In this episode, we delved into the fascinating world of cardiovascular health, specifically focusing on hypertension, with the esteemed cardiologist Dr. Maria Emilia Figueiredo Teixeira from Brazil. Dr. Maria Emilia shared insights from her groundbreaking research on the influence of gratitude, forgiveness, and spirituality on hypertension control. 00:00:00 Hypertension has become more of a concern these days. It's actually one of the most prevalent cardiovascular diseases. And most people who have it don't even know they have it. And those who do00:00:10 have really inadequate, often really inadequate control over it. Today, we are so pleased to host Dr. Maria Amelia, a cardiologist from00:00:21 Brazil, who has done some interesting research on gratitude, forgiveness, spirituality, and its effect on hypertension. I'm00:00:31 Andrea Spyros. I'm a behaviour design consultant and a professional speaker, and I work with organizations to harness the power of high-performance habits, increasing engagement, resilience, and overall well-being.00:00:45 I am Dr. Shabnam Das Kar, a functional medicine doctor and Tiny Habits certified coach. I teach people how to improve their focus, get rid of brain fog, and reduce their risk of dementia down the line.00:00:59 And today, welcome, Dr. Amelia, Maria Amelia. We're so pleased to have you today. Please share with us, there's a lot we want to unpack about your research. Please share with us what got you interested in doing this type of research.00:01:19 Hi, Andrea. Hi, Dr. Shabnam. It's my privilege to be here. Thank you for the opportunity to bring the results of our latest research, the results from the field trial that we presented recently at the late-breaking clinical trials of the ACC24. So we started to research this theme in00:01:29 2020. As a cardiologist, I'm very intrigued by the situation of hypertension in Brazil and the whole world. As you said, it's prevalent00:01:53 disease with inadequate control, bringing lots of death worldwide. And we know there is a gap. We00:02:05 know how to treat it with lifestyle habits, medications, but still it's not adequately treated. And why00:02:15 isn't it treated? And what else is influencing those blood pressure controls that we're not looking at and00:02:27 is avoiding us from having good control. I know that we're not taking, we, I say as a population, but hypertensive patients are00:02:37 not treating themselves well, are not looking at themselves, are not measuring their blood pressures, and are not taking their pills adequately,00:02:48 are not having good lifestyle habits, and what about their behaviors, their feelings? I think they're not working on that either. So I started to look at00:03:07 the influence of those feelings, and we got good results on this research that I call the field trial.00:03:17 Thank you, Dr. Maria. So the trial that Dr. Maria is talking about, and she had presented at the American College of Cardiology very recently, I think it was just last00:03:28 week. And the name of the trial, so Andrea, this is for people who want to know what it is that the trial is. The name of the trial is a clinical trial to00:03:39 evaluate the influence of a spirituality intervention on blood pressure control, central hemodynamics, and endothelial function. And00:03:49 it has a very interesting acronym, FIELD, F-W-L, FIELD trial. So, Dr. Maria, interesting thing is, I know your specialty is00:03:57 you're a cardiologist, and which is this place in Brazil that you work at, your institution?00:04:08 I work and research at the hypertension unit of the Federal University of Goiás. Goiás is a state in the center of Brazil, very close to00:04:18 Bra