How To Catch Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s and Cancer Early: Tests You Need To Know About, Genetic Risk Factors, and Key Lifestyle Habits that Make a Difference with Dr. Eric Topol

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Medicine, Health & Fitness, Alternative Health

4.7 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 17 September 2025

⏱️ 79 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is brought to you by One Skin and Momentous. Cardiovascular disease remains the leading cause of death worldwide. But today, we no longer have to wait for symptoms to understand our risk. Advances in technology now make it possible to get a clear snapshot of individual risk, not only for heart disease, but also for cancer and neurodegenerative conditions, empowering us to take proactive steps to lower risk and support long-term health. Our guest today breaks down what’s truly worth investing in and what we can skip. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Eric Topol, a cardiologist and Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Topol shares insights on the importance of preventive health, with a focus on cardiovascular disease, cancer, and neurodegenerative conditions. He explains the role of polygenic risk scores in assessing individual risk, explores the strengths and limitations of various testing methods, and highlights how lifestyle choices shape disease prevention. Dhru and Dr. Topol also discuss emerging technologies in health monitoring, the influence of environmental factors like air pollution, and what the future may hold for aging and health management. Dr. Eric Topol is Executive Vice President and Professor of Molecular Medicine at Scripps Research and founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute. A practicing cardiologist and one of the ten most-cited researchers in medicine, he is renowned for his wor in AI, genomics, and digital clinical trials. Named to the Time 100 Health list in 2024, he also writes the Ground Truths newsletter and is the author of The Creative Destruction of Medicine, The Patient Will See You Now, Deep Medicine, and Super Agers. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Topol dive into: Cardiovascular disease causes, risks, and prevention (1:07) Polygenic risk genetic links to disease and understanding your risk (7:56) Heart health with Dr. Topol’s key recommendations (13:21) Cancer testing types of tests and how to approach results (27:47) Medical guidance mistrust, confusion, incidental findings, and the importance of evidence-based practitioners (34:20) Alzheimer’s detection, blood work, testing, and the role of AI (43:13) Environmental risks, air pollution, and sleep irregularity, and why these factors must be addressed (53:20) Parkinson’s disease: the fastest-growing neurodegenerative condition (57:01) Prevention and lowering your risk of developing major diseases (59:52) Gut health and the gut-hormone connection (1:02:05) Aging and immunity: links between age-related diseases and the immune system (1:06:19) Measuring biological age (1:08:14) Final thoughts and takeaways (1:16:27) Also mentioned in this episode: Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity Polygenic Risk Scores: Ready for Prime Time? What a Polygenic Risk Score Can and Can’t Tell You Allelica Polygenic Risk Test Dhru’s APOE Chat GPT Results For more on Dr. Topol, follow him on X/Twitter, The Scripps’ socials: X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Threads, LinkedIn, Bluesky, or visit their Website. This episode is brought to you by One Skin and Momentous. Right now, One Skin is offering my community 15% off; just go to oneskin.co and use the coupon code DHRU to save 15% and give your skin the scientifically proven, gentle care it deserves. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the Momentous Three: Protein, Omega-3s, and Creatine made by and used by the best. Head to livemomentous.com and use code DHRU for 35% off your first subscription. Sign up for Dhru’s Try This Newsletter Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Dr. Eric Topal, welcome to the podcast. You know, I've heard you say, and you're writing your book,
0:06.6	that the top diseases that are out there, I'm going to name some of them, these are the diseases
0:12.4	that cut off our lifespan. These are the diseases that they don't start overnight, contrary to what some people think.
0:24.2	And they take years to develop and cook and grow inside of the body.
0:30.2	And so if we could dedicate some of our resources to catching these diseases early,
0:36.7	and of course there's the whole prevention side, which we're
0:39.0	going to get into as well. That can make a significant difference in how we age. So I'd love to
0:45.6	jump right in and provide some value to our audience, if that's okay with you. I'd love to start
0:51.5	off with the number one killer out there for men and women, cardiovascular
0:56.5	disease.
0:57.5	So when you talk about understanding our risk, catching the growth of these diseases early,
1:04.0	what does that look like for the person who's listening today?
1:07.0	Great to be with you, Drew.
1:09.0	I think we are an exciting time, which is, you know, I wrote the book
1:13.7	about the fact that we've never done prevention very well, but now we can. And the reason for that
1:21.1	is we can determine who really is at risk. And it's not always so simple, you know, that, oh,
1:26.8	we have a family history of heart
1:28.0	disease or you have these multiple well-known risk factors. We can go deeper to find out,
1:33.8	for example, with a polygenic risk score, or look at things like apolypropotin B, lipoprotin A,
1:40.2	you know, various factors, inflammation in the blood, the heart aging clock, the pace of aging
1:46.2	of the heart or the arteries. So we have these new ways to find out who's at risk. And then we can get
1:53.1	all over it. That is, as you really aptly pointed out, most people don't realize that cardiovascular
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