Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: In this special episode, we're shining a light on an often overlooked issue in law enforcement. The health and wellness of those who serve. The month of May marks National Police Week, Stroke Awareness Month and Blood Pressure Education Month. And this timely conversation brings all three into focus.
Today we will explore a powerful new partnership between the American Heart association and Paternal Order Police, a collaboration focused on improving cardiovascular and brain health of the men and women who wear a badge. Joining me today are two leading experts with the American Heart Association, Dr. Eduardo Sanchez, Chief Medical Officer for Prevention, and Dr. Mitch Elkin, Chief Science officer for brain health and stroke. Together we will tackle heart health, stroke prevention, with particular steps officers can take to protect their well being, both on and off duty. I am Patrick Yohs, national president of the Paternal Water Police, and this is the Blueview.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: But gentlemen, thank you very much for taking time to meet with us today. We're very excited about our partnership with the American Heart association and bringing value to our members. You know, we put a lot of effort into the officer wellness both on a, you know, on multiple levels here. And here we are in the month of May, it's National Police Week.
As we're recording this, there's so much going on, but it really comes down to, you know, taking care of the men and women who pin on a badge every day. So with that, I'd love to just dive right into us. You know, Dr. Sanchez, I know if you could tell us a little bit about this collaboration between the Fraternal auto police and American Heart association and how we're both going to benefit from. From this, from this partnership.
[00:01:36] Speaker C: Absolutely. You said a critical word, and that's the word wellness.
So this new collaboration between the American Heart association on National Fraternal Order of Police is about wellness.
As you just said, this is National Police Week, but it is also Blood Pressure Education Month. It's also Stroke Awareness Month. So this confluence is a way to pass information on not only as part of the collaboration, but just in general.
The American Heart association and the NFOP support the heart and brain health of 377,000 members.
And I presume that would extend to two family members as well, and loved ones, because that information learned can be information shared. We're hoping to be able to provide, share, use practical science based education and prevention tools. And the words I like to use is that we want to do three things. Raise awareness, change attitudes and activate people.
Activate them for wellness.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, Doc, I've been in this profession for quite some time. I did 36 years before retiring and filling this, this role, you know, full time. But let me tell you my observation, my observation is that law enforcement officers, just simply because of the stress of the job that we have, the shift work, all of these things that come along with it, they have a profound impact on officers. I look at, you know, the general population and see where law enforcement, the type of job that we do, I see where officers, they deal with way more challenges, I think kind of more exposure to, to, you know, the pitfalls that could cause to, to poor health, you know, and because of their public servant heart, they are probably 25% more likely to, to have cardiovascular issues, correct?
[00:03:33] Speaker C: That is correct. So as you know, and as people ought to know, cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of people in the United States.
Stroke is the number four killer of people in the United States. There is no doubt in my mind that it is number one and number four for police officers. But as you're saying, the stress of the work, the trauma that's experienced, the sleep challenges that might come from shift work and just the work itself elevate the chance that someone's going to have a heart attack, death or a stroke death or just a heart attack and stroke, even if you do not die, not things you want to have happen, then the likelihood, the chance that something untoward is going to happen because of violence.
So heart disease and stroke may be causes of disease or death.
That's the bad news. The good news is that those are things that are largely preventable and very, very delayable.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I look at, I look at our profession, you know, we put a lot of effort into recognizing though, you know, I guess good life balance, but what we spend a lot of time talking about. Law enforcement officers are exposed to things that most people would like to think don't exist. And that repetitive, you know, exposure to, you know, invisible trauma takes its toll. And you're right, it does. It does affect sleep patterns and it affects weight loss, it affects relationships, all of these things. And, and we've been a long, you know, long a long journey in trying to call awareness to the fact that we need, we need to recognize the resiliency of officer. We need officers, we need to build it into the academies, we need to build it into the mindset from the very day that someone comes into law enforcement in this profession that there are a lot of things that they need to do in order to build that resiliency so that when they are exposed to this repetitive invisible damage that's done to them, they're Better able to cope with it, whether it be. Whether it be through, you know, the psychological side of it, whether. Whether it be through the spiritual side of it, all of these things. But one thing that we don't spend a whole lot of time talking about is the health side of it, because we just assume that we're always going to be healthy. And in reality is that's not the case. Let's really kind of dive into that. What can we do? What does officers need to do to really, truly understand that there's so many aspects here that are working against them, and the only way they're going to stay ahead of it is if they. If they. If they embrace the fact that these things exist and there are steps that we can take in order to be able to better ourselves.
[00:06:20] Speaker C: Absolutely. So, you know, I would say you use the word mindset, and I would say that we all ought to think about expanding our mindset from perhaps what for the police force or even folks who are in public health, is a tactical readiness mindset to one that includes total wellness. Because the truth is, the degree to which we are each as healthy as we could possibly be is the degree to which we are going to perform well on the job. We're going to perform well with our families.
So one practical tool is, and I'm acting as if I'm on a camera, but I've got on my lapel, I'm wearing a jacket because I thought I might be filmed and I wanted to be prepared and ready. So my mindset was around readiness.
I have an eight on my lapel. That eight represents the American Heart Association's cardiovascular health and brain health construct.
Life's essential 8. I'm going to run through those very, very quickly because I think this is a set of practical tools. Eight is a lot, but these can be looked up and they will make sense.
Life's essential eight. Broken up into four habits and four conditions. Those four habits, sleep is one of them. We talked about that.
Being physically active. Every police officer recognized that physical activity and regular physical activity is important.
Healthy eating. Healthy eating is good for every part of your health.
And then the third is not smoking. And I don't think anybody would be surprised to hear that not smoking is on that list. The four conditions and what one is striving is to be at a healthy or normal level for their weight, their blood pressure, their cholesterol, and their blood sugar. Blood sugar. Fancy a simple way of talking about diabetes? If a person is good on those eight things, that person is good to Take on the day that person is good. From a mental health perspective, from a being able to remember things that they might not remember otherwise, perspective from a just feeling good about themselves perspective from being able to manage a physically demanding day.
All of those are helped by being good. On life's essentially.
So we have resources that we can make available that will help people remember on some or all of those. I think one important thing is never too late, never too late to get better. On life's essential 8. And it's always best to start with maybe one or two at most, do what you can, and then go to the next.
[00:09:17] Speaker B: You know, I got to tell you, doctor, you just said something that, that just kind of. You probably saw a smile come on my face. You know, every operation that we have, whether it be a high risk entry, whether it just be simply working an event, we put together operational plans. We put together plans that tell us what we need to do, what we need to know what steps we need to take, and everything's designed towards a positive outcome for everyone.
We've seldom put those operational plans into our own personal well being as well. And I, you know, you're, you're putting four points, your eight points. You know, I see your, your, your large lapel pin and we do have you on the screen, by the way, so we are seeing it very poignant and, and, and, and, and to the point. So, so thank you. We do need operational plans for our own well being to, to not only not only finish a mission, but to finish a career and do it in a healthy way. And that healthy way carries into our families as well. So, so thank you. You know, I want to, I want to shift gears a little bit and I want to talk about, you know, Dr. Elkin, I want to talk about Stroke Awareness Month.
You know, I've seen, I've seen, you know, we've gone on calls, repeated calls, time and time and time again of people that have strokes and a lot of times don't even realize what's happening. Let's, let's really kind of dive into this because there's a lot of telltale times, you know, telltale things. I think it's important our members are trained to recognize things, things for other individuals, but they're often likely to resent or to, to push back on the belief that it could be them as well, right?
[00:10:46] Speaker D: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
People often tend to miss the signs of a stroke. So it's real important for both your officer's own safety and well being as well as those that they serve to know what those warning signs are of stroke. So with the heart association, we use a simple tool, a simple mnemonic to remember that we say fast F a S T. The F is for face weakness. The A is for arm weakness. Somebody has difficulty lifting up one arm or the other, and the S is for speech difficulty. So if you see problems with the face, the arm, or speech trouble, then it's t time to call 911 and get help right away. You know, in the old days, there wasn't much you could do about stroke. But for the last couple of decades, we've actually had really good treatments that can completely reverse the effects of a stroke. So we always say time is brain, right? You got to recognize it, treat it immediately. If you wait too long, you may miss the opportunity. So real important to recognize that 100%.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: And one thing we need to recognize that law enforcement officers are probably check every box for things that should be concerns about, about the exposure to, you know, poor sleep shift work, lifestyle challenges, increased risk. All of these things are factors, right?
[00:12:02] Speaker D: They are indeed. And you know, Dr. Sanchez was just pointing out a moment ago that that stroke is the fourth leading cause of death. But the thing about stroke is that it often doesn't kill people, right, but leaves them disabled. And so stroke is in fact the leading cause of serious long term disability.
And officers are no strangers to that possibility as well. For all those same risk factors that can lead to heart attacks and cardiac arrest, there are also risk factors for stroke. And in fact, what we've learned recently is that this tool, this life's essential eight, this plan for maintaining health and well being is also a great way to maintain what we call brain health. So lower the risk of cognitive decline later in life, lower the risk of dementia, even lower the risk of depression later, which probably also has a lot of vascular contributions to it. And so life's essential 8 again, great tool. I like to focus on two of those elements, especially because they're so important for the brain.
One is blood pressure. So real important for people to know their blood pressure. It's the major risk factor for stroke. Probably causes about 50, maybe even 80% of all strokes.
And then exercise, right? Exercise is a great way to help with your blood pressure, help with your blood sugar, improve your cholesterol, improve all of these things and maximize brain health as well. So fitness is real important in that respect.
[00:13:32] Speaker B: You know, technology makes that a lot easier now. You know, from, from rings we wear in our fingers to our smartphones, they, they give us a Lot of this information that, that while they may be better, some better tools there to, to assess it and, and have some more accurate information, there certainly are some telltale signs there, some things, some alerts that we could have as well. So we've never been in a position I think now technology wise, where we can, we can monitor these, these things and do them in a way that much more progressive towards our health.
[00:14:01] Speaker D: That's true. And one area that I think Dr. Sanchez would be especially excited about is what we call home blood pressure monitoring or self monitoring of blood pressure.
It's so simple to have a blood pressure device at home. They have them now that just fit around the wrist even. And people can check their blood pressure frequently at home. And if those numbers start to go up, you know, get, get help for it, get it checked out right away.
Folks probably have heard this expression that high blood pressure or hypertension is the silent killer. Well, why do we call it the silent killer? It's because people don't feel any different. You know, you could be a perfectly physically fit, you know, officer athlete, climbing buildings, doing all the stuff that, that people do in, in your line of work, but still have high blood pressure and not think anything is amiss, think that you're the pinnacle of perfect health.
And then silent killer, right? It comes along and it causes a stroke, bleeding in the brain, a heart attack, something like that, that could be catastrophic. So that's why we think it's so important to know your numbers, your blood pressure, also your blood sugar, your body mass index, how much you weigh and so forth, your cholesterol levels. All of these things essentially can be these kind of silent killers. The key is recognizing them and catching them early.
[00:15:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Dr. Sanchez, I want to shift gears a little bit here and let's talk about community engagement. How can families, how can departments, peer support, how can all of these things play a greater part in improving officers help?
[00:15:36] Speaker C: It's such a great question. There was a couple of things that we talked about earlier that I think fit in. First of all, fraternal order suggests it's more than just an individual focus. It is about a group.
And doing things in groups always makes it easier.
It also, it adds a level of accountability.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Accountability is a huge part when it comes to health or any of these markers. It's, yeah, that's a shame. People into doing the right thing.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: And when you don't show up, people notice. So healthy habits as a family are also a way. The other word was operationalizing and plans. So families can plan to have healthy meals as a family.
And there's, there's such great evidence that sitting down as a family is really good, not only for the adults that are sitting at the table, but particularly the kids sitting at the table. It's a good time to regularize what you eat, how you eat. It's also a good time to have conversations about sometimes not so easy topics. But that is, there's very good evidence of how good that is.
[00:16:39] Speaker D: Thank you.
[00:16:39] Speaker C: Family walks, hikes and bike rides. My wife and I now are empty nesters, but we basically have on our schedule, if you will, a Sunday morning bike ride around a man made lake here in Dallas, Texas. If something comes up, we don't necessarily do it, but the plan is to do it unless something else comes up. And then I think families can hold each other accountable for medical checkups.
So nudges are a really, really effective way of getting somebody to kind of do something that maybe is on their mind, but they're not quite ready to do. Departments can support and model healthy habits in a number of ways. One way might be to have a wellness challenge. So I can imagine an FOP walk contest. Count your steps and at the end of 90 days, whoever has the most steps gets recognized as the champion walker.
Flexible schedules. We were talking earlier about shift taking into account and trying to think about shifts that align a little bit better with one's daily activities and or scheduling those shifts in a way that are minimally disruptive or that sort of can roll rather than be these sudden changes.
Health promoting benefits is another one. Whether that's the ability to be a member of a fitness club at a discount or another might be if they are places where food is served in a cafeteria that's centrally located, assuring that there's at least healthy options. And I worked in a place that actually priced things in such a way that buying the healthy thing was sometimes even cheaper than buying the less healthy thing. That's a little bit of nanny state kind of stuff, but it was done. The other thing I would say to you is creating a wellness committee that helps make those decisions rather than one or two people making all those decisions. Helps helps the medicine go down. And then for peers, accountability critically important support.
The calling a friend and saying are you running this morning? Whether that's in a different town or in a different neighborhood and then inviting colleagues to healthy activities.
Let's go for a walk. And maybe rather than sitting down and there's nothing wrong with sitting down and having coffee, but maybe going for a walk before or after having that cup of coffee are some ways to both socialize and build in some physical activity. So last is organizations supporting community health events.
Make yourself a part of the community by sponsoring health walks or screenings or workshops about how to embrace wellness and operationalize it, how to make a plan to be healthy and stay healthy.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: You know, I look at all the. All of the downfalls when it comes to social media. I can think of some positive with social media as well. The more people you involve in telling them what you're doing in a healthy lifestyle, the more committed you are to following through with it. So that's one aspect that I'd like to throw out there as well. Let's start taking social media and turn it into some positives. Some positive as well. You know, Dr. Elkin, I want to play the devil's advocate here, okay? And you tell me where I'm wrong. I'm too young to have a stroke.
[00:20:06] Speaker D: Yeah, we always say nobody is too young to have a stroke. Stroke happens at all ages and can even. Even happen to kids, actually, which is tragic, but it does happen. I mean, I can tell you that one of my favorite patients is a New York City police officer. I know I shouldn't say that. Favorite patient. That doesn't sound very good, but great guy. And in his 30s, he had a stroke because he had a small hole in his heart, which never caused any problems throughout his life. But very rarely, that can be a passageway for blood clot to get from the leg to the brain and cause a stroke. So that can happen.
Another patient of mine, young guy who was a kickboxer from one of the injuries he had to his head. Didn't really feel much, but it tore the artery in his neck, and that caused a stroke. So people can have strokes for many different reasons. It's actually a lot more variable than heart disease, which is almost always due to thickening of the arteries and atherosclerosis. So, absolutely, young people can have a stroke. If you think you recognize those fast symptoms, fast despite the age, you want to seek help right away.
[00:21:16] Speaker B: So we'll. We'll categorize that one as. As those things that are not a problem until our problem.
[00:21:23] Speaker D: Right, Exactly.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Okay, here's the next one. I'll know when something's wrong. I've been around a long time. I've seen a lot.
I know what to look for.
[00:21:31] Speaker D: Yeah, well, that's what we were saying before about blood pressure especially. But all of these conditions can be silent killers and silent markers of cardiovascular problems ahead and so more and more lately, we've gotten into the habit of looking for these things early. We can look at the calcium in the coronary arteries to the heart. We can look at the thickening of the carotid arteries to the, to the head. We can measure the blood pressure, measure cholesterol. It's all about getting these things checked early. If there's a problem, addressing it, and making the consequences downstream much less likely.
So unfortunately, we can't always know when something is wrong. When something's wrong, great. Address it then, too. But there's a lot going on before that happens. We don't want to get to the problem at the end.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: Well, I'm a pretty strong person, so that means I'm healthy.
[00:22:27] Speaker D: Yeah, I'm sure a lot of folks in the policing profession feel that way. And they are strong, and obviously most of them are extremely healthy. And we're talking about the small percentage of people who may not be healthy, may not take care of themselves.
And so we need to recognize that when it's happening. And I think that people should embrace their health, embrace and take advantage of the exercise, the eating right, doing all those things, and be healthy. But don't assume that just because you can, you know, bench press £200 or whatever it is that you can necessarily, that, you know, you're, you're not at any risk of heart disease. One of the most famous runners I remember, years ago, he had a heart attack because although he could run marathons and so forth, he had plaque buildup in his heart arteries and that caused a fatal heart attack.
So again, important to get it checked out. Talk to your primary care doctor.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: So here's one, here's one that I think probably we could dive into. This one pretty good because we know it's a factor, but it's, it's in my genes. There's nothing I can do, which means I can either blame it on someone else or I can accept the fact that maybe since it's not in my genes, I'm okay. So unpack that one for me.
[00:23:43] Speaker D: Well, it feels good to blame a lot of things on our parents, I think, and our grandparents, no doubt. And there may be some truth to that, but that's not the whole story.
So we do know from, from large studies that have been done that even in people who have a genetic predisposition to having heart disease or stroke, that they can reduce that risk by being healthy. Following life's essential eight exercising, eating right, keeping the weight on track, you know, lowering the blood pressure. And so Forth. So lifestyle factors, behavioral factors, not smoking is a major one. We can reduce whatever genetic risk we may have been endowed with. So we don't just give up on it and say, oh well, you know, let's bring it on. We try to do what we can to, to mitigate that fact.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the, and the other one is, is, you know, it's selfish to be worrying about myself.
Our job is to worry about others and well being of others and take control of every situation and make sure that we can, we can find a safe resolution to it with whatever resources that are available to us. And often our own safety and health takes a backseat to all of that. So unpack that one for me.
[00:24:52] Speaker D: Well, that is admirable and we certainly appreciate that attitude in our police forces around the country. I think physicians share a lot of that too. You know, they're up late at night, they're not getting enough sleep. Physicians are similarly famous for not taking care of themselves either.
But we know in the medical profession, and this is true for you all out there know, taking care of us, that if you don't take care of yourself first, you can't take care of somebody else. I mean, the most obvious example I think of is when you're sitting on that airplane and they say if the oxygen mass comes down, you put it on yourself first and then you put it on your child next to you. Because if you're gasping for air and you can't function right then you can't take care of the others around you. So I would think rule number one must be to take care of yourself first. Because that's the only way to be an effective police officer, physician or citizen, I believe.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: You know, there's a old saying in law enforcement. One of the first things you learn first thing when you arrive on a scene, first thing you do is safely park.
So, so there we start off. Nothing else matters if you don't start off with those first key steps to, to ensure that everything else falls in some consecutive order. It all starts with those very first steps in taking the, you know, and taking, you know, what's necessary in order to carry out the mission. So, you know, guys, I'm sort of wrapping this up a little.
So let me, if I could just go through it. I know we talked about some key steps. We, you know, know your numbers, blood pressure, cholesterol, blood sugar, all of those are important.
Adopt a life essential eights, important self monitoring blood pressure and utilizing heart and fop tools. If we could dive, I'll ask you to dive into that just a little with some of the resources that are available through the American Heart association, involve family and peers into to this and, and some motivation and some accountability and, and let's, we could just wrap that part up with what resources are available with American Heart Association.
[00:26:57] Speaker C: Well, I'll jump in and say heart.org heart.org is the key to a treasure chest of tools and resources and the search engine works. So life's essential eight you can find it.
I just want to restate that. Life's essential eight critically important.
Starting with one thing, maybe two is a good place to get going.
And I can't state enough that blood pressure is not only the leading cause of stroke, it is also the leading risk factor for developing heart disease later in life. And so if there was one thing to pick to kind of know what's going on, be sure you know what your blood pressure is. Can't overstate the importance of connecting to clinical care. All the myths that you talked about are ones that can be debunked by going to see a doctor who can help you know, whether your numbers are right. If they're right, great. Keep living a great lifestyle. But in addition to all the things we talked about, vaccines and cancer screenings and other things that happen at doctor's offices make you even better prepared to go out there and do. But heart.orgheartdawg is the key to the treasure trove of tools and resources.
[00:28:31] Speaker B: Right. Dr. Elkin, you have any to add to that?
[00:28:34] Speaker D: Well, as a stroke specialist, I'll add that we also have stroke.org which is a great place to get a lot of those same materials, including learning about that fast mnemonic recognizing the signs and symptoms of stroke and several other tools available for folks there if they're mostly concerned about stroke.
And yeah, we're, we're, we're ready and waiting to be of help if we can.
[00:29:01] Speaker B: Great. Gentlemen, I, I know a whole lot of our members out there are listening. Several are coming to mind right now that are more focused on the mileage on their vehicle and when they need to change oil than they do on their own health and their own numbers. So you know who you are. It's time to. Here's the month. Here's the month to pay attention to, you know, awareness month on, on both heart and, you know, cardiovascular heart and, and stroke. And let's, let's follow through it. If we can do it in the month of May, we can do it throughout the remainder of the year. Gentlemen, I want to thank you for taking time to I know you both have very busy schedules, but I'm excited about this partnership that we have. This is a key component to the well being of our members, 380,000 members across this country who are brave enough to pin on a badge and take on this job. And in knowing that that it comes with certain risks and those risks are not givens, there are things that we can do to mitigate them. So I certainly do appreciate that and helping us safeguard the health of law enforcement officers. So again, thank you for for taking time some great resources. We'll put them on a screen as well. Share this this podcast with with members in your agency with with your agencies themselves and and let's let's work towards a healthier future for our for our members in law enforcement. Again, thank you for taking time to share with us and to our viewers and listeners that tuned in to the Blue View podcast, thank you for tuning in. This is where we talk about the issues that are so vitally important to the men and women who suit up and show up every day and make a difference in the lives of communities we serve. Thank you.
[00:30:35] Speaker C: Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or anywhere else to get your podcast. To get the latest from the National FL paid, make sure you to follow us on Twitter and Facebook at GLFOP and on Instagram @FOP National thanks again. We'll see you next time.
