tavis: good evening. from los angeles, i am tavis smiley. tonight we continue our road to health series with a comprehensive look at heart disease. dr. stephen nissin and mark have release one of the most complete guides to help -- heart health. our series continu right now. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it's the cornerstone we all know. it's not just a street or boulevard, but a place where walmart stands together with your community to make every day better. >> the california endowment.

health happens in neighborhoods. learn more. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. tavis: in case you didn't know, february is american heart month. almost all americans either experience heart disease firsthand or through the struggle of a friend or family member. it remains the leading cause of death in this country, believe it or not. as we continue, then, our "road to health" series, i am pleased tonight to be joined by two of the leading heart health experts in america dr.steven nissen and dr. marc gillinov. both are based at the cleveland clinic and are co-authors of the comprehensive new text, "heart 411: the only guide to heart health you'll ever need."

dr. nissan and dr. gillinov, good to have you on the program. >> thank you. >> great to be here. tavis: thanks for accepting our invitation. why is and i know that it is, reading the text why is heart disease so rampant today? why is the risk so much greater now than at some prior point? >> we think it is a disease of modern society. if you go back a hundred years, we didn't drive our cars everywhere, we exercised, we ate natural foods that were high in fiber and low in fat. our modern lifestyle has made us very vulnerable to heart disease. over the 20th century, heart disease went from a not-very- common cause of death to the number one cause of death not just in men but in men and women. tavis: i guess i am always troubled when i have these conversations, because it is sad to listen to that reality when this is one of those things

that is, for the most part, preventable, yes? >> i think that the most amazing thing is that we actually understand the causes. you are completely right. we've got this one scientifically nailed. we know the causes yet they are rampant in our society. that is the most frustrating thing. i am a heart surgeon. i operate at the end of the line, when people have already got it, but it is preventable. >> but if you think about the big causes -- smoking; no one needs to smoke, and yet today our young people, they are taking up smoking. not as frequently as they did 20 years ago, but there are a lot of people smoking. obesity is on the rise in america, leading to diabetes, a major cause of heart disease. our diets are not healthy and people are not exercising. if people would just pay attention to those things, we would be out of business. tavis: what kind of burden -- i think that is the right word -- what kind of burden does this put on our healthcare system? over the last couple of years, of course, we've had a great debate about healthcare, and we'll come back in a moment to whether or not you think that is

going to be overturned and how the politics plays out, but what burden does heart disease put on our healthcare system> -- system? >> well, the cost, the cost of treatment is enormous. it is $200 billion to $300 billion a year, every year, to treat established cardiovascular disease. the cost of prevention would be so much less, both on the economic side and on the tragedies of people dying of heart attacks and strokes. but it is a huge economic burden. tavis: what prevents us from getting traction on an issue like this? my grandmother had a saying all the time. you'd say something to her and she'd say, "it is just too much like right." it just makes too much sense for it not to be the case, and yet it is. what keeps us, prevents us from getting traction on this issue? >> well, there are many barriers, and certainly the modern society, the modern life that we live, the availability of fast food, which is cheap and easy to obtain but very unhealthy, the ability of

transportation everywhere, to be able to drive even to visit your neighbors a few blocks away, we have adopted a lifestyle, and changing those habits is very hard. it is hard to get people to exercise. we are all working hard, we have a lot of responsibilities, many people in our society, and they do not find time to do these things. they ultimately pay a very big price. tavis: who pays the largest price? when i say the biggest price, i am asking specifically now demographically, who pays the highest price here? >> well, it is actually interesting, but poverty and health are interrelated. tavis: mm-hmm. >> poor people tend to have worse diets because the availability of these inexpensive foods is a major driver of why they are so popular, and the lack of access to healthcare means that people are presenting much too late in

the course of their illness. it is really true in this case that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. if you can identify somebody with high blood pressure before they've had that first stroke and lower their blood pressure, all the costs, both human and economic, can be prevented. so this is why this issue of universal healthcare, healthcare for everybody in america, is so critically important, because it is the most important thing we can do, since the burden is heavier on people that have the least economic strength in our country. tavis: because you are physicians, i do not mean to make you political, soo not let me do that, but to your point about the need for universal healthcare, so president obama advanced the ball further down the field than any other president has, and not far enough for some of us, but farther down the field. yet we know full well that if the other party, the republican party, has its way, and certainly if they were to win

the white house, we are going to see an all-out retreat on that. sidestepping the politics of that, what does that do to this conversation about these kinds of diseases that kill too many americans to see this iue become, shall we say, a political football? >> well, this tragedy we see, in a city like cleveland, every day. people who do not have health insurance, and there are now 50 million americans that do not have health insurance, those people are suffering a terrible toll. the healthcare reform efforts are an attempt to begin to narrow that gap, so most physicians that i know want to see no patient ever have to suffer from disease simply because they are poor or uninsured. one way or another we are going to have to solve this problem and my hope is that at least in the very near future we will

solve the problem, and i've been a supporter of healthcare reform, because i think it is pointing us in the right direction. >> meanwhile, i think we can help in part by educating people. things like blood pressure checks are not expensive, and there are some foods and some diet plans that are both good for you and relatively inexpensive. of course, to get out and wk for five minutes at a time, a few times per day, that is not going to cost money. so as we are waiting for the politicians to figure out the larger societal problem, perhaps we can get some good, healthy messages to everyone in america. tavis: while we are waiting for the politicians, to use your phrase, doctor, to get their act together, what kind of advances have we made, and you two are obviously at the forefront of this line, but what kind of advances have we made medically for treating these kinds of ailments vis-à-vis heart disease? >> i'd have to say the biggest medical advance, and this is your topic more than mine, the biggest medical advance is the statin class of drugs. they are so powerful at

preventing recurrent or another heart attack or a stroke in appropriate people, and also help those of us who have risk factors for heart disease to avoid developing heart disease down the road. this was a controversy we were just talking about there are a lot of americans who are afraid of the statin drugs, but we feel when used appropriately, they save lives. >> even though heart disease is the number one killer of men and women, the progress that we've made over the last 25 years is just unprecedented. the rates of heart disease for anybody of a given age have dropped by as much as 50 percent. it is many different things. it is better health consciousness and some improvements in reducing saturated fat in the diet. people are more knowledgeable about that. it is better control of blood pressure, we've certainly done a good job there. we've cut smoking rates in half in america, those are key. we've developed these new medications, like statin drugs. it wasn't until 1987 that we had these powerful drugs to

lower cholesterol levels, and now we have 25 or 30 million americans who are able to lower their cholesterol by a third or more and prevent many heart attacks and strokes. we haven't come far enough; we've come an enormous way. but we are looking like we may start to lose ground in the next decade. tavis: lose ground why? >> it appears that the progress has been halted by a new epidemic, and that epidemic is the epidemic of obesity and diabetes. rates of obesity in america are rising at frightening rates. in certain states it is worse than others. it is particularly bad i the south. but it is true all over the couny, and because it is bringing on this epidemic of diabetes, we are beginning to lose the momentum that we gained over the last 25 years or so. >> so today, two-thirds of americans are overweight or obese. that means we may look at my

children's generation as the first generation ever that is lost ground in terms of longevity. tavis: if you know, how do we stack up against other countries? two-thirds sounds like a pretty huge number. how much worse off or i hate to think better off than other countries we cannot be better off than anybody. >> we are not, yeah. >> it is worldwide. tavis: yeah. >> but we are worse than other countries. it is happening everywhere. it is happening even in india and china and other countries. what happens is that throughout human history food was not in abundance. now with modern society, with all the advances and the availability of agriculture and other ways of bringing food to people, food is more plentiful and we are not able, at least at this time, to control our consumption. so obesity is rising even in countries we never saw it

before, and so there is a global epidemic of diabetes that is occurring that is frightening when you think about down the road 10, 20, 30 years, what's likely to happen. tavis: i believe in personal responsibility as much as the next person, and yet i am always troubled, doctors, by the reality that the consumer really doesn't have a chance. by that i mean that there are so many things coming at you through advertisements, through specials, through rebates you name it. we have become a consumer society, no doubt about that. i just wonder sometimes whether or not the average american even has a shot at being healthy, for all the consumption that is being or potential consumption that is being aimed at them. >> well, that even starts with five-year-olds. you see a mother and a child in the grocery sto, and what is the child reaching for? that cereal that is just filled with sugar and calories. it is ingrained.

we need to change our ways in fundamental ways from the very beginning. we need to make the healthy chces the desirable choices, and perhaps that means in some way we need to reward them, because it looks like the reward that is the thought i am going to make myself healthier, that just isn't enough to motivate behavior today, is it? tavis: the question i am raising is, how do you for lack of a better word; let me just use your phrase how do you reward those companies who do the right thing when doing the wrong thing is what makes them all the money? >> well, that is really a tough part of the problem. tavis: yeah. >> first of all, that is one of the reasons why we wrote this book, "heart 411," is we wanted to equip consumers with the information they need so they can pick up a can of soup and find out that it has 50 percent of the salt content that they should get in an entire day from just one can of soup. why is there so much salt in soup? somebody figured out a long time ago you can sell more soup if you make it salty. why are french fries cooked to be fatty? it is because apparently, they

sell better. so this is, in fact, you are quite right that a lot of these unhealthy things do sell well. we need to reward this, and the other thing we need to do is we do need regulation. now, regulation has now become a dirty word in america, but it is not to people like us. there are, for example, cities where trans-fats we talk about that in the book trans-fats lower levels of your good cholesterol and raise levels of your bad cholesterol, and some cities have banned them. they are banned at the cleveland clinic. you cannot sell foods with trans-fats at the cleveland clinic. now it is regulation, and not everybody likes regulation, but i think regulation, when it is done wisely, can help consumers and protect them from these kinds of things in their environment. tavis: i want to go back to the point you raised a moment ago, dr. >> , and just for a second think outside the box, because i think you may be on to something here. when you suggested that we may have to figure out a way to reward consumers who do the right things, what might that

look like? how do you reward everyday people for making healthy choices? >> well, one way is in the workplace. for example, there are some corporations, the cleveland clinic included, that will actually reward you economically if you improve your health profile. so if you lose weight, if you start overweight, if you take up an exercise program and confirm attendance, you actually get a lower healthcare premium through our insurance policy, and other companies are taking this up. so it becomes advantageous for you, the employee, in many ways. you are going to pay less for your healthcare premium and hey, guess what? you are not going to get sick. you are going to live longer, you are going to feel better, you are going lose weight. it is a win-win-win-win. tavis: as i think about this issue, oftentimes corporate america does what it should do because the government forces it to do so.

to your point earlier, dr. nissan, regulation has to be forced on corporate america to do the right thing. then there are instances and cases sometimes where it is the other way around, where it is corporate america that actually is ahead of the government. i think, for example, the issue of affirmative action. in many respects, there are certain institutions that started to advance the notion of a diverse workplace because it was in their best interests to do so. you tell me if i am right or wrong about this i am starting to see examples of companies, and again, sometimes folk do the right thing for the wrong reasons, but i am starting to see companies do the right thing now because bad health, disease, is so negatively impacting their bottom line as a company that they have to figure something out before healthcare cost ends up bankrupting their company. so how much of this fight will be led, you think, into the

future by corporate america and not even government, necessarily? >> it is absolutely true, but i think it takes a village. i think it takes government and wise government policy, it takes healthcare reform, which we've talked about, and it takes an enlightened group of corporations that understand that if they can make their employees healthier they'll be more productive, they will lower the healthcare costs for the company, and that it is in their own best interests. there are companies now that are putting in fitness areas in the workplace and encouraging their workers to use those, and they are able to show a very good return on investment. this is what we have to do to turn this around. we've got to do it, however, at a younger age, because the problem is if our children have bad health habits, by the time they get to be adults it is very hard to reverse it. tavis: i hear that point and i think we all accept that. the dilemma for me as i look at the most obese generation of americans ever, young people we are talking about now, the rub is this that they are the most obese, and yet we still think of youth being connected to invincibility.

so how do you crash through that? >> i think it is up to the parents. the parents have got to show some responsibility, and that is not just setting an example. i think that parents have to exert some control over their kids' habits, and that means starting with a good, healthy diet from the get-go. you can do this. my wife has done it in my family. my kids will routinely choose broccoli over french fries when we eat out, and that is what they like because that is what they are used to. you exercise with your kids. hey, what about playing tag with your kids? it is a lot better for you and your kids than sitting in front of a little screen all the time playing on your gameboy. tavis: dr. nissan made this point earlier, and it is so clearly the case, the link between poverty and bad health. that is been well documented for a long time now. to your point, dr. gillinov. >> , i know too many parents, i see them all the time we are in

a nice studio now up in the hollywood area of los angeles, but i work, my office building is in south central los angeles, so i see this all the time and i am certainly around poor people and people of color all the time in what i do, and i choose to be there, so i am not chagrined by that. but i see this all the time. i was at a restaurant the other night and i saw this happen, where people who happen to be poor already are parenting kids who they wish they could do more for anyway. they wish they could do more for them, they wish they could provide more for them you know where i am going with this so that so often, parents do not like to tell their kids no. they do not want to deny them a trip to mcdonald's, and i am not trying to bash mcdonald's. but whether it is a trip to mcdonald's, whether it is x, y or z, they do not want to deny those kids. so i know too many parents, see too many parents, often who think that denying their kids is hurting their kids when they are already in poverty to begin

with, so they do not see that outcome that you've just suggested. >> but that is love. >> yeah, but the greatest love that a parent can show is to teach their child the kind of habits that'll make them a healthy adult who will live a long time and have a good life. the problem is if you raise your kids on fast food, then that is what they are likely to eat when they go off to college, that is what they are going to eat as adults and they will be one of our patients. we will see them in their forties or fifties with a heart attack, and dr. >> will see them in the operating room. parents need to know that if they can raise children with healthy heart habits, it is the greatest gift they can give their children. >> if you deny the french fries, you are opening the door to good health. you wouldn't send your kids out to ride their bikes without a helmet. it is the same sort of thing. tavis: i am curious here now i am always curious about people when they are passionate and they spend their life's work on

a particular cause, particularly when it is in the good of the public sector or the greater public body. one at a time, you first, dr. >> , how did you get so passionate about heart health? what's the back story here for you? >> the back story for me, i am 49, dates to when i was 16 and i watched a couple of my family members go through heart surgery. that was at the cleveland clinic. i am from cleveland originally. the next summer i got a job working at the cleveland clinic in heart surgery. really, all i did was watch, but the first time i saw heart surgery i thought that was just amazing, i have got to learn how to do that. i did a little more family research and it turned out that my grandfather actually died at the cleveland clinic of a heart attack before i was born. so with a family history of heart disease, seeing heart surgery at age 16 and thinking that is incredibly cool, i thought, i am going to become a heart surgeon. about 20 years later, i did. it is not something where there's a heart surgery for

dummies guide, read that and you are good to go, but more recently the back story to this book is after becoming good at heart surgery and working with the best team in the world, i realized i am getting to people when they've already got it. they've got the disease. they are like my grandfather. it is a little bit late. can't we arm people with the right information so that they do not end up in the operating room? tavis: the cleveland clinic must love this story -- you started out there as a 16-year-old kid and now you are one of their leading physicians. >> that is a big circle. tavis: yeah. >> but it really is extraordinary. a heart surgeon who's as focused as a cardiologist on prevention, and it is why this partnership works for us, is that we both have the sly story like that, but i can tell you i spent many years as a fireman, putting out the fires. seeing that young man like yourself coming in with a heart

attack at a relatively young age, having to go out and talk to their family, to their spouse and their kids and tell them that he's never going to be the same again. at some point, you say this is enough. let's prevent a preventable disease. so we wrote "heart 411? because we want to get to people when we can, before they become our patients. if they are already patients with disease, we want to limit the disease so they can live normal and productive lives and raise their grandchildren and so on. so if you watch the tragedies that we see, you must develop a passion for preventing this disease. tavis: one of the things that is fascinating about the text, and there are many things that make it a great book, are the myths that you take on about heart disease the truths, the falsehoods about this illness. >> i think that is our favorite part, and i can tell you that until we did the research for this book i was taking an aspirin a day, i was sure that red wine was better than white wine, i thought fish oil was the manna from heaven, and now i

know each one of those statements is incorrect. i cannot believe it took writing a book for me to learn that, because i am supposed to be a heart doctor. >> you know what really struck me is that i went to the internet one day and you type in "heart disease" and you get all kinds of information, and the vast majority of it is dead wrong scientifically. it is terrible. we have people now out on the talk show circuit telling you that their diet is going to make you heart-attack-proof. that some ultra low-fat diet will melt away the plaques in your coronary arteries, and they are convincing otherwise thoughtful people to not take the medications that they need and to have this magical faith that some wacky diet is going to make them all better. we knew that it was the right time to write a book that is based not on myth, but on fact. we acted like a jury two of us would sit there and weigh the evidence, look at the science and then come to a conclusion. there are things in there where

we tell you science doesn't have the answer yet. we do not have the answer, but in areas where we do have the answer, a lot of the information people are getting now from the popular press, popular television and a lot of the books is just wrong. tavis: well, the truth is here. it is in a new book called "heart 411: the only guide to heart health you'll ever need," written by two of the best. they are at the cleveland clinic -- marc gillinov and steven nissen. an honor to have you on this program, and thanks for your life-saving work. >> thank you. >> thank you. tavis: good to have you both on. that is our show for tonight. until next time, keep the faith. >> for more information on today's show, visit tavis smiley at pbs.org. tavis: tehran may on why your's economic troubles continued to haunt the u.s..

that is next time. we will see you then. >> every community has a martin luther king boulevard. it is the cornerstone we all know. it is not just the street or boulevard but a place where walmart stands together with your community. make every day better. >> the california endowment. health happens in neighborhoods. learn more. >> and by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. thank you. >> be more. pbs. tavis: hi, i am tavis smiley.

germany -- join me on why