In the second half of the episode, Dr. Emmanuel Finette from the Cleveland Clinic shares important insights into heart health. February being American Heart Month, Dr. Finette discusses the 2025 Love Your Heart campaign and common misconceptions about cardiovascular wellness. From dietary influences to the surprising factors relating to heart disease, learn how to sustain a healthy heart and the new research developments that promise a healthier future.
00:14:58 Discussion on Heart Health with Dr. Finette
SPEAKER 01 :
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 05 :
Hey, friend, Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with The Good News. We’re talking about his winner’s wisdom column, and this week it’s letters from a legend. Welcome, Jim.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hey, it is great to be with you, as always.
SPEAKER 05 :
Is the letter from you the legend? Yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, no, no, no, and nor is it from you in this particular case, even though you are legendary. No, this last summer I had my 65th party. Crystal put on a birthday party for me.
SPEAKER 01 :
Nice.
SPEAKER 02 :
A lot of our friends could come, and some of the friends from out of town couldn’t come. And so they sent letters. You know, we got them from Jack Nicklaus and Louis Gossett Jr. and Steve Forbes and a number of just wonderful, wonderful people. One of them was a really, really special letter I got in mid-July from Tony Bennett. Wow. You know, and it all started 30 years ago in the early 90s. I was running around doing interviews with anybody that would pay attention to me. trying to promote narrative television in the classic films we had. So I’d interviewed Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Stewart and Katharine Hepburn and Michael Douglas and all these people. And my crew and I were in New York, and they told me that Tony Bennett was shooting a Christmas special over in the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. And we went over there, and the guy told us, well, if you want to wait, he may or may not have time to do your interview. So we wait two or three hours, and I was just about to leave when they took a break, and Tony Bennett walks over and says, you know, hi, I’m Tony Bennett, like everybody in the civilized world doesn’t know who he is.
SPEAKER 01 :
Right.
SPEAKER 02 :
And I said, well, nice to meet you. He said, can we do whatever you need in 20 minutes? I said, absolutely. So they get him, and, you know, as they’re getting the lights and the microphone and everything, you know, I said, you know, this is quite a birthday present to have you on the show. And he laughed and said, why is it a birthday present for me to be on your show? I said, no, it’s my birthday. He said, no, it’s my birthday. And we realized we shared a birthday. Well, for the next 30 years, every year, we would exchange cards and notes. And it was one of the most fun things. So as this date is approaching, you know, Crystal had reached out to him and his wife. his office and said, you know, we’d like something that could be rattled out at the birthday party. But unfortunately, he passed away that month, and we never got the letter. And so I thought, well, that’s horrible. And I was, you know, regretting the fact that my friend was gone. And then two, three days after he died, we get a letter that had obviously been mailed before he had passed.
SPEAKER 03 :
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
And it’s a dear gem. It’s been wonderful and marvelous ever since we met and realized we shared a birthday. And it’s great to be able to exchange birthday greetings every year. And so as I approach 97 and you approach 65, remember, many years ago I left my heart in San Francisco, but tonight it will be there with you and your friends as you celebrate our special day. Keep smiling, Tony Bennett.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
So we had this thing, and I asked Crystal, is this morbid to share from, you know, the guy’s past? And she said, I believe he would like us to keep… So at my birthday party, we played Tony Bennett music, and, you know, the takeaway thing was, to me, the whole just keep smiling, just whatever it is, you know. And, you know, the interviews I did with Tony Bennett and the time we spent together… You know, and I said, how do you want to be remembered? How do you want people to think about Tony Bennett? And he said, you know, Jim, I’m not a brain surgeon, you know. And, you know, I didn’t solve some scientific mystery or anything. I entertain people. And, you know, if I can make people feel a little better, lighten the load, and create a couple smiles, I’ll take it. That was good. Yeah. you know, and that’s, I think, will always be my enduring memory of Tony Bennett is just whatever happens, just keep smiling, you know, and, you know, look for the good and all the bad. When something’s great, be grateful for it and appreciate it and just enjoy every bit of it, because that’s something he did right up until the end. And he was just a magnificent man. And you know, in addition to his music, a lot of people don’t know he was a great artist, a great painter and his work starting to get quite a bit of traction now. And, uh, and, you know, some of the later things he did, I mean, in his nineties, he did with Lady Gaga and other, you know, just, you know, pop stars of the day. And he, he remained relevant and did all those great things. And, uh, you know, I just, uh, admired him so much. And, uh, You know, so it’s great to just have wonderful people like that you can take a lot from. And, you know, when I look at my life at age 65, you know, I remember when I was a kid, 65 was ancient, you know. And when my grandparents got on Social Security, most people paid in their whole life, and the average recipient got benefits for less than a year because people just didn’t live that long. Well, now… You know, I mean, three of my great mentors did their best work in their 90s. Art Linkletter, Paul Harvey, Coach John Wooden, just amazing things. And just lost my father right at 92, and he was still teaching his class and doing his stuff right up until the end. And, you know, so, you know, we all have a lot to look forward to. And, you know, I think one of the mistakes people make is once they get to the magic age, I’m going to retire immediately. Well, then what are you going to do? Because doing nothing is about the hardest work you’ll ever do. And, you know, enjoying downtime is a great parentheses in a productive work life. But it’s a horrible way to live.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, I – so he really didn’t retire at all. I mean, like maybe he worked less, but there was no retirement there for him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Not really. I mean, he was – He was losing his memory to a great extent. But then they found that there was a deal that on 60 Minutes on him just six months before he died. And it was a show he and Lady Gaga did at Radio City Music Hall. And she actually said, I’m not sure he can make it. Well, once the music cranked up, he got out there. He remembered every word of every song and just nailed it. But the next day they were talking to him about it, and he couldn’t remember anything. Was that yesterday or when did I do that show? But, you know, he had that long-term memory that a lot of people, they don’t know what they had for breakfast, but they can remember something that happened 30 years ago. And he had that memory for songs and lyrics and all that. But, yeah, he was working right up until the end and painting and doing what he did.
SPEAKER 05 :
Wow. Yeah, that is so cool. You know, of all of the people that you’ve, you know, met over the years, you mentioned some of the people that weren’t able to make it to the birthday party and that sent, you know, notes, etc. Like, give me like the top five people that you got to know because of the work you do that you really like your life is so much better for it. I know it’s hard with, you know, John Wooden in there and Steve Forbes and obviously the man we’re just discussing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, You know, I will always be grateful to Katherine Hepburn because she didn’t do a lot of interviews and she was willing to do one with me. And she was my first big interview.
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, wow.
SPEAKER 02 :
Then I could leverage her to get other interviews. So, you know, when you call Frank Sinatra or Jimmy Stewart and say, we had Miss Hepburn on last week, I’d like to follow up with you. That’s a much better deal than I’m doing this thing you never heard of. And why don’t you come be on my show? And I told her that later in her life. I said, Ms. Hepburn, I’ll always be grateful. I used you to build my network. And she said, well, Jim, men have been using me all my life. You’re honest about it. And I said, yes, ma’am, I am very honest about it. And so Miss Hepburn will always be great. I will never forget Frank Sinatra because he was just larger than life. And he was everything I hoped he would be. And I’ll never forget, he had the whole floor of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Dallas where we filmed the interview. And when we go to leave, the guys get all the stuff together. We’re walking down the hall to the elevator. And just as we get to it, he sticks his head out. He said, Hey kid, he’s talking to me. I said, yes, sir. He said, I hope you live to be a hundred years old. And the last thing you ever hear is me singing you a song. And I thought that is cool. And then, uh, and then Jimmy Stewart was just like meeting a friend that I had never known before. I mean, just like he was everything I wanted him to be and more. And, uh, We had that amazing thing because it had been in the newspaper. He bought the house next door to him and tore it down at that time. And this was 30-something years ago. It was a $4 million house. So I said, Mr. Stewart, you were in the paper today. You bought Lucy and Desi Arnaz’s old house and tore it down. And he said, yes. He said, do you like homegrown tomatoes, Jim? I said, yes. He said, well. I do, too. And the afternoon sun is very important. And that house was blocking my afternoon sun on my tomatoes. So as soon as I got a chance, I bought it and tore it down. And I said, so you bought a $4 million house for tomatoes? He said, yes, Jim. $4 million I got. It’s tomatoes I wanted. And I said, well, then that’s great. And as I go to leave, we finish the interview. He comes out of the front of his house with this bag. And it was full of tomatoes. He said, I want you and your gentlemen here to have these. And I, wow, I am, you know, a couple of the guys said, I’m going to go home and bronze this tomato or something, you know. But, you know, they were all amazingly special in different ways and different, you know, and just the people I worked with in the movies from, You know, James Garner and Peter Fonda and Raquel Welch and Louis Gossett, just amazing people. And the musicians, B.B. King and Willie Nelson. They all have something to admire in certain ways. And then they all, in other ways, they’re very human and very normal. But as Gandhi said, everyone’s my superior in that I can learn something from them.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, as far as actors you’ve hired to work with who were a few of your favorites that were in your films?
SPEAKER 02 :
Louis Gossett, Jr. I mean, anytime you can write words that come out of an Academy Award winner’s mouth, it’s such a fun privilege. And he took it so seriously. You know, he would… You know, he played this kind of magical genie kind of guy that was going to give this couple three wishes of anything they wanted they couldn’t get on their own. And before he started, he said, can we go in the other room and talk? I said, yes, sir. He said, so what’s my guy? What is he thinking right here? And I said, you ever see a game show, you know, where they’re… He said, like, who wants to be a millionaire with Regis Philbin? I said, yeah, something like one of those old shows. I said… you’re like him, but you want the, this couple to win. You want them to get the million dollars. And so, you know, you’re in charge and you have to play by these rules, but you want them to win. He said, okay, I got that, you know, and he was just really, really great and worked unbelievably hard. And, uh, you know, after every take, he would just say, okay, is everybody happy? Are we sure anything you want different, you know, and he was just, uh, he worked very, very hard and, raquel welch impressed me greatly because uh um you know she it did not come easy to her and she knew who she was and what she did and we shot in this little downtown area of this tiny little thing in place in kentucky out of the and you know when people heard she was there they came out by the hundreds and uh And, you know, they were disrupting everything. And so she said, tell one of the crew to go out and tell them if they’ll come back at 2 in the afternoon, I will meet and greet everyone. But right now we need a little space. And Angie, she stood out there in those high heels, 70-something years old, and took every photo, shook every hand, signed every autograph, and she was amazing. She was just truly, truly amazing. And… You know, and I remember one of the reporters asked Brian Dennehy, what’s it like to be a movie star? He said, ask Raquel. He said, I’m an actor. I go to work and do my job. But over there, that’s a movie star.
SPEAKER 05 :
I love it. I love your stories. I always forget, you know, just talking to you and being friends over the radio all these years, all the great people you’ve gotten to meet. If you want to find Jim, jimstovall.com. Always a pleasure, my friend. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
SPEAKER 03 :
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SPEAKER 05 :
Well, friend, if you were just joining us, this is the good news with Angie Austin. And February is American Heart Month. And this is the year that the Cleveland Clinic has its 2025 Love Your Heart campaign. And it’s aiming to shine a spotlight on the often overlooked factors that can silently impact heart health. It is a silent killer, right, in some cases. Joining us is Dr. Emmanuel Finette. Dr. Finette is a staff cardiologist in the section of heart failure and transplantation medicine in the Heart, Vascular, and Thoracic Institute at the Cleveland Clinic. Welcome, doctor.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you for having me on the show.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay, so I am very interested in this because my dad and my uncle had heart issues, and they had them, oddly enough, like the same week they had surgery, the same week they had a heart attack. It was like so bizarre. They called each other to say, oh, are you having a surgery tomorrow? And they were just like, I’m having a surgery in three days. So it was just so bizarre. So just tell us an overview of the survey you did and about, you know, the silent killer.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, the overview of this year’s survey tried to really – correct or clarified misconceptions that patients have about supplements and medications. And also, they try to highlight some lesser, you know, less known factors of cardiovascular disease. And believe it or not, about 40% of people that were surveyed did not realize that smoking, alcohol consumption, or sleep deprivation actually have relationships with cardiovascular disease and And about 60% didn’t know that air pollution actually is related to cardiovascular disease. So those are actually things that we need to change in the population in terms of education. And also there was a paradoxical effect in which 90% of the people that were served a day believed that nutritional supplements actually are good for the heart. They prevent cardiovascular diseases. They believe that they would rather take nutritional supplements rather than medications. Actually, more than 90% were already taking supplements or they had been taking supplements. And they thought that medications really should be left for last resort. The reality is that they’re not regulated by the FDA in any way in terms of safety. We don’t know what they do in terms of efficacy. We don’t know whether they’re actually effective in what they claim to do, nor are they regulated in terms of quality. They may not contain exactly what they say they contain. So because of that, they could potentially be dangerous sometimes, although most of the time they really have no effect. You know, Cleveland Clinic about a couple years ago published an article comparing a very low dose medication to lower cholesterol versus other medications, other supplements such as garlic and cinnamon and turmeric and fish oil and others. And we found that cholesterol medication was actually very effective in lowering the LDL cholesterol. However, all the other supplements had no effect compared to the placebo. So I think if our physician specifically prescribes one or two supplements for a particular reason, that should be fine. But in general terms, we should not really medicate ourselves. We should probably try to eat better and get our nutrients from healthy foods.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, doctor, we get sometimes pushback from other people outside of the medical community telling us that, you know, it’s detrimental for us to take the cholesterol lowering medications, et cetera, et cetera, and that the harm outweighs the good. And I would say every single one of my cousins is on that. some form of cholesterol medication. And so I talked to Dr. Roizen, Michael Roizen at the Cleveland Clinic, because I do interviews with him quite frequently. And I said, so what’s your take on it? I had like a chiropractor telling us we shouldn’t take it. And he said, Angie, the good outweighs the bad. And so I never stopped taking it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, yeah, that is true. I mean, despite sometimes a bad publicity, you know, all these medications, they have a very rigorous assessment. And they require multiple trials before they’re actually considered for the FDA to be approved. And they’ve been shown in repeated times to be effective, not only to lower cholesterol, but actually just to lower mortality overall. So I think it is very important to really go by the data and knowing that it’s not perfect, but it is the best that we have at the moment.
SPEAKER 05 :
Now, in terms of, so take the medication your doctor tells you to take. And if you need a second opinion, go ahead and get that from another doctor and do your own research. But if you’re taking it, adhere to your program. Like, don’t skip days and this, that, and the other. Like, follow the regime with the medication, which I’m really diligent about. What else can we do to avoid, you know, what can we avoid that negatively impacts our heart? And what can we do that’s positive for our heart?
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, in terms of positive for our heart, we want to focus on our positive. We want to eat better, focus on Mediterranean diet. We want to exercise more, about 150 minutes a week is really sufficient to get benefit from prevention. We want to lose weight if we are overweight, you know, lower our blood pressure if we have hypertension or lower the blood sugar if we have diabetes, lower our cholesterol levels or have high cholesterol. And we need to try to promote better rewarding sleep. So sleeping less than seven hours is actually a bad prognosis from a cardiac disease perspective, and same as sleeping more than nine hours. So seven to nine hours will be ideal. And then the number one preventable cause of heart disease is really to stop smoking. So I think all those things are essential to promote our cardiovascular health.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, another silent detrimental factor involved with our health is stress. And that was one that Dr. Roizen would talk to me a lot about, that a lot of people can’t really get a finger on that, like either how to reduce it or the belief that it really is harmful for us. Do you think that it is harmful for our hearts and our overall health to have excessive stress that we don’t manage properly?
SPEAKER 04 :
It is. I mean, clearly, stress is associated with cardiovascular disease. Sometimes it’s hard to quantify though, right? And it’s hard to pinpoint whether it’s stressful or not. But we do know that exercise, for example, does decrease stress. So if we would all exercise a little bit more, I think we could tackle that quite effectively.
SPEAKER 05 :
You know, I’ve got three teenagers. They’re all in sports. And my husband’s 6’6″. Like, I mean, he looks like he’s 20. His body’s ridiculous because he trains them. So, of course, I have to go. Like, I’m really going to be the slacker mom that stays home on family gym night, right? So I go and work out with all of them. And I’m shocked, Doc, when we go to these, like, sporting events, how many of these parents are cheering their kids on? And in such poor health. And to me, I feel it’s my responsibility having like one of them is going to college for volleyball, the other one basketball. I feel that it’s not responsible of me to give my kid that like to be in a sporting event and hollering at them. Yeah, come on, get it together. What are you doing there if I am not representing good health as well? And so I feel like as parents, you know, we have to lead by example and make that effort to like my husband trains them at the gym after a 10 hour day at work. Like it’s not easy, but I think we owe it to our kids to set a good example.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, absolutely. Our kids are. Learn from us from what we say, but more from what we see from us, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
So true. I always love to, you know, I’ve been doing new TV and radio news for 20 years. I was at NBC in LA for many years, and I’ve gotten to interview so many interesting people. And doctors are particularly interesting to me because you can get such a um a specific area of expertise you know you can become a general practitioner but i mean what you do there aren’t a lot of you who are experts of an area especially at a prestigious place like the cleveland clinic i mean it doesn’t get any better than that so what got you started on this where did you your passion for working you know on on the heart well i actually fell in love with cardiovascular physiology i love to learn how things work and i and i like to uh
SPEAKER 04 :
to work in an organ that I thought and I still think that’s probably the most important organ in the whole body, the one that moves the circulation. And I was just fascinated by how things work and also just the relevance, right? When I was training, and still now, cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the whole world. So I think decreasing cardiovascular disease and the burden of disease is primordial. And education, to be honest, is probably the most effective way to do that.
SPEAKER 05 :
And probably pretty satisfying when you see someone really turn around. I remember Bill Clinton, how unhealthy he was, let’s say, like 30 years ago. And through his diet and other changes he’s made, he’s lived decades longer than maybe he would have had he not changed his habits. But it’s really satisfying to see people kind of reverse their health problems.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, it’s satisfying to have treatments that actually have data behind it and they actually do work, right?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, no kidding. Well, what’s next in this area of expertise? Anything else you want to teach us before we go?
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, one thing that actually was highlighted on the survey is about the lipoprotein A. It’s a type of cholesterol that many people don’t understand or don’t know about it, but it’s relatively common. It’s about 20% to 30% of the population, and it is determined by genetics for the most part. And, you know, the levels of this type of lipoprotein do not change across life. So actually a single measurement is sufficient to know whether we are at high, moderate, or low risk. And it’s important because it helps us to tailor a little bit better treatment. There’s actually some data now coming out that we may have actually specific genetic treatments for this
SPEAKER 05 :
conditioning in the next uh maybe year or two so uh just stay tuned that’s what’s coming next so should we ask doc when we go in because i i just did two big studies at the university calif or colorado and shoot center in denver and so like really in depth where i had like five doctors and a phd like administering all these tests on me and i was in this like airtight i don’t know like some astronaut thing for 24 hours where I put my arm through a tube and they drew my blood and they monitored how many calories I burned and I exercised in there. It was crazy. I know a lot about health. I’ve never heard of this lipoprotein A and I do get my blood drawn a couple times a year and tested. Do we ask for that or is this just something in the future that we should be aware might be something we’ll be testing for?
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, no, certainly you can test it today. You can ask your primary care or your cardiologist. It’s called lipoprotein A. And, again, one test is sufficient to know what category you are to try to fine-tune on treatment of your other area.
SPEAKER 05 :
That’s interesting. Well, thank you so much, Doctor. Would you give us a website so we can get more info on the survey, et cetera?
SPEAKER 04 :
Absolutely. Our audience can go to www.clevelandclinic.org slash loveyourheart.
SPEAKER 05 :
Excellent. Thank you, Dr. Fennett. Appreciate it. Great info.
SPEAKER 04 :
You’re very welcome. Have a blessed day.
SPEAKER 05 :
You too. Well, you know, I always love talking to these doctors and picking their brains. And, you know, if you’ve been putting off getting your physical or getting your blood work done, get that done because, you know, when we catch these things earlier on, it’s so much easier to deal with an issue. And sometimes we know when there’s a problem and we’re like, wow, that doesn’t feel right or that hurts or, oh, I’m getting a pain there and we put it off sometimes. But boy, if we can catch these things earlier, it is so much more beneficial for us to catch it, to nip it in the bud and catch it early on. So this is my prompt to you that if you think you should go in and get these things tested, please do that. And generally, if you have decent insurance, a lot of this is covered for your physicals and blood work, et cetera. All right, thanks for listening to The Good News.
SPEAKER 01 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
