Podcast Transcription: Should You Get a Coronary Calcium Test? Here is What You Need to Know

Ted Ryce: So you probably know that heart disease is the number one killer in the United States and even worldwide. But what if I told you there's a simple non invasive test that could give you a crystal clear picture of your heart disease risk? And what if most people, especially those over 40, don't even know about it? 

So in this episode today, I'm going to be Sharing a test that I had recently, it's called a CT angiogram and in the process of getting that in and I'll talk about what that is and what the coronary calcium score is and what the difference is. But I got a score of the amount of hard plaque that I have in my arteries. 

It was zero. So that's a good thing. But what I learned from the test might surprise you. And more importantly, it can help you make better health decisions. So in today's episode, we're going to be talking about that. I'm going to be sharing my experience and why you need to know about this test, what it is, why it matters, and whether you should get one or not. 

So the first thing is what is the coronary calcium score? Well, the coronary calcium score or CAC, it measures calcium deposits in your coronary arteries. So the ones that are in your heart, and it's really simple. If you have calcium buildup. It equals advanced arthro sclerosis. That's hard to say that words are to say sometimes, which increases your risk of hearts, heart attacks, and strokes, right? 

So the higher your score, the greater your risk. And the good thing about it, it's quick, noninvasive. And it can give you this score, your, your CAC number, your CAC score, and you should care about this because heart disease doesn't happen overnight. It develops over decades. In fact, what we're learning now, it's about lifetime exposure to, oh gosh, I'm going to say it might rub some of you the wrong way, but high ApoB levels are high LDL cholesterol levels. 

If you have high levels over time, you start to build up plaque in your arteries. Okay. We know by the way, that's the number one thing that causes plaque buildup. It's high cholesterol that gets deposited in your arteries. And a lot of people. I've got to say this, but a lot of people say, no, it's inflammation. 

It's, it's, um, it's metabolic syndrome. So look, inflammation plays a role and metabolic syndrome definitely plays a role. By the way, most people who have, uh, one of the things, one of the signs of having poor metabolic health or insulin resistance is, uh, is, is, uh, cholesterol issues or blood lipid issues. 

It shows up on a test. So look again, heart disease doesn't happen overnight. It develops over decades and many people think they're fine because they don't have symptoms, but plaque can silently be building up. In fact, I had a client who lost a ton of weight with me. He has heart disease in his family, but over the course of a year, he lost something like 45 pounds, completely changed his lifestyle, completely changed his body. 

And 45 pounds of that. He built muscle as well. And he started seeing a doctor and, uh, cause he had not been to the doctor in a while. And he wanted to, he wanted to see what his heart disease risk was because he has heart disease in his family. The doctor didn't want to do extensive testing. In other words, he didn't want to do a calcium, a coronary calcium score. 

The reason was he's like, well, you're not high risk. You're, you're like in great shape, but the issue is this, and I want you to pay attention to this because this is super important. The issue is that he wasn't, he got it. He was in great shape for sure. But that was in one year. That was in one year. That wasn't, he wasn't in great shape his whole life. 

In fact, he was in pretty bad shape because he was working so much and socializing too much and eating too much and drinking too much. And so even though he got his weight down, he Was suspicious or, or concerned, let's say that, you know, he wanted to know what is my risk here? And he ended up getting the calcium score and it was high. 

It was high. Which makes sense because he has a family history and if you have a family history of heart disease You want to really pay attention to this. This is something that you need to get ASAP I mean if let's put it like this if you were my friend If you're my client, if you're my friend, uh, if I cared a lot about you, I would say, gosh, you know, you have a history of heart disease in your family. 

You need to get this. All right. And here's the thing. One of the ways that you know that you have heart disease, you have a heart attack. A lot of people find out that they have a heart attack. I'm sorry, heart disease, because they have a heart attack. It's not what you want to wait for. Okay, health. And this is a separate point, but I think it's worth making right now. 

Health isn't how you feel. It's partly how you feel. If you feel good, fantastic. However, I have a friend who drinks a lot of alcohol and it doesn't really affect him that much. Me, I have a few drinks. I feel like I'm wiped out the next day and my friend isn't in good shape and I am this guy I'm talking about. 

So health isn't how you feel. It's the metrics, right? It's the metrics, just like in your business or your financial life. It's like you wouldn't say, no, I feel pretty good about how I'm doing financially, how I'm managing my money. Okay, cool. That's great that you feel good. But what about the numbers? What about the numbers? 

Because a lot of us, we're, we're not doing that well. And it's only until you get some hard numbers that wake you up to the fact that you have some issues and you should take care of it now. And with heart disease, let me tell you. Do you really want to find out that you have an issue because you had, uh, ended up with a minor or even major heart attack and ended up in the ER? 

You don't want that because the best thing is there's things that you can do. Now we're not going to talk about that. In this episode today, but I will be doing more and more episodes on heart disease and, and how to, uh, how to test for it, what's important, but what to do if you have an issue. So, how is this calcium score tested? 

Well, it's a CT scan of your heart. So, in other words, what you do, you, you make an appointment, you've got to go through your doctor and, um, you know, jump through. Look, I did it in Brazil. And I still needed to get, I went and got a cardiologist, check up with a cardiologist, a very well known cardiologist in Brazil who works with all the politicians and, you know, he's a high level cardiologist, went and saw him, had a whole workup on a bunch of different tasks, and I asked him, because it's not standard to give a coronary calcium score To someone like me, I don't have a history of heart disease in my family. 

Although, you know, my mom died kind of young and my dad never had a heart attack, but he was on medication to, to keep his, he was on medication. He had some, a bunch of issues. So I ended up asking the doctor, Hey, listen, I really want to know this number is, is, can you help me arrange that? And he was. Uh, and he helped me, right? 

I had to pay for it and everything, but he helped me do it. So, uh, it's, it's a quick scan. Now, I got a CT angioscan. So, what they do differently there is, number one, CT angiogram, sorry, not angioscan, but angiogram. They inject you with contrast, which is a dye they inject into your veins. And they take off a picture of your heart to see not just hard plaque, which is what your calcium score measures, but also soft plaque. 

Because I really wanted to know as I've had some problems, I don't want to say with my heart, but with anxiety. I've had panic attacks. I thought I was having a heart attack. So I really wanted to rule out heart disease as much as possible. Thankfully I did the calcium score. It's zero. And even the CT angiogram, uh, showed no stenosis or narrowing of any of my arteries. 

So this great news, I have no measurable heart disease at all at 48 years old when I was 47 when I got it tested, but I'm 48 now. It was a few months ago. So the results come so, so CT angiogram, it's more expensive. It involves more in depth. And for me, I got really sick from the contrast. I don't want to say really sick, but I felt like I was motion sick. 

I felt horrible for the next day. So it's a little bit more of an investment financially and time wise to do it. And, uh, yeah, it, it set me back for a day. But if you do the, just the calcium score, it's fast, it's noninvasive. You don't get injected with anything and the results are super straightforward. 

They come in a form of a number. So zero is what you want. No detectable calcified plaque or hard plaque, which is great. Yeah. It's not zero, which starts putting you, depending on how high it is, increased risk of heart attack or stroke. So look, this is really important because I've had, what does a zero calcium score mean? 

Because I've had clients, I had one client in particular, he was bad shape, dude was way overweight. He got a score of zero, which is Good, but we'll talk about this in a second because yeah, my score was zero too, but I also got a picture of the arteries. And there's no stenosis, no blockages. So my score was zero, no visible calcified plaque. 

But here's the key lesson. A zero score doesn't mean you can ignore your health. And the older you are, the more meaningful a zero score is. But the younger you are, the less meaningful it is, right? And if you have other risk factors like high ApoB or Apolipoprotein B, Or if you haven't measured that LDL cholesterol heart disease could still be developing. 

I'm a big proponent of prevention. I've learned too many times the hard way that Once you wait until the damage is visible, yes, you get super motivated to do something about it, but you're, you're in damage control mode. You are reactive. You're not being proactive. So let's talk about why age matters. And I already referenced this. 

So if you're under 50, a positive cal coronary, uh, calcium score is a big warning sign. So if you have a number that's above zero, that means even a little calcium at this age means serious disease risk. You should have a score of zero. Now, if you're over 60, A positive score is more common. So, at this stage, looking at ApoB and cholesterol may be more important than just the calcium score alone. 

It's more common. Again, start earlier. Make sure you're taking care of business. If you have, you know, get your blood work done. If you have issues with metabolic health. In other words, if you have fasting, uh, high fasting glucose, or high fasting, or uh, high fasting insulin, or C peptide, or If you have hemoglobin A1c, all these biomarkers that are elevated, that's a sign that you have some metabolic resistance, either starting or you've had it for a while. 

Also, get your ApoB and or LDL cholesterol. Make sure you're on top of your blood work. Don't be the person who waits five years. To get your blood work done thinking that, well, I feel okay. Because your goal should be prevention and risk reduction. Because if you're saving money for retirement, you're like, no, I gotta work. 

I gotta save money for retirement. You may be spending your money on medical bills. Okay, because you're going to have, it becomes a full time job to take care of failing health. It becomes another job. Trust me, you don't want it. I've seen that with my dad. My dad died in 2020, not from COVID from poor health, but part of. 

What caused him to deteriorate was, uh, he had poor health during that time and it was super stressful as we all remember. So again, your goal should be prevention and risk reduction. This stuff, heart disease is preventable to a large extent. If you've got something building up, you want to know about it. 

Don't stick your head in the sand. It does not change anything, especially if you have kids. Especially if you have people relying on you, don't be the person. Look, I'm saying this out of love, okay? Don't be the person who gets into trouble and then because you stuck your head in the sand. So, listen, I want to talk about the full picture here and what calcium score doesn't tell you. 

So, calcium score, and this is why I had the CT angiogram. Calcium score only detects calcified plaque. It doesn't measure soft plaque, which can also be dangerous. And that's why you would get the CT angiogram again. Doctors don't like doing it. I asked the cardiologist in Brazil to give it to me after telling him what I did for work and you know that I was concerned and that I didn't know the risk on my mother's side because she died in a car accident. 

And, uh, you know, in her forties I wanted to know, and so I ended up getting it. So that's why that calcium score, it test, it should be used alongside other risk markers like again, APO B or APO lipoprotein B By the way, I, I haven't said this, but APO Lipper Protein B is a better marker for cardiovascular risk than LDL cholesterol. 

I don't want to get into that. I'll do a separate episode and maybe talk about the calcium score and talk about this later. But a lot of. We run, with our blood panels, we run apolipoprotein B. We also run LDL cholesterol. But with our clients, we look at apolipoprotein B. We also look at LP little a, which is a topic for another time, but It's a separate risk factor, even if you have low cholesterol or low epi lipoprotein B, which we just said is a better marker for cardiovascular risk, according to the research, not me, but according to the research, even if you have an elevated LP little a or you still need to be careful. 

And of course, lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, and stress management, you really need the full picture to assess your true heart disease risk. So how to protect your heart starting today? Number one is don't wait for symptoms. or a high calcium score to take action. Start now. Number one thing. Do you exercise regularly? 

Do you also lift weights and do cardio? How is your belly fat? How is your body fat levels, especially your belly fat? Do you have Most of your weight around your belly. That's something that you want to get rid of and something you can get rid of as well. Again, managing stress is really important. 

Chronic stress can affect your sleep quality. Don't want to get into this, but high sympathetic activation. In other words, if you're walking around in fight or flight all the time, it can affect your heart health. It's not as important as the other things we've talked about, but it's still important. And of course, track key markers like apolipoprotein B, LDL cholesterol, and markers of healthy blood sugar, like fasting glucose, fasting insulin, c peptide, hemoglobin A1c, those are all things that you can get measured. 

To give you an insight into how you're doing with your metabolic health and also heart health. So if you're a busy professional, look, I get it. The issue is our health often takes a back seat and it can be hard to start to prioritize it. But even small consistent steps. fit into any schedule. So I want to get this through to you because it's so important because I care so much about you. 

I want you to look and feel your best and also to avoid these, you know, terrible things that we have watched our parents go through. So even 10 to 20 minutes of exercise is better than none. And if you have a small amount of time, to do exercise. You don't want to do a walk. You want to push yourself a little bit. 

Doing body weight squats and pushups are going to be much better for blood sugar regulation, much better for, um, yeah, helping your heart health. Let's say then doing a 10 or 20 minute walk. You can also do a 10 or 20 minute high intensity interval training routine. If you have, if you're short on time, you do want to push it a little bit, but again, you have to be careful. 

I don't know you. I don't know what your risk is. So you have to be careful if you're in great health and you're just out of shape, but there's no, I wouldn't call that. Wait a minute. Let me, what did I just say? If you're in great health, but you're out of shape, no, you're not in great health if you're out of shape, but let's say that you have no. 

Yeah, you don't have diagnosed heart disease and no blood pressure issues, et cetera, but you're just, you know, you're, you're in the process of developing those things, but you're not quite there and you don't have a lot of time, but you're overall, you know, you don't have anything preventing you from doing hard exercise, pushing yourself, either doing a HIIT training or doing body weight resistance exercises or going to the gym and lifting weights. 

Those are going to be your best choices. Now look. We all know that at least if you've been listening to this podcast, that a calorie deficit is key for losing body fat. You can do that a lot of ways. You can do a low carb diet, high carb diet, low fat diet. Look, you can do a lot of things, but the key thing is, are you losing weight slash body fat? 

Make sure you adjust your diet so that you're eating fewer calories. So you start to lose that excess body fat, especially if it's around your waist. And also use data to help you make smarter, targeted health decisions. Don't fly, fly blind. It's one of the things that our coaching programs, we really push our clients to do is get this data because it makes a difference. 

And I've seen people go from not really from, from telling themselves a story. Like, Hey, I'm pretty good too. Oh man, I'm not doing as well as I thought. So let me take some action here. Okay. And if you're, if you're a high performer and you're having some trouble being consistent, taking care of your health, this is a great way. 

Getting some blood work done is a great way to. For number one, to be honest about your current health, about the risks that you're facing, and also a great way to motivate you to do something about it. And don't just get your blood work, but. I would highly recommend looking into getting your coronary calcium score as well. 

So what are the final takeaways here? Look, the coronary, uh, calcium score, it's a powerful tool, but it's just one piece of the puzzle. And look, if you're over 40, the best strategy isn't reactive, it's proactive. Do not wait till you have a problem. Get on it. Your future health depends on the choices that you make today. 

So, should you get a calcium score test? Look, if you're curious about your heart health and want real data to guide your next steps, I, again, if you were my friend or client, I would say you need to get it. ASAP. But remember, it's not just about a single test. It's about long term prevention because the best time to take care of your heart was when you were in your 20s. 

The second best time was like 10 or 20 years ago. But the third best time is right now. Okay. I don't want to, if you're in a situation where you're like, Oh man, you know, I feel like really bad because I haven't been taking care of myself for like decades. Look, you can still make a big change just like my client did. 

He has an elevated calcium score, but there are a ton of things that he can do to, to manage it so that he has less risk going forward so he can be around for his grandchildren. Okay. So again, if you want to take control, take control of your health. Reach out to me, go to legendary life program. com slash apply. 

That's legendary life program. com slash apply and apply to hop on a strategy call with me. So on that strategy call, we'll talk about. Where you are with your health, what you want to achieve and what's in the way of you achieving it. And if it makes sense to talk about working together, we'll, uh, cover that as well. 

And again, this isn't for anyone. If you, this is for high performers. So if you are running a company or if you're an executive in a company, Or if you've exited a company or if you're a high performing professional, I work with doctors and lawyers and accountants and consultants. So if you fit that bill then and you resonate with what I've said here, you definitely want to book a call and let's talk. 

And of course if you found this episode helpful, share it with someone who needs to hear it. That's it for today. Hope you learned a lot. Speak to you on the next episode.