Cold Temps Affecting Your Health & Alcohol Use Disorder

not only here in Texas, but around the country. The inauguration is being moved inside because of the cold weather, and many parts of the US are just getting hit with very cold, snowy weather. So I'm glad you tuned in tonight. We'll talk about all of that now. To participate in the program, our website doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R J O E G A l A t I dot com. All of our social media is posted there to follow us along. Now, I don't know if TikTok is up or down. It's been, it's off the air,

it's back on, it's off. I've heard just recently it is back up. I haven't checked. But doctor Joeglotti dot com is where you find out about our social media and of course sign up for our newsletter, which goes out every Saturday morning. On the website, there is a tab that says subscribe to the newsletter and you go there something a little information, your email, and bingo next Saturday. If you're not a subscriber already, you will get it

in your inbox. And really, what I tell everybody, that is the easiest way to keep up to date with things that are going on with the radio program, other educational endeavors that we have with our followers, be it a webinar, be it a new YouTube video that we put out, a new article, something we're doing, or something that you should be aware of to keep your health and wellness front and center. Doctor Joeglotti dot com. All right, so the weather now, for the past several years, the

Glotti household has really fit. There's lots of news websites that have weather, but we have been really enjoying Space City Weather and it is space cityweather dot com and they're a local group here based in Houston, and I think they really give a very very detailed analysis of any kind of weather, be it hot, be it dry, hurricane, tornado, locust, whatever it is. Space City Weather is my favorite place to go to and if you want an update to try to figure out what's going on, I would say

go there. So the latest posting from about three forty this afternoon, it looks like the amount of snow between

Monday and Tuesday in Houston. If you look at Houston as the epicenter, about four inches, the Woodlands about four inches going up to Luffkin four inches, Crockett two, Beaumont Port author between four and five, Lake Jackson two going out to Victoria a little less two inches, but basically in the two to four inches of snow, which I believe since two thousand and four was the last time

we had that kind of of snow. Worst case scenario is mapped out it eight inches, believe it or not, with a one in ten chance, but it could get a lot worse. And of course the other thing is

when is this all going to happen. It's probably going to happen Tomorrow evening into Tuesday, should clear up, but it's going to remain cold, and that's where the freezing part comes in, and there's going to be car accidents, there's going to be people slipping, pipes are gonna break, and we have to be, you know, really really very careful there On Wednesday, temperature wise, nineteen degrees in Houston, sixteen in the Woodlands, fifteen in Huntsville, Victoria sixteen, So

it's still going to be below freezing. So you have to be very very careful. Now when we talk about these weather emergencies in a sense from a health standpoint, that's what I do. Are you prepared? Do you have two to five to seven days worth of medicines? Now what I would say tomorrow Monday, you should be okay. If you need to get out to a pharmacy to get refills, though I'm sure they're all going to be inundated. Do you have enough food now when this storm comes in?

Do you call nine to one one if you are having a medical problem, or do you drive to the hospital now. Of course, the worst thing you want to do, say Monday night into Tuesday. You don't want to be on the road driving to the er, either by yourself or with somebody else. So you may want to rely on calling nine to one one, but you don't want to over abuse it. So tomorrow, I would say, starting tonight,

take inventory. How are you feeling right now? Do you feel like you're coming down with something or are you a little bit more short of breath? Do you have stomach pain, headaches, whatever it may be. Tomorrow is your day eight o'clock check in with your doctor to see if you can get that issue resolved now early, rather than going until four o'clock tomorrow when all hell is going to be breaking loose and the city is going

to be paralyzed. So again it is an ounce of prevention, and don't wait till things get too bad, because it's gonna be the worst time to try to get out there or try to get help. All right, I'm doctor Joe Glotti. We're going to continue this conversation in just a moment. Doctor Joglotti dot com is our website. Stay tuned we'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti, I think this song is a little ironic. Considering I hear this song, I think I should be at the

beach in a baiting suit. Instead I'm in a snowmobile suit. But hopefully puts a little smile on your face as we deal with this impending weather issue. And my main take home message as a physician, somebody to communicate with you few things. Number One, as I said earlier, tomorrow is your free day. Early, I would say before two o'clock. Get the medicine you need, get the food, Situate yourself for two or three days of maybe being a little

out of touch. Like I said earlier, if you're not feeling good tonight, or you had a rough weekend, or you're not quite sure how the next couple of days is going to be, don't rely on let's see. Let's give it another day or two, because in two days you're going to be the city's going to be paralyzed. So tomorrow morning, check in with your doctor, see if you could have a tell, a medicine visit, a phone visit to try to get some direction on your health issue.

The other thing, if you have appointments Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. See you know, call now to switch the appointment instead of getting falling behind. Because so many of our offices we're going to have to reschedule people, So get in early on that. The other thing is this is a little bit of the community approach to taking care of one another. If you know a relative, a friend, an older person, a neighbor that has a questionable housing situation.

They may have a less than reliable heater, drafty house and they live by themselves, Extend a hand, have them come over, find an extra bed, get a sleeping bag, somebody give up the bed and sleep on the couch, just so that they could be in a warm, safe environment. Because we're going here later in the week. House fires that started with space heaters turning down their oven and a family died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They went in

their garage and started their car. Guaranteed, it's going to be said Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, you're going to hear these stories. A lot of this could have been prevented now. The other main point is for those that are I'd like to say over fifty, not to pick on anybody over fifty or those that have chronic disease. The cold does funny things to your body, especially if you have heart

disease or if you have lung disease. So, if you have heart disease, you have hypertension, you have high cholesterol, maybe you've had a heart attack, you have some stens in, you've had open heart bypass surgery, you have congestive heart failure. Many times the cold is not your friend. It puts a tremendous stress on you if you get cold sitting

in a cold house, sitting outside, or trap outside. And so it is not uncommon that when somebody with underlying heart disease goes outside and oh, now they decide to clear some snow up their driveway, off their front stoop their car, that they start getting chest pain. It's called Angina or New York, we would say in China. But angina has a sign almost like that early warning that you may be having a heart attack. You're not getting

enough blood to the heart muscle. And so you have to look at things and say, look, I'm a little bit older, i have high blood pressure, I've had heart failure, I've had a heart attack, I'm on three heart medicines. I better stay warm, So if you do have to travel out, legitimately bundle up, keep your chest warm, keep your legs warm, your body, your core, maybe put a man over your face so that the cold air is

not going directly into your lungs. And if you have underlying lung disease COPD, chronic bronchitis, the cold air or asthma. A lot of people get sick with asthma this time of the year. The cold air can trigger an asthmatic attack, an exacerbation of COPD, and a lot of you may know this, but gosh, you've been living in the South for many, many years and you're not really accustomed that getting a cold blast of air. So you have to

be very careful in those regards. And for Pete's sake, find some kid in the neighborhood to sweep off your car, clean your front walkway, have some you know, give the kid a few bucks, have them go shopping for you, or you know, we have all these delivery services now if you need certain essential things delivered to your house. But the main thing also is, let's say after Tuesday or part of Tuesday into Wednesday, the ice. If you

do not have to drive anywhere. Stay home. I've been in Houston, Texas thirty plus years now, love the people, this is my home. But cold weather people here don't know how to drive. Don't know how to drive when the weather is in clement, especially snow or ice or sleep. The other thing is there's going to be slips on icy surfaces. And if you're sixty five, you're seventy seventy five and you break a hip, break an arm, break a shoulder, it's going to be a tough recovery for you.

So again you have to look at this and say, it looks icy out there. I am not going out by myself. Make sure if you have to go out, you have a strong bodied person helping you to the car, helping you into the store, whatever the case may be. And I cannot say enough of being careful with the space heaters, carbon monoxide toxicity and poisoning that's going to take place, and the fires. You know a lot of

emphasis is on your pipes. Yes we don't want the pipes to bust, and your flowers and your pets, but you really have to be very, very cautious with how you are going to take care of yourself and it you know, it really is important, and for so many we operate on sort of this brinksmanship. We wait for the very end. Do you have enough get in your car? That is one thing that my wife will always tell me. It's gonna be a storm, it's gonna be cold, it's

gonna rain. Do you have enough gas in your car? Yes, ma'am, Yes, honey, I'm gonna go get gas. But be prepared. And again part of the neighborhood community check in. All of us have at least one or two or three people that you probably need to check in on. And if you know that they're elderly with a bunch of medical problems, see how they're doing. Maybe you have to help them get some refills on their prescriptions, maybe communicate with their physician.

But the other thing for yourself. Much of what we do here we try to empower you to understand the warning signs of things that may be getting worse, the warning signs of a heart attack, chest pain, shortness of breath, pain down your left arm, some vague indigestion. If you're sitting there tonight Sunday evening, seven twenty seven pm and you're not feeling right, take action now rather than waiting till tomorrow or the next day. It really is very

important there. All right, Coming up, I want to chat a little bit about alcohol use disorder and dry January. Are you all familiar with that. I'm not against it, but I just think we have to think about what we're doing not drinking alcohol in January, and is that something we need to do? All right, I'm doctor Joe Glotti. Stay tuned. News is coming up in a minute and we'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody, doctor Joe Galotti.

We're here every Sunday evening between seven and a pm with a single mission, raising your health EyeQ, making you better consumers of healthcare, staying out of the er, staying out of the doctor's office, of course unless it's for a schedule check up. And I always like to say that roughly eighty percent of all the chronic disease that we see, the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the cancer, the heart disease, delivered disease is related to lifestyle decisions

we make. Now. This is not to look down and say bad you, You've made yourself sick, get out of the office. That's not the point we're here to help.

But in all the years that I've been practicing medicine, liver disease, very sick patients, very complicated patients, so many of them that by the time they come to visit me and my team, they have had things going on for years to decades and they just didn't realize that a particular behavior which everybody else is doing, but for them, was somehow harming their heart, their liver, their lungs, their kidneys,

whatever the case may be. So the idea is to have that eighty percent down to fifteen percent twenty let's try to take a big bite out of that. But it's all about awareness, and that's what this program is about. This is what I'm all about, is what my team is about. We want to empower you to understand we're not selling anything. We're not trying to get you to take snake oil. We're just trying to enlighten you and

your family. And I've always been saying for the twenty two years I've been on the radio here, I want to give you actionable information. You could hear something tonight and make a change immediately. So with that said, I'll get into dry January just in a few minutes. But one one thing that came out right after New Year's was the Surgeon General. US Surgeon General came out with a twenty twenty Alcohol and Cancer Risk Report, and this

got a fair amount of play in the press. And the basic synopsis is that there is a relationship between consuming alcohol and getting cancer. And the data would indicate that, well a few things. Alcohol use is a leading preventable cause of cancer in the US. A preventable cause of cancer which means drink less or don't drink and you

reduce your chance of getting cancer. Now, it's estimated that there are about one hundred thousand cases of cancer directly related to alcohol, with about twenty thousand cancer deaths every year. So these are numbers that really do get your attention worldwide. It's it's it's certainly a big problem. Now. The issue here, and this is where I like to say, hey, you need to be better consumers. We want you to be better consumers. The data indicates that less than half of

Americans are aware that alcohol consumption increases cancer risk. So when you look at radiation X rays, ninety percent of the population is where that radiation can give you cancer. Tobacco eighty nine percent. Asbestos. You know, you watch TV, listen to radio. There's all these class action lawsuits. Did you work at the Brooklyn Navy Yard in nineteen fifty three, Oh yeah, I did. You might be at risk for lung cancer. Okay, so we get that kind of awareness.

Asbestos is bad, You're going to get cancer. Obesity. Fifty three percent of the population knows that obesity is related to cancer, which is a good thing. But only forty five percent of the population eighteen and older are aware of the connection between alcohol consumption and the increased risk of cancer. And so that's something we need to work on. Now. The other issue is, and again this is where you need to all be aware consuming alcohol increases the risk

of developing at least seven different types of cancer. Well, you're probably sitting there, doctor Glotti. What are the seven cancers? Mouth? That would be the oral cavity, throat, your pharynx, back of your throat, voice box, larynx, esophagus, breasts in women. And there's a little side note to that. Liver cancer. Now that's where I come in, just as a side note. But then colon and rectum. But two things on the liver if you have hepatitis C or you have hepatitis B,

both of which have very good medical treatments available. If you consume alcohol, you have an increased risk of getting liver cancer and cirrhosis if you have a fatty liver. There's one hundred million people in the United States with a fatty liver. Separate topic, but just take it at that, Consuming alcohol, even small amounts, increases your risk of getting cerrosis and or liver cancer. The other thing about breast

cancer and women. Now, we always talk about women should drink no more than one standard alcohol drink per day and no more than two, But even with small amounts of alcohol, the risk of breast cancer goes up about sixteen percent sixteen percent. So if you're a woman sitting there tonight and you say, well, gosh, I don't want breast cancer. I don't want my daughter to get breast cancer. I don't want my mom to get breast cancer, reducing

alcohol can cut that risk down. So again, these are very important bits of information that I really do think that we need to be aware of and share with one another. Believe it or not, I did post the report on TikTok, but I don't know if TikTok is up and running, so I'm going to repost it on our Facebook page, even though I think I posted it immediately when it was up there. But Facebook is at doctor Joe Galotti. But go to doctor Joeglotti dot com

and you'll see it there. All right, Stay tuned. Final segment coming up. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. I hope you're all staying warm tonight Tomorrow Wednesday, I'll right back final segments for this Meets Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. I got a text during the program here from a friend and listener and they said, Joe, are you sick a little head cold? The studio here is a little dry.

I probably haven't had enough water to drink today, but my voice and my nose is a little nasal, So I hope I don't sound too too bad here on the radio tonight. But I am well. I was out in Big Bend National Park for a week hiking with a bunch of friends, and it was cold out there, beautiful if you've If you've never been to Big Bend National Park out in West Texas, you definitely have to

put it on your bucket. List. Now, I've been to essentially or nearly every national park in the United States, and this was the first time I've been to Big Bend. And it is way way out there. It is quite a drive. And these friends of ours have been going for years in January and I said, well, what about like April or May? And They're like, no way, it's too damn hot. It's desert out there. People die out there.

So I think this is really a fall into early spring type of place to visit if you want to have a good time with your family. But Big ben National Park. I'll try to post some pictures on social media in the days to come and give you a little bit of a taste of it all. Right, final segment here, don't forget go do doctor Joegalotti dot com. Sign up for our newsletter. All of our social media is there. If you want to answer me a question medical, you need a consult of some kind. And what a

lot of people do. They will reach out to me that they have a relative, a friend, coworker, a neighbor that lives in somewhere out west, let's say, and outside of Houston. Let's say we have we're able to get you connected with other specialists around the country. That is a role. I really do enjoy linking people up because the worst thing is to say, hey, I've got this problem,

I have this disease, I need surgery. It sounds bad, and you just have that one local opinion, always, always, always, if you want a second opinion, get a second opinion. And me and my team we always enjoy connecting people's free. We're not going to charge you for anything. It's a service of what we do here. But you have to go to doctor Joeglotti dot com to reach out to us,

all right. With regard to alcohol and as a liver disease specialist, a lot of my time is spent taking care of patients that have alcohol use disorder alcoholism that affects the liver to the point that it causes all kinds of life threatening complications, cancer, cirrhosis, need for transplant, et cetera. It is a big problem. Now. While I am not an addiction expert, I deal with addictionologists nearly

every day. We're talking to people that are in alcohol recovery nearly every day, and we look at alcohol use disorder alcoholism as no different than any other chronic disease, asthma, bronchitis, psoriasis. It's chronic disease. It's not necessarily a disease that you're an alcoholic, you're a bad person, and you have no control. No, it is a disease of the brain. And there's lots of stuff that we've talked about in the past on

the program here. But it's January and I hear people are out, they're at a party, they're over for dinner. Would you like a glass of wine? Bob, No, dry January? Well, what's that all about? So I'm not here in any way to fault people that are following a dry January. That's fine. But if you have a glass of red wine on Friday when you go out to dinner with your family, and it's only Friday night, so that means you have three or four glasses in a month, why

are you limiting alcohol? I'm not quite sure. You have a beer on Saturday watching basketball, or a couple of beers on Sunday watching football. Why do you want to do dry January? Now? Just a question, just a rhetorical question. But at the same time, there are plenty of people that I know that are what I would consider heavy drinkers, heavy consumers of alcohol, almost to the point of binge drinking. Okay, and they will do a January, but February one they

are back to heavy, unhealthy alcohol use. So it's nice to see that you can control yourself and stop for thirty days and stop alcohol, But why not try to make it a lifestyle to cut it down three hundred and sixty five days out of the year. And so I don't understand, Like so many things with diets and exercise, people go to the extreme. You've never exercised seriously in ten years, and you go to a spin class, or you sign up for a spin class and you get

injured the second day. We see it all the time. I'm sure you do too. But the definition of alcohol use disorder, which I'm trying to tie in here, you know, these are people that have some degree of alcohol dependence.

They drink more than intended, They have a loss of control, they have craving or preoccupation with drinking, They have a tolerance to drinking, they withdrawal, they drink alone, They have problems at work, trouble relationships, financial issues, careless about personal appearance, blackouts, drunk driving. This would be the sign of alcohol use disorder. Now with binge drinking, typically for a woman it is more than four drinks at one time, usually within two hours.

For men five and so binge drinking alcohol use disorder. It's sort of a spectrum. But I would say for those that are doing a dried January, no alcohol because you think you have an alcohol problem, I would say, number one, get help. Talk to your doctor, Talk to somebody on your doctor's team. There are online resources, of course, we've had here in Texas, the organization Positive Recovery, they could do an online assessment. There are other organizations online

that you can call in and get some assessment. So, yes, it is, you know, very good to see that people can potentially realize that, hey, I think I have a problem. I'm going to stay dry on January. That is great, kudoos to all of you. But the follow up is, you know what it is a problem. Can I take this into February into March? Or if you were drinking three or four glasses of wine per day, can I get that down to two? Can then I get it down to one? Can I get it down to one

glass of wine a couple of days a week? But there is an addiction issue. There's a brain issue, not a personality problem, not a bad person, but you do you may need to get help. That would be the main thing. And I'll post that Surgeon General report on the effects of alcohol and cancer on our Facebook page, Doctor Joe Glotti and we will go from there. So sum it up. It's going to be cold, it's going to snow, it's going to be icy. Watch out for

one another. If you don't have to drive, stay away, and tomorrow, I'd say you have half the day to get your medical issues in line, be it your prescriptions, your meds, if you're having any sort of medical problem that you're not sure of it. You know that your mom is not feeling well, don't wait, call your doctor

and get an appointment tomorrow. Maybe you might be able to do it rather than trying to get help in the middle of a storm and go to the er and all hell breaks through then all right, So look, everybody, stay safe. We'll see you next Sunday night. Don't forget go to doctor Joeglotti dot com and we'll see you next Sunday night.