Initialize sequence coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the world's
largest medical center. In the approach, raise Everything looking at two. This
is your Health First, the most beneficial health program on radio with doctor Joe
Galotti. During the next hour, you'll learn about health, wellness and the
prevention of disease. Now here's your host, doctor Joe Galotti. Well,
a good Sunday evening to everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti, you're tuned into your
Health First. We are here every Sunday evening between seven and eight pm,
assuming that the astros are not on the radio, and I'll talk about that
in a minute, But anyway, we're here every Sunday to Raise your Health
IQ make you better consumers of healthcare. And as I always start off the
program with our idea here, our plan, our modus operandi, is to
make you better consumers of healthcare so that you have an appreciation, an understanding
of what you can do to make yourselves healthier, stay healthy, stay out
of the doctor's office, and all around be happy. Our website doctor Joegalotti
dot com Doctor Joegalotti dot com. And once you go there you sign a
FROWN newsletter. You can get a copy of my audiobook Eating Yourself Sick.
You can send me an email signer for own newsletter. Look at old broadcasts
and podcasts and blogs and all kinds of useful information about general health and wellness,
but also about liver disease by going to the other links we have with
regard to keeping your liver healthy. And I'm going to be talking about liver
cancer in just a few minutes. But anyway, it's great to see everybody,
have everybody tuning in. We've been off for a few weeks because of
the Astros. The Astros during the playoff and World Series run are broadcasting on
KTRHR home radio station here in Houston, and so we've been bumped for a
few weeks. And as soon as they lost last week, I said,
all right, well it's back to the radio on Sunday evening. We'll have
to wait for spring training again. But it was a good season. I
think it was very disappointing at the end where they could not win at home.
My sense is that there's going to be some sort of after discussion and
figure out what the heck was going on that they could not win at home.
It really defies all logic, but that is what happens with sports,
all right, So for tonight, one topic that I want to chat about
now I will be all right, let's see, let me get organized here,
So a little later in the week, like Thursday, I have been
honored to participate in a TED talk, which will be on Thursday. And
what I want to do is share a little bit of that background information as
to what I am talking about. And ultimately the TED talk that I'll be
doing will be posted on the TED I think it's ted dot com website for
all of you to see at a later date. But I want to give
you a little insight onto the topics that I'll be discussing in my thirteen minute
opportunity standing on the red carpet. But anyway, the month of October is
liver cancer Awareness month. Now a colleague of mine, doctor Sudah Kadali,
has been sending me reminders all month can you talk about liver cancer? Can
you bring it up on the radio? And things were just a little too
hectic this week and the rest of the month to have her on, but
and we will get her back on. She's been on before. But anyway,
liver cancer is a very important topic now. You may be sitting there
saying, what, why on earth do I need to know about liver cancer?
Well, when you go to the different liver cancer awareness sites, I
do have a problem with them. Most of them talk about the science,
the research, the new studies, the new innovative therapy, and yes,
that is all very very important. But I believe, and this is at
the core belief of what I do every day with my patients, and things
we do on a radio and social media and lectures that I give you as
the consumer, have to know if you are sitting there at home tonight,
or you're sitting in your car coming home from work or maybe going to work,
am I at risk for liver cancer? That is the most important thing.
It's not so much that we want to share how great chemotherapy is,
immunotherapy, new diagnostic, new surgical approaches, the role of transplant. Yes,
that is all great stuff. But the idea is to be aware and
intervene if you yourself have any risk factors. So let me give you just
a few high level comments on liver cancer. First of all, what we
are really talking about here, for the most part, is primary liver cancer.
Now, a lot of people when we talk to them, or they
give a family history of what grandma grandpa died from. They would say,
oh, yeah, my mother, my grandmother died of liver cancer. Well
wait a second, Maybe was breast cancer that metastasized to the liver that is
a little bit different, Or somebody had prostate cancer that metastasized to the liver.
We are talking about primary liver cancer, cancer that originates in the liver.
Now. It's not to say that these other cancers are not important colon
cancer, breast cancer, or prostate et cetera. They're very important, and
those therapies are becoming more and more innovative as we speak. But for the
most part, when we're talking about liver cancer awareness, we're talking about primary
liver cancer that originates in the liver. Now, the two major liver cancers
are hepado cellular carcinoma. The short acronym is HCC or a hepatoma. Okay,
that's that's another name or something called calangiocarcinoma, and that is cancer of
the bile ducts. And what I tell my patience all the time is that
the liver really is made up of two parts, the liver cells, which
are the hepatocytes, hence we are hepatologists. And then the other are the
bile ducks or the calangioles and calangiocarcinoma. So they are two distinct cancers.
One is of the liver cells, the hepatocellular carcinoma. The other is of
the bile ducts, which is calangiocarcinoma. Now, the main thing here will
be risk factors. So on the hepado say, carcinoma, the major risk
factors are going to be anybody that has sorrhosis, and cirrhosis is scarring of
the liver. Now there's a myriad of causes for cirrhosis, ranging from alcohol
to obesity, in the development of fatty liver viruses like hepatitis B and C,
certain autoimmune conditions that you are born with increased amounts of iron in your
blood. These are all risk factors for developing orhosis, and a blanket statement
would be anybody with orrhosis is at risk for liver cancer. Now we have
various screening strategies in place to identify these patients to check on them on a
regular basis, because we know the likelyhood of getting cancer is increased. So
if we know it, we're going to have a much more intense surveillance process
in place now and we're gonna be taking a break in just a second here.
And so with that said, you have to look back and say,
do I have a history of hepatitis B? How about hepatitis C? As
a side note, if you still have hepatitis C and have not been treated
with one of the new drugs that have better than a ninety five percent cureate,
you need to call up your doctor, call me, call doctor Cadali,
call somebody tomorrow morning and get in to get treated. There's no reason
why we don't treat the hepatitis C in everybody. Hepatitis C is a carcinogenic
virus. It causes cancer. So look at yourself. Do I have hepatitis
B? Do I have petitis CE? Do I consume alcohol in an excessive
fashion? Now, most of the time alcohol abuse in the setting of cirrhosis
will put you at higher risk for liver cancer. There are some cases that
I've seen where you're not quite at the point of cirrhosis, but you heavily
abuse alcohol, you are at risk for liver cancer. The other big thing
here is fatty livid disease. We call it metabolic associated fatty livid disease.
These are individuals that are overweight, they have diabetes or pre diabetes, high
blood pressure, high cholesterol. They are sitting ducts for developing more advanced liver
disease, but also for the development of liver cancer. So in this regard
we hope that you don't or haven't progressed to soorrhosis, but realize that if
you have fatty liver and a little bit of scarring in the liver, you're
at increased risk for liver cancer. You need to take this very very seriously
and intervene and try to stop or turn back the damage that has seen.
But the key thing is awareness, having a good communication, a good dialogue
with your your team, your doctors, your nurses, your nurse practitioners,
your pas, to say, hey, look, with my underlying liver issue,
my elevated liver chemistries, do you think I'm at risk for liver cancer?
If so, what's the plan. You have to have a plan.
You don't want to be one of these cases that just out of the blue,
have a little bit of pain on your side. Go see your doctor.
And shock that you've got liver cancer. These are things that could be
prevented and diagnosed early. All right, we're going to take a quick break
here. I'm going to comment on a few words on collanio car sonoma,
which is cancer of the bile ducs. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. So happy
to be back after a little few weeks siesta from the Astros baseball run.
Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com is our website. Sign up for our newsletter.
We love sending that out on Saturday morning. Stay tuned, we'll be
right back. All right, Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Thanks
for tuning in tonight. Don't forget every Sunday between seven and eight pm,
we're here and our mission is to raise your health IQ, one listener at
a time. I'm talking to you. Don't forget our website, Doctor Joegalotti
dot com. If you want to send me an email directly, it's radio
at doctor Joegalotti dot com. Radio at doctor Joegalotti dot com. And any
liver related issues fatty liversseorhosis, liver cancer, reach out doctor Joegalotti dot com.
All right, so we have been talking about liver Cancer Awareness Month,
and my good friend and colleague, doctor Suda Kadali, has been nudging me
to talk about this. But we'll get her on soon. The schedule is
just two nuts to get her out here. But anyway, so we talked
about hapatosailor carcinoma. Primary liver cancer risk factors would include cirrhosis, alcohol,
hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and fatty liver. Those are the main main
risk factors. And as I've said, you have to look at yourself.
And this is the part where you need to be honest with yourself to say,
have I been told I have fatty liver? Have I been told I
have hepatitis C? Well, for Pete's sake, get off the chair and
get it evaluated. Okay. I never want you to just go with the
flow. You need to be a better consumer. And this is a large
part of what I do. You have to not simply accept the status quo
to say, well, my my doctor said it's nothing to worry about.
Hey, dude, it's something to worry about, okay. And trust me,
I see patients every single day that had been told don't worry about their
fatty liver. It's not that bad. It is a problem, huge public
health disease and concern, and it's putting us at risk for cirrhosis and liver
cancer. Now, the other disease, the other liver cancer, is calangiocarcinoma,
and this is a disease of the bile ducts. Now, there are
certain diseases that put you at risk for the development of bile duct cancer colangiocarcinoma,
that the biggest one by far is going to be in individuals that have
inflammatory bil disease, be it ulcer of colitis or Crohn's disease. There's a
very peculiar disease that they are at risk for, and that is called sclerosing
cholingitis. It is inflammation of the bile ducts related to the colitis and exposure
of the liver to all kinds of toxins and bacteria, and it triggers a
chain reaction that causes the bile ducts to get inflamed. And anywhere in the
body where there is inflammation, you're going to have the risk of some sort
of a genetic mutation where cancer can develop. And so colangiocarcinoma, bile duc
cancer is a possibility in people that have inflammatory bowel disease, colitis or Crohn's
disease that have these elevated liver chemistries, they may be told that they have
Glorossing colingitis, which can lead to not only scarring and damage to the bio
ducts, but cirrhosis of the liver, but put you at risk for bio
duc cancer. Now, the problem with calangiocarcinoma is that in many cases it's
hard to diagnose. And so again you have to realize if you are at
risk for colangiocarcinoma because you have inflammatory biel disease, you have Schloessing colingitis,
you need to make sure that you are being seen by a team of physicians
and experts. You deserve the best, or your loved one deserves the best
to see that they are very, very diligently evaluating for the presence of calangiocarcinoma,
because in the earlier stages, yes, there is a far greater chance
you could be treated and potentially cured. If left to a delayed diagnosis,
and then I really don't have to tell you you can imagine the outcome is
far more grim. So it's all about knowing your risk factors. And this
goes for cardiovascular disease, for breast cancer, dementia, anything else you need
to know what your risk factors are. So there you have it, doctor
Kadali, I hope I met your standards of talking about cancer of the liver
during Liver cancer Awareness Month. All right, so we're going to take a
break. Links for these various sites information are on our Facebook page. Go
to doctor Joeglotti dot com. Click the link for Facebook and I will leave
them some information posted for you. All right, stay tuned. We'll be
talking more about my ted talk later this week. I'm doctor Joe Galotti,
doctor Joegalotti dot com. Stay tuned, we'll be right back. Well,
so good to be here with everybody on this sun evening, doctor Joe Galotti.
Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com. And if you have any liver related
problem, be it fatty liver. We were talking about liver cancer in the
segment before hepatitis alcohol related liver disease. We're here to give you some direction
even if you're listening from out of town, and don't forget, we're broadcasting
from our home station KTIH here in Houston. Texas, but we are heard
coast to coast on the free iHeart radio app. So certainly tell your friends,
relatives, colleagues to tune in every Sunday night, no matter where you
live, no excuse. You can catch us at seven pm Central Time on
the radio. All right, Doctor Joeglotti dot com is our website. All
right. So I was saying a little earlier in the program that later this
week I am going to be doing a TED talk, and it's a real
honor. You know. My sense is that if you're somebody that is in
education and you speak, and you share ideas and try to motivate people and
inspire them, then doing a TED talk really is a dream come true.
And I'm so thankful that I'll be able to participate. And when I got
the invite and opportunity to speak, it really was not too hard to have
me come up with a topic. Now, there's lots of things I believe
I could have spoken about, but if I had one chance, one opportunity,
I would say, it's regarding what I do every day as a practicing
physician, as a liver specialist, and it's take care of people that have
live a disease but fatty liver disease. But if you take it back,
the reason we are inundated with fatty livid disease and the one hundred million people
in the United States that have fatty liver, it's because of obesity, and
it's because of the food we eat. That is it. It does not
get any more complicated as that. So one of the things that I talk
about is a phrase which people in the office have heard me say this to
them. It is Misery is optional. Misery is optional. Those three little
words are as simple as they are very key to all that we do.
Now. The way this all came about, and this is the backstory,
when I was probably about ten years old, a friend of the family used
to make Christmas ornament Christmas tree ornaments, and he would either give it to
my father to take home or he will put it in the mail. And
so this particular year, it was roughly nineteen sixty nine, the envelope is
sitting on our kitchen table and I come home from school with my sisters,
and I have a pretty good idea I know what it is, and so
I rip open the package and I am stunned by what's in there. It's
a block of wood with these three words painted on it. Misery is optional.
Now, as a ten year old kid, I'd like to think I
was a smart kid, But intellectually, misery is optional. That is a
very very high level intellectual, sort of brainiac kind of idea. It's very
abstract. Misery is optional. And so I remember distinctly, and you have
to believe me when I say I'm ten years old standing in my kitchen,
I could see it like it was yesterday. My mother came over and she
said two things. And she says, wow, this is profound. And
number two she said, one day you'll understand what this means. And so
here we are, many many years later, I am still talking about misery
is optional. And really, throughout the family, friends of the family,
relatives, in laws, there was always that joke in the family. If
something was going wrong with you, either at work or with a relationship,
one of us would say to the other, hey, look, misery is
optional, basically saying, look, things are not that bad. If you
want it to be bad, go ahead, sort of drown in your tears,
but get up, pull your pants up, and get moving. And
so I have applied that to the healthcare space, Misery is optional. Now
looking at it this way, so much of the disease that I see and
my colleague see, like doctor Cadali who I was talking about before the obesity
epidemic and the complications of obesity, namely cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes,
fatty liver cancer, depression, kidney disease, dementia, neurologic disease. The
truth is that the way you personally got that way is based on your decision
to not cook at home and to eat processed food, to eat out every
night. So instead of waking up in the morning and having a nice bowl
of oatmeal with some nuts, a little bit of fruit, maybe a little
bit of yogurt, you elected to go to Jack in the Box for a
breakfast burrito which has enough calories and salt for the entire day. Misery is
optional. It's your call. And so that is really the theme of the
TED talk, that misery is optional, and pointing out to everybody the statistics.
And while we want to say that there's some other force that's making us
sick, that's making us overweight, that's giving us diabetes, when you look
at the statistics, they don't lie and so some of the statistics are in
no particular order. Let's look at childhood obesity. So that number, in
the last twenty years, childhood obesity has quadrupled. We went from about four
million to fifteen million overweight or obese children. Now, how did that happen.
It wasn't global warming, it wasn't the political p already in power.
It was basically what these kids are being fed. And I'm not here to
blame, but there is no Captain crunch Genie that just miraculously this junk cereal
appears in your cabinets and is on the kitchen table at eight o'clock in the
morning when the kids are eating breakfast. It is a conscious decision to buy
this crap. Misery is optional. So the other point about the obesity epidemic,
especially in children, the research will support that the children of today will
not live as long as their parents. Now let me say that again.
The children of today, your kids, your grandkids, nieces and nephews,
little kid next door playing Little League, will not live as long as their
parents because they are being inundated with chronic disease, ease, heart disease,
hypertension, diabetes, pre diabetes, kidney disease, fatty liver. I see
kids that are eighteen years old with fatty liver and cirrhosis. That is pretty
pathetic. But they're not going to live as long as their parents because they
are being afflicted with the diseases that grandma and grandpa developed when they're seventy five
eighty years old, so decades earlier. These kids are getting sick. It's
screwing up their lives. They're not feeling well, they're chronically ill, can't
exercise, their academic achievement goes down, and it creates a vicious cycle.
So misery is optional is a real real thing. All right, final segment
coming up. We're going to take a quick break here, and what I
would say is sign up for our Instagram page which is on doctor Jogolotti dot
com, and follow along during the week. I'll have updates from the Ted
Talk and keep you inforumed on all that. All right, stay tuned.
Final segment coming up. Thanks for tuning in tonight. We'll right back.
Never afraid to push the boundaries of talk radio and your musical experience, Doctor
Joe Galotti, your health first. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com signer for
a newsletter. Hope you're having a great Sunday. It's starting to cool down
a little. It's still pretty warm today if he asked me, but at
least it's not freezing and it's not two hundred degrees outside. Well, you
know, the thing about the music that we play here, more and more
research is coming out that music that you like, music that cheers you up,
puts a little little step into your day, is beneficial from an emotional
standpoint. So you know, my sense is that with the availability and the
why range of music that we have at our fingertips, certainly make up playlists
that make you feel good, that take you back to a better day.
And if your greatest days were when you were a sophomore in high school and
it was nineteen eighty three, and you play the top twenty songs of that
year that makes you feel good, by all means, go ahead and do
that and listen to it time and time again. The research is overwhelming that
these stimuli, these auditory stimuli, are beneficial for our psyche. And so
god knows what all that's going on in the world, we need it all,
right, final segment coming up here, and as always on these Sunday
evenings. Are you planning ahead for the week. What are you feeding the
kids for lunch? Are you going with the standard crappy school lunch or are
you investing a little bit of extra time and effort to make sure that it
is something nutritious. What do the kids have for breakfast? What do you
have for lunch? Are you going to the roach coach or greasy spoon that
everybody else is eating at and ordering fries and onion rings and a burger dripping
with grease. Or are you going to bring a two dollars salad from home
with some romaine, some spinach, some tomatoes, onions, a little cut
up broccoli and a little bit of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It's your
choice. As I said earlier, misery is optional. And you know the
key thing here, and this is why I'm here every Sunday. We're in
our twenty first year. The misery that I see, and I talk about
this in the Ted Talk or at least that plan on it, My job
is absolutely heartbreaking, young and old. I see people that are suffering.
When I look at them and I say to them, this could have been
prevented, and that is what I'm trying to instill here. So much of
the misery that people our experience out there could have been prevented. And that
is the absolute truth. The onus is on you. It's not somebody else's
fault that we're eating poorly. And one, you know, my whole theme
is cooking at home, fresh fruits and vegetables, unprocessed foods that you cook
at home, and day after day talking with my patients, they will say
it takes too much time, it's a hassle. It's only me. I
don't want to make a mess. And so what people will trade off for
making a mess in your kitchen is being on five different medications, having appointments
all through the month, seeing their doctor, not feeling well, feeling crappy.
You know, when you're forty years old, you should not feel like
you've been run over by a garbage truck. You should have vitality, you
should have energy, you should feel like you can rule the world. But
so many patients come in and they're tired, they're whipped, and as Jacquela
Laine said back in the nineteen fifties, pooped out itis. It shouldn't be
that way, I am running day and night, having fun, enjoying my
life. And I do believe because I exercise and I eat right now,
the other point that I talk about is the amount of money we're spending on
obesity related complications. It is estimated that we're spending about two hundred billion dollars
a year. Two hundred billion dollars a year on all of the obesity related
complications. Now that's a staggering number, but let's put it into perspective.
The budget for NASA. Okay, if you recall, these are the people
that are putting rockets into space, exploring the galaxies beyond, heading up to
go to Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Pluto, you name it. Thirty
three billion dollars. And so with two hundred billion dollars for obesity related we
can figure out a way to make a better dinner for our kids. We're
going in the wrong direction. And when you look at the total expenditure,
the United States is outspending the world on healthcare. So we are spending more
money than any developed country in the world, and our life expectancy is falling
short. You need to look at this. We need to look at this.
Our government leaders need to look at this and say what's wrong with this
picture? And it comes down to what we're eating. A steady diet of
processed food is killing us. And the name of my book, Eating Yourself
Sick, I believe as time goes on is spot on, all right.
And when you go to your typical supermarket in nineteen seventy five, there were
about nine thousand different food products. Currently that number has bloated to over fifty
thousand different products. And what are the these additional thirty to forty thousand products
that you see in your typical Kroger's or HB. It is baked goods,
it is condiments, sauces and dressings. The size of the produce area has
really not increased. And there is not new some super duper cucumber for you
to eat. It's the same old stuff we've been eating for years, all
right. So a little bit of food for thought on trying to get your
own health. And if you're sitting there not feeling well, or if you
have more than I can't even say what the right number is. If you
have more than one or two prescriptions and you're on fifteen medicines, something is
wrong. You need to take control. You cannot accept this, and as
I've said time and time again, you've got to go into your doctor and
say, hey, what the hell do I have to do to get off
some of these medicines. Is it a lifestyle change, is it exercise?
Is it weight loss? Or I have to sleep better? Whatever, But
don't tolerate such a crappy existence. All right, we're going to close out
here today. Thank you for tuning in. It's always a pleasure. I
tell everybody, this hour is the best hour of my week to be here
with all of you, and it's a real joy. So look, take
care of yourselves. Put your health first. That's the name of the program.
And you know what, We'll see you next Sunday. Nice and I'll
tell you all about the Ted Talk. But stay tuned. Go to the
Instagram page and follow along for details. Take care, God bless you all.
We'll see you later.