GLP Drugs, CA Screening, Meal Prep, & Good Patients

a message. All of our social media links are there, and so that is our one stop shop to find out about the program. It is at doctor Joeglotti dot com. So you know, for this Sunday evening, I decided to break it up into four different segments. I want to really cover four separate topic with you during each segment. The first one is I want to give a quick little overview about the GLP one drugs that are on

the market for weight loss. You really can't open up a newspaper, magazine, or listen to the radio or TV without hearing about ozempicg V manjaro, all of these agents. So we're going to touch on that. Second part, I want to talk about cancer screening. This is something that all of you really need to be up to speed of. Third part, we're going to talk, you know, really give you a little bit of my spin on meal prepping.

A lot of people talk about how they meal prep, but others really don't have a very good sense of how to do that. And then the fourth part really is how to be a good patient, how to be a good consumer when you are getting healthcare for yourself or for your family. So I would say to make this a really good actionable radio program for tonight. Those are the four agents we you know, really the four

topics we want to talk about. So to start off, these GLP one drugs, and they are probably one of the hottest topics in the news with regard to health and wellness and weight loss and looking good, and it's the cool prescription to have. But you all have to proceed with caution. And I have been saying this nearly from the beginning. Now let me let me just sort of tell you where I'm coming from. Yes, indeed, there is no denial we are facing as a country a

massive obesity crisis. This is a tsunami of a health crisis. Now you would say, okay, there are these drugs, these GLP one agents. It's ozempic, wagovi, rebealsis, Victosa, Munjaro, zep bound, trulicity. These are medications that will indeed work and make you lose weight. So on one hand of the argument, you say, well, gee, you're telling us this is a tsunami of a problem and we have a fix in a sense, so what's

your beef? Well, I think we have to ticket one step further and look at this a little bit more clearly. First of all, these medications are not without side effects, ranging from mild to moderate to severe side effects. Now at the absolute worst conceivable side effect, there has been talked for a long time that these GLP one agents can cause thyroid cancer. That's something you certainly don't want

to deal with. But I must say there have been some recent reports that indicate that thyroid cancer is less of a problem and may not be associated with these drugs. Now I am in the next couple of weeks, I'm going to be reaching out to my thyroid expert, my diabetes expert and see what she thinks about this. But the medical literature would make you think that the risk of thyroid cancer is much less. The other serious side effect is the development of pancreatitis, which is inflammation of

the pancreas. Again, this is a complication that could be mild, moderate, or severe. The monerit to severe cases of pancreatitis can really take you down and take you out, so you have to be careful. The majority of the other adverse events or side effects are related to a lot of gi disturbance, nausea, vomiting, constipation, just feeling sick to your stomach. Even more rare, developing something that would look like a

bowel obstruction. But many times these feed people, these patients feel really horrible, and that is enough of a side effect to make you stop taking it. Now, the other real issue that I have is that for those that get on these drugs and pick whatever variety you want, whatever flavor of the month. It is ozembic, well go v Victosa, manjaro, zep bound, etc. Yes, you take it. You may or may not have side effects. You could sort of tolerate it, You could sort of limp through

the side effects. But the key, the key issue that I have is that people are not patients, are not learning to eat better, They are not learning to take care of themselves better. They are not learning about nutrition and food. And what happens is, for whatever reason, you have success, you lose weight on these medications. We've already established that. But for some reason, either it's an insurance issue you can't pay for it, or maybe you're having some sort of side effect from it and you have

to stop. So the twenty thirty, forty or fifty pounds that you've lost will come back right away, because you have not made any conscious decision to change the way you eat, the way you cook, the way you take

care of yourself, your different lifestyle issues. Because with all of these medical therapies, there always is in it really is sort of in this small print associated the use of this drug associated with lifestyle modifications, and that is exercise, taking better care of yourself, sleeping better, limiting or avoiding alcohol. Eating a more nutritious diet. Now, eat a more nutritious

diet is not eating out. You're going to have to bring the nutritious diet into your house, preparing meals, knowing how to meal prep, which we're going to get to a little bit later. And so if you do not make this a priority to learn how to shop and meal prep and decide which recipe or foods that you're going to eat are better than one or the other, you will not be successful long term. Will not be successful long term. Now, there are many people that are

indeed overweight or in the early stages of obesity. They have never never tried to exercise more, they have never tried to adjust their lifestyle the decisions that make the

habits that they have. I have had so many patients that have been in this situation, and typically they have fatty liver disease, high cholesterol, and some early diabetes changes and they take it upon themselves to eat better, learn to cook, adjust their diet, exercise, stop alcohol, stop drinking sugar sodas, get rid of the sugary cereals, all the processed foods, and they come back in six, eight, twelve, sixteen weeks later down fifteen twenty twenty five pounds and

they're feeling better, and their labs look better and their diabetes markers, their blood sugar looks better. So it can be done. But if you're in this pill mentality, which I love to talk about, where I need the shot, I need the shot to lose weight, but you haven't done the hard work. And I really wouldn't look at

it this hard work. It is a conscious decision that you're going to change your ways, because it really is unsustainable to think that every overweight person, every obese person is going to be on these medications for what the rest of your life. That doesn't make any sense either. So for those that have serious complications related to heart disease, serious complications of diabetes or obesity, kidney disease, et cetera, yes, these medications play a very very important life saving role.

But for many others, and I don't know what the exact percentage is, is it fifty percent of the people have to or could go through the lifestyle pathway. First, eat better, exercise, stop drinking, don't you know, have a leader of doctor Pepper every day. I don't know if that's fifty percent or seventy percent of the people. I just don't know. Maybe it's twenty percent, but that is what we need to do. All right. So GOP agents

they're very effective. They will work, but you have to realize that there are adverse events that can make you sick, moderately sick, mildly sick, or severely sick with complications. But at the bottom of it all, your greatest success is going to be if you intervene yourself with these life style changes. All right, all right, let's take a break. The next segment I want to come up on is we're going to be talking about cancer streak, cancer screening

strategies for all of you. It's something that is always worthwhile to talk about. Don't forget Doctor Joeglotti dot Com is our website. Stay tuned. We're bright back raising your Health IQ, one listener at a time. That is our call to action for all of you. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Every Sunday, we're here between seven and a PM, and I certainly do appreciate your giving us a little bit of your weekend. To buff you up a little bit and make you better consumers. That is it. Doctor Joglotti

dot com. Doctor Joegalotti dot com is our website on a for our newsletter, send me a message. All of our resources are there social media. Uh. If you want to follow along and stay tuned with anything new that we're doing, we do webinars and our podcasting is all there, but you have to go to doctor Jogalotti dot com. All right, So segment number two we finished on the GOLP one agents sync in and think out all of that.

The next thing is cancer guidelines. What is it that you need to do to reduce your chance of cancer. I think people would rather hear that they're going to be abducted by aliens and flung off to Pluto rather than be told that they have cancer. It is really, really a very feared thing, and for some reasons, yes it is. But in no particular order. Here breast cancer, and we've talked a lot about breast cancer. If you

go back on our website and our podcast. I have had a number of interviews with women that have gone through breast cancer and it's great to hear their story. But from the American Cancer Society Breast Cancer. If you are forty to forty forty years old, you should have the choice to start annual breast cancer screening with a mammogram if you wish to do that. Forty five to fifty four you should get a mammogram every year. So the forty to forty four is by the American Cancer

Society guidelines a little on the earlier side. If you want, you can, but they're saying forty five to fifty four. If you are fifty five and older, you should switch to a mammogram every two years and continue to screen annually. Screening should continue as long as a woman is in good health and is expected to live ten years or longer. Now, all women should be familiar with the known benefits, limitation,

and potential harms associated with breast cancer screening. Keep in mind if you have a family history a genetic tendency, you need to be more aggressive the style of screening with more of a and I hate to say standard mammogram, but you may need to get scanned with MRI of the breast. But certainly you want to talk to your healthcare provider, be your primary care or your GYN physician.

So you want to know your family history, your mom, grandmother, sisters, aunts, cousins that have had breast cancer, or if you have any other personal risk factors. One thing here I'll throw in alcohol and obesity is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer. So again, you can screen all you want, but if you're not intervening with these risk factors, it is you're not going to get as big of a bang for your buck. All right, let's talk about colon

and rectal cancer. So as long as you don't have a family history, you are sort of an average risk type person. Screening for colon cancer starts at forty five years old. It can be a colonoscope, it could be some sort of a stool based test where you submit a stool sample. Colon guard is probably what you're most familiar with, which is an acceptable form of screening. But

it's forty five years old. Certainly it's going to be younger if you have a family history of colon cancer, or family history of colon polyps, or you have other diseases that put you at risk for cancer, one of which is ulcer of colliitis or Crohn's disease that is inflammatory bowel disease. Now the key thing. The key thing here,

screening is for people that have no symptoms. You do not see blood in your stool, you do not have abdominal pain, you have not had unexplained weight loss, you have not noticed that your stool caliber, the stool size has changed. If that's going on, we're no longer in a screening mode, but we're more in a diagnostic mode. Why are you having blood in your stool, Why are you constipated, Why are you having pain in your abdomen

or down in your rectum. Okay, so typically screening starts at forty five obviously if you have symptoms earlier, but if you're in good health, you should continue screening through age seventy five. If you're seventy six to eighty five, again, talk with your doctor and make these decisions. Cervical cancer, certainly, this is something that's going to be discussed with your gynecologist.

It should start at age twenty five for women. And of course we have the human papaloma virus vaccine, which is something that both men and women should think about getting to lower the risk. And then we have endometrial cancer. Again, this is something that you want to check in with your gyn to see what specific screening needs to take place.

The last thing before we take a break is lung cancer, so with people that are smokers or have quit smoking, so it's really current smokers or people that used to smoke, and or if you have at least a twenty pack year history of smoking. So a pack year is if you smoke a pack of cigarettes a day for a year, that is a one pack year smoke. If you smoke it half a package a day for a year, that

is a half pack year exposure. But anyway, if you are a smoker between fifty and eighty, the screening strategy is low dosed CT of the chest annually. All right, so that is another strategy. And then prostate cancer, certainly this is in flux. Again, talk with your doctor about getting screened, getting a PSA test, to digital rector exam.

Uh and uh again talk with your doctor. The other thing I'm going to post on our Facebook page is a website from the American Cancer Society that talks about it's a little online five minute quiz that you could take about knowing your cancer risks. All Right, I'm doctor Joe Galotti. News weather, traffic coming up, Stay tuned, We'll bright back doctor Joe Galotti back. Thank you for tuning

in the Needy program with your help. Kurst for Jervis Sunday between seven and eight pm and our website Doctor Joegalotti dot com, Doctor Joe Galotti dot com. You know the you know last segment, we were talking about cancer and I wanted to make sure we didn't gloss over the issues related to prostate cancer. So over the last ten fifteen years, there has been controversy or I would

say lively discussion about screening for prostate cancer. One of the issues was that a lot of men were going for unnecessary prostate biopsies and this lent led to not only discomfort and cost, there could be some issues related to infection or bleeding or other issues. So the American Cancer Society, which is really one organization, it is not the ultimate voice. There are others that are going to

comment on prostate cancer. But their issue is that they recommend men make an informed decision with a healthcare provider about when to be tested for prostate cancer. So starting at age fifty, men should talk to a healthcare provider about the pros and cons of test that they can decide to make the right decision. Now. If you're African American or have a father or brother who had prostate cancer before sixty five, you should have this talk with

your healthcare team. Starting at age forty five, if you are going to go ahead and get tested, you should get a PSA prostate specific antigen blood test with or without a rectal exam starting at that time. How often you get tested will depend on what your PSA level is. But the overwhelming part we've talked about screening for cancer. How do you take control of your health and reduce

your cancer risk? That is the whole issue here. Stay away from tobacco, limit alcohol, if not avoid it altogether. Try to get to and stay at a healthy way. More exercise, eat healthy, as I will tell everybody, plant based, whole food diet, plenty of fruits and vegetables, the idea of eliminating alcohol, protect your skin, and most importantly is know your family history. Okay, know what mom or dad died from. So many patients coming to me and they

have no idea what their parents died from. Yeah, they had some sort of tumor cancer, they went for surgery, chemo, radiation, and hell if I know what it was you know what, you're not doing yourself a favor or your children or your siblings, so you really want to know about your family. Okay, for the third section here, we're going to be talking about meal prepping, and everybody talks about meal prepping. Do you meal prep? I meal prep ME and my boyfriend

meal prep. I meal prep on myself. I meal prep on meal prep on Friday? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yay. So by definition, in a sense, meal prepping is that process of planning and preparing meals in advance to save time number one and really reduce stress. So many people get really a bit whacked out when they start thinking about preparing their meals. But the third thing is also to ensure healthy eating so that you're not doing it on the fly and look, I am as

guilty as anybody could be. You're starving. The last thing you may want to do is start making a meal when you're about to pass out because you haven't eaten. But if you have things prepped already most of the way done, it's going to ensure healthy eating and prevent you from going to the drive through. Okay, so now this practice of meal planning really at its simplest forum will involve cooking or portioning meals ahead time so that you're ready to eat through the week. It is preparation

meal prepping. Okay, So the various components here. Number one the planning, So you have to decide on the meals for the week, what the heck you're going to do. You're going to have to make some sort of a menu, consider your nutritional needs and preferences. Do you want more fish, you want to go more high fiber, do you want to go more vegetarian without any meat? And you have to create a shopping list based on this meal plan. Okay,

so that's planning. The second thing really is what we would call batch cooking, so as best you can prepare large quantities of ingredients or fo meals at once. This will save time and ensure you have healthy options available. So you plan out what you're going to eat, you go shop, you've got all the raw materials, no pun involved, and then you just prepare a whole bunch of grilled chicken, a whole bunch of fish, a whole bunch of various vegetables that are ready to go. Again, saves time to me.

Saving time cuts down on anxiety, and you're going to have healthy options available at all times. The third part is portioning. You have to portion this stuff out. You got to divide meals into individual portions. Now, if you are very good at eyeballing, it good for you. But get a scale. You can buy a scale on Amazon for fifteen dollars and that way you can make sure you've got three or four ounces of a vegetable, of

a protein, et ceterac. So by portioning it out both in size right, that's sort of a portion, it makes it easier to grab a meal on the goal and helps again control portion size. For the last year, I've been a big fan of these vacuum sealers. So we will make certain vegetables, fish, chicken, and vacuum seal it so that I know, if I'm home alone, nobody's here. I have a portion of chicken that's already cooked or vegetables that are already cooked. And the last thing is

storage air tight containers to keep these meals fresh. You don't want it to go bad and spoil. And then label the containers with the date so that you don't find something that's like two years old and then you get sick. From that. So it's planning, batch cooking, portioning, and then storage. And the key philosophy here is not to make it difficult. Keep it simple. What was it, Bill Clinton? Keep it simple? Stupid? You want to choose simple recipes. Now, simple recipes do not mean that you're

eating a lousy diet. You want to look at recipes that have minimal ingredients and preparation time. There's a lot of different meals that you can make by stir frying. You could, you know, chop up shrimp, chop up chicken fish and just sort of pan cook it. Salads, grain bowls or what a lot of people are having. So you get some brown rice, you could have quinoa, various nutritious grains, and you put it all together in a bowl,

very nutritious, good portion size. The other thing is looking in bulk certainly, you know large pot baking sheets, prepare multiple servings at once, roast a whole bunch of vegetables at one time, and it makes it all the more easier. Now that the technology is here at our fingertips, A crock pot, slow cooker, insta pot certainly is very popular. A lot of my patients, a lot of friends and neighbors have these. These will allow you to basically set

up the meal and come back when it's completed. You don't have to sweat over a stove or an oven, so think about getting an insta pot or some sort of crock pot. Prep the ingredients separately. You want to chop the vegetables, marinate the protein, measure out things ahead of time so that it's all ready for you. You could freeze the food. But the main issue is you have to create a schedule. You have to sit down once or twice a week and make a menu. And

it's not just for dinner. You want to say what am I having for breakfast? And again I've said this many, many times. Research has been done that shows the people that have the more mundane foods through the week. Every week they have oatmeal. Every week they have some sort of Greek yogurt and fruit, or throw some sort of chia seeds in it, overnight oats. That's okay to keep it simple as long as you know it takes a lot of the anxiety out of it. What am I

going to have for breakfast today? What am I going to have for lunch? It's okay to say I'm gonna have a garden fresh salad plus minus throwing a little protein in it, or are you going to throw a little keen one into it or a little bit of brown rice? Or instead of just having vegetable, you could slice up an apple, you could put slices of a banana, some peaches, some grapes, cherries, et cetera. And keep in mind, frozen vegetables are as good as fresh and same with

the fruit frozen. There's a ton of frozen fruit options that you can buy. But it's setting up that schedule and so that you don't get too bored, have some variety. Okay, it's you know, just tweaking a recipe a little bit is beneficial. So that is you know, the big the big take on meal prepping and all that it goes into it. And really the under pinning value of this is that number one, you're going to have control over

the ingredients. Because when you go out and you go to a restaurant, I don't care how much you pay for a meal is going to be too big. It's going to have too much salt, too much fat, and thus too many calories. Okay, so if you're trying to reduce your weight. Going out is going to sabotage it totally, okay, and having control and by meal prepping, it's going to take the hassle. And I listen to patients all day long, people that are in their twenties, people are in their

sixties and seventies. They find it such a burden, such a burden to cook and prepare meals. Me I'm the happy idiot. I love to cook, I love to prepare, I love to shop an experiment and it makes me

feel good. So I think if we can inspire you, motivate you to do this, it is it is you know, our mission is accomplished to make you find the joy in not only creating these meals for yourself, but having meals with your family and your children, the people you love, the people that are in your community and friends and breaking bread together. All right, all right, final segment is coming up, and according to my schedule, we're going to

be talking about how to be a better patient. That's very key, Doctor Joe Galotti every Sunday, and from the bottom of my heart, it is a great pleasure to be here sharing some of the weekend with you. Whether you hear the whole hour you just hear for a segment. Don't forget. This is all going to be available on our podcast for replay and all the other social media is at Doctorjogalotti dot com. Stay tuned. Final segment coming up. We'll be right back here, all right, final segment of

this week's Your Health First, Doctor Joe Galotti. And just a reminder our website, Doctor Joe Glotti dot com, Doctor Joeglotti dot com. Sign up for our newsletter. There's a tab write on the homepage. And certainly you can send me a message. And we always love to hear from our listeners and followers to give us ideas on what they may want to hear topics experts. Where very much

game to hear from everybody, Doctor Joegalotti dot com. While you're at it, certainly you can pick up a copy of my book, Eating Yourself Sick in the next few weeks. It's going to be coming out as a paperback. Right now, it's still in the hardcover version, but Eating Yourself Sick is available on the website with a link to Amazon. You know, I have a you know, my fingertips all kinds of music being in the radio industry here and

this song here. I don't know if anybody realizes what TV show this came from, but it was The honeymoon Owners back one of the earliest sort of sitcom shows in the nineteen fifties, Jackie Gleeson, R. Carney. It was the benchmark for a sitcom show. But hearing this music, this orchestration when I was a kid, it was already well into syndication and reruns. But such fantastic music that the Honeymooners started off with, just great to listen to.

All right, So the last segment of the four topics, we talked about the GLP one agents and weight loss and or complications. We talked about cancer screening, we talked about meal prepping. Now on being a patient. So, how is it that you're supposed to behave How are you to make the most of your visit an interaction with your physician? Well, I would say the best way, and this is not so much act good or act bad.

This is not a behavior sort of lecture here, but really, how do you get the most out of your healthcare provider, your healthcare team so that you are ensured good health? Well, what I would say is, first of all, understand your health insurance, your policy. What are the limits of the policies? Do you understand the copay strategy? Do you understand your deductibles? Okay, now, how are you supposed to know about this? Well? Number one on your insurance card, it should lay out your

copay and or your deductible. Is it somebody in network or out of the network of the insurance. Is it a primary care? Is it a preventive visit that you're having or is it a specialist? Is it an emergency room? Is it an urgent care? What about labs, other testing, X rays and prescription You need to be a student.

You cannot show up at the doctor's office. And when they say, missus Johnson, your co pay is forty dollars and you have a deductible that you have to pay one hundred and thirty dollars today, and that creates, you know, big anks. At the end of the day. It is your responsibility as a patient to know your insurance and what all offices will say, we will verify your insurance as a courtesy to you. Nobody is obligated to do this.

You are supposed to know how this all works. If you are If it's not all spelled out on your insurance card. Then there is probably some sort of toll free number for you to call for customer service and ask say, I'm going to a specialist, I'm seeing a cardiologist in two weeks. How is this going to work? And they'll say, what's the name of the doctor and they'll say, well, doctor Johnson, and they look it up.

They're like, doctor Johnson is in network in your Blue Cross Blue Shield network or ETNA or whatever it may be. And you will have to pay a ten dollar copay, a twenty five dollars for your deductible that is still due, and after that you're fine, okay, but you have to find out. So that is a very big part of how to behave as a patient. Number two, you have

to do a little bit of your homework. If you're going to your primary care doctor or a specialist or somebody new, you want to know a little bit about why you're going to see them. If you're referred to a specialist because of a spot on your lung, a spot on your lung, it could be an old infection,

it could be cancer, maybe it's nothing. You want to have a little bit of an idea talk with your doctor, talk with the nurse practitioner, talk with their staff to say why am I being referred to a lung specialist instead of just showing up? And when we sit with you and say, okay, missus Murphy, why are you here? I don't know my doctor just told me to come. That really is making it all the more difficult for

the team to figure out why you're there. We can guess, we can speculate, but you want to take all the all the guessing away. The other thing is I always always recommend that you go to the doctor with somebody else. You need a wingman or a wing woman or wing person, somebody that is writing shotgun for you, somebody that could listen, somebody that may not be as emotionally charged about a

diagnosis or a condition or a fear. And make sure you bring a notebook, bring some index cards, questions, and always go with at least two or three questions that are written out, not fourteen, not thirty. Don't bring a whole binder of questions and articles to look at. Go with three well thought out questions for you that'll make your visit all the more valuable. And the last thing, as we close up this Sunday evening. You want to get to know the people in the doctor's office. Who

is his assistant. Is it a medical assistant, is it some other illustrative secretarial support person? Does he have a nurse? Is there a nurse practitioner a PA that works with your doctor? But you want to befriend as many people as you can so that you have really clear communication with the office and the physician. And how do you get questions answered? Do they have a portal, do they use email, texting, et cetera. So hopefully that is a

few tips on being a better patient. Again, our goal with all of this is to really keep you healthy and just lead a healthier life and have fun. That's what it's all about.