Episode 47: Dr. Stephen Sinatra and the Past, Present and Future of Integrative Cardiology

If you’ve listened to my podcasts, you surely know that I love what I do. And my podcast with Dr. Stephen Sinatra is no exception. One of my most inspiring conversations to date, Dr. Sinatra is, as you know, a pioneer in the field of integrative cardiology. Hear about his remarkable, very early transition to integrative cardiology, including pivotal encounters with patients and scientists that shaped his thinking; his gutsy, hospital grand rounds presentations on the use of CoQ10 for heart failure patients, and the story of my mom working as a cardiac nurse with him during his fellowship. While Sinatra doesn’t maintain an active medical practice anymore, he still goes into his office often “to see how my former heart failure patients are doing. I don’t charge them. I just want to check in” He talked about a 9 year old boy he saw with florid heart failure. That boy is 32 years old now, and doing great. He was involved in designing the treatment plan for the now oldest-living person with tetralogy of Fallot. What did he prescribe? The “fearsome foursome”: CoQ10, magnesium, ribose and carnitine. At 73 years old, the first heart failure patient he prescribed CoQ10 to (10mg TID!) is alive and well. We move through loads of research on nutrients (yes, we discussed K2) diets, fats and what we need to be doing for ourselves, our families and our patients. Update: Dr. Sinatra and I spent a chuck of time on the famous PREDIMED study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2013. PREDIMED garnered much attention by validating the use of a Mediterranean diet supplemented with olive oil or mixed nuts for reducing incidence of cardiovascular disease in persons at high risk. Interestingly, the day we recorded, news broke that the PREDIMED was retracted. However, the study authors re-published the PREDIMED in NEJM June, 2018 with compromising data omitted. The findings remained similar to the original PREDIMED. Listen to Dr. Jeff Bland discuss the details.