The Innovation of Saving Lives

Health

Oct 15

Written By Kevin H

Identifying the big problems of humanity and defining them

Dr. Kevin Ham, MD

It’s been a while. I’ve been busy but have so much to say and write about health, about wealth and about life.

I am on my way to Korea to first the first Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) Farm in Jeju Island. I will be meeting friends and my brother who is CEO of Wild Orchard, the first ROC tea farm in the world. He has been instrumental in educating the world about ROC and about tea, keynoting in top tea festivals all over the world. He asked me to join him. I’ve been a very avid tea and matcha drinker for over 20 years now.

The Wild Orchard. The only place in the world. For the world’s best teas.

But let me tell you about my new health insights and dreams.

Company.ai

Two weeks ago I was in San Francisco to meet our new CFO for Company.ai. We’ve been working and building something phenomenal. Sometimes I pinch myself at the opportunities revealed to me. I discovered domain names in 2000, just at the crest of the dot com boom and rode that wave as it came crashing down in the world, allowing me the opportunity to register domain names like BlackFriday.com and hundreds of thousands of other domains for registration costs ($8). Then I found out about Subprime from my banking partners Bear Sterns and Bank of America in June 2007 in Manhattan before it occurred Sep 2008.

Then I rode the blockchain wave and in 2018, I sold some of my Google stock and bought NVIDIA, surmising that it would be a leader in AI through its GPU chips and saw that blossom recently. Now I am riding the AI crest and feel that it will rise higher and faster than anything I have ever seen before. Of course the waves will undulate up and down but the definite trend is upwards, what I call an ascending channel.

Life Saving Inventions

When I was in my Uber, I texted my dear friend, Dr. Azra Raza and asked her if there was anyone she believed I should meet in San Fran. I didn’t know many people except a handful of good friends. She immediately sent one. Mir. When I arrived at my hotel, I looked at his impressive resume. 900 patents. Inventor of the real estate lock box, the airport revolving scanner, the high fidelity Ultrasound, the first implantable defibrillator, which has saved over 5 million lives and counting, arrhythmia ablation therapy and 20 companies of life saving or impactful businesses with 15 exits. Wow. So I said “Yes, please introduce us.”

I was about to take a nap as I had gotten up at 4 am to get on the 7 am flight. I did my routine morning colonic cleanse and got there early to the airport. As I was about to lay down, my phone rang, my WhatsApp, with a 415 area code. Who could it be? I typically don’t answer my phone, but this time, my intuition said to pick up. It was Mir!

We spoke enthusiastically for 38 minutes whereupon we knew we had to meet. He invited me to his lab and later asked me to go to his home. I met my friend Connie, who was a former VC for lunch to catch up at a vegan Chinese restaurant. They had a very interesting poster front and centre on their wall. Famous quotes by famous people. Except when you went to read it, these quotes from Mark Twain, Einstein and other great sages were about veganism! Wow, I’m not particularly tied to veganism except that the studies show that thus far to my knowledge, it is the only diet that has been to show to arrest and reverse atherosclerosis of the heart’s coronary arteries.

I got in an Uber to Mir’s house. It was only supposed to be for an hour, maybe two but we lost track of time as I was so engaged in our talk, in his life, in his inventions, that three hours had passed.

I wish I could write his life story here, but I would not do it justice as I type this on my plane ride to Korea.

The highlights! Electrical engineer, finishing the four year degree in just two years, due to financial constraints. He slept in a closet as he only had $20/mo for rent and $20/mo for food, so only ate one meal a day, lentils with salad, which is main meal even now 50 years later. Wow! 900 patents, 20 successful companies, with many inventions, solutions to big problems that were not yet solved.

The Definition of Innovation

His definition of innovation is what fascinated me most, as I have this life mission since a young age to heal people, cure disease and make a big impact on the lives of others.

He said innovation is not the solution. The innovation is to identify a big problem for which there is either no solution or a very poor solution. He said not to solve problems that already have a ‘good enough’ solution and incrementally make it better.

He said that to identify such big problems is actually the first step and difficult to determine. This puzzled me.

Immediately I knew the big problem I wish to solve for myself and much of humanity.

I asked him to do it together. “Young man, how old are you?” I just turned 56 last week, I replied. I’m 70 and I’m working for three companies right now. Each company takes on average 9 to 10 years. I suppose it was his way of saying he had no time for another company right now.

He went on to say that the second step in innovation is to define this big problem accurately. He said this often took years, sometimes decades but could also happen with a flash of insight. This also perplexed me. To define the big problem? This sounded so easy.

I started to ask him some questions about an idea that has been in my heart for many months as I write about heart disease.

My brother-in-law just did a CT Calcium scan and his score was even worse than mine. 620. He literally could not believe it. He looked like a very healthy guy. But at age 62, with that high of a score, his likelihood of a heart attack was in the 98% percentile.

Average age of a heart attack is 61. I told him the calcium score was unlikely to be an error.

First Time Sudden Death

Stat: About 25% of heart attacks are first time presentation and sudden death.

Like my dear friend, Rob, who died suddenly from a heart attack at age 58, Feb 10, 2025, the day he was supposed to fly up to Vancouver to have lunch with me. This impacted me greatly. Any other day, and I think I may not have even been invited to his memorial a month later. If he had died a week later, I might have not even known of his death for a while.

How could someone die so suddenly? And this was the #1 killer in America, in Canada, and most of the world. It seems obvious this is a big problem and not a very good solution to making people aware that this is a real big problem.

Imagine if there was a way to allow people to know their imminent risk? CT Calcium scan is good proxy but still not a standard of care. Most doctors don’t even recommend it to those who are 50 and older. I’ve had many friends in their 40s and up have positive scores in the hundreds. That means they have advanced heart disease, but most go unheeded and asymptomatic until an event.

Most people don’t even know what triggers a heart attack or a stroke. We were taught to ask what their last meal was. Fried chicken? French fries? Higher likelihood.

For me this big problem seemed obvious and I’ve been feeling the duty to make my family and friends aware. That’s why I started my Youtube channel and pivoted my newsletter mostly about heart disease. To allow others to go on my journey of health insights regarding the heart.

Small LDL, optimal under 142, reads 218, then 180, then 159. Still flagged high on all 3 days, and I am not going to pretend otherwise, but falling by 27% across the series.

Medium LDL, optimal under 215, reads 251, 254, and then 202, which crosses into range on the last draw.

And the peak particle size, optimal above 222.9 angstroms, reads 218.0 in September, flagged low, then 223.2 and 223.0 in 2026, in range.

I put that quote at the head of this section on purpose, because it cuts against me. The largest analysis of the question, across more than 337,000 people and roughly 15,000 coronary events, could not confirm that cholesterol depleted particles are substantially more atherogenic than cholesterol replete ones. Particle size is a signal about my metabolism. Particle number is the thing doing the damage. Read this section as evidence that my particles changed, not as proof that the change in shape is what mattered.

On 23 September 2025 my particles were flagged small. On 4 August 2026 they were not. My LDL cholesterol was 78 on both of those days. That is the mechanism in a single sentence. Smaller particles carry less cholesterol each, so it takes more of them to carry the same load, and if your particles shrink your count climbs while your LDL sits perfectly still.

Nathan Pritikin: The Man Who Saw Heart Disease Reversal

I’ve had a lot of insights in the past two months but haven’t had the time to make videos or write about them. I listened to Nathan Pritikin’s lectures on his insights into heart disease and how to arrest and reverse it. I realized a lot of his ingenuity and insights about heart disease were adopted by the OG doctors like Dr. Esselstyn, Dr. Ornish, Dr. Gregor and others. Pritikin died in 1984 from his leukemia, which was diagnosed at the same time as his heart disease, when he was 42. I learned so much listening to his lectures and thought that of all the scientist and doctors I have listened to and read, I was most impressed by the first principle thinking and experimentation and curiosity and boldness of Pritikin. I adore his heart and brain. Not a doctor. Not a scientist. I think he was an engineer and had some patents and used his savings to devote to finding a cure or remedy for heart disease and cancer.

So how do you define this big problem of sudden death or lack of awareness and lack of understanding of heart disease by medical doctors and the people all over the world? Why isn’t there a better way to reveal someone’s heart disease? It’s the #1 global killer!

I have many ideas and thoughts I would like to explore but it’s in my spare time, like when I am on a plane, or on the weekend, or when I am exercising, that I think about such matters. I know it would save so many lives.

Cardiac Longevity Institute Vision

I get a commercial space at the end of September 2027. I’d like to turn it into a Heart & Longevity Institute. It’s my contribution to humanity.

I have some ideas of how deep thinkers, scientists, doctors, engineers, can help detect one’s heart disease, stroke risk, much easier and better. I also think about better solutions to arrest and reverse such diseases. The solutions seem harder as I believe them to be lifestyle choices such as diet, stress, sleep, sunlight, exercise. Simple but hard to consistently do lifestyle choices.

What’s Your Big Problem?

Do you have a big problem you are working on that has no good solution?

Have you defined this big problem?

I always believed I was meant to heal the world in some way, ever since I was hospitalized at 14 from a severe autoimmune disease.

Then wet macular degeneration at age 50 in 2020. Then major heart disease at age 55 in 2025. With each disease, my insight, understanding and intuition leapt forward. I understand so much better the pathophysiology of disease and yet I understand 1% of 1% and even that may be overestimating it. When I speak to doctors, cardiologist, and cardiac surgeons, I am surprised at their lack of urgency, awareness of the finer details of atherosclerotic disease and their seemingly numbness to the gravity of the problem for which we have very subpar diagnostics and solutions.

We’ve gotten used to these subpar diagnostics, wait times, non-curative treatments. Numbed to mediocracy.

I asked God why Rob was taken from this earth so early, why on the day he was supposed to have lunch with me. I believe part of that answer was to wake me up from my slumber. Part of it was so that I too would be made aware of the severity of a heart disease I was completely unaware of. 77-79% blocked arteries, multivessel blockages, that I too could have died suddenly without knowing.

I do not take a day for granted. My heart is so full, so open with thankfulness, gratefulness, with a heart of service, a heart of love, a heart of gratitude, a heart of humility, of gentleness and kindness. I wish to help my fellow beings become aware of their human condition, brought about by unnatural lifestyles. Food that is not really food. Artificial light that impacts sleep, which I have been trying to remedy myself. Lack of proper dose and intensity of exercise and movement. I’ve been too extreme is my conclusion, making my plaque calcification accelerated. I take it so much easier. I have a huge powerful heart with lots of collateral vessels that I believe bypass many of my blockages, allowing me to perform like a 30 year old for my age.

Find Out If You are Next

If you are male and over 40, I highly advise you get a CT calcium heart scan right now. Not next month. Not next year. Now.

If you are female and over 50, I give the same advice.

And even with a calcium score of 0, one can still have a heart attack as most heart attacks come from immature soft plaque that is not yet calcified, and isn’t detected by the Calcium CT scan.

Also get a carotid ultrasound, the CIMT (carotid intima media thickness test) that proxies plaque in the carotid artery wall. This can alert you whether you have risk of an embolic stroke.

I will preach this all the time as we need to be reminded.

I will endeavour to do this for my fellow Canadians and build cardiac longevity diagnostic institutes in the top Canadian cities.

Definition of Health Philanthropy

My definition of health philanthropy, that I was set on since my years as a medical resident in late 1998, was not to make money from health and do health as a free service.

But after speaking to Mir, I realized I should rethink my definition of health philanthropy. To do a big service for each human to either save their life or change their lives in a very positive way. Life-saving or life-changing.

This is my new definition of health philanthropy. It is not tied to money, nor accolades. Just service for each person.

My goal is to measure my health philanthropy with these two score cards. Lives saved. Lives changed. If that just changes from 0 to 1, my life is worthwhile. And the higher the number, the more humble and grateful I am to be of service to those I know and love and also to those I have yet to know or meet.

Thank you my fellow dear human beings for being and for uniquely being a part of this amazing life and adventure. It is full of lots of ups and downs, hills and valleys, joys and sorrows.

I love those in my life so much. Whatever your lot in life, know that you are a one of a kind. You are awesome. You are beautiful. I am so proud of you, my loves, my friends, my colleagues.

With all my heart,

Kevin