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He this is your Health First. It's the most beneficial health program on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the next hour, you'll learn about health, wellness and the prevention of disease. Now here's your host, doctor Joe Galotti.
Well, a good Sunday evening to everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti. This is Your Health First. We hear every Sunday evening between the hour of seven and eight Central Standard Time. And of course we're broadcasting from our home state seven forty k tr H in Houston, Texas, but we are heard around the globe on the iHeartRadio app. Make sure you download the iHeartRadio app so you never ever miss
an episode of Your Health First. And if you've got friends around the country, your neighbor's next door that want to listen to the program. Certainly, the more the merria, the more people we can influence with the message of good health and wellness, raising your health out q, making you a better consumer of healthcare, the better off all of us will be. Now to follow along with the program, the easiest way is our website doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R j O E G A l A t
I dot com, Doctor Joe Galotti dot com. And when you get there, you can sign up for our newsletter that goes out every weekend. All of our social media is there, including YouTube and Instagram and Facebook, and most importantly, if you want to send me a message, there is a tab there that says contact us, which really is contact me. We will get all of these emails which
I read personally. If you have any ideas about program segments, questions that you have that you'd like me to answer, don't hesitate to go there, but you need to go to doctor Joeglotti dot com. All right, on the program, this marvelous, this marvelous evening. My sister Celeste from New York is going to be calling in. So Lessa's been on the program before. She is a very articulate nurse.
She's been really her whole career has been in nursing and direct patient care, and she truly is an expert in this health and wellness space and really understanding it and trying to share with all of you her many many years of experience with patient care and looking at things from the patient perspective. It's really very important, and we're going to be talking about why is it that so many people just simply don't have a good knowledge base of medicine, how their body works, and how to
stay healthy. Because, as I'll probably share with Celes later on, eighty five percent of all the chronic disease that we see and it is the same castra characters. It is obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke, cancer, liver disease, mental health issues. It's made worse by the lifestyle choices that we make. Now, the vast majority of the lifestyle choices we make are partially out of convenience, but partially out of not really understanding. So Celeste, we'll be on and we'll have what I
believe will be a lively conversation on this. Now really along the same lines here, Okay, I was perusing the Internet and social media and I came across a website by the name of biome viom E and it is a company where you pay for a kit where they will test your intestinal microbiome. I am most likely believing that you're going to send a small a small stool
sample to them and they will analyze the bacteria. Now, there is no doubt, and we've talked about this before and we've had experts on the program that the intestinal microbiome, and the intestinal microbiome is the trillions of bacteria that normally reside in all of our intestines, our small bowel, our colon that are truly vital for good health. If you have an intestinal microbiome that is off kilter, meaning more bad bacteria and not enough of the good bacteria,
a whole set of health related complications will ensue. Everything from the development of cancer, the development of depression and mental health and mood issues. There is now an awful lot of data and research going on with the role of the intestinal microbiome and obesity and fatty liver disease
and inflammation in the body. So without a doubt, this is really very very important to understand now for you the consumer, okay, and here again the knowledge base that we would all want you to have, and part of it is understanding it yourself, sort of that organic understanding of how the world works, how your body works, but also a certain understanding to be able to call out the bs when you're confronted with it. So this particular company Biome, you send a stool and they give you
an analysis of your microbiome. And there are people online giving testimonials that are saying, you know what, I sent in my test, I got the results, and you know what, I should not be eating spinach. I should not be eating broccoli. I should not be eating oranges. I should not be eating Brussels sprouts. That's my problem. And people will sort of look at this and say, well, yeah, that's my problem. I'm eating too many brush sprouts or
I'm eating too much spinach. Now, I don't know about you, but when was the last time you saw a person that claim to be eating a bowl of spinach, two to three servings of asparagus every day, Brussels sprouts, oranges, and we're morbidly obese with diabetes and heart disease. It's just not going to happen. And so to think that your human body somehow is going to react poorly to unprocessed vegetables and or fruits is basically taking you for a fool and your money. Okay, So these are the
types of things to say. Aha, the reason I am two hundred and forty pounds is because I'm eating too much spinach, or you know what, I'm eating too much broccoli. I don't think so. I don't think so. And people that are going to start eliminating these marvelous fruits and vegetables that have all sorts of phido nutrients and fiber that actually improve the function of your microbiome. I just
don't know where this madness is going to end. But here again, you have to be able to look at this and have enough of a base knowledge to say, you know what, this doesn't make sense. Why are they doing this? Let me look into this a little bit more so. That is what we're trying to do. All right, let's take a break now. My sister Celeste Galotti is going to be showing up magically on the radio in a couple of minutes. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Doctor Joeglotti
dot com is our website. Go there and check us out, and don't forget. Christmas time is just around corner. Pick up a copy of Eating Yourself Sick, my book Great stocking Stuffer. Stay tuned, we'll brite back all right, every already, welcome back, And as previously told you in the show,
I have my dear sister Celeste on the radio. She is a nurse in New York and she's been on the program before, and the one topic we've been talking about is why is it that people have such a low understanding of their health and wellness and that this lack of better word, ignorance leads to chronic disease. So Celeste,
welcome and thanks as always for coming on tonight. What is your take, both as a parent, a consumer in their sixties, and a nurse with regard to the level of education and understanding that most people have with regard to their body and health and wellness.
Yeah, so again, it's great to be back on with you, Joe. And I think you use the word ignorant, and I think ignorance has such a negative connotation. It does where, but it really is. It is ignorance. It's healthcare ignorance. So let's take the negativity out of that. It's just that people don't deal with it every day. You and I as healthcare professionals, when we deal with this every day. We've seen people across the spectrum with different health diseases,
so it's common knowledge us. For us, it's like breathing, but for other people, it is not. And I think if you don't have a healthcare professional in your family, how many times I'm sure you've seen it in a hospital where patients would say, oh, my daughters and nurse, thank god, they could decipher everything that's being told, right. Not everybody has that, So I think that's where that
level of let's say, quote unquote ignorance comes from. So I think it's our responsibility as healthcare professionals to embark our knowledge and just educate people.
Yeah, what I was going to say, one of the slogans that I've been using for this radio program for twenty two years now is by tuning in to your health first, we are going to raise your health IQ. And I think that's what you're getting.
At, absolutely, yeah, because I think it's out there. We could have it, you know on your show. The internet. You know, that's endless information. But I think what happens with most people you go to the doctor and they say, oh, your cholesterol is high, where they've never had a problem before. They maybe in their forties or fifties, and they never
experience that. They go to the internet and then they're reading things and then you know how that is everything pops up and you don't know how to narrow it down to say, well, how can I relate this information into my life? It makes sense for me. That's where I think people, you know, need a little bit of help with that, just deciphering everything that's out there.
Yeah. Now, one statistic that always I like to talk about, and I believe more people need to hear. This is eighty five percent of the chronic disease that we see, and that is diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease, kidney and all of the complications really of obesity and metabolic syndrome, high blood pressure. Eighty five percent of these are related
to lifestyle choices. And lifestyle choices is quite wide ranging, but it starts with exercise and diet, the amount of sleep we get, how much alcohol we drink, things like that, controlling stress and anxiety. So where do you see that getting dovetailed into raising your health IQ?
Well, I think a lot of it has to do with maybe our I don't want to say our mental health, but I think we have these roadblocks that we put into place. I was just with an elderly family member just today actually, and she start her health as starting to fail a little bit, and I said to her, listen, you need to She's walking with a walker now, and I'm like, you need to get up and just walk a little bit more. Set your alarm on your phone for every hour, get up, do two laps around the
living room. Oh, I know, you're right, I should do that. So I think people have these blocks, like I know what I have to do. I know I have to eat better, but it's just getting over that hump. And I think a lot of it that has to do with either our mental health or past experiences or past things that feel good for us. Well, I'm safe sitting here in my chair, so I don't want to get up because I don't want to hurt more. So I
think we have to cross over those roadblocks somehow. And it's hard, Joe, it's a hard thing to And I'm big on empowering. I talk to my patients all the time, saying you were in charge of your life. You need to empower yourself, right, And once they get it, they get it. But it's jumping over that hurdle that's where I find is the biggest problem.
You know, one of the things. And I'm sure you see it in your day to day nursing with the patients you see. But the general public out there, I believe has lowered the bar with regard to what health and wellness means to them. They are you know, as so many people come into me and they say, doctor Galotti, you know I just turned fifty, what do you expect? Or I just turned sixty and I can't exercise the way I used to. So they, they themselves are lowering
the bar and the expectations. And that is where they do not look at it to say, hey, I'm fifty or fifty five, or I'm sixty or seventy. Why can't I go for a one hour walk. You know, my legs are week or I'm sure of breath? Maybe I should think about what strategies I need to take a look at, get help, physical therapy, eat better and yeah. And so they're creating the roadblock themselves. I think, what do you think?
Well, I agree with that, and I think that in lies the problem because it's changing your mindset.
For me.
For example, so you know, recently I had my and I'm sixty three years old and I'm in good health, but I had my hip replaced in June, and then I had my knee replaced in October. Right, so for about a year I was really in Oh you know, I was in a lot of pain and I couldn't do a lot of the exercise I used to do. And I kind of had in my mind, like right before the knee replacement, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do this. I don't know if
I'm going to be able to rehab. I don't know if I'm going to be able to get back to the gym. And I had all these doubts in my mind, but I didn't let that take over. I said to myself, you know what, I'm still young, I'm still healthy, I'm in decent shape. I'm going to work. I'm going to put the work in and I did and now I'm reaping the benefits. But I think a lot of people don't have that mindset. So that's what we have to change. We have to get people to think about, you know what,
God darn it, I'm going to do this. I'm going to take care of I'm going to take the bull by the horns, as mom would always say, and just and just do it.
But what is that obstacle out there? Is it a mental health challenge? Is it that people just don't want to put in the work.
I think people are overwhelmed. Everybody's lives are busy now. Everybody's working, you know, two jobs, and people are working two jobs out there. You have kids to feed, you have mortgages to pay. You know, a lot of people are living paycheck to paycheck, and it's hard to fit in an hour for yourselves. The hour is there, let's face it. You could get up an hour earlier, you could do something after the kids are in bed, so
everybody could find an hour somewhere. But I think it just gets so overwhelming where it's just easy to say, you know what, Okay, I just cleaned the kitchen. The kitchen, right, I just want to sit down and watch TV. So it's pushing. It's the roadblock is just pushing yourself keeping to a schedule. I know, for myself, I the night before I think, okay, tomorrow's Monday, I have a meeting at four thirty, but I'm gonna be ready to go to the gym. I'm going to the gym. I'm going
to be dressed and ready to go at five. You know, so you have to plan it out and stick to that plan. That's that's. If you do that, I think you're goal.
Okay, so let's hold that note for right now. We're going to take a quick break. You are tuned into your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. I am on the air with my sister Celeste Galotti talking about strategies to improve our health. Don't forget go to doctor Joegalotti dot com, sound a prown newsletter, and all of our social media there. Stay tuned, We'll be right back. Welcome back, everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti. Your tune to your Health First every
Sunday between seven and eight pm. Don't forget go to your health first dot com to find out all about what me and my team do to keep you healthy and to make you better consumers of healthcare doctor Joeglotti
dot com. And for those that are just joining us, my sister Celeste, who is a nurse back in New York, is on the phone with me and we're trying to come up with a strategy on how do we turn this tsunami of chronic disease around and empower the community, empower our patients to take a bigger stance in their own health and wellness. You know the other thing that I see and I am truly saddened by this when I'm talking with my patients. So they have worked their
entire life at for many a hard job. Not to say that, you know, if you're an executive, it's not a hard job, but a lot of people have done a lot of hard work. They put in hours, they had a second job, physical labor. They try to save up. And when I'm talking with them, they're telling me, well, I'm retiring next year and I plan on traveling, taking the kids to Disney. I'm just going to sit in
the backyard and fish. But but that reality turns upside down when they now have bad heart disease and they're not able to travel. And so those are situations in conversations that I absolutely don't want to have. They're so sad. And again, from your perspective, what do you see out there?
Well, I think there are a lot of people who Yeah, I think people just kind of give up and say, well, this is the way my life is going to be. I'm not going to be in good shape, and you know, they give up. But there are other people where I saw this lady. She actually was on Instagram and her granddaughter was a train She was seventy years old, a
little bit on the heavyset side. Looks like she never worked out a day in our life, right, Her granddaughter started training her and let me tell you, after a year, and it took a good year, this woman looked fantastic and you could see the smile in her face. You know, so it can be done. It's never too late, you know, even if you're opies or you have bad eating habits, there is that ability to change. But it's it's we
got to figure out that roadblock, Joe. We got to figure out like how to get people to overcome that.
I know and I know we've we've had on an un calculated number of conversations, you and I and I I I this is really a passion of ours. Now, if you if you had to pick one area to concentrate on for those listening tonight, what what would you say is that first step to tape because it really will require one step at a time. Okay, you can't, you know, we can't solve all of these issues in
one decision that somebody is going to make. So if you had to say one thing tonight, what do you think would be the most logical but also the most actionable that they can actually not be intimidated by.
Well, I think it depends on the person. So but I totally agree with you because I think if you say to people you got to eat right, you got to exercise, you got to do this, you got to drink more water, it's too much. It's like information overload. So I think with each individual person, you have to say, Okay, this is a bad health habit I have right now, so I eat way too much sugar. I am a
sugar junkie. So that person you have to say, you know, new Year's resolution, I'm cutting down on the amount of sugar. Maybe not cutting it out altogether, but I'm cutting down. I'm not going to drink coke anymore. I Am not going to have dessert anymore because that right there will drop some weight. Yes, if it's a person that used to be active that maybe isn't active anymore, those are the people that should say, all right, you know what, I'm going to join the gym, and not ald gyms
are expensive. I belong to plan a fitness for I think it's thirteen dollars a month, you know. So you know what, I'm going to join the gym, and I'm going to commit to going to the gym three times a week, not five times a week, and working out and getting muscles, you know. So I think it's got to be these baby steps. But you have to figure out internally what is important to you? Is it? Do I know I'm eating too much sugar or I'm eating too much fast food. I'm eating too much fast food.
Stop And it's hard to do it, but once you start the pattern, it will just spend snowball. So I think each person has to take a deep dive into their habits because you know what's wrong for you, you know what you shouldn't be doing, you know, right, right, and figure it out.
Yeah, you know, but I would I would also say, you're this is a very good starting point. But I would also say there is a knowledge gap. So if we don't use ignorance, we have to come up with a prettier word for ignorance. Maybe it's a well, what would be the word.
It's some knowledge gap. It would be uh, well, we use like health literacy.
Health literacy. Okay, So so yeah, so with this lack of health literacy, people I do believe generally want to do the right thing for themselves and their family, but so many times I will this is I hate to laugh at this, but people that drink a lot of alcohol, they think that whiskey and the more distilled spirits okay, vodka, tequila, Scotch, rye, whiskey, et cetera, those are the really toxic beverages to drink. And they will say, oh no, I don't that I
quit drinking ten years ago. I mean, you're like, okay, great, but you have a six pack Thursday, Friday and Saturday night and they don't connect that. And so those are little that these are those gaps in help literacy where just knowing that can save you a ton of problems. So we have to, you know, sort of raise everybody's health IQ. That really is a good way to approach this.
I think so. And I think as a nurse, you know, I'm always going to be rare od nurses. But there are a lot of insurance companies out there. I happen to work right now for the State of Connecticut their Medicaid program, but there are a lot of insurance companies that have case management where you could call them up and say, hey, I want to start a diet plan.
I don't know what to do. They have, not all of them, but a lot of them have nurses that are available to teach you and educate you and just have that person to help you through these changes, and they could send you articles, they could you know, talk to you about how to achieve those goals. So I think it's a good idea to maybe look up your insurance plan or through your company.
Right.
A lot of companies offer this, So utilize those programs that you have in front of you. They're usually free, and they're great resources to just kind of jumpstart your goal to being healthier.
Right, right. And I do believe that if you're sitting home tonight listening and you're saying, oh boy, you know Celesta's right, I do know what's wrong. I eat too much, you know, too much fast food, or I don't exercise enough. I do believe that there is a lot to be said for looking at other success stories to say that person sort of was like me, they did it. That is motivation for me to try the exact same thing.
And listen, it's all out there. We're all into social media, and I see, you know, I could be scrolling through Instagram for ten minutes and I could come across four different people who have gone from you know, being morbidly obese to skinny doing it on their own through exercise and eating. So I think, and it's not about being skinny, it's about being healthy, you know. And I think we just need to take advantage of what's out there. But I really am a firm believer of using you know,
your insurance company and your own companies. If you work for a big company, they always have these health initiatives. So I think it's something to look into and take advantage of.
All Right, Celeste, just because you're my sister and you're the guest tonight, final thirty seconds on if you had to summarize your thoughts on all this to the listening public tonight.
I mean, I'm a real person and it's hard. I have gone through times. I haven't always been in great shape, you know. I've ebbed and flowed and there have been times where I'm like, oh my god, can I ever do this? But I think it's just that matter of persevering. And I am my biggest word is empowering. I love to see my patients empowered by taking charge of their own health, their own life, whether it be your mental health,
your physical health, your diet, exercise. Once you achieve that, I think you know, the sky's the limit at that point, and then you could start empowering other people and that's what that's what makes the world go around, right, yeah, to help each other.
It is all right, Celeste Galotti, thank you very much for coming on. And I think this conversation and I've got other medical and non medical people that really really want to weigh in on this topic. So I believe that this is a good jump start, especially as we get into the new year and sort of turn over the soil, we get some great ideas.
It's a new start now, the new year, twenty twenty five.
All right, Celeste, all right, so last thanks the maid alright by now all right, Well, that was my dear sister Celeste calling in from the Metro New York area where she's a nurse. And I do believe that to tackle this issue of health and wellness and the bigger picture, and I've been talking about this for a few weeks now. The notion of make America healthy again. It's going to take personal responsibility on our part to look at the MIRA, realize the changes that we have to make, make them
one step at a time, a slow step. There's a great book I would recommend you read called Atomic Habits, and his whole premise is that taking small steps, almost at the atomic level, will build up to greater things. But considering the amount of chronic disease that we have, the cost of it all, both in dollars and cents and in human suffering, we all have to do something. And I really do believe it is a two part mission here. Number one, raising your health IQ. You need
to be a better consumer of healthcare. Understand the perils and truly understand, not just have sort of a casual understanding, a deep understanding or a really good working understanding of the perils of being overweight, the perils of having high blood pressure that is not controlled, not exercising, the trouble that results from not getting enough sleep and being stressed out, and having blood sugars that are just too high, And how to understand the difference between a plant based diet
eating fresh fruits and vegetables versus eating out and maybe getting these fruits and vegetables at a restaurant, how they're adult rated up. And then the other part is that personal introspection that you have to take control of things yourself. So that is it, all right, Stay tuned more to come on this Week's Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Glotti. Don't forget doctor Joglotti dot com. Stay tuned, will be right back. Welcome back, everybody, final segment of Tonight's Your
Health First. And I love to have a little bit of fun on the radio. So what we're going to do, We're going to have a giveaway. The first person that emails me the name of this song and or who sings it, you will get a copy of my book Eating Yourself Sick. Who's the artist? And or I'll be easy on you, and or the name of the song. Now the song, of course, I played it for a reason my sister who is just on the program, Celeste. Growing up, this was a favorite song that we heard
playing around the house. So a little bit of nostalgia and looking back is good for the heart and soul to foster good memories, That's what I would say. And these good memories are very important for your own health and wellness and most importantly for your ar insanity. But go to doctor Joe Galotti dot com and try to get your free copy of Eating Yourself Sick. All right.
In the final few minutes that we have tonight, there was an article in I think it was Today's New York Times and the title is why aging experts are obsessed with health span. So something that we've talked about. So health span is different than life expectancy. So you may say the life expectancy is eighty years. Let's just say that, but you're living to eighty what kind of shape of you in? Are you ridden in a wheelchair? Are you bedbound? Do you need twenty four hour care?
Are you chronically ill? And so most experts, and I am one of them, would say, yes, we could say that that life expectancy is eighty or eighty three or seventy eight years old, but the health span is the quality, and that is what we are looking for. So similar to what we were just talking about with celest a few moments ago, we have to look at and understand what can prevent chronic disease, because it is the chronic disease that's going to impact not only life expectancy, but
your health span. And so there's no doubt that if you're paying attention to this area of health and wellness, there are longevity influencers that really are focusing on what you need to extend human life, but also to be functional and enjoying things, being able to go on airplanes, go on cruises, go hiking at the Grand Canyon. These are the things that we have to do. Now. What I think is what I believe is for us to have an improved health span, it needs to start today.
So if you're listening today and you're thirty years old, or you're fifty years old or seventy, we need to make these changes now. The first thing is to adopt every day healthy behaviors. As we've been talking about earlier. We need to exercise regularly, and there were a number of studies i'd say within the last couple of years that if there's any one thing that is going to cut down on dementia, it is daily exercise. So that is number one. Umber two eating nutritious food, and it's
something I have talked about. I learned from my parents and my family, and I try to instill in my patience eating nutritious foods, meaning not process that plant based whole food diet, not eating a steady routine of drive through hamburgers, fried chicken, all of this gobbly goop food that we're eating good, healthy, nutritious food. Getting good sleep is another really really big important of getting these healthy behaviors.
And I would say we've been blessed at least the last ten years the detrimental effects of not getting enough sleep or poor quality sleep. And of course, where there has been the rise in obesity, we are seeing a rise in a constructive sleep apnea. Obstructive sleep apnea leads to hypertension, it leads to obesity, it leads to diabetes, it leads to an assortment of heart and cardiac and arrhythmia problems, which is not good. And the other thing
is investing in our social bonds, the human being. Let's face it, we were meant to communicate, we were meant to huddle with each other, either in a family or this extended community. It really really is very important for us to do this. Now. The researchers are looking at a wide range of what I would say manipulative type things.
They're looking at targeting cellular process. There are some medications that are currently available, and one of them is an anti rejection medicine that we use for liver transplant and most solid organ transfer plants called sirolamis. And the research has shown, and it's really, really very fascinating, that small doses of sirolamis can reduce the aging and the dying out of ourselves. And that is what really aging is.
It is the sinescence of our cells, be it your brain, be it your heart beat, your muscles, blood cells, et cetera. So there is a lot of work that is being done. But for all of you at the more simple elementary state, which I think is the best place to start, you have to take stock in yourself and say, wherever you are in life, whatever station you're at, you have to say, yes, I have aspirations of living a long life. I have
a lot to do now. Even though people retire, in many cases, when people retire, this second win, this second wave, there are countless people books are written about them where in their retirement they make the greatest contribution to society, or the greatest contribution to their community or to their family. So do not look at retirement as the final act of your life. Okay, it is not the conclusion for many people, including myself. I think you have to look
at it that this is just the beginning. It's an opportunity to do something great. But the key thing here. You could have the best of ideas, but if you were in really crappy shape and it gets you know, I just don't know what to say. It gets down to the basics. Are you battling a host of chronic disease diseases or are you free of chronic disease? Or are you putting all of your effort to reversing these
chronic diseases? And that really is the mentality. There are people out there that work on a day to day basis ensuring that they remain healthy. Everything they do is geared towards is this going to be good for me? Is this going to have a neutral effect or is this going to have a detrimental effect? And I believe that you can do this without driving yourself crazy or driving those around you crazy. You just have to have in your heart and soul a game plan, a roadmap.
And if you don't have a roadmap, you know what you're lost. And that is where people get into trouble, so let us close out for this Sunday evening. It's always such a great pleasure to share my time with all of you. Hopefully it was worthwhile. And the whole key here is we want to make this program actionable, that you can hear things and take action. So until next Sunday seven pm Central Time, tune into your Health First. I will be here and don't forget visit us your
health first dot com or doctor Joeglotti dot com. Stay tuned, be well, and God bless