A Yale Physician Shares The Most Important Biomarkers To Track for Disease Prevention & Living Beyond 100 with Dr. Florence Comite

Florence Comite (0:00)

Disease doesn't happen overnight. Why are we waiting until the last possible moment when it's erupted? Why not start 20, 30, 40, 50 years before when actually you can see signs of it emerging at the cellular level metabolically?

Dhru Purohit (0:13)

Give us a little bit of a teaser here so that people know what these important biomarkers are.

Florence Comite (0:17)

As a researcher and a clinician, I was able to design N of 1 studies where I could look at individuals and see over time what their prototypes were like. In doing so, recognize that there were 5 key true biomarkers of health. Three of them touch on carbohydrates, a cholesterol risk ratio, and the last one, and this is almost never done, is free testosterone in women as well as men.

Dhru Purohit (0:43)

In the case of heart disease, what are some things that people should be doing today?

Florence Comite (0:48)

Each one of us is on a path to diabetes. It is the biggest cause of heart attacks. If you're not aggressive about treating these symptoms and signs of disease that is inevitably in your future, you can't stop it and reverse it. And I believe it is possible because I've done it for years.

Dhru Purohit (1:03)

What about a DEXA scan?

Florence Comite (1:05)

25% of men and women become osteoporotic. In women, it starts 10 years before men. DEXAs are critically important for women and for men.

SPEAKER_3 (1:15)

Joining us today is Dr. Florence Comite, a Yale-trained clinician, scientist, and leader in precision medicine. She shares what 30-plus years of clinical experience have taught her about using biomarkers, hormones, and personalized lifestyle strategies to prevent disease before it starts.

Dhru Purohit (1:29)

I believe many people will reach triple digits in excellent health. Some will live to 110 or 120 with sharp memory, strong bodies, and meaningful independence. Talk to me about this quote and idea behind the book, Invincible. What gives you the confidence that that's possible?

And then secondarily, what are the top things that are getting in the way of that goal?

Florence Comite (1:55)

First of all, we are already living to three digits. In fact, there's so many people living till over 100 that Willard Scott on NBC who's doing now it's happy birthday couldn't do it. They ran out of space. But the question is, we have long life and longevity in some ways due to antibiotics from last century.

But we don't have health span. We don't have health. We can't live in optimal health. So my work started about 30 plus years ago when I started women's health at Yale and then rapidly went into men's health. And I knew that if we could dig in to each person's system, we can help avert and change their health destiny. And if by doing so, looking at their total health picture, something I call the health story, it would make a difference in terms of owning vitality for the rest of their life.

Dhru Purohit (2:40)

You know, I want to jump right in and talk about some of these diseases that we all suffer from. And one of the big ones that's out there, a lot of people listening, you know, my audience is about 75% women. Still to this day, a lot of women actually don't know that heart disease is not just the number one killer of men, but it's the number one killer of women as well, too. I want to start there. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Florence Comite (2:58)

When I graduated Yale Medical School, I realized that medicine is reactive, not proactive. And at that time, around that time, I was looking at numbers and people and understanding that I could connect numbers through the system. As an endocrinologist, I could read the system because endocrinology and hormones are messengers in the body. And I wondered why we were waiting. And the first woman, for example, I saw at the Women's Health Initiative that I started at Yale in 1992

She was telling, she was about 40 and about to start a family. And her mother had died of a massive heart attack in her 60s. And her father was still alive and well after an angioplasty in his 80s. And she said, help me, I don't want to be like my mother. My mother went to the doctor. Doctor told her she had empty nest syndrome, gave her some Librium and Valium. And she ended up with a massive heart attack. He was labeling it panic attacks and nerves and emptiness. And I looked at her data and I'm like, well, you're on track because you have underlying sugar abnormalities or carbohydrate abnormalities.