despite the fact that you have no symptoms and you've been healthy and exercising and things like that, slightly overweight.

Under height.

Under height for his weight, sorry.

True, which we fixed. Yes, which we fixed. No, Mark fixed it. Mark fixed it. With our help, guidance, advice.

Guided him, yes. So then, so he went through that process and he said to himself, self, that's not an option for me right now. There has to be another option, right?

Yes.

Even though you heard all of this negativity, you know, sense of urgency, you were feeling well, then you started not feeling well because in your mind, I must not be feeling well If I'm not well?

Correct. How can I feel this well if I'm dying?

Right, exactly. So, so then through, through the grace of medicine or the medicine gods, one of your friends said, hey, you need to speak to Dr. John Osborne, Clear Cardio. Um, that's when he, uh, met with us. We onboarded him with Dr. Osborne, and he went through, um, something called what we— what you probably know now having watched our podcast is our— the Clear Cardio Experience. And through that ClearCardia experience, you found that— what did you find at that time?

Well, so what we found, so we put him in our scanner about a year ago or so, and we found, yeah, there definitely was some plaque buildup, there were some narrowed vessels, but when you looked at it, there was nothing critical. And I think one important lesson from this is that when we talk about Mechanical fixing, right? As opposed to medical. The role for mechanical fixing, and I'll put that into that category of balloons and stents and bypass surgery, is chiefly for symptom relief. Now, what's fascinating is Mark never had symptoms.

Right.

Right?

Zero.

So the role for stents and balloons and surgery, I'll say balloons to be comprehensive, we don't really do balloons anymore, but for elective stents and surgery, things like that, is really you're having chest pain, you're having angina, I can't do what I normally do, I can't crawl up 15, 20-foot ladders, and I'm getting symptoms and I'm taking nitroglycerin. In which case, you know, stents and surgery can be very effective for symptom relief. But what's interesting is we know from a variety of studies and very consistent studies really over the last 30 years that stents and surgery are useful for symptom relief. They do not change the trajectory With respect to, are you gonna have a heart attack, or are you gonna die of a stroke or heart attack? What does change the trajectory as far as whether we have a heart attack, die from a heart attack, or have a stroke, really has everything to do not with the mechanical fixes, but with the medical fixes. Diet, exercise, not smoking. Along the way, we got to lifting weights, went through some of our Programs where we got you working out and working with weights and got some muscle back as well. We also got some fat off too with some of the strategies we used. And of course, other things that we do, cholesterol lowering, that all of those things treat the disease, they treat the plaque. Mechanically, if we do a stent, we're literally just using a snowplow to push the plaque off to the side. We're not making the plaque disappear, we're not changing the plaque, we're not reversing the plaque, we're literally just snowplowing it off the side, which is fine, you're gonna have better blood flow and presumably less symptoms, although that's not always what happens even with these interventions, but we're not really treating the disease. And with surgery, all we're doing is laying down new pipe, new conduit around the blockages so that we have better flow, But in no way are we treating the disease.

The problem. The problem, right?

And I always— I've always been, let's treat the root cause, the problem, in which case then we probably don't need mechanical fixes.

That's right.

Yeah. So we— so we brought you in and we found that you did have, um, you do have, um, a level of, of disease, cardiovascular disease, i.e., plaque, soft plaque as well as calcified plaque building up in your arterial wall. And so as a result of that, yeah, and Dr. Osborne's expertise in that space, using the tools that Dr. Osborne uses, we were able to diagnose you. And we diagnosed you with what stage? Do you recall what stage that was?

I think it was stage 3.

Stage 3. Okay. Stage 3, which is in this— and for those of you who don't know, or in the audience, or reviewing, there is— we are one of the only ones in the world that can actually stage cardiovascular disease now, like oncology. In cancer, we can actually stage disease of cardiovascular disease. There's 4 stages. There's 0 being you have 0 plaque, i.e., no calcified plaque and no soft plaque, that dangerous plaque that ruptures and causes heart attacks and strokes. And then there's 1, 2, and 3, 1 being mild, 2 being moderate, and then 3 being relatively severe. Now, regardless of what stage you're in, the beautiful thing about Dr. Osborne and the Clear Cardio program is we can treat you, um, no matter what stage you are. So, you know, the important thing is knowing, right? You wanted to know, right? You didn't want to just go in and have open heart surgery, bypass surgery, stents, balloons, as Dr. Osborne puts it.

Well, what's interesting— so you, you had 4 cardiologists say you need stents or surgery. I think they differed depending upon which one did stents or surgery. But what's interesting is none of them said, well, What are the root causes, right? What's causing this, right? We discovered something that had been there for decades, right? Plaque does not grow quickly. It is very slow and glacial. And then suddenly, in someone who has no symptoms, they say, oh my gosh, we need, we need to operate or stent or whatever. Um, and isn't that crazy?

Slow and glacier. That, that, that's, that's well said because That pretty much is, you know, you have the glacier growing inside your body. It goes completely untreated all of your life. And even in cardiology, it's rarely that the root cause is not treated until I got to see Dr. Osborne.

Right.

So there's a quick fix for you mentally. And that's the bypass, the stents. The balloons. And then there's the hard fix for you personally. And the hard fix, in my opinion, I think is going to be the only way to cure this disease. I mean, it's not easy getting up at 4:30 in the morning, getting ready for your workout or your walk every morning. Not— well, let me back up. It wasn't every morning in the beginning. It was when— what I felt like I needed, which was maybe a Monday and then a Thursday and then a Sunday maybe. But I didn't feel like I was getting anywhere doing that. So I started doing more. I made myself do more. I didn't want to, let me tell you, because this is the long fix, people. I mean, the quick fix is with the stents and the surgery, but you're not fixing anything.

Mm-hmm.

You have to, you have to be proactive. You have to get up, you have to work out, you have to eat right, you have to educate yourself, and you have to be with someone who understands this disease, like Clear Cardio does. And in the year that I've been here, I can honestly tell you that I feel better today than I did a year ago, and I feel better today than I did when I was 40 years old. And it's a combination of of taking care of yourself and understanding what's going on with yourself.

Yeah, it's really important. And so, you know, your journey here thus far with us is really just beginning. Your journey into wellness has begun. And so, you know, you went through all this process, you just came to see us, you have stage 3, which is on the severity side of it. That said, we can treat that. Dr. Osborne is treating that. And what you're here today to talk about is your journey between when you were initially diagnosed roughly a year ago or so.

Okay.

Maybe 18 months ago, I think it is. And where you stand today. So today you came and saw up with Dr.— met with Dr. Osborne. You met with our staff here at our hospital here at Clare Cardio at Carleton Regional Medical Center. You had another assessment that we provided to you through the CCTA and blood work and so on. And today, everyone here who's watching, you're going to see the results of that. Those results are coming, but we're going to mix that into the videos, you heard Dr. Osborne say. So you're going to see that if you're watching this, you're going to see it as part of this podcast, although it's going to be a few days from today when we'll actually have that data. And we will show you, and this is the key, right? Because one thing that I learned so much from Dr. Osborne in all this experience, 30-plus years treating patients, saving people's lives and changing their lives, not just saving their lives, but changing their lives for the better, is that when you go to your cardiologist, your normal cardiologist, and you ask them, and we have patients ask me all the time, JD, When I go to talk to my normal cardiologist, what do I— what questions should I ask them? I said, really, there's only 3 questions you ask is, is do I have soft plaque? How much soft plaque do I have? And where is it?

Right? They can't answer that, JD.

They can't. Because if we know, which we do know, and they know that soft plaque is the number one cause of all heart attacks and strokes, which is Heart attack stroke is the number one killer of all humans on the planet. Then why wouldn't you want to know those 3 questions? Because that's the killer. That's like, do I have cancer? How much cancer do I have? And where is it?

Right.

Right? Every oncologist—

If you went to an oncologist, well, yeah, here it is, and there's scans and blah, blah, blah, right? Imagine going to an oncologist, well, I think you have cancer. You might have cancer. You may have cancer. I don't know.

Yeah.

What kind of cancer? Well, I don't know. Where is it? I don't know. Stop being so hard on me.

Yeah, but here's what we're going to do. We're going to go in and do surgery.

That's right.

Put you on chemo and radiation, but we don't know where the cancer is. We don't know what kind of cancer it is. We don't know how much you have. That would be crazy, right? Well, that's the state of the union right now, guys, when it comes to cardiology. So, so, you know, again, I, I urge all of you out there who are watching this podcast Go to your general practitioner, go to your cardiologist if you're lucky enough to even have one, but ask your doctor, do I have soft plaque in my arteries? Where is that soft plaque and how much of it do I have?

And the other thing, as in Mark's case, is a year later, I've done the program, I'm feeling great, I got more muscle, I got less fat. Cholesterol looks great. All those things. Fourth question now: Is my plaque better?

Right, right, right.

That was unanswerable.

Yeah.

That was completely an unanswerable question.

Yeah.

Until we had cardiac CT. Yeah. And now coupled with quantitative AI.

Yeah.

Right.

So that's so that's so that's why you're here, Mark.

Yes, sir.

Mark, you're here to answer that fourth question.

Yeah.

And and and I'll say for the audience at home. That we talk about those stages, right? Or just ask your doc, right? What stage am I? I don't know.

We don't classify heart disease in stages.

Right.

Well, how come? Well, because we don't know how. Right.

We don't have the tools.

And we're laughing about it because it's really such a travesty, right? We're laughing about it because Because it's a real thing. And the reality is it's extremely sad. It's extremely sad because thousands and thousands of people are dying because doctors can't answer that question.

Yeah, just one every 38 seconds.

One every 38 seconds. Now think about that. That is just absolutely unacceptable. So, you know, again, getting back to this podcast today between you and Dr. Osborne, It's been an amazing process for you. I've seen you transform since I remember the first podcast. And now, we're going to see, we're going to look under the hood and show that what we're doing and what you're doing and what we collectively are doing is making a difference.

Yes.

Right? I mean, the idea that a lot of— you hear this a lot. I don't want to be on drugs for the rest of my life. I don't want to be on statins for the rest of my life. I don't want to be on strict, restricted diets for the rest of my life and eat like a rabbit for the rest of my life. I want to live my life. Life is short. Da da da da. I want to, and I don't want potential side effects from statins because sometimes there are, although the statins and medications we use are amazing. They're amazing, and they do exactly what they're supposed to be doing. And there's a lot of falsehoods about them. We've had whole podcasts about that in the past. And we've, we've, we've myth-busted all this.

The exciting thing is, you know, forget the exact tools. The bottom line is we have a really big robust toolbox.

That's right.

To treat plaque.

That's right.

Right? Lots of different tools that work beautifully together in a very complementary way. So there is no, you take this pill, you're gonna die.

Right.

No, that's, that's ridiculous. It no longer works that way.

Yeah. So, so like, you know, you go to your regular normal doctors and, you know, and people are like, I don't want to deal with all these medications, whatever, and restrictions. Well, the reasons why they feel that way, um, despite the fact that it's been a heart disease— heart attack, stroke is the number one killer since the 1920s, and it's getting worse, it's not getting better. What does that tell you about modern-day cardiology today, right? Um, but the reason why they're putting out there, because they have no way of telling you if it's different, because— or if it's improving, or if the statins they're using are improving, just because your cholesterol's low.

Or whatever tools we're using, or diet, exercise, or Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Just because your cholesterol is low doesn't mean it's— you're, you're not feeding those plaque blisters around your— so we will show you if it's working, and if it's not, guess what? We're going to tweak that, right? So, you know, you're, you're here, and thank you for being here, meeting with Dr. Osborne, because you want to know.

That's right.

And, and for those of you playing the at-home game, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So back to the staging. I think this is remarkable.

Yeah.

Is that when we use cardiac CT with quantitative AI, which is amazing, we only hit with cardiac CT roughly for 20, 25 years, but now with AI is the major breakthrough. That's only been about 4 years since we've had that available. So when you get a zero score, only 1% of us will have a zero score.

Mm-hmm.

That is using the microscope that I call AI on the cardiac CT. that is frankly better than my eyes, only 1% of us will have a zero score. 99% of us have plaque. That is how penetrant, that is how prevalent plaque is, right? And the vast majority of those people have no symptoms, feel fine, right? Just like poor Mark.

Yep.

Before he started on his journey. And then when you look at stage 1, 2, and 3, on the opposite extreme, going from stage zero, no plaque at all, 1% of us, like getting a perfect score on the SAT, To the opposite extreme, stage 3, a third of our patients getting in the machine, having AI done, a third of our patients, I feel fine, no symptoms. I like to say normal stress test last week. A third of our patients will actually be stage 3.

Hmm.

That is, they have severe disease that we can see, quantitate, measure down to a 10th of a cubic millimeter. I feel fine, no symptoms whatsoever.

We've seen quite a few of them the last couple weeks, actually.

In fact, just over the last 2 weeks, this is interesting. So we went from a guy who, uh, this really was never a question, never even thought about, because if you looked at his cholesterol lipid profile, it looked perfect. It looked like somebody taking drugs. That's how great his cholesterol numbers looked. No symptoms, feel fine. He had a stress test 2 years ago, passed with flying colors. We put him in the machine because he talked to one of my other patients, said Got to get this checked out, right? Because they had a family history. Put him in the machine. Of the 3 major blood vessels to the heart, one of them, the right coronary artery, completely blocked off. 2 severe blockages in other smaller branches. I feel fine, no symptoms, right? And, and he was well into stage 3. I feel fine, normal stress test, right?

I think—

and his cholesterol numbers looked amazing.

I thought you— I thought your comment was it was the worst The most soft plaque you've ever seen?

Yeah, it was— well, that was another patient.

Oh, that was a different one.

Yeah.

Okay, so, okay, fair enough.

Which we'll, we'll probably see if we can get him on here too.

Yes.

Um, but yeah, no, it— you just— the bottom line is you just don't know until, as we always say, we gotta copyright this, you, you look under the hood. Um, and in fact, just this morning we had a woman that came in, uh, really high LDL, right? LDL 180, 190. Right. Has been told by all of her doctors, you need drugs, we got to lower it, blah, blah, blah. I said, well—

You think she'd have tons of plaque, right? Doctors would think. Right.

So, I mean, bad LDL. Now again, eats right, exercise, doesn't smoke, no bad habits, whatever. But high LDL. Had been really, really pressured for years, you need drugs, right? So today we put her in the scanner, looked at her scan, nothing.

She's a 1 percenter.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Right? So remember, when we measure cholesterol, for everybody's information, we're measuring how much cholesterol is floating around in your arteries and veins, right? It's just passing through. The key thing is, is it sticking? And it can stick if you have average and well below average cholesterol, like the first guy I was mentioning, right? You can have really sticky vessels that even though your cholesterol levels floating by aren't high, it can stick like crazy, as in his case, or The reverse is true, as I showed yet again. I've seen many patients like this where the LDL is very high, right? You need drugs right now. It's an emergency. You're still alive, right? And they'll put them in the machine, there's no plaque, right?

So they should never be on drugs.

Yeah. So we can both risk people, identify, know exactly where they stand, literally stage them, or conversely, which is great too, de-risk them. Right? Because this woman was worried for decades, I'm going to kill her dad, I'm going to die if I don't take the drugs and whatever. So we just look under the hood, right? And then let's treat the disease, detect the disease, stage the disease, treat the disease, track the disease like we're doing with Mark. That's an incredibly different protocol and strategy than we've ever done in cardiology.

Yeah.

Right? Because we could never even tell, even people had stents and balloons and surgery, Right, you said, well, is my plaque better after doing all that stuff? They couldn't tell you.

Yeah, so that's the difference. So you're, you're in a wonderful position right now.

I am.

Yeah, and you're feeling the best you've ever felt?

Absolutely.

So what's your regimen? Like, tell the, tell the viewers, like, what's your daily regimen?

My daily regimen is up early, work out, try to eat right, go to work, come home, go to bed, do it again. That is pretty, pretty much—

When you say try to eat right, what does that mean?

I don't know. I don't know what that means because I was going to tell everyone that that's the hardest part of this whole program. But from listening to us talk, the easiest part of this program to stay healthy is going to be diet and exercise.

Of course.

Diet and exercise. You may not ever want to come to Clear Cardio or to a cardiologist if you eat right and you work out. I think that gives you longevity.

And don't smoke.

And don't smoke.

No tobacco.

By the way, I never smoked, ever. So fortunately, if so, I could be dead right now, or I could have lived 100 years. I don't know. But diet and exercise, in my opinion, along with the right—

It is foundational. I always think of the pyramid, right? It is the foundation of that pyramid.

Yes.

Right?

Not smoking, eating right, exercising. Absolutely the pyramid to all of this.

Yes.

For everybody, 100%.

Yeah. I've reversed it. What, you know, what, what, whatever was wrong with me, it's, it's, uh, it's, it is slowly but surely disengaging from my body. You know, I feel, I feel great. I feel like I have I feel like I can live to be 100 years old when, when a year and a half ago I might not see 68.

And he's had no surgeries at all?

None.

Great. That's, that's exactly why, you know, you hear Kirk Cardio exists is to prevent that. If you don't need it, don't get it. And often, way too often, too many people are getting surgeries, interventional surgeries, when they don't need it.

So, so on another project we were just working on last week, We'll give you details. But anyway, on another project, they were asking, well, so of the people you scan, how many go on for stents and bypass surgery? And then what are their complications afterwards? And we said, well, almost zero because the vast majority of people with early detection, we can detect it early.

Right.

And you don't need The things that we associate with undiscovered diseases that have festered for decades and decades. And then you need to resort to mechanical approaches of stents and surgeries and such. And it was kind of interesting. I think they were almost gobsmacked that, oh, you mean you don't just send everybody off to surgery or stents? No.

No.

I mean, there's certainly a role for that in a very small select group of people. But unfortunately, we use that cudgel on a daily basis, right? If you're a hammer, you look like a nail.

That's right. Unfortunately, people fear the unknown. And if you educate yourself or you question everyone else's direction to what your problem is, If you don't educate and you just agree with them, then you're going to be that person that has those stents and that bypass and 6 months of downtime in your life. You don't change your eating habits, you don't change your exercise habits, and you never address the disease.

Right.

You know, so that's just going to be a vicious circle and—

Well, it's a beautiful scenario because You're in the revolving door.

That's right.

You know, I, I still hear people who've had bypass surgeries, example, say, well, yeah, what the surgeon said, I'll see you back in 7 to 10.

Yeah.

Right? Well, yeah, if you do nothing about the disease, well, it's going to clog up the vessels that they just put in. Sure, that's good. You'll be back in 7 to 10.

Absolutely.

Well, why wouldn't you also, if you needed surgery, get surgery? Heaven forbid, but if you have to, that's fine. But then fix the underlying problem that caused you to need the surgery in the first place. Wow, what a brilliant idea.

Yeah.

Why don't you just address the disease to see if you can eliminate future surgery?

Well, or we pick it up early. So discussions of, you know, quickly, you know, running you off to the OR or to the cath lab and in emergent scenarios, but let's not just Let's not do that anymore.

Yeah.

So we're going to move over now to the results of the second scan. It's been, what, a year and a half-ish since the scan? And so now with your knowing what stage 3, the diagnosis, the medications, what medications have you been taking as well as the diet and exercise and things like that?

One statin drug and one state-of-the-art statin drug.

Okay, so to get that cholesterol down, what's your current cholesterol level?

Oh, it's below, it's below 50.

Below 50.

The blood pressure, I've always had great blood pressure. My, my average blood pressure is 116 over 72, and it, it rarely wavers.

Okay, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

So we got new— we got it.

Okay, back up a moment here.

No worries. Uh, okay, so, um, so, uh, you've been diet, exercise, you're on, you're taking some medications, you're on 2 statins as I understand it.

Correct.

New state-of-the-art. Is that Repatha?

He's actually on Nexleza.

Yeah, Nexleza. Oh, that's a phenomenal drug. Yeah, that's a phenomenal product. And the goal is not to— is to get you off of them, right? The goal is— that's our point, not to keep you on them. We're doing that now. Dr. Osborne's doing it now because it's the right thing to do because you're stage 3. But the goal is to get you off of those. So you're taking those 2, diet and exercise. You're feeling the best you've ever felt before. Okay. And so now we're going to, uh— and your blood pressure is? Normal.

Normal. It's, it's better than normal. What, you know what, 120 over 80 used to be normal, but I think they've, they've lowered that.

Yeah.

And now I am the normal.

Okay.

115, 116 over 72, 73.

Fantastic.

All the time.

All right, and how old are you? Do you mind?

68.

68. You don't look 68.

Yeah, thank you.

Fantastic. So, all right, all these things are in place. So now we're going to move over to, um, the, the, his follow-up, um, program where he did another blood test. He did the whole CCTA. He's doing the whole AI tools when working with Dr. Osborne. After all of this work we've been working with him on, doing with him over this last year and a half. And now you guys, along with you, are going to see the results. So let's stand back and watch the results, guys.

We're going to do the big plaque reveal.

Yes.

There you go. Wow.

What an incredible episode of Glaucoma Cardio Podcast, Prevention is Power with Dr. John Osborne. And our guest with Mark, Mr. Mark Cozart. That follow-up after a year and a half, wow, interesting results. And so it just goes to show you what we do every day and how we make adjustments as needed and how we see that disease slowly being whittled away. You know, Dr. Osborne is here for all of us every day through Clear Cardio. And, you know, thank you, Mr. Kozar. Appreciate you coming in for that.

Pleasure.

What an amazing second shot at it. And we're going to come back and a year from now do another one, I suspect.

I hope so.

And get that completely wiped out. So, until next time, thanks again for joining us on the Clear Cardio Prevention is Power podcast with Dr. John Osborne. Have a great day. Cheers.