In this episode of NOTeD I interviewed a friend, colleague and one of my beloved teachers during my internal medicine training, Dr Barry Franklin PhD. Dr Franklin is a rare gem, with amazing achievements (minus the ego!), including not only being the Director of Preventive Cardiology and Cardiac Rehab for the Beaumont Health System’s largest (Royal Oak, MI) hospital (one of the largest hospitals in the world at over 1000 beds), but also past president of the American College of Sports Medicine and past Board of Directors member for the American Heart Association.
The interview went by like a flash! Why? Because listening to Dr Barry Franklin PhD is wonderful ear candy that’s healthy for you!
We covered:
• The meaning of “metabolic equivalents” (or METs) is on a stress testAnd how it relates to quality and quantity of life
• The three most important factors in cardiovascular health
• The power of walking (and not necessarily even powerwalking!) and where we have possibly passed the threshold of “too much exercise”
• What Dr. Franklin himself does for exercise (and how his wife help them fit it into his family lifestyle!)
• The benefits versus risks of aspirin
• How much weight loss is meaningful improve Cardiometabolic risk (spoiler alert: not as much as you probably think)
• The risks of shoveling the first snow of the winter
• What’s more risky, continuing to sit too much or the first serious physical activity when breaking the “chair jockey“ habit?
• The strengths and limitations of stress testing and where coronary calcium score CT testing might be appropriate to detect subclinical heart disease
And much much more! Including an easy to read, high impact resource that he co-wrote to help people achieve medical grade cardiac rehabilitation right at home.
So sit back, relax and enjoy. Or, better yet, plug in your ear pods and walk while listening to this wonderful man and resource for all of us, Dr Barry Franklin.
Tom Rifai, MD FACP
Founder/CEO
FlexMD™
Harvard Medical School
CME Course Director
Nutrition and the Metabolic Syndrome
True Health Initiative
Board of Directors
Editor in Chief, News of the Day (NOTeD)
