It is a sad fact that we have a broken medical system. On the one hand it is spectacular, and on the other it’s disastrous. All in, we spend about $4 trillion per year on healthcare on a population of 330 million; 18% of our gross domestic product. That’s about $12,000 every year for every man, woman, and child in the country.
Another way to think about it: We spend about $50,000 every year for every family of four. Wow. (For reference: The median household income is $62,000; the median individual income is $31,000.)
Standard care = medications
In spite of this level of spending, when it comes to heart disease, which is both preventable and stoppable, our medical system offers little. Standard care for cardiovascular disease consists of cholesterol-lowering drugs (primarily statins), blood pressure meds, daily aspirin, and boilerplate advice: eat a healthy diet, exercise, don’t smoke, don’t abuse alcohol.
All the drugs have significant risks and side effects.
None are benign.
The boilerplate advice does not solve the issue.
For the most part, all specialists—including cardiologists—deal in manifest, advanced, and end-state disease. If you are under the necessary care of a specialist, something is seriously wrong in your body. The truth is we do not ever want to need a specialist.
Care for symptoms, not causes
Also, for the most part, specialists deal in treating the symptoms of disease: the effects of having disease. They do not deal in either the prevention or in stopping the causal factors that are driving the disease pattern. Intervening with a coronary bypass or stent does not affect the disease; it only addresses the effects of having the disease.
Incentives for expensive treatments
Last, there are far too many perverse incentives built into the system. Unfortunately, specialists get paid nearly nothing for preventing disease. Or for that matter, stopping the advance of the disease through a functional medicine (cause-based) approach. A cardiologist gets paid a pittance for preventing a heart attack but gets paid handsomely for treating one (if the patient is still alive). An oncologist gets paid almost nothing for preventing a cancer, but gets tons of money for administering chemo, radiation, and other drugs, and for performing surgeries. The money flows toward end-state treatment. The same perverse incentives are true for hospitals too. Sadly, health insurance, Medicare, and Medicaid are poorly set up to help with this problem.
IN A NUTSHELL: Needing a specialist is bad news. However, when we do need them they are truly good news, because things have reached the point that their skill and expertise are required.
A high coronary calcium score does not mean you need a cardiologist. It means you need to stop the progression of your heart disease. Most of the time there are far better choices than standard medical treatments.
We need practitioners who know how to halt the progression of CVD
At Cruxpoint, we don’t want you to take more drugs, experience more side effects, and still worry about when a heart attack will come for you. Here’s how we and other like-minded practitioners approach halting and even reversing CVD:
- We focus our efforts on the causes of the disease.
- We will order and review your comprehensive labs and specifically address biochemistry that is out of balance in your body which may be contributing to CVD. When systems or biochemistry are out of balance, or when lacking in essential building blocks of vitality, the body tends toward inflammation and disease.
- We will review your biochemistry and symptoms to assess whether you do, in fact, need to take the medications you’re already taking. Our goal is first to get your body in balance, reduce systemic inflammation, and then enhance your body’s natural ability to be healthy and vital. Most of the time, this allows you to eliminate or reduce medications safely.
- We will review your scan results (heart, vascular system, etc.) and other non-lab assessments, and recommend targeted lifestyle adjustments that will produce positive effects specifically for you.
- We will search for and find your drivers of inflammation/disease. Could be that some foods you’re ingesting are inflammatory for you. Could be fragmented/disrupted sleep or sleep apnea. Could be a chronic low-grade infection. Could be over-training. Could be an over-active sympathetic nervous system or over-active immune system. Could be an auto-immune condition. Could be allergies. Could be low Vitamin D. There are many drivers of inflammation, and this is why you need a customized approach. This is a search for your inflammation drivers.
- We may assess your genetic vulnerabilities and design your protocols to account for these.
- We will guide you with a science-based and evidence-based approach. There is so much inaccurate, conflicting and flat-out wrong information out there that sorting through it all is a full-time job. A skilled, knowledgeable practitioner will do that searching and sorting for you.
- We will give you protocols that allow you to be in control and self-propelled.
Outcome
You will bring your heart disease under control for the rest of your life. You will have resolved some other disease processes and aggravating conditions. You will have lowered your cardiovascular risk by 95%.
What’s the value of your life to you?
Only you can decide. You have to know why you want to be alive and vital.
Knowing your answers to the “why?” is critical to your motivation. If the highlight of your day was something you ate or drank, your Check Engine Light is blinking. Perhaps it’s time for some serious re-assessment of the meaning and quality of your life?
Heart disease is a thief, and you’re the mark.
Heart disease steals our most precious dreams: Life, vitality, a long and enjoyable retirement, freedom from fear and worry, freedom from pain, time with our grandkids and great-grandkids. As Dr. Bill Blanchet says, “If every third house in your neighborhood was continually going to be burglarized, would you spend the money to put a security system in place that lowers the risk by 95%… or just let the burglary happen?”
Remember: You don’t need to go along with this avoidable plague.
Death from heart disease is optional.
You can opt out.
