Initially Life Sequeenzy coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center. He approach is everything looking ability. I'm this is
Your Health First, the most beneficial health program on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti.
During the next hour, you'll learn about health, wellness, and the
prevention of disease. Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti. Well,
for everybody that is tuning in on this glorious Sunday evening here in Houston,
Texas, I want to wish all of you a happy and healthy twenty twenty
four or it's the first program of the new year, and twenty twenty four
marks the twenty first year that I've been on the radio hosting Your Health First
every Sunday evening, and it really is a great pleasure and as I've said
many, many many times over the years that it is a true delight to
be here every Sunday evening trying to do nothing more than inspire you all to
think about your health. As the name of the program states, your health
First. We are trying to put your health first because the nature of disease,
the nature of my practice, which is liver disease, is one of
kron disease. And this you may, I don't want to say, you
may find this hard to believe, but so much of what we see could
have been prevented with some early identification of some of the symptoms, realizing that
you have a certain history or a predilection for a particular condition, or realizing
that the abnormal blood work that you've been receiving over the past year or two,
or five, or fifteen or twenty. Yes, I do see patients
with abnormal labs for the past twenty years that have not so much been ignored
that the physician, the nurse practitioner, the PA has mentioned, Hey Bob,
your liver chemistries are abnormal. Well, okay, what am I supposed
to do? I don't know, let's watch it. But in a sense,
it is observed neglect, observe neglect. And what the the general public
is lacking is that immediate understanding to say, now, wait a second,
these abnormal labs must mean something, and I need to find out more,
and and and so that happens with blood pressure, cholesterol, pain in the
chest, headache, pain in your back, all of these things. They're
they're innumerable things that we could comment on that are ignored, and so through
the power of this medium, through this radio program, we want to give
you the authority in a sense, yes, the authority to speak up for
yourself and make sure you could intervene and you take control. So when you
see somebody and you feel sorry for them that they're ill, that they've gone
into kidney failure or they've had a stroke, the early warning signs have been
there. I almost guarantee that eighty five percent of all the chronic disease that
we see could have been prevented through identification earlier, a lifestyle modification, or
just an awareness. So that is what that is all about. So to
follow along on the program, one website, I want you to go to
doctor Joegalotti dot com, doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R J O E
G A L A t I dot com. That is me. You can
sign up for our newsletter, follow us on all of our social media platforms,
Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, all there for you to follow along and
participate in. There's many many ways that you could reach out to me and
communicy with me. And if you need a second opinion, you need some
direction on a healthcare problem that you are somebody else is having. There's a
mechanism to reach out and we will look at your records. We will help
you if you're out of town. Because we are broadcasting on the iHeart app
coast to coast, I think around the world. We get patients and phone
calls and emails from all over the world. So don't be timid and you
say, well, I live in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Doesn't matter.
Reach out and we will give you a hand. Doctor Jogolotti dot Com.
All right, Well, lots to talk about today, but there are a
few articles I want to chat with all with you about. And the first
one is probably a good start for the new year. And there has been
so much discussion in the lay press, the scientific press about longevity. How
do we live longer? And this one particular article I came up with from
the New York Times, it makes a whole hell of a lot of sense.
And let me just say this again, common sense will always dictate the
day. Common sense wins ninety nine point nine percent of the time. All
right, so here are seven keys to longevity. And let me just say
it is not so much. Hey, I'm going to live to one hundred
and seven, but be in a nursing, home, drooling. It is
that lifespan of functionally living, being happy, being with your family, your
grandkids, so that you still have able to paint and play tennis, or
write books, or go hiking or canoeing or boating or fishing, hunting,
whatever you want to do. We're talking about quality. And the opposite of
that is when you are chronically ill. I don't care if you're forty years
old. If you're chronically ill and all discombobulated, that's not living. I'm
sorry, that is not living. So here the see the seven number seven
keys to longevity. Number one is move. You have to exercise, you
need to do something, and study. You have to study. And more
is growing that people that have reduced activity, reduced exercise are at risk for
premature death and chronic disease. Now, the American Heart Association, our friends
at the American Heart they recommend one hundred and fifty minutes of moderately intense exercise
per week. And if you just walk a little more than twenty minutes a
day, that is beneficial. So think about one hundred and fifty minutes per
week of exercise. Move that is what you want to do. Number two
is more fresh fruits and vegetables. This is man. If you are unaware
that fresh fruits and vegetables are part of a good diet, you have been
in a cocoon somewhere. But there's no doubt that fresh fruit and vegetables,
a decrease in processed foods is the key. And really it is following the
Mediterranean diet. We've talked about this a lot. Newsletter talks about the Mediterranean
diet. So the Mediterranean diet is fresh fruits, vegetables, lots of citrus,
whole grains, legumes, nuts, fish, and of course extra virgin
olive oil. That is probably the closest thing to a perfect model for maintaining
weight and the avoidance of processed foods. Number three, get enough sleep again.
One and more research is coming out that not getting enough sleep is associated
with dementia. Who the heck wants that, and that we really need to
get more sleep as we get older. You don't need less sleep, you
need more sleep, and the research has shown that less than five hours of
sleep a day is quite perilous for you. All right. Number four,
don't smoke and don't drink too much. So obviously we've known about the not
smoking part leading to lung disease, leading to cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart
attack, peripheral vascular disease that is the blood supply to your legs and your
limbs. And alcohol. We have always said that for men you should have
no more than two alcoholic beverages per day max. That does not mean you
have fourteen on Saturday night, and for women no more than one. Now
there is some research that is showing that two drinks per day maybe a little
excessive, so you want to really really curb back your alcohol. Number five,
manage your chronic diseases. So if you do have diabetes, if you
do have hypertension, high cholesterol, kidney disease, you want to make sure
that these diseases, these chronic conditions are being managed at the maximum level.
That is really key. Seeing your doctor, taking your medicines, understanding what
medicines are supposed to take, and following up with your doctor intensely, not
once a year, but a few times a year to make sure everything is
still in check. Number six is prioritize your relationships. And here again we
know that people that are unhappy, people that are in all screwed up relationships
don't do well. It's very important that as we get older, we have
these relationships people that we connect with. Either you go visit people or people
come and visit you. You're in a little friend group no matter how old
you are. You play cards, you go dancing, you sit around and
read together at the library, whatever it is. That human connectivity is very,
very beneficial for your health. And the last thing is having a positive
mindset. This was something that my mother, my dear mother, who I
talk about a lot, and my dad always talked about hanging around people that
give you a good vibe, having a positive outlook on life, being happy,
trying to help others really does impact on your own health and wellness and
your longevity, as opposed to somebody that is constantly, constantly negative, doesn't
have anything positive to say. The glass is half empty. Want to be
that half full or three quarters full type person in your life. You don't
want to be down. So as a quick recap, move more and exercise.
Number two, more fruits and vegetables, Stay away from the processed crap
food that we're surrounded by. Get more sleep, don't smoke, don't drink
too much, manage your chronic disease. Prioritize your relationships at number seven,
cultivate make sure you have a healthy, positive, optimistic outlook on life that
is absolutely key to all of you. All Right, we're gonna take quick
break. I'm doctor Joe Gillotti. Thanks very much for tuning in. Every
Sunday night. We're here between seven and eight pm. We try to play
some good music too. Stay tuned. We're right back. Welcome back,
every body to twenty twenty four. Doctor Joe Galotti here every Sunday between seven
and a pm. Raising your Health IQ, one listener at a time.
There's our mission every Sunday. We're in our twenty first year. So happy
and truly love what I do. This is truly an extension of our medical
practice. My medical practice which is Liver Specialist of Texas. And if you
want to find out more about what we do, Doctor Jogalotti dot Com is
our website. And I tell this to you know, patients and listeners and
everybody that I meet. Going there, you find out all of the information
that we have there for you to share. Number one. Number two a
way to communicate with us, so you could subscribe to our weekly newsletter There
is a link there for newsletter, which is your sort of a weekly installment
of health and wellness information. And it's a mechanism to stay in touch with
us. We want to stay in touch with our patients, our radio audience,
our social media community and have feedback. And there are ways that you
can email and correspond back and forth with me and people on my team.
So go to the website doctor Joegalotti dot com. We have our YouTube videos
are up Instagram. We're doing the thirty one Days of Wellness on Instagram and
so every day we post a little video about some health and wellness tip or
trick or hack for all of you to look at. And of course my
book Eating Yourself Sick is available there. All right, So we talked about
longevity in the last segment and the one issue and this is a little bothersome.
So many patients complain that they have no energy, they are just tapped
out. Now, the sad thing about this is that they are thirty years
old, forty fifty, and it's very interesting and it's something that we talked
about and I have to dig through the archives and dig this out. For
those of you that are old enough and remember or know who Jack Lalaine is.
He was back in the nineteen fifties. He had an exercise show and
he really brought to the forefront exercise. But in one of his TV shows
that I captured the clip and I was luckily enough to interview him before he
passed away a few years ago. He talked about people having pooped out pooped
out itis, and that was nineteen fifty five, and here we are in
twenty twenty four. People are still fatigued. And I don't get it.
I mean, with all that I do, I am full of energy.
I love what I do. I'm happy, I'm optimistic, I eat well,
I exercise. So I don't know if that's the key or am genetically
programmed just to be that way. I don't know. But we have to
look at whether or not you are deenergized because of an underlying chronic medical condition.
Do you have sleep apnea, do you have pre diabetes, are you
overweight, you have high blood pressure? Do you have a low thyroid some
other gland issue. But I think the quick tips here would be, you
know, getting enough sleep. I talked about the need for sleep in the
last segment. But you always have to look at going to bed, not
as the end of the day today, but the beginning of tomorrow. You're
planning for tomorrow, and that can energize us instead of saying, man,
I had a real crappy day, think about how tomorrow is going to be
better. The other thing is we have to get away from this multitasking and
block out time for singular things that we need to do. The other thing
is we have to set up these digital boundaries. We're connected to our phones,
our devices, TVs, computers, laptops, all of this stuff,
and I think that that is just tapping us out, and we have to
really gain control of that. So think carefully about your energy and how much
we have. And it's very precious. All right, News, weather,
traffic coming up. I'm doctor Joglotti, doctor Joglotti dot com. Stay tuned,
I will be right back. Welcome back, everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti.
Thanks very much for tuning in on this Sunday evening. And I was
chatting with friends of mine on the East Coast and they're getting hit with some
pretty lousy weather and I had to tell them, well, on Saturday that
was I was standing in my backyard in a short sleeved shirt, telling them
how much it was, how nice it was. But that's Houston, Texas.
But I think they'll be making fun of us in the middle of July
when it's one hundred and forty degrees outside and we're burning up. But anyway,
hope you all had a great holiday season, the Good Christmas and New
Year's. I went to Colorado for a few days and I had the plan
was to go skiing. Now I am not an accomplished skier. Some people
would say I don't even know how to ski, but I've skied. I
skied in high school, skied all through college, and a little bit when
the kids were a little bit younger. But the truth of the matter is
it's been fourteen years since I skied, and I had this notion that,
well, it's like riding a bicycle. Just get on the skis and push
me over the edge. Well, part of that is true if your body
works. Now, the only ailment I have been nursing for the last year
or two has been a slightly sore knee and it sort of flares up and
flares down. I do stretching, I go to pilates, get it massaged
out. I try I had to strengthen it at the gym. I've been
swimming, and I actually thought that all of the investment in time on my
knee and my legs would pay off to the point that I could have an
uneventful few days of skiing in Colorado. Well, that did not work out
as well as I thought. After about an hour, I was starting to
feel discomfort in both knees to the point where I was having some control issues
going down the hill and I had to prematurely leave the mountain and head back
to the lodge. And it wasn't a guy thing or a manly thing to
say that that skiing has gotten a better part of me. I had to
realize that for me to get better, probably do need to continue to rehab
my knees, and I'm in the process of getting that figured out with orthopedists
and whatnot, but I'll have to do that. I also have to improve
upon my ski technique, because let's face it, it's body mechanics, and
if you're not skiing properly, you're going to put extra burden on your knees,
your hips, your legs, your ankles, your whole body. And
so that means more skiing time, more time investment in the actual process of
skiing, which means is maybe a greater chance that I'm going to injure my
knee which I'm trying to rehab. And so I had to really look in
the mirror and have a come to Jesus talk with myself and my family and
say, look, I don't think skiing is going to be in the cards
now. There's lots of other things to do. People were telling me,
oh, you got to go snowmobiling. Now I could get into that.
Cross country skiing might be a little less of a problem. I've done that
years ago, and so there's other ways to get out into the outdoors.
So for all of you, I think, what's the take on here?
Okay, you know a little bit about me and my bum knee, But
the other thing is don't give up. You have to look and see what
you can do. And so if you have some kind of trouble exercising or
doing something that gives you pleasure, you have to say, instead of completely
abandoning an exercise routine or your love of outdoors or your love of socializing,
try to see how you can retrofit yourself or retrofit the activity to still remain
active, get outdoors, enjoy the fresh air of the outdoors, seeing nature,
seeing the beauty, being with friends, relatives, co workers, etc.
So that would that's what I would say if and that's what I'm going
to try to do, because, as I've told you before, when when
my wife and I go on vacation with our friends or with our kids,
we go hiking, we go outdoors, we do a lot of physical stuff
outside. I now have to rethink, in the context of a knee problem,
how I'm going to do all of this. But I'm not giving up.
That is the bottom line. Never give up. Never give up on
your health, because as soon as you give up on your health, you're
screwed. You throw in the towel and you start to decay. And the
older we get, you need to be more attentive. All right. One
topic here is sugar, and I am absolutely a dound it every time I
go to the market. I am a label reader, and I would think
you should too. If there's one thing you're going to do to improve your
health, it is read labels. Now, if you're reading a lot of
labels, that means you're eating a lot of processed foods. So it's sort
of a catch twenty two. When you go to the grocery store and you
pick up a head of cabbage, there's no label on it, just the
price tag because there's nothing added to a head of cabbage, get it.
But with other foods that we eat that are processed, you need to know
the amount of sugar. How do you know that? You read the labels?
And so the issue with sugar is that it is very, very sneaky,
and a lot of the sugar that we eat is going to come from
process foods. But a lot of foods that you don't think necessarily are going
to be sweet and sugary and a mouthful of crap. So let me,
let me just try to go through this. But the key thing is where
there is sugar, processed sugar. We're not talking about sugar from an apple,
all right, get beyond that. You know, when we talk to
people about nutrition, they say, well, there's sugar in apples, Well,
yeah, but that's natural. I'm talking about artificial, processed sugars that
are in there. Because where there is sugar in your diet, there is
obesity, type two diabetes, fatty liver, cirrhosis, heart disease, you
name it, okay, and we are consuming too much sugar. The American
Heart Association recommends a limit of six percent of your calories coming from sugar.
Right now, it's somewhere around thirteen percent. So we need to cut at
least at least by fifty percent the amount of sugar that we are consuming.
Now, where are these you know, sugars coming from. Well, first
of all, as I said, read the labels, and it's going to
be under Typically the label is going to say total sugar. Okay, that's
a number. It's going to be twenty one grams, let's say, And
then it says includes seventeen grams of added sugar. So seventeen from twenty one
is four. So the product itself contains four grams of sugar naturally, but
seventeen are being added by the guy in the assembly line. So that is
what you need to know. Know your labels. Number two is you don't
want to drink your sugar. I e. Sugar sweetened beverages are at the
top of the list of where added sugar comes from. Now they make up
about twenty four percent of daily added sugar intake. Twenty four percent, So
you just don't need that sugar. Now, people realize that a regular coke
is high in sugar, but a lot of the energy drinks, fruit drinks,
iced teas, bottled smoothies have a ton of sugar. Now. The
other thing, because we're gonna raise your health IQ, that's what we do
here on your health First, a lot of these products are very skillfully advertised
fortified with vitamins. My goodness, this drink is good because it's fortified with
benefits and you get this health hayli as they like to talk about. Don't
be duped by this. Look at all the added sugar. Then you have
coffee and tea. Going to Starbucks as one of many places, you're getting
a cup of coffee which essentially has no sugar, but you're getting all this
added sweetener in flavors or flavorings loaded with sugar. Okay. The other thing
is you want to visualize what all of this sugar looks like. So what
I mean by that, so a teaspoon of sugar. Everybody has an idea
what a teaspoon of sugar looks like. That has about four grams of sugar.
Okay, So if you're eating a yogurt with beneficial probiotics fruit at the
bottom. It's got to be good, and it has sixteen grams of sugar
added. Well, just imagine those four added teaspoons of sugar. You have,
you know what it looks like. You kind of have a concept of
it. But imagine if you were with somebody and they were having a cup
of coffee and you saw them put four teaspoons of sugar. You'd say,
hey, pete, what are you doing. Your teeth are going to rot.
Let alone get diabetes. But again, we have grown to accept all
of this added sugar in our diet, and that's got to be stopped.
But you know, you need to take the first step here and then watch
out for all of the unexpected sources of sugar. How do you know that
you read labels, you become a good consumer. So things like bread,
salad, dressing, ketchup, various sauces that you cook with, many times
they are just riddled with added sugar. Okay, ketchup is probably one of
the biggest defenders. The other size is understand the portion size. Okay,
So you may look at a product and say a cookie, let's say,
and you say, oh, it's only got you know, four grams of
serving for four grams of sugar preserving. Well, that's like one cookie instead
of the handful that you may be accustomed to taking if you are that kind
of a person. But the key thing is to understand how this all works.
All right, our website, don't forget doctor Joe Galotti. Send me
a message. It's a new year. Tell me what's on your mind,
Doctor Joegalotti dot com. Or for those that are really paying attention, radio
at doctor Joe Galotti dot com is the direct direct to email. Radio at
doctor Joecalotti dot com. All right, stay tuned, final segment coming up.
I hope you're having a great evening together, and you know what we'll
write bet final segment of this week's Your Health First, the first of twenty
twenty four, Doctor Joe Galotti. Every single Sunday between seven and eight pm,
it is your one hour to commit yourself to learning about health and wellness,
how to stay out of the doctor's office, how to be a better
consumer, raising your health IQ and seeing to it that you have a happy,
healthy life, good quality of life. And if you are stricken with
a chronic medical issue, you really do, make the best of it and
limit the amount of damage that can develop. Our website Doctor Jogalotti dot com,
Dr Joe ga la Ti dot com. Doctor Joe Galati nice Sicilian name.
I was with a patient this weekend over the phone and it's it's funny.
Now. There are a few restaurants, both over in Italy and in
the States where and my wife argues with me all this time because she denies
ever seeing this, But I have on the menu on the dessert for ice
cream. Now most know gelato, but there are some restaurants that will say
Galatti exactly the way my name is spelled. So there's one patient, she
was pretty sick but enough to remember my name. I said, now I'm
doctor Galotti, I'll be back tomorrow, etcetera, etcetera. And she looked
at me. She says Galatti, Gelati, Gelatto, And she said do
you like ice cream? And I laughed and I said yes. But anyway,
Doctor Joegalotti dot com. All right, final segment here. We've got
about five minutes or so before we have to close up for the week.
I over the Christmas break, there was a dear friend of mine had a
I'd say, a moderate health crisis with a relative and he needed a little
advice, a little bit of navigation through the system, which I supplied him
with. But he was still having some challenges with the office, with the
team of people that was taking care of his relative, and so again I
coached him through this as far as what he needed to do. But it
always raises a question for all of you listening, how do you be that
really, really good patient? And being a good patient is good for you
and your health or your family members and health. So here are a few
things that I jotted down that I thought definitely are worth sharing with you.
Number one is prepare. You need to prepare for the visit. Whether it
is your well woman exam, it's your GYN exam, you're taking your kid
to the pediatrician, you're taking yourself to your internest or family practitioner. You
need to prepare and make sure you know all of your medications, what they
do, the prescriptions, when do they run out, do you need refills?
And also understand what your medicines do. Okay, you don't want to
say, oh, I take a blue capsule and a pink pill and a
blue tablet. I take this in the morning. I take this at night.
No, come on, We're way beyond that. You need to know
what these medicines do, and if it's been a while since you've seen your
physician or care team, you want to have in your head a sequence of
events to say, you know what, over the summer, I was traveling
in California and I had food poisoning and I had diarrhea for five days,
and whatever the case may be, or ever since you fell off your bicycle
you've had pain in your hip. You want to be able to tell a
coherent story. So you have to prepare and get your thoughts together. Know
whatever tests you've gone for recently, be at a chest X ray, cat
scan, EKG. You want to be knowledgeable of what these tests are and
the implication of the results. The other thing, which I recommend all the
time, you want to go to the office visit with somebody, be it
a relative, a spouse, one of your kids, your BFF, best
friends, forever, somebody that could help you in understanding or gathering all the
information there to troubleshoot and to act as a second set of ears. Next
is take notes, go to pad, write things down, understand and ask
for clarification, how do you spell that? What is that doctor's name?
What is his phone number? If you're being sent for consultations elsewhere, you
always want to know what the next step is. Okay, so you see
the doctor today. They want blood work? Why do they need blood work?
What are they looking for? What are they thinking? The other thing
is to know the expectations. Yes, Bob, I want you to get
an X ray of your left hip. Okay, when do you think I
should get this done? When will I know the results? When will we
circle back? Is it a day, a week, a month. Most
people get really ticked off when they don't know when to follow up. They
may not ask, we may not tell. So it behooves you to ask
and get your calendar out and say, is this something that I'll get the
results in five days, ten days or two weeks? Let me know.
You want to know. And this is sort of the toughest thing. You
want to have some sort of a direct communication with somebody inside the office,
be it the nurse, nurse practitioner PA, or medical assistant. I don't
think most doctors are going to give out their cell phone in their personal email
account, but somebody in the office in this day and age through electronic communication
patient portals. You want to know how you can reach out other than a
phone call to somebody in the office. That is really key. The last
thing is become a student. You're only going to be able to have as
good of a hospital visit with your doctor as well as you are prepared.
So preparing, as I said earlier, know your medications, know what tests
you've gone through, have a good chronologic order. Understand or do some research
on the MRI, the pet scan, the new medicine or the new consultant,
the new cardiologists. They're sending you to look them up online. Get
information so you are most informed. That is the key, all right,
So I hope, hope that this helps the end of the show, an
hour goes fast. Don't forget doctor Joecalotti dot com. Do your best to
concentrate on your own health and wellness. That is the key. At the
end of the day, it'll do marvels for you. Have a blessed week.
Let's get twenty twenty four off to a great start, and we'll see
you next Sunday night