by Nick Jacobs

Most of my days are spent in meetings with M.D.’s, PhD’s, V.P.’s, and all of the C’s; CFO, CMO, COO, and CPO (chief people officer) . . . Well, you get the idea. Last week, though, we filled the room with the PhD’s and a different group of C’s; the Colonels, Lieutenants Colonels, Full Bird Colonel, Doctor Colonels, Administrative Colonels and the like.

At one point during the meeting, our heart, lung and blood specialist, a PhD recruited from the NIH, was reporting on a study that he had recently completed with two prestigious universities from a neighboring state where the participants donated blood, ate a very high fat meal and then donated blood again for testing. It was called a brachial artery study.

The result of the test was exactly what the doctor had been concerned about. The fat irritates the lining of the blood vessels. They swell up and cause the arteries to be smaller which causes your heart to pump harder. Now, let me be clear, I am not clinical and definitely not scientific. So, I am not going to try to explain it in any more inappropriate detail. I am sure he will be publishing these results soon, or, you can wait for the movie.

But one of the physicians present in the room jokingly said, “You ought to try this test again, and this time you need to add a cigarette and a set of stairs.” Everyone got a kick out of that suggestion, but my concern was that this test should first be administered to some high profile enemy of the State because it should be called “The Last Supper.”