BodySite Webinar: Habits Drive Health with Dr. Harvey White

In honor of American Heart month, BodySite hosted a webinar with expert cardiologist Dr. Harvey White, Founder and Executive Director of Vessel Health. Dr. White has dedicated himself to direct patient care, clinical research initiatives, and leadership activities designed to improve the cardiovascular health care system.

Grounded in extensive training and experience in interventional cardiology (the technique of coronary angioplasty and stent placement), Dr. White has concluded that we, as individuals and as a society, need to enhance our focus on prevention and a proactive approach to circulation and personal wellness. 

In addition to his impressive career in medicine, Dr. White is a published author, with works ranging from medical publications to books about life’s many challenges.

In his presentation, initially airing as a TED Talk discussion, Dr. White discussed the importance of implementing lifestyle choices and habits as a means for avoiding the need for life saving intervention.

You can watch the full recording below:

Here are some of the key takeaways from Dr. White’s presentation, Habits Drive Health:

Interventional Cardiology to Preventative Medicine

Dr. White began his career in interventional medicine, but just over a decade ago, transitioned to preventative medicine and started Vessel Health, a pioneer medical enterprise which emphasizes prevention and the achievement of cardiovascular well-being through his practice Vessel Health.

Vessel Health’s Initiatives

Vessel Health consists of four main product lines, all of which work towards achieving personal health transformation. They are: LifeCOR, LifeSHIP, LegLIFE and VesseLIFE. LifeCOR is considered Whole Health Cardiology, LifeSHIP is Lifestyle solutions, LegLIFE is focused on preventative vein care and VesseLIFE, Vessel Health’s custom supplement brand.

Dr. White combines the traditional medicine of cardiology, the LifeCOR with the lifestyle  support and mental health support of LifeSHIP and the other programs to create a dynamic of care that treats the whole patient and prevents disease rather than just treating it. 

These offerings are all a part of Vessel Health’s “Pyramid of Care” which places lifestyle intervention as the most important element or the base for patient care. Dr. White emphasizes that lifestyle is like the foundation of a building, if weak it will not stand. The middle of the pyramid is supplements which amplifies habit maintenance, and at the top of the pyramid are pharmaceuticals that are only meant to intervene for patients with existing conditions.

Holding Out for Hero Medicine?

We’ve all seen medical anomalies in the news often referred to as hero medicine or “miracle medical breakthroughs” such as Dolly, the cloned sheep, and brain pacemaker technology used to control Parkinson’s disease. While these medical breakthroughs give us valuable information on how to improve technology, they do little to help those struggling with health issues daily.

Dr. White contends that “those esoteric areas of medicine have little to do with the genesis of disease that we most experience nor the solutions to disease that we as a society most experience.” 

Dr. White and his staff at Vessel Health believe all people can be happy and healthy. But they put the emphasis on the “happy,” because this is an important and sometimes overlooked element to caring for patient well-being.

Technology: The Cure?

Dr. White tells us that he saw technology as a cure-all. When patients came in for heart attacks he was able to utilize tools such as narcotics, and what he describes as an injectable Drano for blood clots and it worked like magic.

However, despite the quick fix of these incredible tools, White was not able to prevent these incidents from occurring. He realized that heroic interventions were doing little for the long-term health of his patients and little impact on the health of society at large.

What Dr. White discovered is that health is grounded in daily actions and not life saving technology or procedures.

Culture Contributing to Obesity

The United States leads the world in individuals older than 15 with a BMI greater than 30, compared to nations such as Norway, Japan, and Korea, with 8% or less of the population with a BMI greater than 30. The issue of obesity pandemic has now affected all of the US, not just some states. 

Diabetes is also a pandemic that we cannot control, even in areas such as Southeast Asia, which is now the number one place for heart disease in the world. This issue, like the issue of obesity, Dr. White would argue, stems from daily habits. Not what medication they take, but what they do day in and day out.

Case Studies

Just over 100 years ago, only 7% of the US population brushed their teeth. But today, everyone brushes 2-3 times a day. But it seems that it was always this way. We know for a fact that this has made a positive impact on our overall oral health in the last century, so this idea should be applied to other areas of life. 

Dr. White has a 93-year-old patient by the name of Archie, a businessman who came to his team with many heart issues, including having a heart attack. Post-surgery, Archie began incorporating life changing habits such as hiking and healthy eating. Archie still does 50 sit-ups and 25 push-ups every day, and continues to eat very few carbs, except his nightly shot of whiskey. Now, he does better at his age than most younger people on his yearly treadmill stress test.

Archie has an attitude that is grounded in his decision to adopt durable, long term health oriented habits.

The Ingredients for Habit Transformation

Dr. White has identified 4 ingredients to help in habit transformation, the development of positive habits, and sometimes the removal of negative habits.

1. Decision: A patient has to make a decision that they are going to be healthy. Health decisions are daily decisions, which require discipline
2. Today: Patients need to do something today. If someone doesn’t make a decision to do something today, excuses can easily pop up that cause that decision not to happen. Dr. Harvey White shared the example that their practice stocks almond milk in their practice for this very reason and they hand a protein shaker to patients before the patient leaves the office. You can provide patients with a protein powder that’s drop-shipped directly to your patient using BodySite’s Fullscript integration and consider providing a shaker bottle using one of our Boxed Care Solutions™ boxes which include a protein shaker as well as connected health devices.
3. Easy: Easy habits are easy in that they are doable and are not too complex. Example: “I’m gonna have a simple protein shake every morning for breakfast” versus “I’m going to go to the gym for an hour and a half every day,” which might feel like a lot for someone just getting started.
4. Daily: The most durable habits are done repetitively and daily. Example: on all week days, Monday – Friday, a patient should take a walk.

Dr. White acknowledges that it’s not as easy as 1-2-3, but it’s worthwhile to encourage patients to try and become disciplined in these habits in order to improve their overall health. 

Before concluding the presentation, BodySite VP, Katrina Lewandowski, presented providers with tools that they can use to help build patient habits and track patient progress. 

The chief tool being BodySite. BodySite is a remote patient care and monitoring web platform and mobile app that gives healthcare professionals, like Dr. Harvey White, a way to automate patient education, support and track patient progress.

We have over 80 template care plans that providers can use with patients including the ModernDASH, DashDietRx and other heart-healthy programs. You can use our CMS to customize these plans as well, or create your own.

As Dr. White mentioned during the webinar, tracking and adhering to habits is really beneficial for lifestyle changes. Patients can consider using BodySite’s trackers as well as the journal function to digitally track habits, instead of paper tracking.

BodySite’s Boxed Care Solutions™ complement the BodySite experience with remote patient monitoring boxes carefully designed to improve outcomes of common health issues such as diabetes, heart health, or obesity. One box being the Heart Health Kit, which you can get for 20% off using code HEART20 until Sunday. To learn more about the BodySite solution or to step inside a live BodySite provider account, click here.