Initially coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the world's largest
medical Saturday in lunch bas Monday, we're going this is your Health First,
the most Beneficial health World, where I'm on radio with doctor Joe Balati.
During the next hour you'll learn about health, mention of disease. Now here's
your host, doctor Joe Blatti. Well. Well, well, a good
Sunday evening to everybody, Doctor Joe Glatti. On this fourth of July weekend,
it's a little weird this year because we've got the fourth is on Tuesday,
Tomorrow's Monday. A lot of people have off I unfortunately have to go
to work, and it's a little bit of a disjointed. You don't get
that sense of a full long weekend, though plenty of you certainly are taking
advantage and having a four day weekend. So that's great. But I do
appreciate your tuning in tonight. We are here every Sunday evening between seven and
eight pm, and our single minded job is to raise your health IQ.
That is it. That is all we really want to do here. If
we accomplish that every week, we're fine. We go home, happy and
get ready for the next week to contact us to be part of the program.
Doctor Joe Glotti dot com is our website, most important things on it
for our newsletter. There's a tab at the top of the page. There's
a contact us tab if you want to send me a message. And we
are going to be hearing from a listener, a follower of hours. In
the next segment, Paul called reached Out. Reached Out had a heart disease
question. He went for a test and got an abnormal result. So we're
going to hear his story, share that with you, and then a little
later on the program, we have doctor Mike Wilson, James Wilson, Doctor
James Michael Wilson, a cardiologist. He's been on the program before and he
will try to talk us through the general things all of you need to think
about when it comes to heart health. And of course all of our social
media is posted on doctor Joe glati dot com. One thing that I don't
talk about too much there is a clinical assessment. I hate to say clinical,
it makes it sounds too medical. It's an assessment. It's a it's
a ten point questionnaire that you could take on the website which will give you
a sense of where you are at with your health and wellness, and it's
a good inventory to take, so don't When you go to the website it
says assessment. You can take it and get a sense of where you're at.
So coming up, doctor Wilson, our listener Paul will be telling us
his own health journey in a sense. Two articles that I were really three
articles that I have to chat about now and I will post these after the
show on the Facebook page. It has to do with artificial sweeteners and cancer.
Now, for those of you that are old enough, back into the
sixties, the wild sixties, saccharin which was probably one of the first readily
available artificial sweeteners, there was always concerned that this was going to cause cancer,
and there was some concern that it caused bladder cancer. But numerous studies
have been done and basically cleared sacharin of that concern. And now we have
back in the news the World Health Organization apart aspartame right, that is equal,
they are in the very near future going to put a warning on products
that contain aspartame that it is now this is the wording possibly carcinogenic to humans.
Now, when you look at the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
They analyze a lot of these products and they give recommendations to consumers and governments
and manufacturers in the pseutical industry. There's basically three levels, possibly possibly carcinogenic,
the second is probably carcinogenic, and the last one is carcinogenic to humans
and so and so this is the big concern here. Now. The one
thing that they are lacking is they do not state in any of their research
the amount of aspartame that you need to eat to put you at risk for
cancer. The general consensus is if you consume a lot, you're at risk
for certain cancers. Now is that a six pack of diet coke is at
a twelve pack is at eighty seven pieces of sugar free gum. So they
don't really say how much you need to consume here. But the one thing
that I would look at, and when you do look at the literature,
they're really is not a lot of cancer data that has been reported. But
I would look at it to say, all of these foods and products that
have these artificial sweeteners, whether it is splenda or equal or saccharin, you're
eating processed foods, and so you have to look at it and say,
if I am eating a food or a diet that is high in all of
these various sweeteners, yeah, you know there may be a risk of cancer
that though that may be quite low. But really you want to stay away
from all of these processed foods which will lead to obesity and diabetes and hypertension,
heart disease, cancer, all of that. The other two stories,
real quick is Ireland is getting into the act here. They are putting cancer
warnings on beer and wine because of the risk of cancer and liver disease.
So stay tuned for that. That is going to create a large amount of
fireworks, no pun intended with the fourth of July here with regard to putting
these warnings on various bottles of alcohol. And we could talk about that a
little bit more next week, because this is this is something I just wanted
to get out there to say in the news. It's going to be talked
about. And the last thing, on a good point, there is evidence,
and I would say we've known about this for a while that short daytime
naps are good for your brain as it ages. And so if you look
at the flip side of this, people that do not get enough sleep are
at risk for hypertension, worsening, diabetes, heart disease, sudden cardiac death.
And so if we can pay more attention to our sleep and taking a
nap. You know who invented the term cat nap, Thomas Edison, the
inventor. He was a big proponent of taking naps in the middle of the
day. But anyway, I think we have to look at our lifestyle.
How crazy are we running around? We have to think about our health.
All right, we're going to take a quick break. I am hopeful that
we have Paul on the line, will be with him in a moment.
I'm doctor Joe Glatti. Every Sunday between seven and APM. Go to doctor
Joe Glati dot com. Stay tuned. We'll write back every Sunday between seven
and eight. We are here. And one of the one of the issues
that I've been talking about as long as we've been on the radio is that
this is a forum. We're able to get people on the phone and talk
with us. We get people in the studio, and we're able to get
people that communicate through our website. They send me messages and received a message
from Paul from Jersey. Paul, are you on the line. I am
Joe. Good evening. Oh hey, Paul, thanks for joining us.
And what we want to do is be able for all of us here to
be a forum for this kind of information. You all have questions about healthcare,
your own health and the health of a family member, and so really
glad Paul you can make it. So Paul, why don't you really give
a quick overview of what you sort of ran into this past week or so?
Well, I'll tell you, Joe, I started the week feeling like
the most healthy guy, love and life and loving being retired right, and
I, through God's providence and luck, I previously had been speaking with one
of my neighbors about what I saw as a gap in my annual physical and
we had a conversation, and the conversation really revolved around the fact that,
you know, I had seen Ray Leo to pass away and Ray Romano talk
about hard issues that he had, and it seemed to me that, you
know, in my annual physical they never really checked the status of you know,
my arteries. So make a long story short. On Monday, on
the advice of my neighbor, he told me that there was this calcium hard
test that I could take and that it was not covered by insurance and that's
why generally the physicians don't prescribe it. But then he told me that the
cost was ridiculously low. Anyway, I took the tests on Monday, thinking
I am a lion and the greatest health and exercise like a fiend. And
then while playing golf Tuesday, I got a message from my internals too said
that my levels were elevated. Right naturally, that resulted in the Shanka hook
and everything else. You're in the same trap there you go. And then,
you know, being a layman, I didn't understand what elevated meant.
And when I spoke to him in the evening, I found out what elevated
meant. So I really got an astronomical score. And you know, now
I'm in the process of dealing with it. I went through all of the
emotions in the beginning of the week, and now I'm at the you know,
the determination stage to deal with this matter, and also sort of evangelized
from just a layman the importance of getting being more of an advocate for yourself
during your examine and being a little smarter about what is being checked and not
check right right I hope that answers your question. No, no, no,
you know, I really think it does. And I to to not
be glib here in any way you are getting. Now, look, we
all talk to friends, We've got this network of people that we trust.
And to say that you're getting your healthcare advice from your neighbor, well that
may have. That seems to be a good thing that you did, but
it is always a little disappointing that our healthcare teams are not leading the way
to look at you and say be it, Paul, be it, Bob,
be it Mary. You have these risk factors, family risk factors.
You smoke, you drink, and you're eighty pounds overweight. You need to
get this test done. How do you feel? And again, you being
the person that's going to really promote this and talk to your neighbors and friends
is going to be very important. But how did you react to that to
say, gee, I'm trying to do the right thing and I've got to
go out and find this test myself. I'm going to tell you, you
know, going into the test, I was just grateful and you know,
it's very confident that I would not have an issue, and you know it
just felt why, why just wise to do it? I really did not
have the expectations other results, and quite honestly, um, I was really
shocked and I think I used the term I was rocked by the results.
Yeah, I really really was surprised. I have a very close relationship with
my intern is and just and you know, I've retired, so my insurance
isn't as good as it was. But you know, I had fantastic insurance
and it just never came up. But I think it's a disconnect between you
know, the intern is trying to you know, say what do I absolutely
need and what is extra and really being led by the insurance company. And
then you know, the irony of it is the test is so so very
cheap. I don't think I presented you know, I love my interns.
I don't think I presented a lot of risk factors. You know, I
would say that, you know, I probably you know, probably as a
result of one of my heroes, my mother who was religious with Jack Lelane.
Um, you know, I'm a I exercise generally six days a week.
I've run four marathons. I actually feel great, Um, emotionally,
I maybe a little bit right, you know, not where I was.
But you know, I really, I really feel feel great in in my
you know, and I guess the sort of the breaking point for me was
a couple of years ago. UM, I did start to have things that
had never happened. I played sports throughout even in college, you know,
not a not a high level, but I you know, mostly had you
know, athletic sprains and you know, fracture here and there, but you
know, never a surgery, you know, nothing like that when I,
UM was I'm sixty three now. When I was fifty nine, UM,
I had a melanoma scare and I had melanovan removed, and then the following
year I had uh back surgery. But other than that, I've never had
You've been healthy, concerned at all. Yeah. So for everybody listening tonight,
one of the things that we try to drill in and what I think
is the value of the program is for you the consumer. You know,
Paul sitting at home being not afraid to ask questions about do I need this
test, do I need this evaluation? What would you say from your own
past history going back years to what has just happened now? What advice do
you have for everybody? Listening. You know, it's actually interesting. I've
had some conversations with my classmates from high school, and I have found that
generally the population would be in my category, which is, you get the
tests, you have a good conversation with the doctor, very very open,
and you trust the doctor, and you know, you do what he says.
A subset of my classmates has said what tests are available and can you
tell me about them? And don't bring the insurance into this, and and
I think those people have had this test, and they've had stress tests and
other tests which I've not had. So I would say, um, you
know, as you can tell, I like to talk, so I think
talk talk to your peers about about their health. And then also, um,
you know, I have great respect for physicians in general, and you
know the ones that I've dealt with, and ask them what else is available?
And I think that that you know, I'm not going to point fingers.
I point the finger out myself. I really did not ask what other
tests can I have? Or say what risk do I have that are not
covered by the annual physical right? And I think that would that would help
quite a bit. And I think, you know, just a little diligence.
You know, you know, and now I'm probably more familiar with,
you know, the number of people that you suffer from heart disease and powers
from heart disease, but asking some of the things that I should be concerned
about, rather than you know, being stuck in the you know, my
mother's generation where you just want to get the doctor to say you can get
out and you don't have to do anything. That's more you know, being
pro I think I need the patient needs to be more proactive on their behalf
and say how can I prevent the things that are you know, flicting right,
you know my peer group? Yeah, you know, I and I
think what happens is when I when I talk to patients, they will say
either the doctor's in a rush or they don't want to have a conversation with
me. But you have to make that conversation as you did, Paul.
Well, look, Paul, we're at a time for this segment. I'd
like to hear back from you in a few weeks with an update. How
does that sound? That sounds great? And I really appreciate your time and
for your people out there, get get some tests and need more advocates for
yourself absolutely all right, Paul, thank you all right, Coming yeah,
Coming up is Wilson, Doctor James Wilson. We're going to talk about this
carnary calcium score that Paul just went for and some other tests and risk factors
and what you all need to know. I'm doctor Joe Glotti. Thanks very
much for tuning in on this fall to July weekend. We will be right
back, so glad you could be with us tonight. Don't forget Doctor Joe
Glotti dot com is our website, so a for our newsletter, send us
a message. You can email me right through the website. Information about our
book and all of our social media is there. Some of the articles that
I talked about earlier tonight about the cancer and the sweeteners and the alcohol warnings
that are going to be coming out in Ireland and the napping story. I'm
going to put them on the faceboobook page later this evening when I get Addie
here. All right, now, we have doctor Wilson on the line,
a cardiologist here in Houston, Texas. His website is Houston MDS dot org.
Doctor Wilson, it's always great to have you on the radio, and
you always articulate the questions that I throw at you. Yea, oh,
thank you for having me. Now, I don't know. Did you have
a chance to listen to Paul, our listener that had some problems with his
heart. Yes, idea that his story gives a new meaning to the term
good neighbor. Yes, that is true, that is that is good and
um like so many people in a sense, and you see very similar type
patients that I see. They they are a bit on the complicated side,
they have multiple medical problems. But how often are patients coming to you in
the in the cardiology space based on a hunch or on a recommendation of a
friend, coworker, relative, Yeah, the guy sitting in the cubicle next
to them, rather than being guided by the healthcare team. Where a patient
is evaluated, they're looked at and the treating physician will say, look,
because of your high blood pressure, your diabetes, a little bit of kidney
disease, you need to see a cardiologist or other other specialists. Tell us,
tell us about that. I think that it's a very common scenario.
And today's world, as you pointed out when you were discussing this with Paul,
is in today's world. You're given X number of minutes at each visit,
and a physician has a series of guidelines and step points and algorithms to
go by. So the meeting and the interaction a lot of times becomes very
impersonal, right, And I think a lot of people feel like, if
I'm talking to my neighbor who knows me and knows some of the things that
I'm worried about, perhaps what they're recommending to me is along the lines of
my concerns, right, and that may not be the same interaction they're having
with their doctor. Right now, That's true, and I think we all
in the practice of medicine have to slow down just a little bit and listen.
But at the same time, you do need patience. And again this
is why for those listen to the listen to this program. We want to
give you the support to ask questions of your doctors. And if you have
concerns, to ask rather than just say, well he or she didn't ask,
we ran at a time, I'll catch him next year. That could
be a major mistake. Oh absolutely, It's nobody's perfect. And to raise
questions is about your own health is extremely important and you always should Yeah,
now, before we get into the calcium test that he had done a real
quick overview for everybody on some of the two parts. Yet really the risk
factors for heart disease and the symptoms. What do you think, I know
this is this is a whole hour, but your a pro and we'll get
we'll cover it well. The very brief version is the older you are,
the greater your likelihood of developing the disease process that causes heart attacks and strokes
athrosclerosis. So age is the principal thing, the principal risk factor, and
your risk really starts at age about roughly forty five in men, fifty five
in women. But the risk factors, the things that can predispose you to
early disease development, start much earlier and recognize much earlier. And those are
high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes. Right. Smoking is I would
put smoking second only to aging, is the most potent risk factor for the
earlier on that development of disease. And then of course excess body weight.
And there are a few other minor what they call disease modifiers, but those
are the big ticket items. If those things describe you, and if you
have at least one of those risk factors. Then concern and testing and asking
your doctor what's my risk of having a heart attack in the next ten years?
Is an important part of your health maintenance. Yeah, I would say
if you have any of those or multiple risks, you know you have diabetes
and high cholesterol or diabetes cholesterol in your obese that almost mandates hit the pause
button when you're in the doctor to say, we have to have a much
deeper conversation now now, symptom wise, because a lot of people are walking
around, even my liver patients are coming in with shortness of breath and chest
pain and they essentially blow it off to one of a hundred different things.
But that is equally dangerous. Yes, it is, because the symptoms can
be very subtle, and the most important thing to recognize is a great many
people have in their head, well, if I have a heart attack,
it's going to make my chest hurt. Right. The truth is, if
you take a hundred people who had a heart attack and you ask them did
that hurt, most of them are going to tell you not really, but
it was really uncomfortable. Right, So if you're having a symptom that is
I've become uncomfortable with exercise or most emotional stress after a large meal. Then
those are the times where you say, I wonder if this could be heart
disease. Right, So it's not always pain, but if you say I
get very uncomfortable, particularly in the chest, the neck, the shoulders,
and sometimes the back. And if it's an accompanied by difficulties breathing, nausea
at the same time, or sweating, and in particular, if you get
the sensation of saying, wait, there's just something wrong, right, that
sensation with those symptoms, it's time to call your doctor. Yeah, exactly,
all right, Well, we're gonna we're gonna take a quick break here,
doctor Mike Wilson, and we're going to dedicate the next and final segment
to this whole calcium score test and what it means should you get it done,
and if you get a bad result, then what Stay tuned, Doctor
Joe Glotti, Doctor Joe Glotti dot com, Stay tuned, will be right
back. Thanks for tuning in with us on this fourth of July Sunday,
Doctor Joe Gallati. Usually on the fourth of July weekend or they're abouts,
I do a little holiday safety session, but we don't have time tonight.
But please be careful because you know what's going to happen Tuesday, Wednesday morning.
We're going to wake up and hear the stories of the drownings, the
car accidents, the fires, kids getting their fingers blown off. I think
you all know the drill. Just be careful this weekend, have fun,
but make sure you show up Tuesday with all your fingers and limbs and everybody's
alive, all right, Doctor James Wilson on the line, our go to
cardiologist all the time. Okay, So Paul, our listener who was on
the beginning of the show when for a calcium score calcium scan, feeling good,
thought he was on top of the world, comes back with a score
of eleven hundred. Eleven hundred. People that I know are getting scores of
seventy one forty three hundred. What does eleven hundred mean to you? So
the score can be a scary as a as a number. What these scores
are is a cat skin takes a picture of your heart dry quickly and everywhere.
There's a little piece of calcium in your hurt that gets counted as a
one, and you add all those up through your your coronary arteries. Now
The numbers go kind of like this, from zero to ten. Yeah,
I think there's something. They're not really sure. If it's a complete zero,
hey, fantastic, there's nothing. Zero to ten, I'm not sure.
Ten to one hundred, there's definitely something there. When you get over
one hundred, that's where your risk of heart attack and the next five years
starts to really rise. So you're identified as somebody you've got astrosclerosis, the
stuff that can cause a heart attack. Right now, here's where the numbers
come in. I'm would give up. I'm not going to go exact on
the numbers, but I'm give them where they're easy to remember. A hundred
is that point. Five hundred is a point at which your chance of having
a heart attack and the next five years is the same as somebody who already
knows he has he or she has a narrowing in their earlies. Okay,
when you get over a thousand, your chance of a heart attack in the
next five years is the same as somebody who's had a bypass operation. Right,
so you've identified then I've got disease, I've got an increased risk of
heart attack. It does not This is the important thing that score does not
mean you have a whole lot of narrowings and you need an operation, or
you need a stint or any of that business. Right, It just means
you need to treat the disease. And treating the disease is lifestyle modification,
weight management, and cholesterol alluring, okay, and diabetic treatment if you've got
it right now, so you get the results and you're sitting at home panicking
concerned, it's the proverbial wake up call. What is the next set of
tests? We are all in a way blessed and cursed with all of this
technology. We could go for something called a ct angiogram. There is nuclear
stress test. As the cardiologist, what do you think about now? So
the most important thing I tell people that come in with these or that I
get to test with them, is to remind them that, look, this
is not the end of the world. You're very fortunate to have found this
before it caused a major problem. Right. The next thing is if the
score is high and your risk of a heart attack is high, I'm going
to be treating you with medicines, but I will need to know, okay,
if you have that heart attack or you at even greater risk do I
need to treat you even more aggressively? So once that scores over at bad
five hundred, I usually recommend that they have a stress test right now.
Paul gave an example of somebody who's exercising regularly and vigorously and when he talks
to his doctor it may not be necessary. Right, But the question you
have now is, Okay, I've got I've identified disease. Has this person
got disease that's so bad that they might die with that next heart attack in
the next five years? And do I have to treat them aggressively? Stress
test is first, the ct angiogram hasn't really navigated properly to its role in
this discussion just yet. Okay, it is. It is a very good
test to identify anatomy. It's not as good as a real angiogram, and
it can sometimes be miss leading because it overestimates your disease sometimes, right,
okay, But getting a stress test of some kind is probably the next thing
to do. Yeah, if your score is if you're like the guys you
were talking about, seventy one hundred, forty, it's okay, let's let's
address your LDO cholesterol, right, five hundred or more. It's probably stress
tests, right, Okay, Now, certainly there's been a lot written about
statins on how they are very helpful in this situation, lifestyle modifications, continuing
to exercise or start exercising, and change your diet where and really, I'd
say we've always known that the Mediterranean diet is good. It seems like more
research is coming out on Mediterranean What do you tell your patients with this plant
based ie Mediterranean diet? So I emphasize all of the first thing that we're
our first goal is to manage your body weight right, and and however you're
going to be able to follow a diet most effectively is most important. I
think the Mediterranean diet is so good because it's so sensible, it's so easy
to follow, and I try to steer people in that direction because it's a
diet that you can live on, right, unlike a lot of fad diets
which really lead to more problems than they solved. Yeah, no, without
a doubt. And you know you talk about Mediterranean diet, the fruits,
the vegetables, the citrus, the fish. Um, right, it's for
the four ASTs and we'll leave the firewater off, right, not tonight,
um right now, just in general as patients are, I don't want to
say they're there, you know. I think we have two brands of patients.
Those that are very passive and they just nod their head, do what
the doctor says. Others are the more aggressive, the patients that come in
with fifty pages of print out from the internet, which I'm okay with that
to tell you the truth, maybe thirty pages. But is there a problem
with the population at large mass testing with all of these things like a calcium
score? Is it for everybody? You know? Where do we draw the
line on, Hey, I want to know, I need to know,
and darn it, I'm going to get a test like this. Well,
I think that one of the points is that you brought up earlier. Is
is a good point of discussion with your doctor, right because in many instances
where you say, hey, should I get a calcium score, the question
has already been answered. If you are let's say you're sixty years old,
you're diabetic, and you have high blood pressure, well, your doctor should
already be treating you as though you have cornea ordery disease. Is aggressively lowering
your cholesterol in the calcium score won't change your medical management, right, because
you're already being treated aggressively. Right. So it's a good point of discussion.
So do I need it or not? Have you already helped me through
this decision? And I wasn't even aware of, right, But I would
say that take home to night based on Paul, and I'd like to know
what the name of his neighbor was. You know, Bob saved Paul's life,
you know, let's put it that way. But anyway, having these
conversations, and you know, the one thing he did mention is we should
all be talking with our friends, you know, what's going on with you?
I mean, you know, uh, you know, we talk about
everything else, but we don't want to talk too much about our health.
But I do think we have to foster a good, healthy relationship with your
your care team, and Mike, I'll give you the last thirty seconds on
that. Why it is so important. It's absolutely critical because, as I
was mentioning earlier, as we go through in our discussions, I may be
seeing somebody with a question of, say a valve problem, right, and
I'm so focused on that where I will essentially forget to address some of the
other things that are important to that person, and some of them made critical.
Do I need my karates? Looked at? Doctor? Should I have
a calcium score? Right? Those are critical, so you really must be
your own advocate, as you pointed out, All right, doctor James,
Michael Wilson, Houston, mds dot org. As always, Mike, thanks
for coming on tonight, Thanks for having me. Ye all right? Great?
All right, everybody, Well, look, hopefully this was a worthwhile
exercise tonight. Have a great Fourth of July. Remember you live in America.
It is a great country. Take care of yourselves and we'll see you
next Sunday night. You've been listening to Your Health First with doctor Joe Gilati.
For more information on this program or the content of this program, go
to your Health First dot com. I gotta go to work at six and more.