July 13, 2025 • 37 mins
Tonight, on Your Health First, Dr. Galati talks about a research article that has to do with anti-depressants. He also talks about vaping and how harmful it is to you. Dr. Galati goes on to explain the benefits to sunlight and spending time outside. Also, with July in full swing, he spends some time talking about Social Wellness month.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initial Life Sequenzy coming to you live from Houston, Texas,
home to the world's largest medical center. Bunch pays everything
looking really, this is Your Health First, the most beneficial
(00:23):
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 Bellotti.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well at Sunday evening in America, seven o'clock Central Time.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Here in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Where we are broadcasting from our world old headquarters.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Of the Your Health First.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Radio program every Sunday between seven and eight pm. I'm
doctor Joe Galotti, and you know exactly what I'm going
to say. My job, our job as a.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Team here.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is to make you better consumers of healthcare, make you
understand the current issues in healthcare that every single one.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Of us are affected by.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And a day doesn't go by where I see patients.
I get phone calls from friends, relatives, colleagues, old.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
High school classmates.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Calling me with a particular problem. And what is missing
at times, and this is a double edge here, what's
missing at times is that they themselves are not advocating
for themselves and things just sort of slip away until
(02:10):
it becomes critical, and that applies to many things in lives.
Ignore anything long enough and it's going to haunt you,
including things.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Related to your health.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Or they're advocating, they're going to their healthcare team and
they're saying, Hey, why do I still have this pain,
Why do I still have fill in the blank, Why
do my kidneys still show abnormal readings? Why are my
liver numbers up? So they're advocating for themselves, but they're
(02:46):
not getting the response that they need from their healthcare team.
It's sort of blown off. And that is what I
see every single day. So the key blend here is
to number one, advocate for yourself. Always, always advocate for yourself.
But and we were talking about this last couple weeks,
(03:10):
you can only advocate for yourself if you know what
the heck you're advocating for, which comes down to knowledge,
understanding and appreciation understanding what certain pains in your stomach
or pains in your back, or pains in your head
or loss of some function means. What does it mean
if you have diarrhea for more than a day after eating.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Sushi, let's say.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
But at the same time, you need to have a
practitioner that's going to listen to you and then advocate
for you, so it all starts with you. That's really
what I'm trying to say. Our website doctor Joeglotti dot
com d R Joe G A L A t I.
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Is our website.
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Once you get there, soner for newsletter goes out every weekend.
You can send me a message. All of our social
media is posted there, so make sure you follow us.
Our latest thing is TikTok. I would have never believed it,
but we are getting a lot of traction on TikTok,
(04:19):
so go visit us. There all right, lots of stuff
to talk about this week, but there was a new
research article that came out in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. There sub specialty journal Psychiatry, and it
(04:41):
has to do with anti depressants. Now, there has been
a ongoing debate. You're on an antidepressant, there has been
concern that if you stop the antidepressant, either because your
(05:01):
doctor says stop it, we have another plan, or you
have gotten better you don't need the anti depressant, or
you're having some side effect from the anti present. There's
always been this concern though maybe not founded. So an
(05:24):
unfounded concern that if you stop antidepressants you may go
through some sort of withdrawal which will make you feel sick.
So if that information is circulated out there, people are
going to be very hesitant to stop, and that could
(05:44):
be understandable. But in this new article it seems like
that may not be a problem for a problem with withdrawal.
So the new study, which was published this past Wednesday,
(06:04):
like I said in Jama Psychiatry, makes the case that
the warnings are overblown. The researches of the new paper
found that a week after quitting the antidepressants, patients reported
symptoms like dizziness, nausea, and vertigo vertigo is sort of spinning,
(06:30):
loss of balance, but that the symptoms really remained on
average below the threshold for clinical significance, meaning yeah, they
may have had some dizziness, a little nausea, a little vertigo,
but it was not clinically significant. And so one would
(06:51):
think that with this article, both doctors and patients should
be reassured that if you have to or if you
want to stop your anti depressant, you may not go
into some sort of more serious withdrawal state. Now, this
(07:16):
has been a bit of a hot topic in the
world of psychiatry and mental health, and going back to
twenty nineteen, there were two British researches that published a
few studies that found that fifty six percent fifty six
percent of patient suffered from withdrawal symptoms when they stopped antidepressants,
and forty six percent of those described them as severe.
(07:40):
So this sort of set the tone to say, buyer beware.
Now a lot of the other studies about withdrawal, which
included placebos, actually when you stopped at placebo.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
You got these with drawal.
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Like symptoms, which makes you think that really it's not
the antidepressant. So hopefully this will clear the air a
little bit. But as I would always say and recommend everybody,
if you're on an antidepressant and there may be some
concerns about stopping it, the best thing is always going
(08:21):
to be guess what, talk to you doctor, all right,
a little steely Dan Donald Fagan on this Sunday evening,
I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com and.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We'll be right back. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Welcome back, everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. This is your Health First.
Every Sunday between the week hour of seven and eight pm.
We're here trying to raise your health IQ and make
you better consumers of healthcare. That is the name of
the game.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Here.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He or she that knows the facts stays healthier, out
of the hospital, out of the er, out of the
urgent care center.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
You might even be a little happier.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Because you're not trucking around with twenty bottles of medicine.
Our website is doctor Joeglotti dot com. Go there and
check our team out. And I've mentioned over the past
couple of weeks that my book Eating Yourself Sick.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Is in paperback form.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Now that's pretty cool, And what I would say is,
of course you could.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Go to Amazon in pick one up and check it out.
All right.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I am working on a second book. The title is
not known. The content is probably going to be centered
on patient cases. And it's not so much to say
Bob came to see me and had this or that
(10:21):
and this is what he did. It's more the backstory
on how he got to me, what were his symptoms,
what did he do, what did he not do? And
it's really lessons learned in the early stages of a
particular condition. So it's going to be still very informative storytelling,
(10:46):
I would say, which should be a good read, no
doubt about it.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
All.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, Well, this is a topic that I've talked about many,
many times before, and it's vaping, and vaping has been
around since the mid twenty tens or so. And at
first when they came out this whole vaping things, well,
it's better than cigarettes. You don't want to smoke, and
(11:15):
you certainly don't want your teenage kids to smoke cigarettes.
So maybe vaping is a good alternative. It's sort of
like saying, drink non alcoholic beer, but that is not true.
Buyer beware. Study after study after study worldwide is showing
(11:40):
that vaping is not good for you. It is harmful
to you. And so if we look at this all
as a healthier alternative and a sort of a tool
to stop smoking, I would have to say we're totally
wrong on that. The hazards are real. In a study
(12:05):
last month, for example, a team of scientists analyzed the
mist from some popular vapes and found such high levels
of heavy metals that one researcher thought their machine had
malfunction it was so high and the research is showing
that it can affect the heart, the lungs, and the brain.
(12:27):
And we've had experts on that have talked about this
in the past. Now data on the long term effect
now we have decades and generational experience with cigarettes and tobacco,
vaping is more of a short term. We don't have
(12:47):
these long term effects. And part of the problem is
the product is changing.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Every year or so.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
There is a new product that is evolving just enough
just to change to say that it's different than the
one before, and so it's a whole the research has
to start from scratch. The other problem is that people
smoke cigarettes and vape at the same time, so it's
(13:18):
really difficult to say is it the Marlboroughs that you're
taking causing your heart disease or is it the vaping.
So vaping is still less common than cigarettes among US adults,
with about four point five percent vaped in twenty twenty one,
but nearly eight percent of high school students said they
(13:40):
vaped within the last month in a twenty twenty four survey.
Now what do you have to remember? And it all
looks so innocent and it's marketed so lovely, but really
think about it. You are taking a super heated chemical
(14:01):
and inhaling it right into your lungs. This is not
good now from a cardiovascular standpoint, your heart without a doubt,
this is a stress on your cardiovascular system. So what
happens Your heart rate rises and your blood vessels constrict.
(14:26):
So in a sense, you have these episodes over and
over again every time you vape of high blood pressure. Now,
with the high blood pressure, you're at risk for developing
some sort of a cardiac arrhythmia at the irregular heart rate,
stroke or even a heart attack. And so you have
(14:47):
to think there and say, what what's the benefit here?
Do I really want to jack up my heart rate,
jack up my blood pressure, and increase my risk of
a heart attack. We're not thinking out there people. And
these hot liquids release chemicals that go deep, deep into
(15:14):
the lungs. Now, many of the liquids that are in
e cigarettes release known carcinogen. So carcinogen is a compound
that can put you at risk for cancer. Like formaldehyde
and acetyl aldehyde, this is bad stuff lung issues. It
(15:36):
can exacerbate asthma, symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD.
It can lead to a chronic cost shortness of breath. Now,
we're not quite sure if vaping causes lung cancer. That
is something we're going to have to figure out, but
(15:56):
they are. You know, when you vape, you are being
exposed to these carcinogens. And a researcher out at UC
Davis out in California tested three popular disposable vape brands
and found that they release high levels of nickel and antimony,
which are heavy metals linked to lung cancer. So you
(16:21):
have to really proceed with caution. It is addictive. Researchers
out in San Francisco that work with smoking addiction are
now dealing with adolescents that are addicted. These kids are
going to bed with these vaping pens under their bed.
(16:41):
As soon as they wake up, they start hitting it.
And we have to work on understanding the adolescent brain
how it develops. Well, we know how it develops, but
what's the impact of the vaping. And so even more
and this is the alarming part, even more addictive vapor
that contain higher levels of nicotine or hitting the market.
(17:05):
And so there's one quote in this one article that
there are vapes that have twenty thousand puffs of nicotine
in them, okay, which is equivalent to about one hundred
packs of cigarettes. So again, is this a knowledge deficiency?
(17:27):
Do people not know that this is good for you?
Do they not really understand that this is no better
than smoking and that they have to really get a
handle on this. If you're a parent and your son
or daughter vapes, you have to get them help because
(17:47):
long term, this is not going to be good. All right,
Doctor Joglotti News and weather coming up. Don't forget doctor
Jogolotti dot com.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
We'll bright back. Well.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I would say, if this song doesn't get you excited
and happy, I don't know what we're gonna do with you,
grown up.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I was never.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A zz Top fan growing up in New York. That
sort of southern rock didn't really play in the Galatti house,
but coming here.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
They're really terrific. All right. I hope you having a great.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sunday evening, made the best of the weekend, had a
chance to recharge. That's what the weekend is all about, recharging,
and hopefully you have the weekend off. I, on the
other hand, have been on call. We still managed to
(19:01):
put the show on, take care of our patients, take
care of our families. It's just a matter of priorities
in a sense. Don't forget doctor Joeglotti dot com is
our website. Things you could do there, sign a for
our newsletter, send me a message. All of our social
media is there, our podcasts are there. You can look
(19:24):
and pick up a copy of my book Eating Yourself
Sick Now in paperback form, and educate yourself on all
facets of health and wellness and of course liver disease,
which is what we do now. Over the fourth of
July weekend, I had the opportunity to go to Florida
(19:46):
for a few days, just my wife and I. We
took off and we were staying at a friend's house.
They were out of town, so we had the place
to ourselves and we spent a few days on the beach. Now,
I try to get outside as much as I can
(20:06):
when we go on vacation, my wife and I and
the family, we will tend to go hiking, touring and
being outside. So being outside is no stranger to me,
and I would certainly encourage all of you to spend
as much time outside as possible. It seems in the
last twenty five thirty years. We are creatures of being inside,
(20:31):
being in air conditioned buildings, and it's just not good.
But the days that I was in Florida, we had enough.
There was a little bit of rain that really didn't
disrupt the good time. But being out on the beach
and again, I grew up on Long Island, South Shore,
(20:53):
Long Island and Jones Beach was where I would ride
my bike during the summer with my friends, leave eight
in the morning and not come home till dinner time.
And so I'm used to spending time on the beach.
We still have a lot of relatives out on Long Island.
We go out to the beach and it's good. But
(21:13):
my wife and I we hadn't done anything, just the
two of us. But I would say I really felt good.
I always feel good. Let's say I felt a little
better after spending a few hours on the beach. I
tend to stay somewhat covered up under a umbrella if
(21:34):
I can. I'm not one for laying there in a
bathing suit and just soaking up the sun. I just
don't do that. But the benefits of sunlight is something
that is still debated because over the last fifteen years
or so, there's been this attitude that less is better.
(21:57):
The risk of skin cancer the skin, the risk of
other sun related damages is far too great, and they
get into the ozone in the thinness of the atmosphere,
and the sunlight of today is not what it was
in nineteen fifty. Look, I'm not going to get into that,
but I believe that we may have swung the pendulum
(22:22):
a little bit too far where people go up, you know,
wrapped up in a rug with sunglasses and a hat,
and you know SPF eight thousand.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Slathered all over them.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I don't think we need to do that, but we
do know that ultraviolet rays, ultraviolet light, the UVA and
the UVB lights that come from the sun, they can
damage the skin and cause skin cancer. But people also
(22:54):
get vitamin D from the sun, and so oh, there
is new research. There is new thinking that moderate sun
exposure in certain context does have benefits, and that vitamin
(23:14):
D supplements supplements may not always do a good job
to replace the vitamin D that we need. And I
have a ton of patients that are on vitamin D supplements.
They're taking it by the fistful, and yet their follow
up Vitamin D levels are not that good. So I
think we have to look at moderate, but be thoughtful
(23:36):
about your sun exposure. Don't take your clothes off and
at you know, high noon, lay there and get roasted
like a lobster out there. That is not any good.
So I think if we get to a common ground
to say that sun rays can damage your skin, all right,
(23:58):
I am not. Don't start writing me letters to say
doctor Glotti said skin. You know, just sun has no
potential risk, but we have to look at it and
do it in a mindful way. But we have to
look at the benefits. There are benefits to being outside.
It is associated with lower blood pressure, so blood pressure
(24:19):
tends to be higher in the winter than in the summer.
This is by doctor Richard Weller, a dermatologist and researcher
at the University of Edinburgh, and heart problems are more
common too during this time. One study found that people
who reported more sunlight exposure were less likely to develop
heart failure. Now, with all of this the research, they're
(24:42):
really not quite sure why sunlight improves heart health, but
they're thinking that there is a compound called nitric oxide.
You may have heard about this it relaxes blood vessels
and reduces blood pressure. This is released from the skin
(25:04):
with sun exposure. Okay, they also did a study in
twenty fourteen. They looked at nearly thirty thousand Swedish women
for twenty years and what the research has found is
that those who avoided the sun were twice as likely
to die during the study time period as those that
were exposed to sunlight. So there is some element of
(25:27):
longevity here. The other business is that there's a fair
amount of research that looks at the role of sun
exposure and controlling your immune system. That people that have
autoimmune diseases when exposed to the sun have a tamping
(25:51):
down of this overactive immune system, so it may be beneficial.
So that is important to look at. And so I
would think that this time of the year it's summer,
sun is out. Do make sure that you get some
(26:14):
sunshine out there. Don't be afraid to go out.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Do you have to spend you know, six hours out there.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
If you're very fair skin and you've already had skin
cancer or your prone to skin's cancer, you have other
skin or medical issues, certain medications you're on, you have
to be careful but when you look at how sunlight
the UV radiation may not only boost a production of
(26:41):
vitamin D, but also control the regulation of our immune system.
It causes a little bit of immuno suppression. I think
it's worthwhile to get out there in the sun. The
other thing is when you're out and get these UV rays,
it increases the amount of endorphins. These are natural opiates
(27:05):
that are sort of secreted from the skin which make
you feel good.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You get these.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Naturally occurring opioids and you feel better out in the sun.
I think that's really not a bad.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Thing to consider.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, final segment coming up for this Sunday's.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Don't forget doctor Jogalotti dot com. If you have a
question a concern, you need a consultant. No matter where
you are in the country, we can help get you
connected with one of our colleagues around the country. So
we do that as a service to our listeners. All right,
(27:51):
stay tuned, we're right back. Final segment of this week's
Your Health First. So it's a pleasure being here spending
a little bit time on a Sunday evening with our
great listeners.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
And my mission for.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Every program, every week, everything that we do, which really
is an extension of our practice or my practicing medicine,
is to empower you all. And I don't say that lightly.
(28:35):
Oh go empower yourself. Come on, it really does have
an impact by you being able to take action, intervene
for yourself, advocate, develop a good relationship with you your
(29:00):
treatment team, whatever that looks like, and have open dialogue.
And the healthcare system of today compared to thirty years ago,
I believe, is far more complicated. The amount of technology
that our patients are part of. There are so many
(29:24):
different tests and scans and procedures and devices that we
can apply to helping somebody get well. That the channeling
of all this information. How do you keep track of
one test, one result, Because of this result, I'm going
for another test. You're on a continuous sort of Gerbil wheel,
(29:50):
running from one test and one doctor, one specialist, one
pharmacy to another. And it really does become overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
But you have to.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Do your best to ca control what's happening on when
you are when you become too placid in this and
you just take a back seat. Uh, it's it's just
not going to work. And that's that's truly what we
try to do here. It's what we try to do
with our patients that we take care of at Liver
(30:19):
Specialists of Texas and all of the transplant patients at
Houston Methodist Hospital. That that that we all take care of.
So don't forget doctor Jogili dot com is our website.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
All right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So July is National Social Wellness Month. Now I saw
this and I said, you know what this is. This
is worth spending a few minutes about, because what the
foundation of this is really the power of social healing
(30:57):
and how social interaction will benefit your life in general.
I don't think we consciously pay enough attention to this.
And what happens is we are so damn busy. We're
running around like chickens without their heads. Everybody's stressed out,
(31:20):
everybody's hair is on fire. And you know that's not
cool anymore. It's not cool to be the busiest guy
that gets nothing done and is always on the brink
of like blowing up. We have to settle down. And
(31:43):
I think what happens is and I talk to my
own colleagues that you know, when they're on call for
a week and I understand being on call is horrible.
It is busy work, but they can't do anything. They
can't make you a cup of coffee and check up,
or hey, how would you like to go get a
(32:04):
bite to eat after week? Now I can't do it.
I'm on service. And this applies to people that are
not in healthcare, people that just have regular, plain old
jobs that keep the country and keep the world going,
and they are so consumed by work that they don't
(32:26):
have time to take care of themselves, which is a
whole other separate problem. But the relationships that they have,
they lose contact with their friends, and so this social
support is very key. Now, just think if in the
midst of you having a busy work week, you connected
(32:49):
with a friend, maybe a relative, a neighbor, somebody, and
you had thirty minutes with them, or an hour and
thirty minutes with them, You got a bite to eat
some and you had a nice healthy salad that doctor
Joe Glotti would recommend. Maybe in talking with them, they
could listen to some of the struggles you're having at
work or some of the struggles you're having at home,
(33:13):
and they may be able to lend a little advice,
a little life experience to say, look, you need to
make these changes or look at the world differently. So
I think the emotional support that we get by having
a healthy social network.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Is very.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Important. We have to take care of ourselves now. It's
not just a matter of having coffee with your favorite
girlfriend or an old college roommate. I think we have
to look and say, do you have a creative outlet?
I have always been a fan and looking at people
to encourage them to have some sort of creative outlet.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Either it is an.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Appreciation for the arts, going to listen to live music,
going to a concert, going to the opera, going to
a museum. Last time I went to a museum. They
are pretty quiet and you could get pretty in touch
with your soul.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
But I believe that.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Having an outlet learning how to play the guitar or
the piano, or learning how to sing, or being part
of a singing group at church or your community, it
is vitally important. It is vitally important. The other part
of this social wellness is are you giving back? Are
(34:46):
you volunteering?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Now?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
We all have skills of some kind, and do not
look at yourself to say, ah, I got a crappy job.
I really didn't go to college, and you know, I'm
really not good at anything. There is some skill that
you have that you can teach another adult, another college student,
(35:08):
or some adolescent in high school. But we have to
look and say, how can we give back to the
society around us. This is very therapeutic volunteering. There are
about a million and one volunteering opportunities here in Houston,
throughout Texas, throughout the United States.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
People are always.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Looking for free help and volunteers where you could give back. Now,
maybe you are just doing a menial work where you
are making sandwiches that are going to be given out
to the poor of the homeless. Okay, fine, that does
not take a great amount of skill. But still the
sense that you are helping somebody or teaching somebody something,
(35:51):
teaching them a new skill is very important. We always
feel good about ourselves, which in turn is going to
be good for our health, our mind, our body, and
our souls. It really is super super important. So in
(36:12):
this month of July Social Awareness month, who would have
thought take stock and try to take care of yourself
and take care of people around you. So I have
a good rest of the week. We'll be here next
(36:33):
Sunday night. Go to a website doctor Joeglotti dot com,
Send me a message, take a look at all the
information I've got there. Listen to pasts, programs, our YouTube page.
I was saying at the early part of the show TikTok,
I thank goodness, who would have thought I'd be on TikTok.
(36:54):
But go out there, love somebody, take care of yourself,
take care of your family, eat right, exercise, stay away
from processed foods, don't drink too much alcohol, and it
will be a better place for everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Take care of doctor Jogilotti, your health first. We'll see
you next Sunday night.
Initial Life Sequenzy coming to you live from Houston, Texas,
home to the world's largest medical center. Bunch pays everything
looking really, this is Your Health First, the most beneficial
(00:23):
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 Bellotti.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well at Sunday evening in America, seven o'clock Central Time.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
Here in Houston, Texas.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Where we are broadcasting from our world old headquarters.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Of the Your Health First.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Radio program every Sunday between seven and eight pm. I'm
doctor Joe Galotti, and you know exactly what I'm going
to say. My job, our job as a.
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Team here.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
Is to make you better consumers of healthcare, make you
understand the current issues in healthcare that every single one.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Of us are affected by.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
And a day doesn't go by where I see patients.
I get phone calls from friends, relatives, colleagues, old.
Speaker 3 (01:46):
High school classmates.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Calling me with a particular problem. And what is missing
at times, and this is a double edge here, what's
missing at times is that they themselves are not advocating
for themselves and things just sort of slip away until
(02:10):
it becomes critical, and that applies to many things in lives.
Ignore anything long enough and it's going to haunt you,
including things.
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Related to your health.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Or they're advocating, they're going to their healthcare team and
they're saying, Hey, why do I still have this pain,
Why do I still have fill in the blank, Why
do my kidneys still show abnormal readings? Why are my
liver numbers up? So they're advocating for themselves, but they're
(02:46):
not getting the response that they need from their healthcare team.
It's sort of blown off. And that is what I
see every single day. So the key blend here is
to number one, advocate for yourself. Always, always advocate for yourself.
But and we were talking about this last couple weeks,
(03:10):
you can only advocate for yourself if you know what
the heck you're advocating for, which comes down to knowledge,
understanding and appreciation understanding what certain pains in your stomach
or pains in your back, or pains in your head
or loss of some function means. What does it mean
if you have diarrhea for more than a day after eating.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
Sushi, let's say.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
But at the same time, you need to have a
practitioner that's going to listen to you and then advocate
for you, so it all starts with you. That's really
what I'm trying to say. Our website doctor Joeglotti dot
com d R Joe G A L A t I.
Speaker 3 (03:57):
Is our website.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Once you get there, soner for newsletter goes out every weekend.
You can send me a message. All of our social
media is posted there, so make sure you follow us.
Our latest thing is TikTok. I would have never believed it,
but we are getting a lot of traction on TikTok,
(04:19):
so go visit us. There all right, lots of stuff
to talk about this week, but there was a new
research article that came out in the Journal of the
American Medical Association. There sub specialty journal Psychiatry, and it
(04:41):
has to do with anti depressants. Now, there has been
a ongoing debate. You're on an antidepressant, there has been
concern that if you stop the antidepressant, either because your
(05:01):
doctor says stop it, we have another plan, or you
have gotten better you don't need the anti depressant, or
you're having some side effect from the anti present. There's
always been this concern though maybe not founded. So an
(05:24):
unfounded concern that if you stop antidepressants you may go
through some sort of withdrawal which will make you feel sick.
So if that information is circulated out there, people are
going to be very hesitant to stop, and that could
(05:44):
be understandable. But in this new article it seems like
that may not be a problem for a problem with withdrawal.
So the new study, which was published this past Wednesday,
(06:04):
like I said in Jama Psychiatry, makes the case that
the warnings are overblown. The researches of the new paper
found that a week after quitting the antidepressants, patients reported
symptoms like dizziness, nausea, and vertigo vertigo is sort of spinning,
(06:30):
loss of balance, but that the symptoms really remained on
average below the threshold for clinical significance, meaning yeah, they
may have had some dizziness, a little nausea, a little vertigo,
but it was not clinically significant. And so one would
(06:51):
think that with this article, both doctors and patients should
be reassured that if you have to or if you
want to stop your anti depressant, you may not go
into some sort of more serious withdrawal state. Now, this
(07:16):
has been a bit of a hot topic in the
world of psychiatry and mental health, and going back to
twenty nineteen, there were two British researches that published a
few studies that found that fifty six percent fifty six
percent of patient suffered from withdrawal symptoms when they stopped antidepressants,
and forty six percent of those described them as severe.
(07:40):
So this sort of set the tone to say, buyer beware.
Now a lot of the other studies about withdrawal, which
included placebos, actually when you stopped at placebo.
Speaker 3 (07:56):
You got these with drawal.
Speaker 2 (07:59):
Like symptoms, which makes you think that really it's not
the antidepressant. So hopefully this will clear the air a
little bit. But as I would always say and recommend everybody,
if you're on an antidepressant and there may be some
concerns about stopping it, the best thing is always going
(08:21):
to be guess what, talk to you doctor, all right,
a little steely Dan Donald Fagan on this Sunday evening,
I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com and.
Speaker 3 (08:37):
We'll be right back. Stay tuned.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Welcome back, everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. This is your Health First.
Every Sunday between the week hour of seven and eight pm.
We're here trying to raise your health IQ and make
you better consumers of healthcare. That is the name of
the game.
Speaker 3 (08:58):
Here.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
He or she that knows the facts stays healthier, out
of the hospital, out of the er, out of the
urgent care center.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
You might even be a little happier.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Because you're not trucking around with twenty bottles of medicine.
Our website is doctor Joeglotti dot com. Go there and
check our team out. And I've mentioned over the past
couple of weeks that my book Eating Yourself Sick.
Speaker 3 (09:40):
Is in paperback form.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Now that's pretty cool, And what I would say is,
of course you could.
Speaker 3 (09:51):
Go to Amazon in pick one up and check it out.
All right.
Speaker 2 (09:58):
I am working on a second book. The title is
not known. The content is probably going to be centered
on patient cases. And it's not so much to say
Bob came to see me and had this or that
(10:21):
and this is what he did. It's more the backstory
on how he got to me, what were his symptoms,
what did he do, what did he not do? And
it's really lessons learned in the early stages of a
particular condition. So it's going to be still very informative storytelling,
(10:46):
I would say, which should be a good read, no
doubt about it.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
All.
Speaker 2 (10:51):
Right, Well, this is a topic that I've talked about many,
many times before, and it's vaping, and vaping has been
around since the mid twenty tens or so. And at
first when they came out this whole vaping things, well,
it's better than cigarettes. You don't want to smoke, and
(11:15):
you certainly don't want your teenage kids to smoke cigarettes.
So maybe vaping is a good alternative. It's sort of
like saying, drink non alcoholic beer, but that is not true.
Buyer beware. Study after study after study worldwide is showing
(11:40):
that vaping is not good for you. It is harmful
to you. And so if we look at this all
as a healthier alternative and a sort of a tool
to stop smoking, I would have to say we're totally
wrong on that. The hazards are real. In a study
(12:05):
last month, for example, a team of scientists analyzed the
mist from some popular vapes and found such high levels
of heavy metals that one researcher thought their machine had
malfunction it was so high and the research is showing
that it can affect the heart, the lungs, and the brain.
(12:27):
And we've had experts on that have talked about this
in the past. Now data on the long term effect
now we have decades and generational experience with cigarettes and tobacco,
vaping is more of a short term. We don't have
(12:47):
these long term effects. And part of the problem is
the product is changing.
Speaker 3 (12:53):
Every year or so.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
There is a new product that is evolving just enough
just to change to say that it's different than the
one before, and so it's a whole the research has
to start from scratch. The other problem is that people
smoke cigarettes and vape at the same time, so it's
(13:18):
really difficult to say is it the Marlboroughs that you're
taking causing your heart disease or is it the vaping.
So vaping is still less common than cigarettes among US adults,
with about four point five percent vaped in twenty twenty one,
but nearly eight percent of high school students said they
(13:40):
vaped within the last month in a twenty twenty four survey.
Now what do you have to remember? And it all
looks so innocent and it's marketed so lovely, but really
think about it. You are taking a super heated chemical
(14:01):
and inhaling it right into your lungs. This is not
good now from a cardiovascular standpoint, your heart without a doubt,
this is a stress on your cardiovascular system. So what
happens Your heart rate rises and your blood vessels constrict.
(14:26):
So in a sense, you have these episodes over and
over again every time you vape of high blood pressure. Now,
with the high blood pressure, you're at risk for developing
some sort of a cardiac arrhythmia at the irregular heart rate,
stroke or even a heart attack. And so you have
(14:47):
to think there and say, what what's the benefit here?
Do I really want to jack up my heart rate,
jack up my blood pressure, and increase my risk of
a heart attack. We're not thinking out there people. And
these hot liquids release chemicals that go deep, deep into
(15:14):
the lungs. Now, many of the liquids that are in
e cigarettes release known carcinogen. So carcinogen is a compound
that can put you at risk for cancer. Like formaldehyde
and acetyl aldehyde, this is bad stuff lung issues. It
(15:36):
can exacerbate asthma, symptoms of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease COPD.
It can lead to a chronic cost shortness of breath. Now,
we're not quite sure if vaping causes lung cancer. That
is something we're going to have to figure out, but
(15:56):
they are. You know, when you vape, you are being
exposed to these carcinogens. And a researcher out at UC
Davis out in California tested three popular disposable vape brands
and found that they release high levels of nickel and antimony,
which are heavy metals linked to lung cancer. So you
(16:21):
have to really proceed with caution. It is addictive. Researchers
out in San Francisco that work with smoking addiction are
now dealing with adolescents that are addicted. These kids are
going to bed with these vaping pens under their bed.
(16:41):
As soon as they wake up, they start hitting it.
And we have to work on understanding the adolescent brain
how it develops. Well, we know how it develops, but
what's the impact of the vaping. And so even more
and this is the alarming part, even more addictive vapor
that contain higher levels of nicotine or hitting the market.
(17:05):
And so there's one quote in this one article that
there are vapes that have twenty thousand puffs of nicotine
in them, okay, which is equivalent to about one hundred
packs of cigarettes. So again, is this a knowledge deficiency?
(17:27):
Do people not know that this is good for you?
Do they not really understand that this is no better
than smoking and that they have to really get a
handle on this. If you're a parent and your son
or daughter vapes, you have to get them help because
(17:47):
long term, this is not going to be good. All right,
Doctor Joglotti News and weather coming up. Don't forget doctor
Jogolotti dot com.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
We'll bright back. Well.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
I would say, if this song doesn't get you excited
and happy, I don't know what we're gonna do with you,
grown up.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
I was never.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
A zz Top fan growing up in New York. That
sort of southern rock didn't really play in the Galatti house,
but coming here.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
They're really terrific. All right. I hope you having a great.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
Sunday evening, made the best of the weekend, had a
chance to recharge. That's what the weekend is all about, recharging,
and hopefully you have the weekend off. I, on the
other hand, have been on call. We still managed to
(19:01):
put the show on, take care of our patients, take
care of our families. It's just a matter of priorities
in a sense. Don't forget doctor Joeglotti dot com is
our website. Things you could do there, sign a for
our newsletter, send me a message. All of our social
media is there, our podcasts are there. You can look
(19:24):
and pick up a copy of my book Eating Yourself
Sick Now in paperback form, and educate yourself on all
facets of health and wellness and of course liver disease,
which is what we do now. Over the fourth of
July weekend, I had the opportunity to go to Florida
(19:46):
for a few days, just my wife and I. We
took off and we were staying at a friend's house.
They were out of town, so we had the place
to ourselves and we spent a few days on the beach. Now,
I try to get outside as much as I can
(20:06):
when we go on vacation, my wife and I and
the family, we will tend to go hiking, touring and
being outside. So being outside is no stranger to me,
and I would certainly encourage all of you to spend
as much time outside as possible. It seems in the
last twenty five thirty years. We are creatures of being inside,
(20:31):
being in air conditioned buildings, and it's just not good.
But the days that I was in Florida, we had enough.
There was a little bit of rain that really didn't
disrupt the good time. But being out on the beach
and again, I grew up on Long Island, South Shore,
(20:53):
Long Island and Jones Beach was where I would ride
my bike during the summer with my friends, leave eight
in the morning and not come home till dinner time.
And so I'm used to spending time on the beach.
We still have a lot of relatives out on Long Island.
We go out to the beach and it's good. But
(21:13):
my wife and I we hadn't done anything, just the
two of us. But I would say I really felt good.
I always feel good. Let's say I felt a little
better after spending a few hours on the beach. I
tend to stay somewhat covered up under a umbrella if
(21:34):
I can. I'm not one for laying there in a
bathing suit and just soaking up the sun. I just
don't do that. But the benefits of sunlight is something
that is still debated because over the last fifteen years
or so, there's been this attitude that less is better.
(21:57):
The risk of skin cancer the skin, the risk of
other sun related damages is far too great, and they
get into the ozone in the thinness of the atmosphere,
and the sunlight of today is not what it was
in nineteen fifty. Look, I'm not going to get into that,
but I believe that we may have swung the pendulum
(22:22):
a little bit too far where people go up, you know,
wrapped up in a rug with sunglasses and a hat,
and you know SPF eight thousand.
Speaker 3 (22:31):
Slathered all over them.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
I don't think we need to do that, but we
do know that ultraviolet rays, ultraviolet light, the UVA and
the UVB lights that come from the sun, they can
damage the skin and cause skin cancer. But people also
(22:54):
get vitamin D from the sun, and so oh, there
is new research. There is new thinking that moderate sun
exposure in certain context does have benefits, and that vitamin
(23:14):
D supplements supplements may not always do a good job
to replace the vitamin D that we need. And I
have a ton of patients that are on vitamin D supplements.
They're taking it by the fistful, and yet their follow
up Vitamin D levels are not that good. So I
think we have to look at moderate, but be thoughtful
(23:36):
about your sun exposure. Don't take your clothes off and
at you know, high noon, lay there and get roasted
like a lobster out there. That is not any good.
So I think if we get to a common ground
to say that sun rays can damage your skin, all right,
(23:58):
I am not. Don't start writing me letters to say
doctor Glotti said skin. You know, just sun has no
potential risk, but we have to look at it and
do it in a mindful way. But we have to
look at the benefits. There are benefits to being outside.
It is associated with lower blood pressure, so blood pressure
(24:19):
tends to be higher in the winter than in the summer.
This is by doctor Richard Weller, a dermatologist and researcher
at the University of Edinburgh, and heart problems are more
common too during this time. One study found that people
who reported more sunlight exposure were less likely to develop
heart failure. Now, with all of this the research, they're
(24:42):
really not quite sure why sunlight improves heart health, but
they're thinking that there is a compound called nitric oxide.
You may have heard about this it relaxes blood vessels
and reduces blood pressure. This is released from the skin
(25:04):
with sun exposure. Okay, they also did a study in
twenty fourteen. They looked at nearly thirty thousand Swedish women
for twenty years and what the research has found is
that those who avoided the sun were twice as likely
to die during the study time period as those that
were exposed to sunlight. So there is some element of
(25:27):
longevity here. The other business is that there's a fair
amount of research that looks at the role of sun
exposure and controlling your immune system. That people that have
autoimmune diseases when exposed to the sun have a tamping
(25:51):
down of this overactive immune system, so it may be beneficial.
So that is important to look at. And so I
would think that this time of the year it's summer,
sun is out. Do make sure that you get some
(26:14):
sunshine out there. Don't be afraid to go out.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
Now.
Speaker 2 (26:17):
Do you have to spend you know, six hours out there.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
No.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
If you're very fair skin and you've already had skin
cancer or your prone to skin's cancer, you have other
skin or medical issues, certain medications you're on, you have
to be careful but when you look at how sunlight
the UV radiation may not only boost a production of
(26:41):
vitamin D, but also control the regulation of our immune system.
It causes a little bit of immuno suppression. I think
it's worthwhile to get out there in the sun. The
other thing is when you're out and get these UV rays,
it increases the amount of endorphins. These are natural opiates
(27:05):
that are sort of secreted from the skin which make
you feel good.
Speaker 3 (27:11):
You get these.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Naturally occurring opioids and you feel better out in the sun.
I think that's really not a bad.
Speaker 3 (27:21):
Thing to consider.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
All right, final segment coming up for this Sunday's.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
Don't forget doctor Jogalotti dot com. If you have a
question a concern, you need a consultant. No matter where
you are in the country, we can help get you
connected with one of our colleagues around the country. So
we do that as a service to our listeners. All right,
(27:51):
stay tuned, we're right back. Final segment of this week's
Your Health First. So it's a pleasure being here spending
a little bit time on a Sunday evening with our
great listeners.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
And my mission for.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
Every program, every week, everything that we do, which really
is an extension of our practice or my practicing medicine,
is to empower you all. And I don't say that lightly.
(28:35):
Oh go empower yourself. Come on, it really does have
an impact by you being able to take action, intervene
for yourself, advocate, develop a good relationship with you your
(29:00):
treatment team, whatever that looks like, and have open dialogue.
And the healthcare system of today compared to thirty years ago,
I believe, is far more complicated. The amount of technology
that our patients are part of. There are so many
(29:24):
different tests and scans and procedures and devices that we
can apply to helping somebody get well. That the channeling
of all this information. How do you keep track of
one test, one result, Because of this result, I'm going
for another test. You're on a continuous sort of Gerbil wheel,
(29:50):
running from one test and one doctor, one specialist, one
pharmacy to another. And it really does become overwhelming.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
But you have to.
Speaker 2 (29:59):
Do your best to ca control what's happening on when
you are when you become too placid in this and
you just take a back seat. Uh, it's it's just
not going to work. And that's that's truly what we
try to do here. It's what we try to do
with our patients that we take care of at Liver
(30:19):
Specialists of Texas and all of the transplant patients at
Houston Methodist Hospital. That that that we all take care of.
So don't forget doctor Jogili dot com is our website.
Speaker 3 (30:33):
All right.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
So July is National Social Wellness Month. Now I saw
this and I said, you know what this is. This
is worth spending a few minutes about, because what the
foundation of this is really the power of social healing
(30:57):
and how social interaction will benefit your life in general.
I don't think we consciously pay enough attention to this.
And what happens is we are so damn busy. We're
running around like chickens without their heads. Everybody's stressed out,
(31:20):
everybody's hair is on fire. And you know that's not
cool anymore. It's not cool to be the busiest guy
that gets nothing done and is always on the brink
of like blowing up. We have to settle down. And
(31:43):
I think what happens is and I talk to my
own colleagues that you know, when they're on call for
a week and I understand being on call is horrible.
It is busy work, but they can't do anything. They
can't make you a cup of coffee and check up,
or hey, how would you like to go get a
(32:04):
bite to eat after week? Now I can't do it.
I'm on service. And this applies to people that are
not in healthcare, people that just have regular, plain old
jobs that keep the country and keep the world going,
and they are so consumed by work that they don't
(32:26):
have time to take care of themselves, which is a
whole other separate problem. But the relationships that they have,
they lose contact with their friends, and so this social
support is very key. Now, just think if in the
midst of you having a busy work week, you connected
(32:49):
with a friend, maybe a relative, a neighbor, somebody, and
you had thirty minutes with them, or an hour and
thirty minutes with them, You got a bite to eat
some and you had a nice healthy salad that doctor
Joe Glotti would recommend. Maybe in talking with them, they
could listen to some of the struggles you're having at
work or some of the struggles you're having at home,
(33:13):
and they may be able to lend a little advice,
a little life experience to say, look, you need to
make these changes or look at the world differently. So
I think the emotional support that we get by having
a healthy social network.
Speaker 3 (33:34):
Is very.
Speaker 2 (33:37):
Important. We have to take care of ourselves now. It's
not just a matter of having coffee with your favorite
girlfriend or an old college roommate. I think we have
to look and say, do you have a creative outlet?
I have always been a fan and looking at people
to encourage them to have some sort of creative outlet.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Either it is an.
Speaker 2 (34:01):
Appreciation for the arts, going to listen to live music,
going to a concert, going to the opera, going to
a museum. Last time I went to a museum. They
are pretty quiet and you could get pretty in touch
with your soul.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
But I believe that.
Speaker 2 (34:23):
Having an outlet learning how to play the guitar or
the piano, or learning how to sing, or being part
of a singing group at church or your community, it
is vitally important. It is vitally important. The other part
of this social wellness is are you giving back? Are
(34:46):
you volunteering?
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Now?
Speaker 2 (34:47):
We all have skills of some kind, and do not
look at yourself to say, ah, I got a crappy job.
I really didn't go to college, and you know, I'm
really not good at anything. There is some skill that
you have that you can teach another adult, another college student,
(35:08):
or some adolescent in high school. But we have to
look and say, how can we give back to the
society around us. This is very therapeutic volunteering. There are
about a million and one volunteering opportunities here in Houston,
throughout Texas, throughout the United States.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
People are always.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Looking for free help and volunteers where you could give back. Now,
maybe you are just doing a menial work where you
are making sandwiches that are going to be given out
to the poor of the homeless. Okay, fine, that does
not take a great amount of skill. But still the
sense that you are helping somebody or teaching somebody something,
(35:51):
teaching them a new skill is very important. We always
feel good about ourselves, which in turn is going to
be good for our health, our mind, our body, and
our souls. It really is super super important. So in
(36:12):
this month of July Social Awareness month, who would have
thought take stock and try to take care of yourself
and take care of people around you. So I have
a good rest of the week. We'll be here next
(36:33):
Sunday night. Go to a website doctor Joeglotti dot com,
Send me a message, take a look at all the
information I've got there. Listen to pasts, programs, our YouTube page.
I was saying at the early part of the show TikTok,
I thank goodness, who would have thought I'd be on TikTok.
(36:54):
But go out there, love somebody, take care of yourself,
take care of your family, eat right, exercise, stay away
from processed foods, don't drink too much alcohol, and it
will be a better place for everybody.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Take care of doctor Jogilotti, your health first. We'll see
you next Sunday night.
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