Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Hi, and welcome to aging in America. I am your host, Bena Coleman, with parent projects. I am so excited to have Mia on today. Mia is another guest from honor health, and I would love to welcome her onto the show. Welcome, Mia.
[00:00:21] Speaker B: Hi. Thank you so much. Thrilled to be here.
[00:00:24] Speaker A: Thanks again for being here. So really just how I start all the shows. I'd love to get to know you if you could tell us what you do at honor health, and then kind of, yeah, tell us what you do at honor health.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: Wonderful. Sabina. Here at honor Health, I work with women's heart center. I have a passion for preventative care and cardiogenetics and heart disease. So that is what I do at honor health, day in and day out with absolute pride.
[00:00:53] Speaker A: That's amazing. And I know that we've had other honor health doctors on, and everyone is just so passionate about what they do. And talking to you a little bit before the show, I know that you are as well.
They get good doctors over there. It's very impressive.
So can you tell us why you are focusing on this part of the healthcare world?
[00:01:16] Speaker B: I am super passionate about heart disease. I'm going to share a story with you. So a little bit about myself today. I am 57, but at the age of 32, I was the lead of the operating room. And while I was working in the operating room, one day I walked. I still remember clearly, I walked into room two, and I was checking on staff, and I really don't remember much from there on in. I remember kind of passing the bed, supposedly. They say I got out into the waiting room and, sorry, out into the hallway, and I suddenly went straight back, went down, and they called a code. And so I ended up having a heart event of my own. That was absolutely a game changer for me in my trajectory of what did I want to do with my career, and also that whole perspective of what is it like to be a patient. I went through a lot of testing and kind of, I'll be very honest, a bit dismembered as being a woman. What woman, at 32, goes down in the middle of the OR, right? What did you have last night? What did you do? What's gone on? And in the end, after being flown out to a tertiary center, they discovered I had a really bad arrhythmia. And so very grateful for my journey, but it took a long time. But that has been why I was so extremely passionate for what we need to do to advocate for women's health in our country.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: You called it an event just so I know, and our audience knows. Is that what people refer to when you have something like that? Like, I guess an episode or event?
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Yeah, so I do. That is my, that is kind of a slang within us is having an event going down, having, you know, it can be someone, you know, unresponsive, not breathing, having a cardiac event, those kind of things. Having a cardiac arrest. Yeah.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: So interesting. I mean, I've always heard either episode or event, so it's just, it's nice to know and keep that word in mind.
[00:03:13] Speaker B: Yep, absolutely.
[00:03:15] Speaker A: So you were 32 years old. I am very sorry that you went through that at that young age.
As of now, it's been a couple years. I'm imagining. Do you still get checked? What is your process on that?
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Well, I'm flattered. You said a couple of years, so now I'm 57.
[00:03:32] Speaker A: So would never have guessed that. I'm not lying.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: So it's a great question. I went through a lot of support and testing, and I had to have electrophysiology studies back then. And then I kind of got, well, I went through a great period. But then midlife hits. Right. The famous fifties. And just recently, to be honest, I had another occurrence. And so again, why I'm so passionate to help advocate. I was training to run the rim to rim. So north rim to south rim for last September.
[00:04:07] Speaker A: I've heard about this.
[00:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely fun. You got to do it. So I was out on the trail training with my husband, and I had to lay down. We were here training locally. I didn't feel well. Dizzy, black. Not good. And anyhow, in the end, with the amazing colleagues I have here at honor health, they were right all over it. Wore an event monitor and discovered I had an arrhythmia again, so you never know when things can come back. So I did go through more electrophysiology studies and outstanding care. But again, speaking to, you know, you always want to be advocating for yourself and amazing lifestyle modifications.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: It's so true. I mean, you are a doctor, so you under, you understand this more than. More or better than anyone, really.
But that's what we do at parent projects when we have our connect platform is really another way to advocate for you, for your loved one. Thank God that you are able to do that for yourself when so many people can't.
[00:05:08] Speaker B: Yeah, good point.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: So what else do you. I know you work with women. So is your focus, since you've had your event, to really get the word out for prevention?
[00:05:22] Speaker B: Yeah, one of my really leading passions is, you know, being an advocate for women and being that voice, getting out there, doing community education, doing what you are doing today, having me on, and having that opportunity to educate the population. And if you're good, I'd love to spend a moment kind of giving you a little bit of the most important things that I want my caregivers, my women, you know, my population out there to know.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: We would love nothing more, Mia. So please, because.
[00:05:54] Speaker B: So let's go for it. So I want your audience to know that heart disease is the number one cause of death of all women in the United States. And that's stunning. It's stunning. So one woman dies every 80 seconds in the United States. Every 80 seconds, someone, as you would say, has an event or goes down. Right. And so what we want the population to understand is, you know, we want to change those numbers. Honor health is working really hard with the Women's heart center and stuff, raising awareness, advocacy. But most women think that the number one cause of death is things like cancer and not that cancer is so important. Right. Like, it's so important. But all cancers combined don't equal the death rate of heart disease in women. And over 50% of women don't realize that that is, you know, a leading diagnosis. So we need to be getting out there educating and advocating for these women.
[00:06:51] Speaker A: I just can't even imagine that it's 80. It is true. You're saying it, but it's one woman every 80 seconds of. It's a very breathtaking number. It takes your breath away. I want to say it's hard to imagine, but it's so sad. So what can we do to prevent, or do you recommend women getting checked at what age should they begin?
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So what I would recommend, and you and I had talked about this a little bit, is I want people to understand where you live should not determine if you live.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: I love that, Mia, so much.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Here we live in Phoenix, and there is a 14 year age difference just in our zip codes within our city of when you would on the average age of death. And so we need to be getting out there and understanding our women. They need to be going out and getting their blood pressure checked. We call that the silent killer. Blood pressure needs to be always less than 130, over 80, down in the 110s. Down in the 120s, you know, down to 110, 120. We need women to be getting their cholesterol checked. We need women to be moving their bodies, watching their alcohol consumption, eating really well balanced diet, you know, all those things that really pay that, you know, that and contribute to your positive wellness and making sure women, women, we're doers. We can chew gum, feed the baby, go to work. We do it all, and we will dismiss ourselves as well. And I want women to pay attention to themselves. If you're feeling shortness of breath or feeling some unusual fatigue, please reach out and see somebody.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: You hit it on the head right there. You know, something that I deal with is the caregiver burnout. And when I'm dealing with the caregiver, who does tend to be a woman, most cases, it's that same thing. We can take care of so many people, and we do take care of so many people but us. And so you're right. Well, if you start to feel any of those that you mentioned, get checked, and you're only going to help yourself. And truly, if you are a caregiver, that person that you're caring for, that's.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: So important, you know, caregiver burnout is real, right? People get exhausted. They lack sleeper fatigue. And how often would you hear of someone who says, I'm just tired, I'm not getting sleep, but maybe they're actually having angina or chest pain or something else is going on. So I want women or men who are caregivers to embrace and do seek help. You know, make sure you've got a good support system and that you're perhaps seeing your provider or calling that helpline that provides free information and things like that, because it's very true. Then you have women, you know, who are menopausal, and they think that they're burnt out, but they're just having hormone changes. We need to be recognizing that our bodies are very intricate and complicated.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: Yeah, it's wonderful.
So, mia, can you talk to me about wearables and how they help mine?
[00:09:53] Speaker B: Okay. Now, do you know that I speak on that and I'm experienced in that. That's a very.
So I wear a wearable every day.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Can you show that again for the people who are watching? Okay, so is it an eye watch?
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's a Garmin watch.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: It's a garment. Okay.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: There's amazing wearables out there. So wearable technology is a way for you to get biofeedback on yourself and to be able to, you know, perhaps make lifestyle modifications. Whether that's the apple Watch, whether it's the garmin, it's the oura ring, it's the whoop, the fitbit. I love wearables.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:10:33] Speaker B: And I always say to people, it's an ability for you to kind of track yourself, you know, what is your heart rate? What's going on? How is your sleep? How is your movement? Movement so important? We're supposed to get 150 minutes of exercise or movement every week, and that means that we're out moving, you know, not that we're starting and stopping continually. We want it to be more consistent, and sometimes that's really hard to track. Right. To keep an eye on that. So I tell people it's not there to be positive or to be negative. It's a tool that we can utilize to help us to make positive lifestyle modifications. It's rewarding sometimes for us in a really great way, those sort of things. I do wear it because of my heart history, so I like to track my heart rate all the time. It's been absolutely a game changer for me. But I love, love, love wearables. They're amazing.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Two things. You said that it doesn't matter what brand it sounds like. You mentioned a few different ones, so really, it just matters, I think, what you're comfortable with.
And then you also said, I found this interesting.
Throughout the week, you should be exercising 150 minutes.
And let me just ask you, is that walking? Is that cardio? Is there any restrictions?
[00:11:55] Speaker B: No. The 150 minutes a week, we want people to be moving their bodies. So maybe that's walking, maybe that's biking, maybe that's swimming, maybe that's pickleball. Right. Whatever works great for you to keep your body moving. But one of the really important things being a people will ask me is I'll get people who say, well, I'm, let's say for me, I'm in the hospital, I'm walking, but I'm stopping and starting. Right. So it's not a consistent, keep my heart rate up, keep it up, those sort of things. So it doesn't kind of count as that 150 minutes. We're looking for something where you're like 1520 minutes more consistently getting out there and getting that heart rate up, moving along, and then that cumulative effort every little bit absolutely helps and is amazing. So we never discredit that. We're on our feet for long periods, but we're looking for more of that consistent movement in whatever it is that you love. And I would love to stress, I like variability. I like to tell my patients, I like you to change it up, don't do the same thing all the time. Right.
[00:12:59] Speaker A: I love that advice because you hear mixed things as a woman. I will say you hear, do weightlifting, do cardio, go for a walk. So it's nice to know that you should be doing all of the above, it sounds like, and mixing it up.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: Yeah. We should all be doing some resistance, no matter, you know, what age we are as men and women as we age. Believe it or not, they know we start losing our muscle mass at the age of 30. Okay, 30. So it's really important. And I'm not asking people to go to the gym and be crazy weightlifters. Right. But just doing some. Having some bands or having something that maintains your muscle tone because your core strength, your legs. You know, we want to be able to walk a long time. We don't want to have falls, all those things. So very, very important to your right to have a combination of a little bit.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: We had a podiatrist on a couple weeks ago on the podcast, and she spoke of the same thing. It's just more of that prevention, of that causing less falls, the more you do keep active. So it's nice to hear it again and again, 100%.
That's wonderful. Well, is there anything we missed? I feel like you have given us such wonderful tips that I believe people can do no matter where they live in the country. Walk, find something to do outside, be active.
[00:14:21] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. So I guess I would say, as leading from the woman's heart center, what I would love everyone to know is, number one, please follow your blood pressure. Keep your blood pressure on, check, keep moving your body. You know, those sort of things. And most of all, please don't dismiss yourself. If you're a caregiver or you're those people, if you're finding you're having atypical fatigue or shortness of breath or you just don't feel right, please reach out, you know, to someone for some healthcare advice. We want to change those statistics. We want to change those numbers. And the only way we're going to do that is with things that you're doing, how we're getting out there and educating our population.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: I'm sorry to ask one more question, but I know what you do, obviously, local and phoenix. But are there other women or doctors like you throughout the country that are focusing just on this?
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah. So it is growing. You will see. You know, back in California, there's the Barbra Streisand Center, Texas, Cincinnati, things like that. But your best resource, no matter where you live, is log on to the American Heart association. They have an incredible patient section where you can get information on meal planning, exercise. What should your blood pressure be? It's all there, free. And they're an absolutely incredible resource for.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: People oh, that's amazing. We'll get that in the show notes for sure. Well, thank you, Mia, for sharing your time, talents, and treasures with us. I felt like you gave us such wonderful tips, so thank you.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Thank you so much for having me. It was such a pleasure.
Honor is a steady rhythm that inspires remarkable medical professionals who work with passion and purpose.
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[00:16:13] Speaker C: Well, that's it for the team this week, and thanks for joining us. If you enjoy the content, remember to subscribe and share this episode on the app that you're using right now. Your reviews and your comments, they really help us expand our reach as well as our perspectives. So if you have time, also drop us a note. Let us know how we're doing for tips and tools to clarify your parent project, simplify communication with your stakeholders, and verify the professionals that you choose. You can find us on YouTube, follow us on Instagram and Facebook. Thanks again for trusting us. Until our next episode. Behold and be held.
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