It's eight oh seven. Stick around time for a Friday night edition of Nightside with Dan Ray. I'm Nicole Davis, WBZ Boston's News Radio.
It's night Side with Dan Ray on WBZ, Boston's News Radio. All right, everybody, welcome and welcome on into a Friday night edition. As Nicole has just told you, it is the end of the week, but we have four hours to go. We'll take you all the way until Saturday morning, April twelfth. And before we get started tonight, I just
wanted to make note. Oftentimes you don't hear these sorts of things, but Nicole is going to be moving her time slot here at WBZ from her regularly well her currently scheduled time, which is working with us at night and in the hours before at Nightside. But Nicole, you were staying with the station. You're moving to the midday. What's going on?
I am, Well, we've just had some some moves here at the station in recent weeks, and this is just what's next for me. I suppose in the in the pipeline. So I've got to get used to getting up at five thirty in the morning. That's kind be new. I haven't done that in a while.
But five thirty is not bad. Let me tell you, five thirty is not bad. I used to get up at quarter three.
Well, it didn't we all when we were working morning drive, right, And I mean I have not miss that.
You can not do that. But yeah, look, I'm going to miss you. I don't get into the station much, but please let us keep in touch with one because I always enjoyed a little back and forth here. Yeah, and I'm kind of sad tonight, I too.
I've been really upset about it. I'm like, oh man, I mean, I'm really excited for whatever comes next. But you know, we have a special connection. I love the night side listeners. It's been I don't even know how many years at this point, it's been.
A lot of fun while a while.
Thank you just for everything while I've been here on the show with you doing our thing.
Well right back at you, and I know that we share a love for the Boston sports teams and we kid a kid back and forth with it. But this is one that I'm really quite serious about. I know you're going to do a great job and thank in your new assignment. And the great part about this is that you still be here at WBZ and be listening to you maybe during I would be listening at a different time during the day, but we will keep in touch. And I just want to say thanks for all of
your help over the years. Oh you been y. You have tipped me off on stories that go on. You have gone above and beyond. I'm sitting here doing a show when all of a sudden, some big news story happens, and you have always kept me in the loop. And I just can't tell you much. I appreciated that you were truly a news person.
Thank you, No, I appreciate you. And you know I love the show. I listen all the time. Thank you for expanding my mind on a lot of things, having great conversations, letting me talk to your guests from time to time. Well, you know, it's it's been a lot of fun and I've learned a lot from you. And you know, I'll just be listening to you as I put the dinner dishes away. Now it's a little bit different, and that's okay. We'll go get lunch sometime.
It'll be great, all right. Thanks Thanks to gold the Ultimate News pro and it's a pleasure to have worked with you, and we will continue to be in touchdown.
So I'm not going anywhere. Don't worry else.
You excellent, excellent. Listen, gentlemen, that's a little bit of a tuget the hot strings from me here tonight. You develop friendships and relationships with your on air colleagues, and but life, life does go on, as of course, Nightside goes on. My name is Dan Ray, and I don't want to steal any more time from my first guest, a very distinguished guest, the doctor Marshall Rungi. He's the dean of the Medican School at the University of Michigan. Dean Rungy, Welcome to Nightside. How are you.
I'm great, Dan, nice, Nice to be on your show.
As a big sports guy, I have to ask this question. Any relation to a former Major League umpire named Ed Rungy from the nineteen fifties and sixties.
Well, my father claimed we were related. He couldn't exactly explain it, but Ed was an upstanding guy and I'm happy to be related to him in whatever way.
How many talk show hosts in America who you would talk to would be able to pull the name Ed Rungy out of the year. Not many, not many, you're the first. I'll bet, I'll bet. So we're going to talk about technological advances, of course, which we have all seen, policy changes and emerging business models fundamentally transforming America healthcare.
I know what you mean by that. It is very tough here in New England, at least in the Greater Boston area right now, to get a new primary care physician. I had a lunch the other day with a former PCP of mine who retired. He was telling me that a retired PCP that he knows woman cannot find a PCP for herself. So this is maybe not what you want to talk about. But things are changing, and they're not necessarily changing in a good direction as far I'm concerned.
Tell us about the changes from the perspective of the perspective that you have out of ann Arbor.
Well, Dan, what you're talking about in terms of access to primary care is a national problem. It's one that we really need to change the way we're training primary care physicians encourage people to go into primary care. There are lots of levers that we could use, that we need to use, and I think it's possible for us to really improve access to primary care and the reason
I feel so passionately about it too reasons. One is I do believe that if we can improve access to primary care, that means we can improve access to preventive care. And everybody complains about how much health care costs, and one of the best lists for that is to make people to help them become more healthy. The second is, if you compare us to our peer countries, advanced countries, and look at the percent of our physicians who are primary care physicians, it's very low compared to our peers,
and I think that is reflected sometimes. We're definitely reflected in the difficulty of finding a new internist or family medicine physician or whatever you prefer for primary care.
My friends in the field tell me that the amount of paperwork that PCPs or interness to whatever are required, they spend more time doing paperwork than interacting with patients. Is that a complaint you hear out there?
Absolutely? And I have an interness and he is fantastic, and up until very recently, when i'd go see him, he'd have his back turn to me. We'd be talking, but he'd be type of things to his computer. So one technology advance, I'd like to just mention to you there's an advance called ambient AI and I don't know if you're familiar with that term. I wasn't familiar with it until recently. But we always ask, and I'm mac
cardialgist will ask our patients. Says, okay, if we use ambient AAI and we explain it to them, what's involves is basically a microphone and a computer taking accepting all the interchange between the person and their position. And not only that, it's not a transcript producers, it produces a high quality medical note and our faculty, our physicians who are using this now say that this has decreased the amount of time they have to spend with just chart
work by up to two hours a day. That's a lot of time.
I had a guest on last night who writes political and economic issues. Guest he graduated from Carnegie Mellon, which I think is probably the toughest school in the country to get into account to graduate, and he writes for a platform called substack. He could take a thirty one hundred word essay and he can load it on to an AI in three minutes and what comes what comes out is basically two separate voice is discussing and in
effect regurgitating what he has written. Not in a verbatim form, but you have the audio of two people speaking and saying, well, you know, Tatsu wrote this interesting article, and what did you think about it? And they get right into the article. It's an amazing process. So yeah, that's that is. That's a great development.
It is, and I think it's one of many examples where our advancing technology, including AI and other advances, is going to make it better for physicians, all health care providers, and better for those who are patients.
But can I ask you one other question? As the DNA of a medical school, why do we not have more medical schools in the United States of America. A lot of bright young men and women coming out of college these days are going offshore to medical schools, many of them in the Caribbean. It seems to me that there's a million law schools. I'm a lawyer by training, a lawyer by practice, and a journalist by practice. There's a there's a whole bunch of law schools. The more
law schools than we probably need. There aren't enough medical schools. Why can't we get more medical schools opened in this country on shore.
Dan, I completely agree with you with about the our paucity of medical schools. I think that and I think there are two parts of it. One is how many medical schools. The other is how many students per class. Yes, and let me just say, and I am not casting as persons at anybody, but this is such a in my opinion, the over regulated process in the United States.
Everyone knows we need more doctors, and we can train more doctors, and so I one of the things that I am pushing hard for is for us to do just what you suggested and to have larger medical school classes. I think we can train people using new technology and ways that their training will be just as good, if not better, and we'll be able to provide many more physicians in the United States.
Doctor Runky, what I would love to do with you if possible, because we're limited in this format. We do four interviews during this eight o'clock hour, but I'm on the ear from eight to midnight Monday through Friday. Could I convince you to come back with us somenight do an hour maybe a little later in the evening, and be able to entertain questions from callers and talk about
this very subject. I know that, for example, the University of Massachusetts Medical School here in Worcester, Massachusetts, it only has room for about one hundred and twenty medical students every year, and it seems to me that we need more. And you are one of the first people in position of authority as the dean of a medical school who I think are on the same page with me. And I'm kind of doing this as a little bit of a little bit of a project or a campaign to
make people more aware of this. Would you be willing to come back some night and spend an hour talking about this and incorporate phone calls from across the country.
Well, Dan, I would love to do that. I'd love to hear what people are thinking and their questions and their thoughts.
Uh.
The only caution I throw is you may get pretty sick of me after an hour by speaking. But I'd love to be there.
I don't think so at all. I can tell that you know a lot of people you know don't remember that when when we when President Reagan invaded Granada, Grenada, back in the nineteen eighties, it was to free medical students who had been held out and for those young young people, it became very dangerous. And I want to
see us train enough doctors in America. And I know and I have some stories of kids who I have advocated for who come out of the best universities and have great This is a subject you and I might connect on. And I thank you so much. And I'm going to have my producer get back to you'r a PR person who I believe her name is deb and we will we will set this up in the not too distant future, and we also can spend more time talking about some of the emerging technology.
Sounds great, Dan, I'll look forward to it.
Thank you very much, Doctor Marshall Rungey, somehow a relative of a famous Major League umpire, but more importantly the dean of the University of Michigan Medical School, Doctor Ruggie, Thank you so much. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.
Thank you, Dan, You're very welcome.
When we get back, we're going to change topics. We're going to talk about an event coming up at Gillette Stadium this very this very weekend, a monster gym. I'm going to talk with the driver of a month. I think these are the big truck things we'll talk with Colt Stevens right after the break here in w b Z. You're on night Side with Dan Ray on WAZ Boston's news radio.
All right, Well, there's a lot going on around New England this weekend, and if you're a fan of Monster Jam, you should be out at Gillette Stadium tomorrow, April twelfth with Me's Colch Stevens, one of the drivers.
Hi, Cold, how are you tonight?
Let's go on, man, I'm glad to be here.
Yeah. Is this your first trip to Jewett or to Boston or you been out in the circuit for a while.
Oh, We've been out on tour for a little bit this year. But this is actually my second time here at Jellete Stadium. I came back I believe in twenty seventeen driving the Zombie Monster Jam truck. But this is the first time for my brand new truck to come here. I'm super excited. I always have a great time. I absolutely love Jellette Stadium. I was looking at the track earlier. It was a little bit damp, but I'm excited. It's looking good. Cannot wait.
Yeah, I hope the weather gets a little better for tomorrow. The forecast is a little what they call inclement the weather guys. But how much dirt is brought in for the Monster Jams, my mind is dating. It's quite a bit.
Oh yeah, there's no doubt of it. There's around four hundred loads of dirt that come in. It's amazing to watch the dirt crew and how they can transform a football field or a stadium like that. Bring the dirt in. We'll do an event completely awesome, big hills, jumps, cars, everything out there. Then they'll completely remove everything within a day and it looked like we were never even there. So it's pretty cool. Yeah, we have a lot of dirt.
I assume they must put some sort of a tarp underneath. They're not just putting it down on the field, right. Yeah.
They actually have some videos on Monster Jam's website showing how they do it at some of the stadiums, but a lot of times it's a couple layers of actual plywood that go down and then yeah, tarp as well, so and it cleans up really nicely.
Excellent. Excellent. So now you guys are on tour. What months of the year does this basically take up your existence?
Well, Master dam does go year round, but our tour really goes all the way into world Finals. This year world finals is July fourth and it's in Salt Lake City, So we're going from January all the way until July, and each weekend is a point series. This tour is all together. There's five tours all around the country going on, but this is East Stadium Tour and we're all trying to get as many points as possible to make it
the world Finals. Because only the guy that gets the most points on this tour and wins the tour is guaranteed to bid the world Finals, and that's what we're all shooting for.
Okay, now, Cold, let me ask you how do you become a monk? Tell me how you became a monster jam driver. I'm sure when you were, you know, ten years twelve years old, you might have been thinking about driving, but I mean you probably were not thinking about the vehicles that you're driving. Explain to people who may not have seen it, how high you are up off the ground and what you were trying to achieve to pile up those points.
All right, multiple things. So, first off, I'm a second generation driver, so this is part of my lifestyle group around it. I absolutely love it. It's monster jam has been a part of my life. But then these trucks are twelve foot tall. So we're sitting in the middle of these trucks. It's a full tube, Chassie, twelve dollars, thousand pounds. We're on sixty sixteen saw tires and we're pushing about fifteen hundred horsepower. So it's a lot of fun. It's wild and crazy and as far as what to expect,
expect the unexpected. We're out there in these trucks. I just said they're twelve thousand pounds, but imagine this. They're flying thirty forty feet in the air. We're doing backflips, we're doing crazy Ballerina moves if you will, up on the front two tires, doing moonwalks, we're doing sidewalls, We're driving bicycles down the side of the lanes. You know, it's crazy what we can do in these trucks. You have to see it in person to actually get a grasp on it. And the biggest thing is you want
to come to the pit party. You want to come see what these trucks look like up close to personally. You can watch it on YouTube. You can watch it on TV or whatever you see. But until you actually see these trucks up close and see how big they are and how big the jumps are that we're hitting, you really can't grasp it. And I'll tell you what, you definitely need to check it out.
Well, hopefully a lot of my listeners will check it out. It's at you let tomorrow. I assume that they can get tickets. They can probably go on to a waite, but they probably also can show up and buy them at the gate.
Is that true, Yeah, sir, But go to monster jam dot com. You can check it out. You can get all the information all the times. I do know that the event starts at five o'clock. Now you can come to the pit party general emissions at twelve thirty, and then we also have an early access where you can really skip all the lines and everything that starts at eleven thirty. But check it out. Monster jam dot com has you dialed in, you'll be able to get all the information you need.
Well, that's perfect monsterjam dot com. And I suspect that this is an event that all ages, kids as well as adults, grandparents and regular parents. I assume it spans the spectrum.
There's no doubt about it. We always laugh about it, but it's one hundred percent true. Bring everybody from the littlest kid all the way up to your grandma. They're all gonna have a fantastic time. It's so much fun for the entire family. And we got that brand new thunder Roars truck that I'm driving this weekend. You don't want to miss it. Bring the roar. I'm excited.
Well, Cold, let me Cold. Let me just say, first of all, love your passion, love your enthusiasm. You represent the sport very very well. Thanks for what you do. Stay safe and best of luck this weekend. Out at you. Let sounds to me like you're not going to need any luck. You may need a little bit of a of an umbrella, but that's that's okay, that's that'll that'll make it only much more fun. Thank you so much, Cold, enjoy talking with you, all.
Right, I thank you very much. Can't wait to see you. Don't miss it.
Okay, we'll be there, We'll be there. Okay, when we got we got a break here for the news at the bottom of the Air with Nicole Davis. I'd love to be able to give that introduction a few more times between now and midnight, and when we get back, we're going to talk with Chris Porter, the founder of the Lowell Multi Day Celebration of Music and Art. This
is a festival a little later on this month. This one you can put in your calendar and plan for it the weekend of April twenty four to the twenty sixth. We will talk about that with Chris Porter right after the break. My name's Dan Ray. This is Night's Side. We've got a lot of activity, a lot of stuff to cover. Tonight's stay with us. By the way, if you would like to know and you're listening, you're listening to Night Side On with Dan Ray on WBZ ten
thirty and your AM dial. But you know what you can do no matter where you are, you can pull down the new and improved iHeart app. We're an iHeartRadio station out of Boston. We broadcast terrestrial radio over half the country. But if you're anywhere in the world and you want to listen to iHeart and particularly WBZ, all I gonna do is pull that app down, put it
on whatever type of device you have. You can make us your number one precent and you will always be only a fingertip away no matter where you are in the world. With WBZ Boston, my name's Dan Ray. Be back right after the news at the bottom of the hour.
It's Night Side, Boston's news radio.
All right, welcome back everybody, Thank you, Nicole. Going to talk with Chris Porter. Chris is the festival f owner of Lowell, Massachusetts, multi day celebration of music and art. It's called the Town and the City Festival, running from April twenty fourth to the twenty sixth, which is a Thursday through Saturday later this month. Chris Porter, Welcome to Night's Side. How are you, sir.
I'm doing great, Dan, Thanks so much for having me on your program.
For some reason, I think we might have done this year ago, and I'm not sure if you were here, if we were together or not, but I believe we talked about it a little bit, but it sounded a year ago like a great event. Tell us about this year's activities.
Yeah, sure, I've been on busy before. I appreciate all the support and interest. Yeah, this is the sixth year of the Town and the City Festival. It's amazing. It's been a nice run. We started in twenty eighteen, and it's been growing and it's been a wonderful event. As you mentioned, some multi day music and arts festival takes place in various men spaces, bars, cafes, galleries, even a church throughout downtown Lowell, Massachusetts. I call it a sort
of a venue hopping experience. While people could purchase tickets for an individual show, we really encourage people to get day passes so that which is put they give a little wristband and you can kind of bop around a different venues and experiences as much as you want. We have twelve participating venues throughout downtown Lowell, over sixty performances over those three days. The Thursday night, it's one kickoff show that we're doing. A couple of nationally known acts,
Lady Lamb and Ezra Firman are playing that evening. And then on Friday the twenty fifth and Saturday the twenty sixth, we have a multitude of things happening, mostly music, but we do have some comedy and some spoken word poetry events as well. We have Friday evening it's going on, and then Saturday afternoon and Saturday evening a lot of different things are going on.
So I'm a little confused. I know Lowell's a city, why is it called the Town and the City Festival. It's not a town?
Yeah, well yeah, although some people who live there, and I grew up in Lowell, so it's sort of like a town and kind of like a city, but it's not the reason why we call it that. That is a that is a nod to Jack Kirewuac, one of our most famous UH people from who grew up in Lowell. His very first book was called The Town and the City. It was largely about although he used the fictional name, it was largely about Lowell. And this isn't meant to be a Jack. When I started this, I didn't want
to necessarily do a Jack Herewuack scened event Uh. There already is another one that goes on there. But I wanted to celebrate the spirit of Jack as far as you know, things he wrote about about discovery and UH and love of life and all that. And we do have some Cure Wuac esque sort of programming, Like I said, this poetry, we've had some literary programming here and there. There have been mus tributes and actually there's one band that is doing a music tribute to to Get Here
at Waka on the on the Saturday. So I mean we have you know, So that's the kind of the element is. But it's mostly meant to be a celebration of Lowell of a lot of the local music. And we we have nationally touring artists as part of this, but I like to fly the local flag, so to speak. And there are a lot of Lol based performers and Boston based performers playing at it as well. But there's a Jack here whack underlying team with it and so hence the name.
So how's Lowell doing these days? If I'm not mistaken. You have, of course good Good College up there, University of Lowell at hockey Good Hockey College hockey at the Saugus Arena. Is that also used as a venue for for the Fleet, the women's National Hockey League team.
Right, yeah, the Boston Fleet play there, That's right. I wish I wish my festival was a little bigger, that I could put some conscience on there quite at that point yet, but it's it's another exciting aspect of role for sure.
So but the city seems to be doing a little better. I mean, it's a you know, it's a city that has a tremendous history. Anybody who's ever been to Loll knows the history of Loll and what an important city it was, and it still is. But there's a history as well as again, you know, areas that are being developed on is it is it? Is it getting better in Lowll? It seems to me every time I go there, it looks better, it feels better. But I'm not there
every day of the week. Tell me, tell me how's the city doing.
I think it's doing great. I mean it's going through a little change right now. We unfortunately lost a great marketplace called Mill number five had.
To close, although a lot.
Of those vendors are going to another building fortunately, but that was, you know, one of a number of examples of repurposed mills there that are becoming you know, whether they're becoming some summer conc wasn't a apartments. Some have been for companies, but some have been for marketplaces also, like for instance, one of the venues we used taff at a music hall that is housed at Western av Studios,
which has been around for a few years. But it's this an enormous sort of artist colony it's something like three hundred visual artists have their studios and or they live there, and there's a brewery there and a coffee
shop and and this music venue. And you know, when I was growing up in Lowll it's stuff like that, it felt like nothing like that would have happened, you know, And so I look at Lowell as is really with different eye over the last in my opinion, the last ten years, it's become a much more interesting place there's been as far as culture is concerned. It's been place
for visual art for many years. There are a lot of galleries and and things for for visual artists, but the music thing has kind of gone up and down over the years. But right now there you know, when the town and the city festival is not happening, I mean, they're a handful event music venues that are going on, you know, every night of the week, or most nights
of the week. When I was growing up, I mean sometimes there would be one, but lots of times we had no music venue unless it was somebody big playing at the Lowe Memorial Auditorium. So it's I I And also it's a place that well, you know, every place can be expensive relatively speaking, But relatively speaking, it's much more less expensive to live there than Boston, Cambridge, some of all that whole you know, general, the big city area. And so I know so many creatives that have been
moving up to Lowell in recent years. I had a number of friends who just get priced out of the Boston area gone up there and they do their music or art or whatever they work on up there, and so it's it's it's been really inspiring. I've seen I'm very bullish on what's going on in a lot of small cities all over the country. One of my inspirations for the town the city is a festival in Boise, the Idaho called tree Fort Music Fest, which is bigger than what we do, but it's along the same lines.
And I went to it once. You know, we can do something like this in Lowell, you know, why not? You know, And I've seen it in that as a similar festival in Knoxville, Tennessee. And and I can put to other cities of the same same size, and you would think to you know, think that, you know, so it's really cool. Stuff doesn't have to happen in Boston or Cambridge. You know, you can you can find it in places like Lowell and Portsmouth, and I can name other places as well.
But well, questioning, well, yeah, well, I got to tell you I'm so happy to hear that, because I'm a big advocate of that. You hear the stories that you know, well someone can't find uh an inexpensive apartment on Beacon Hill. Well there's probably a reason for that, you know. It's it's kind of what we call supply and demand economics. But you can go to any of these great cities in the greater Boston area. Uh, A lot of people are now able to work remotely. That's that's a new opportunity.
And there's also businesses and and employment opportunities. Everybody feels, well, I got to live in Soho in New York City or you know, or worse, in the village. And if I don't live in I have to live in the Back Bay or Beacon Hill or maybe the South End. I'll slum it and go to the South End. And those are all high end places that you've got to spend five thousand dollars a month just to live. And there's a point of reality here, I mean where you got to say to yourself, look, at some of these
other cities. And that's why I'm excited to have you. I'm excited to celebrate the town and the City Festival and in a lot of and I hope a lot of people take advantage of this. It's two weekends, well it's really one weekend from now. When you think of it, it's not this weekend, it's the it's the following weekend. And get up there and experience the city. You might find a better place to work and a better place to live, which is not going to cost you an
arm and a lake Lowell, Massachusetts. So Chris, I'm big on Lowell and I'm thrilled to hear your enthusiasm because that's what that's what Lowell needs, people like you who stick with it and make this city. Let it come back, let it keep on coming back. And I just want to say thanks very much for what you do. Well.
I really really appreciate that, Dan, it's a sweet words and I appreciate your interest in support. And I hope everybody can check out the Town and the City Festival for more information. Just go to the Town in the City Festival dot com, give them links to tickets there and learn about all the different performers and bands. Like I said, there's some nationally recognize that, there's some locals, and there's a lot of stuff in a big discovery
thing too. Don't just go and see your favorites, you know, find your new favorite band at the Town and the City festival.
I like to say, I think what you need is a slogan and get some bumper strips up there. It's happening in Lowell something like that. That market, that city. It is a great city. It's got great restaurants. I'm Bullish and low and so you're always welcome here. Chris, thank you, thank you so much. We'll talk soon. Okay, all right, thanks, all right, thanks again. Well we get back. Caution you. We're going to talk with doctor Fami Farhar.
He's a cardiologist, and he tells us he's gonna tell us that skipping meals may actually increase the risk of heart attack. You'll want to listen up. And then, as I said, beginning at nine o'clock to I'm going to be talking with former Superior Court judger in Massachusetts, Christopher J.
Muse Justice under God. He was the attorney. He and his dad were the attorney for Bobby Joe Leister, which was one of the It was a herculean battle in which they fought for this man's freedom, unjustly convicted for crime that he had nothing to do with. I know a little bit about that concept. But Chris Muse is going to be a great guest. I have just read the book today. It is a great book. We'll talk with him and then we're going to talk later on
tonight with a home remodeler. I think if you're interested, you may find that one very interesting. And then at eleven tonight, Yeah, you're brushed with celebrity. Let's have fun in that final hour time and we'll get you to the weekend. Back on Nightside right after this.
Night Side with Dan Ray on w B Boston's news radio.
All right, one or to welcome to our program, doctor Fami Farha, doctor Farhran, Welcome to Nightside.
How are you, sir, find Jane.
Well, it's great to be back on your show.
Fami. I did not realize that you were a female. I apologize for that. I have never seen the name Fami before. Welcome to our show. Thank you very much. And you're a cardiologist and you have a warning for my listeners, and that is that skipping meals, which a lot of people do, could complicate their lives with a greater likelihood of heart attacks. Tell us about it.
Yes, you know, meals are very important, especially certain meals such as breakfast, just because what we eat in the morning when we first wake up, that kind of sets the stage for the rest of the day in terms of our hormone regulation. It's an important hormone regulation. For example, your insulin, which is the main hormone that kind of determines It's called a storage hormone, like how your calories are going to be taken care of for the rest
of the day. And so eating a good, healthy breakfast is very important for your overall health and particularly your heart health.
So I understand that, and I do the same breakfast every morning, which is I have a cereal that I eat and I put fruit, bananas, blueberry, strawberries, and coffee and that gets me through most of the day. I will have a piece of fruit or something like that at lunch. So I'm not a heavy eater. I lost thirty five pounds a few years ago, and I will have a regular dinner. Tonight, I had fish and some vegetables.
Am I in dangering myself? I'm not somebody who sits and has a lunch with you know whatever, you know, a burger and fries or something like that. Are people like me who are kind of cutting back on their caloric intake? Are they the people you're worried about or or not? I mean, I'm just I am concerned whenever I talk to a doctor and I think to myself, am I doing something here that is not helping me? Not at all.
In fact, I think what you're doing is more along the side of being healthy. So I'm not worried about the group of folks who are cutting back on their calories. It's, in fact the opposite. You know, there's a lot of information out there nowadays, especially on social media things like TikTok. Anyone can post a lot of information out there. Whether that's true or not, it's questionable. So getting your source, you know, like what tours you're getting information from, is
very important. And so you know, like, like the topic we're discussing is so important. I don't think that decreasing calorie intake and eating a healthy, balanced, nutritious meals is that that's what we want you to do. So that's not the group of people that we worry about.
Now, I'm not sure if this is a fair question. Maybe this should be the question for a nutrition it's not a cardiologist. But I remember many years ago when they sort of flipped the food pyramid on its head. You know, we were told that these were the things that were good, and these were the things that weren't good. And then all of a sudden, the new food myriamid came out and things that were good weren't so good, and things that had been bad actually were pretty good.
I don't know. You sound as if you're a lot younger than I am. You may not remember when the food pyramid got a very different configuration. And and the reason I ask you that question is a lot of people kind of said, oh, that's good, meat was good for you and all of this, and then it became just the opposite. Now, again, you're the cardiologists. You deal with people who who need to be concerned about their heart.
Why is it that we can't figure out, meaning the medical community at large can't figure out exactly what is good and what is bad, because that did lead to some confusion. If you you probably don't remember it, but you certainly know of what I speak.
I hope, I am.
Yes, I'm aware of the change in the food pyramid. But to clarify, the medical community has figured out what's good and you know, like, yes, there was some confusion with the food pyramid turning upside down, but that is you know, like too much meat is not good for you. So we do have plenty of research done and we do know now what's good for us. We know that plant based diet is excellent for us, like you know,
that actually is the way to go. And the new guidelines per American he Association, you will see there's a big push towards plant based dies. What we don't want people to do things that are high in cholesterol, things that are processed, things that have high sodium content. Those are proven to be wrong and there's no confusion about it.
The things that have high cholesterol, fatty items, things that are high in preservatives, high in sodium, those are bad for us, bad for our overall health and certainly for our cardiovascular health. And things that are like you know, more fruits and vegetables, particularly vegetables, We know those are good for us. And there's nothing wrong with taking those. So there's no confusion about that part.
Okay. Now I got to ask you about two things. I have a cardiologist who's a great friend, and he said to me, there's nothing wrong with a little dark chocolate every day. I hope that that still holds, that.
It is correct.
That is correct.
Yes, I completely agree with that. So dark chocolate is healthy for you and for your heart health. Of course, it needs to be done in moderation. And it's not the chocolate that we worry about, it's what the chocolate is prepared with. So you know, candy is where we typically find the chocolate, and candy can have a lot of sugar, and you know, fat and cholesterol content could be high as a result, and so we need to
be cautious of that. Like, it's not that chocolate itself that's bad, it's everything.
Else in it. Okay. And then the other question, which is important to ask red wine. Please tell me red wine is okay.
I get asked this question quite a bit. I know, yes, so it's it's it's a I hate to be the very bad news for you. But a couple of years ago, we had a large that came was an international study that looked at a couple of million people actually, and we now have proof that any amount of alcohol is not good for us. Alcohol is considered a toxin for the heart, health and overall body, and red wine is
no different. The reason I think there's a little bit of confusion, and for a long time, you're right, red wine was it got this reputation of being good and healthy for you because it has a component that has like you know, antioxidant and things like that. But that's aside from the alcohol component in it. And so the content of alcohol being in it, the little benefit it has is totally offset by the harmful effects it has.
So we don't promote drinking any alcohol at all anymore, not even red wine.
Okay, well, okay, I'm one for two, I'm bat in five hundred. I'm okay with that, Doctor Fami far Thank you so much, Cardiology Board Certified invasive cardiologists. By the way, I always like to thank doctors, and I mean this honestly. Thank you for the profession you've chosen, and thank you for what you do for all of us. I appreciate it so much, and thanks for being with us tonight. You're a great sport thank you.
It was my pleasure.
All right. When we get back, we're going to talk with a former Massachusetts Superior Court judge. Chris Muse has written a book about the biggest case of his career, in a case that most of us will remember, the case of Bobby Joe Lisa Lisa, an innocent man who spent nearly ten years in jail for a crime he did not commit. We'll be talking with Chris Muse and Justice under God right after the nine o'clock news