521: The Truth About Statins, LDL, and Heart Disease Risk That Most Cardiologists Won't Tell You with Dr. Philip Ovadia
Midlife Conversations with Natalie Jill: Fat Loss, Hormones & Health for Women Over 40
Natalie Jill
4.8 • 635 Ratings
🗓️ 28 April 2026
⏱️ 75 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What if the cholesterol medication your doctor insists could save your life is actually increasing your risk of the very disease it's supposed to prevent?
A board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon who has personally performed over 3,000 open-heart surgeries joins us this week with a message he says most cardiologists will not say out loud: the majority of his patients should never have ended up on his table. Dr. Philip Ovadia lost nearly 100 pounds while operating on other people's hearts, reversed his own prediabetes, and spent the last decade asking a question his colleagues are not comfortable with: what is actually causing heart disease?
This episode goes deep. You will learn why your LDL number tells you almost nothing meaningful without particle size testing, why statins lower the wrong kind of cholesterol, and why insulin resistance is a far bigger driver of heart events than anything showing up on a standard lipid panel. Dr. Ovadia also walks through the most important heart tests most women have never had, including the coronary artery calcium scan he calls "the mammogram for your heart," and gives his take on every medication in the conversation from statins to Zetia to Repatha.
If you have ever left a cardiology appointment more confused and scared than when you walked in, this one is for you.
Learn More About Dr. Philip Ovadia
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So your doctor put you on statins, but the actual risk reduction, one to four percent, |
| 0:06.0 | not the 30 to 40 percent that you were told. |
| 0:09.0 | Now, a heart surgeon who has performed over 3,000 open heart surgeries is here to explain why |
| 0:15.0 | and what exactly we should be doing instead. |
| 0:18.0 | Now here is what I feel has been missing from the conversation. We are told |
| 0:21.9 | continually that our cholesterol is too high. I hear this from women all the time, put on medications, |
| 0:27.5 | and heart disease is still the number one killer. Something is just not adding up. |
| 0:33.5 | Midlife isn't falling apart. It's changing. And for a lot of women, it can feel confusing, |
| 0:38.4 | frustrating, or overwhelming. And if your body feels different, hormones feel unpredictable, |
| 0:43.2 | fat loss feels harder and stress hits differently than it used to. You are not broken. You're just in |
| 0:49.1 | midlife. Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, and this is Midlife Conversations, the podcast where I take complicated health topics and break them down simply so you actually understand what's happening in your body and what to do next. |
| 1:02.3 | I have honest, fascinating conversations with leading doctors and experts about hormones, gut, thyroid health, blood sugar, weight management, brain health, emotional well-being, |
| 1:11.3 | relationships, and navigating this special season of life with clarity and confidence. |
| 1:16.4 | No fear tactics. |
| 1:17.8 | No extremes. |
| 1:18.7 | Just real conversations and practical insights to help you feel confident, capable, in control |
| 1:24.2 | of your health again. |
| 1:28.0 | My guest today has performed over 3,000 open heart surgeries, and he says the vast |
| 1:32.6 | majority of those patients should have ended up on his table. |
| 1:36.8 | Never. |
| 1:37.2 | They shouldn't have ended up there. |
| 1:38.3 | He's a board-certified cardiothoracic surgeon who personally was almost 100 pounds overweight while operating on other |
... |
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