David Watumull discusses heart health, inflammation, and hs-CRP testing on Hawaii Public Radio
Lokahi Longevity co-founder David Watumull was invited to be a guest on Hawaii Public Radio’s “The Conversation,” where he spoke with HPR’s Maddie Bender about inflammation, cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk, and the growing interest in high-sensitivity C-reactive protein testing, also known as hs-CRP.
The interview focused on a practical question: could a simple blood test help people better understand their risk for heart attack and stroke?
For many patients, the risk of cardiovascular disease is still closely tied to cholesterol, especially LDL cholesterol. Watumull explained that inflammation also deserves attention because elevated inflammation is associated with cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, stroke, and the need for procedures such as stents or other forms of revascularization.
The conversation also covered the American College of Cardiology’s recent recommendation that adults know their hs-CRP levels. Watumull said this represents an important shift because hs-CRP has not always been widely discussed with patients or routinely covered by insurance.
A key part of the interview was access. Watumull explained that Lokahi Longevity has helped make hs-CRP testing available in Hawaii through a local diagnostic laboratory for $20.50. He also noted that Lokahi does not sell or conduct the test and is not adding a profit margin. The goal is to make the information easier for people to obtain and to start a broader conversation about cardiovascular risk, prevention, and longevity.
The interview also addressed why this matters in Hawaii, where CVD risk varies across different populations. Watumull emphasized that inflammation affects people across ethnic backgrounds and that knowing hs-CRP levels may help people and their physicians have better-informed conversations about prevention.
The broader message was simple: LDL cholesterol remains important, but it does not tell the whole story. For people interested in heart health and longevity, hs-CRP provides another piece of information that may help guide earlier action.
Listen to the entire Hawaii Public Radio interview here (David’s interview starts around the 32-minutes mark):
https://www.hawaiipublicradio.org/show/the-conversation/2026-06-09/the-conversation-world-cup-weather-prep-heart-health-test
Full transcript
Catherine Cruz, Host: Aloha. This is Catherine Cruz. Mahalo for joining us here on The Conversation, Hawaii Talks. It is Tuesday, June 9th. The World Cup is just days away. We talk about preparing for extreme weather in multiple locations as we get into the El Niño summer season, how Hawaii is involved. We also get the latest on a decision by Hawaii's largest health insurer that stands to impact healthcare across the state.
And could a blood test help determine the risk of heart attacks and strokes? A major medical association is recommending everyone get tested. Plus, we highlight one small effort to deal with plastics pollution. We head to the Big Island to learn about Upcycling Hawaii.
Could inflammation tell us about our heart health? We've long heard about the importance of managing our cholesterol, and especially LDL, when it comes to our risk for heart disease and stroke.
But a Hawaii company is raising awareness about a newer test that they think is just as important for patients to know about.
It's a blood test to measure a marker tied to inflammation. Last year, the American College of Cardiology recommended that everyone get tested and know their levels. David Watumull is a longtime entrepreneur and co-founder of Lokahi Longevity. He spoke with The Conversation's Maddie Bender about what patients should know.
David Watumull, Co-founder, Lokahi Longevity: This is a very important, we think, distinction in the medical space around cardiovascular risk. We all are familiar with LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol.
But there's something else that's equally, if not more important, and it's called inflammation. And it turns out that if you have an inflammation issue, you can have an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, including major adverse cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke, or the need for revascularization, stents, et cetera.
And if you can impact and reduce your inflammation significantly, you can reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes that a population may have. And so there's now a push by the American College of Cardiology, which is one of the most credible and professional heart organizations in the world, that is calling for universal.
Every adult over 20 should be measured for something called hsCRP, high sensitivity C-reactive protein test. Before, you could ask your doctor for this or your doctor might recommend it, but it was fairly expensive and was not covered by insurance. So what we've been able to do is to offer access to that study.
We don't actually do the test ourselves. It'll be done at a local diagnostic laboratory setting that would actually do the study for just $20.50. And we think it's important for the population here in Hawaii in particular to be aware of this cardiovascular breakthrough that hasn't been around for a long time.
It's just the first announcement of this came late in 2025.
Maddie Bender, Hawaii Public Radio: I think when people hear a blood test that can screen for inflammation that'll tell you something about your heart health, they might think, "I've heard this story before. It's a company called Theranos, and it went bankrupt."
But the science is well-supported when it comes to hsCRP, high sensitivity C-reactive protein, being able to tell you something about your risk for stroke and cardiovascular events like heart attack.
DW: It does. And in fact, the scientific statement from the American College of Cardiology cites, I think, 16 different other studies that have been done that together form the foundation for the credibility of this cardiovascular marker called hsCRP to actually predict the level of risk.
And one of the studies is called the JUPITER study. And in that study, what they found was that if you could lower hsCRP along with your cholesterol to designated levels, that you could reduce the risk of major adverse cardiovascular events, or MACE for short, by 44%.
MB: Wow.
DW: Yeah. And to do that across a huge population, the study had 17,000 people in it. So very credible and indicative of the other 15 studies that were done with also similar results across the, in different populations, but nevertheless important to the general health of the population.
MB: And so you and Lokahi Longevity and the American College of Cardiology are saying we need to pay more attention to this marker and test for it. You're seeing that the landscape here in Hawaii right now, this is not something that a lot of people know about their own bodies or health.
DW: No, and it's because it's new, especially the recommendation is new. We've known about CRP, we've actually been working on it for about 20 years in one of my other companies as well. So we understand the role of inflammation, but the actual foundation of the recommendation came just in late 2025, and so that is new.
But I think that a lot of people are paying attention to the role of inflammation in aging, and we're finding pretty well accepted. In fact, there's a term for the combination of inflammation and aging called inflammaging. Sounds like a marketing term.
MB: A little bit.
DW: But it was actually invented, the term was invented by scientists to describe the interaction between aging and inflammation.
MB: And so what you have done though is negotiate this $20.50 price with a diagnostic lab in Hawaii to be able to offer this testing. And as part of that, no one receives economic benefit from it?
DW: The labs, yeah, the labs make something.
MB: Sure.
DW: Yeah, of course they do. But we as Lokahi are not making anything from it. We're not charging a profit from it, and we're not selling the test or conducting it. We do think that it will start a conversation, and that conversation hopefully could lead to people's interest in Lokahi's larger programs that are also addressing longevity.
But this is something that can be done now. It's very important, very scientifically and medically credible. That is now available that was not available for most people until just recently.
MB: Talk a little bit more about what that means for people in Hawaii specifically, because we have a very distinctive ethnic makeup compared to the rest of the country, and that translates down into disease risk. So why is this sort of testing important?
DW: Because no matter what part of the population you come from, inflammation plays a significant role, as does your LDL. Now, risk is greater in certain populations in Hawaii. In particular, the Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander risk is higher than for Asian Americans. And Caucasians are somewhere in the middle there.
But it doesn't prevent people of any ethnic group from having elevated inflammation and a need to look at their inflammaging process. And so despite the fact that Native Hawaiians have a much higher risk and Asians have much less, even the Asians need to look at their hs-CRP.
And in fact, in one of the studies, again, the JUPITER study, if you got your level of hs-CRP down to one and your LDL was 70 or below, your risk of major adverse cardiovascular events was down 80%.
So if you think you're partway there, you should look at even moving things in the right direction, in a more significant way than you may have thought possible. Even then, many physicians at this point in time have not followed necessarily all of this new breakthrough information.
MB: If people do get this test, if they find this information out about themselves, what do they do with that information?
DW: Yeah, that's a very important question, because it's one thing to know that you have an elevated risk. The other is to be able to do something about it. And you want to be able to move the needle.
You want to be able to move hs-CRP in particular, and it turns out LDL, but they don't have to go in the same direction necessarily. Reducing LDL, as we know, already has a positive impact, but it's not a complete impact. And if you add hs-CRP to the mix, you have additional benefit independent of your LDL levels.
And so what you want to be able to do is to move both of those downwards, and you can do that with statins, with a new drug that the FDA has approved recently called colchicine, and with some of the dietary supplements that are out there today that have demonstrated an impact on hsCRP and LDL cholesterol in studies as well.
MB: Anything else that you would like to add that you want listeners to know? Because, at its very basic, what you're saying is that there's going to be this test available at this fixed price point, and it's information that could potentially save a life.
DW: That gets us up every morning, is to know that by doing a show like this or others, maybe we do have an impact on the lives of others.
That's what the data tells us should happen, is that we should have an impact on it. Because I think everyone is going to know their hsCRP level like they know their LDL levels now. In the next several years of time, it will become not only commonplace, but a topic of cocktail conversation. "What's your hsCRP? Mine is better than yours." Kind of like the LDL conversations that occur today.
MB: And is this an ask your doctor about it type of conversation, or will patients be able to go direct to lab for this?
DW: You certainly should ask and can ask your doctor about it, but this is new even to the physician community, this recommendation.
But if it's not covered by insurance or if the doctor doesn't feel the need to talk to you about it and you still want to talk about it, feel free to reach out to us. Our phone number is 808-723-5459, and we're happy to have an initial conversation. We're not physicians. We're not giving your own medical advice, but we can talk about the role of inflammation and cardiovascular disease in general, and we'd be happy to chat about that.
CC: That was David Watumull, co-founder of Lokahi Longevity. He spoke with HPR's Maddie Bender about a new blood test that's available that can tell you about your heart health and your risk for heart attack and stroke. We'll have links to learn more on our website after the show.
