#280 The cholesterol numbers we should all know with Professor Kausik Ray
The Doctor's Kitchen Podcast
Dr Rupy Aujla
4.8 • 2.5K Ratings
🗓️ 15 January 2025
⏱️ 135 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Something I’ve become a lot more knowledgeable about after my training as a GP, is cholesterol. It’s probably the most important measurement every primary care doctor should know about, along with measures of metabolic health like weight, insulin resistance and blood pressure, but perhaps the least well understood.
On today's episode we do a deep dive into all things cholesterol and cardiovascular disease with Professor Kausik Ray, Professor of Public Health and Honorary Cardiologist at Imperial College London and President of the European Atherosclerosis Society, and perhaps the most knowledgeable person I could talk to on this subject who has both research and clinical expertise in this area.
We define exactly what we’re referring to when we say cardiovascular disease (CVD) and atherosclerosis. What that entails and why it’s important, being the leading cause of death globally.
We discuss the importance of cholesterol in the body. Without cholesterol there is no life. Cholesterol is the precursor to our hormones, it forms the structural components of our cells, and most of our cells are able to create the cholesterol we require hence why there is no nutritional need to consume cholesterol.
And, hopefully at the end of this episode you’ll learn more about why the trifecta of high cholesterol, inflammation and damage to the arteries leads to disease, what blood measurements we should all have to calculate our risk, including apolipoprotein-B containing lipoproteins, Non-HDL and Lp(a), as well as the strategies to reduce risk with drugs and lifestyle.
I’ve done other episodes on specific foods and dietary patterns to reduce cholesterol, but this I think is a necessary episode to give the backdrop to why this is important for everyone to know their numbers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Doctor's Kitchen |
| 0:01.1 | Recipes, Health, Lifestyle |
| 0:04.6 | It's a slow burning process, that's the problem, and it's insidious and it creeps up on you. |
| 0:11.2 | You know, we've got to recognise we've come out of COVID, cost of living, all of those things that aren't their life. |
| 0:17.0 | You know, we're humans, they're life. |
| 0:19.5 | And there's a whole bunch of people that are working to make |
| 0:22.7 | ends meet and challenging circumstances when they feel fine. Do you honestly think that they're going |
| 0:29.2 | to worry about this until they are? Then they're going to see a doctor. And that's not what really |
| 0:34.3 | health systems should be about preserving health. |
| 0:43.3 | But that basically means you've got to speak the language of those people, to bring those people in, |
| 0:46.0 | to engage with those people in a better way that we've done. |
| 0:48.8 | Welcome to the Doctor's Kitchen podcast. |
| 0:56.9 | The show about food, lifestyle, medicine and how to improve your health today. |
| 1:07.4 | I'm Dr. Rupi, your host. I'm a medical doctor. I study nutrition and I'm a firm believer in the power of food and lifestyle as medicine. |
| 1:15.5 | Join me and my expert guests where we discuss the multiple determinants of what allows you to lead your best life. |
| 1:23.3 | Something that I've become a lot more knowledgeable about after my training as a general practitioner is |
| 1:30.4 | cholesterol. It's probably the most important measurement every primary care doctor should know about, |
| 1:36.7 | however, it's the least well understood. Now obviously cholesterol goes hand in hand with other |
| 1:43.2 | measures of metabolic health like weight, |
| 1:45.6 | insulin resistance and blood pressure, but I think we do a disservice to our patients if we don't |
| 1:51.5 | know the intricacies of what is a critical measure of our heart health. And on today's episode, |
| 1:58.9 | we're going to be doing a deep dive into all things |
... |
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