August 2, 2026 • 40 mins
Tonight, Dr. Galati has more news articles he wants to discuss. However, he starts with a story about Mattress Mack calling his son yesterday. Dr. Galati talks about heart disease (dying from it), heart attack, cholesterol, etc. He also takes some time on Breastfeeding Awareness Month. Dr. Galati ends with one more article on eating something regularly leading to longevity.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initial life Sequence.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center and Corunch pays everything looking at
This is Your Health First, the most beneficial health program
on radio with doctor Joe Galotti. During the next hour,
(00:26):
you'll learn about health, wellness and the prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, a good Sunday night to everybody. Doctor Joe Glotti,
thanks for tuning in. The name of the program is
Your Health First. Every Sunday evening, seven o'clock Central Time,
broadcasting out of our flagship station here in Houston, Texas,
(01:11):
seven k TRH and beaming around the world on the
iHeartRadio app. Our website is doctor Jogalotti dot com. And
as I say every Sunday, our goal is to make
you a better consumer of healthcare. That's it. You have
(01:33):
to be in the know. Like I said our website
Doctor Joegalotti dot com. Sign for a newsletter every Sunday,
not every Sunday, every Saturday. Every Saturday goes out. You
can send me a message. All of our social media
channels is there if you want to learn more about
our liver disease practice. Liver Specialists of Texas. It is there.
(01:57):
Texasliver dot Com is the website. But go to doctor
Joe you get a copy of my book. It is
all there. It is all there, all right. For the
program tonight, a few things about heart disease. There are
a handful of news articles that we'll be doing every
(02:22):
once in a while. I like to have a run
of the you know, probably the most popular medical health
wellness stories that are in the news or online or
TV that you may have seen, and I'll try to
shed the light to say, look, is this really important
(02:46):
for me to know or is it bs? But that
is important and so just as a side personal note,
So my son, Joe Joe Junior as we like to
call him, he bought a leather couch at Gallery Furniture
(03:12):
on Friday. So he had lived out in California. He
worked for the San Diego Padres for eight years, came
back to Austin, received his MBA. He is now working
for a financial investment company here in Houston. We're all
very proud of him. But with his new apartment, he
(03:35):
needed some updated furniture. So we love gallery furniture, so
he went to Gallery Furniture. It picked up a nice
leather couch. Had it delivered. Well, He's driving back to
Austin yesterday to meet some friends and he gets a
phone call, thinking it was some sort of a robo
call or an AI call, and the person on the
(04:01):
other end says it's Mattress Mac. And for those in
the greater Houston area, Mattress Mac is synonymous with gallery furniture.
But Mac has done so much for Houston and surrounding
communities it's there's nobody else like them. But anyway, Mattress
(04:21):
Mac and my son is thinking, oh, this is a joke.
Mattress Mac is not calling me to see how my
leather couch was, but lo and behold it was. Now
this is important for a couple of things. This is
a business man that is probably looking through who he
(04:42):
did business with yesterday. And I'm sure at all of
the gallery furniture locations there are hundreds of people that
bought a piece of furniture. But yet he's looking at
it to say, all right, where does this guy live
and who's this guy? Now that's impressive on its own
that he does that. But number two, he thought he
(05:06):
was calling me doctor Galotti, and my son had to say, no,
that's my father, and he then said I love listening
to him on the radio or something along those lines.
So Mac, if you're listening, thank you. Hope we could
(05:27):
help you out. Thank you for all you do here
in Houston. Gallery Furniture. Amazing staff, the sales staff that
we had on Friday when I actually stopped in for
a little while to sort of oversee give my two cents,
but really was him and my wife, you know, wonderful
staff and Mac is the real deal. So support Gallery Furniture.
(05:53):
That's what I would say. All right, first topic of
the night.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I have.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Chatted about this before in a couple of different venues
in a sense, and it has to do with heart disease,
dying from heart disease, heart attack, etc. And cholesterol. So
(06:24):
I'm going to say several years ago, the American Heart
Association and various professional medical bodies have brought attention to
the LDL cholesterol low density lipoprotein. Now the guideline or
(06:48):
guidelines are that the LDL cholesterol has to be lower
than what has currently or has been in acceptable in
the past. Now a day does not go by where
I am not looking at cholesterol or the lipid panel
(07:09):
in my patients because many of my patients have fatty
liver disease. So with fatty livid disease, there is obesity,
there's high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and high cholesterol.
And so you may look at the total cholesterol and
it may be close to normal and they will say,
(07:33):
doctor Galotti, my doctor says, my cholesterol is nearly normal
or it's below two hundred. I don't need to do anything.
I'm fine. But then I will look down and look
at the LDL cholesterol and it is sky high, sort
of just standing out there on its own, no good.
(07:59):
And so so the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association,
they call it this Multi society dyslipidemia guideline have come
up and they're basically saying that and this is the
number to remember. And if you write anything down, grab
(08:19):
a pencil. And we're talking about the LDL cholesterol. It
is on your cholesterol profile when you have your lab done.
And there's a several different categories of patients, but I'm
going to keep it simple. So for individuals living with
(08:42):
clinical athrosclerotic vascular disease, people that are high risk, you've
had a heart attack, you've had a stroke. Your LDL
cholesterol should be fifty five or less. For people with
some sort of athrosclerotic cardiovascular disease that are not at
(09:08):
high risk, it should be less than seventy. So, no
matter how you cut it, high risk or low risk,
and I'm using a broad stroke here, your LDL cholesterol
should be less than seventy. Okay. So then the second
(09:29):
category individuals not living with clinical heart disease, and this
would be more primary prevention. Individuals with LDL greater than
one ninety. It should be less than one hundred, which
I do not see many patients with LDLs less than
(09:52):
one hundred. Okay, So what about individuals with LDL cholesterol
between seventy and a one hundred and eighty. You then
get into various risk assessment scores, and again it should
be less than seventy. If you've had a carninary calcium
(10:16):
scan right now, we'll talk about that probably after the break.
For individuals with subclinical athrosclerosis, meaning they are not having
chest pain, they're not in heart failure, they're not having angina,
they could still exercise, it should be less than one hundred.
(10:37):
The LDL cholesterol less than one hundred for individuals with
a carnary calcium score between one and ninety nine. If
your caronary calcium score is between one hundred and two
hundred and ninety nine, it should be less than seventy.
(11:00):
If you have a calcium score greater than a thousand,
it should be less than fifty five. So again, that
seventy to fifty five range is the sweet spot where
it needs to be, and the data shows that it
will reduce the risk of carnary artery disease, heart attack, stroke,
(11:23):
and death. So I'm going to get into a little
bit more with cholesterol, and I do think it is
important that we're not sort of beating a dead horse here,
But I would challenge all of you we're taking a
break now, in a moment at least and look at
(11:44):
your blood work. Many of you have it on my
chart some sort of electronic medical records. Look up your
lipid profile, and we tend to focus on the cholesterol
total cholesterol, but look at that LDL cholesterol and I
(12:09):
would bet you half of you it's too high, and
if you have risk factors, it's even higher. I'll be
back in a minute, doctor, Joeglotti dot COM's our website.
Stay tuned, we'll bright back. Welcome back everybody, Doctor Joe
Galotti always a joy to be here on Sunday evening
spending part of your weekend festivities together. For those of
(12:35):
you in Houston or greater region, it is hot, it
is humid, but if you had a pool, it would
probably be a good idea to jump in, which is
what I did today. Make sure you put your suntan
lotion on.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Let's see our website, doctor Joeglotti dot com newsletter, send
me a message. All of our social media is there.
And take a look at my book Eating Yourself Sick.
Get it on Amazon other online sources. And I am
(13:19):
anticipating that in I'm going to say October one, my
new book should be out, so stay tuned for that.
But go to doctor Joegladty dot com. All right. Continuing
with cholesterol, So the guidelines that came out recently number
one the LDL cholesterol. And again, if you don't have it,
(13:43):
now you have it. You know in your file cabinet somewhere,
maybe at work or at home. You want to look
at your LDL cholesterol and make sure you are in
the right zone for you, and the troubling data. The
troubling information is that one only one in three people
(14:09):
have their LDL cholesterol in that right value, So two
thirds of everybody, two thirds of everybody is out of range,
putting you at risk for heart attack, stroke, premature death,
something bad happening. And so here again, your health first,
(14:29):
that's the name of the program. We are putting your
health first. You want to put your health first, make
it a priority. Now, the challenge with cholesterol elevation is
that you're having no symptoms unless you're having chest pain
and short breath and palpitations and all that other bad stuff.
(14:51):
But most people are going to be milling around having
no care in the world that their cholesterol is until
you have that sentinel event where you're found dead in
the bathroom and everybody at your funeral is, oh, Bob,
(15:15):
Bob looked good. Well, you look good on the outside,
but on the inside his cholesterol was a mess. So
you're able to take action. That is that is the
message here all right now. The other recommendation, and this
you may not have heard about, is to check your
(15:39):
It's called LiPo protein, A little a l ipo protein
LiPo protein little A. So the guidelines are that you
should get this checked once to see if it's high, normal,
(16:00):
or low. Now, if you have a high level of
lipoprotein A, you're more likely to have a heart attack
of stroke something called aortic stenosis, especially if you have
a family of high cholesterol or signs of carnary artery disease.
And it tends to run in families and it's more
genetically driven. And if you have a high lipoprotein A,
(16:25):
you are at extra extra high risk. So this is
the cholesterol similar to the LDL cholesterol that builds up
in the walls of your blood vessels. And you have
this cholesterol deposit, it's called plaque and decreases the blood
(16:50):
flow to really all parts of the body heart, brain, kidney's, lungs,
your legs. If the plaque ruptures, that's when you have
a heart attack or stroke. And the lipoprotein A in
the in the blood vessels, it really it creates inflammation
(17:12):
in the artery. Now, the tricky thing here and why
it is important, is that the lipoprotein A levels cannot
be controlled by healthy eating or exercise. Typically you're going
(17:33):
to have to get on medication, and it's recommended that
you get on a PCSK nine inhibitor, which is a
medicine called rapatha, which is very very effective. All right, So,
(17:55):
knowing that you have the lipoprotein A and you say, well,
I'm on A, I'm safe. No, you have to really
see if this lipoprotein A is elevated. And again we
encourage exercise, we encourage a Mediterranean diet. It's not going
to help this type of protein elevation, this type of
(18:18):
cholesterol elevation. The third recommendation, So get your LDL cholesterol.
Know that typically it's going to be less than seventy,
less than fifty in most people. Number two, know your
lipoprotein A. It's a separate blood test. Your family doctor
most likely is not doing it. So a lot of
(18:38):
patients will say, well, if there was something wrong, my
doctor would have told me. Well, that could be true
if they have the information. You don't have the information,
how could you comment on it? So you want that
lipoprotein A in your file, in your hand. You want
to look at it. Lastly, carnary calcium scan. This is
(19:01):
a non contrast cat scan. It takes about ten minutes.
Usually insurance does not cover it, but most hospitals, clinics,
radiology centers around the country will do it for anywhere between.
I've seen as low as fifty dollars. I've seen as
high as two hundred and fifty dollars, most likely one
(19:24):
twenty five to one fifty. And so you may say, well,
it's not covered by insurance, Well, I would say we
spend one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars on less
important things. This is a one shot deal. And if
you have an increased cardinary calcium scan or calcium score,
(19:45):
that tells us that you are at increased risk for
having complications. And then you can make sure is my
LDL cholesterol in the right zone? Is my lipoprotein A low?
Do I need a stanton? How do I I adjust
my lifestyle? Do I have pre diabetes? Knowledge is golden people,
(20:09):
That's why you're here listening to your health first. All right,
let's take a break news, weather, traffic. We'll see if
the astros were up to I'm doctor Joe Galati. Doctor
Joglotti dot com is our website. Stay tuned. I'll be
right back. Welcome back, everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Every Sunday
between seven seven and eight pm. We're here raising your
(20:35):
health IQ, making you better consumers of healthcare. Our website
doctor Jogalotti dot com probably the only place you need
to go to learn about me and my team and
all that we do to push forward the health and
wellness narrative, Doctor Joegalotti dot com. And of course for
(21:00):
our newsletter every weekend, it goes out talking about food, exercise,
nutrition preventative strategies. So doctor Joeglotti dot com. All right,
so every once in a while, every few weeks, I
like to grab a few news articles, things that are
(21:22):
topical and talk with you about them. So the month
of August is Breastfeeding Awareness month, and I would say
most healthcare providers are going to be very supportive of
(21:45):
mothers breastfeeding their children. And there are multiple benefits that
come from this. And it is the emotional attachment to
the child. It is good for the mother following pregnancy
(22:09):
and delivery, It is protective to the child, giving the
child a health advantage, and it is free and the
other thing, really, have you ever looked at baby formula?
Now everyone's going to start sending me nasty grams about
(22:32):
bashing baby formula, But I would say it's a processed food,
and the very things we don't want our children to eat,
you know, five six seven year old school children or
our adults to eat, we are readily feeding our children.
(22:53):
And so the longer you could go before introducing that
to the to the child, I would say, all the better.
So you may not be in healthcare, but you may
have a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, friend of the
family that you could encourage breastfeeding. Be a supportive voice.
(23:20):
So what is the research show the benefit for the baby?
So it lowers the baby's risk of a handful of
conditions and builds a strong immune system. Breast Fed babies
have lower risks of diarrhea, necrotizing enterocolitis, infections like pneumonia,
(23:49):
respiratory sensicial virus, whooping cough, ear infections, bacterial meningitis, asthma,
sudden infant death syndrome, childhood ob city ezema, type two
diabetes later in life, leukemia, cavities, and celiac disease. Now
(24:12):
on top of this, studies show that breastfed infants have
lower hospitalization rates and tend to be in better health.
This leads to fewer visits to the pediatrician for sickness.
Now they nutritional benefit of breast milk. It supports the
baby's health by it's easy for their intestines to digest it.
(24:40):
It was made for children. It contains antibodies to prevent
infections and boost immunity. It has the right amount of fat, sugar, water, proteins,
vitamins for the baby's development, promotes healthy weight gain, and
contains substances that naturally soothe your baby. So the benefits
(25:06):
for the mom lowers the risk of postpartum depression, reduces
breast cancer, ovarian cancer and ametrial cancer, thyroid cancer, osteoporosis,
type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
So in this month of breast feeding awareness, be supportive,
(25:29):
Be supportive of these young moms. And from a personal standpoint,
my daughter, we talked about this before a couple months ago,
gave birth and she is breastfeeding, and I know it
is an adjustment. I know it is challenging, but I
believe she and the baby and her husband are all
are all doing well, which is good. So I'll keep
(25:51):
you posted on that. All right, m Let's see, I
got another one here, all right, So, speaking of pregnancy breastfeeding,
a recent article that came out that high rates of
high blood pressure arising in pregnant women. So this is alarming.
(26:12):
High pertension during pregnancy is associated with stillborn, heart disease
amongst mother and other serious complications. So the rates of
high blood pressure among pregnant women nationwise rose significantly between
the years twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four. According to
a new report published this past week by the Centers
for Disease Control, one in ten pregnant women in the
(26:34):
United States had high blood pressure in twenty twenty four,
up from about one in seventeen, a thirty seven percent increase.
Now I'd have to be sitting here saying, okay, what
is it that's going on? Why are women having more
high blood pressure. Keep in mind that maternal mortality rates
(27:03):
in the United States exceeds that of other wealthy nations
and high pretensive disorders. The high blood pressure during pregnancy
or among the leading causes of pregnancy related death and disease.
So it's important because high blood pressure during pregnancy increases
the risk of serious complications, including preterm birth, low birth weight,
(27:24):
still born placental abruption and organ failure. So we see
in liver disease people going into liver failure from this.
It's called aclampsia preeclampsia. So it's not really clear why
this is though, what do you think it may be? Obesity? Okay?
(28:03):
The possible health issues that are at play include obesity,
which is closely linked to hypertension. So the report found
that the hire a woman's body mass index or weight
before pregnancy, the more likely they're going to develop hypertension.
So I think here for the young women, your weight,
(28:26):
being overweight or obese is going to you know, certainly
impact your pregnancy if you are to follow that path.
So again, be very very careful. So bit concerning Okay,
another article, What a sleep expert eats in a day
(28:46):
for better rest at night. Now, so many people have
trouble sleeping. They spend time in bed, they're tossing, they're turning,
they're waking up exhausted. A lot of it may be
obstructive sleep apnea, which again is a big problem. And
(29:08):
so this one person that was a sleep apnea doctor,
Saint Ounge. She's over at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
She's looked at all kinds of studies and it's really
(29:29):
no surprise. Foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans,
whole grain, lean meat, poultry, and seafood, the foods that
resemble the Mediterranean diet have the best impact on sleep.
Eating more of these nutrients and fewer highly processed foods
(29:53):
without added sugar saturated fat benefits your sleep in many ways.
It gives your body the nutrition it needs to produce
sleep regulating hormones like melatonin. It helps keep your blood
sugar stable while you sleep, potentially prevents you from waking
up through the night. So we talk with our patients
(30:21):
all the time about diet. I wrote a book Eating
Yourself Sick, touching on this, and so the food you
eat not only will keep your weight down, control high
(30:42):
blood pressure diabet us, it's going to make you sleep
better in the evening. Now. The one question in the
article here what do you eat for dinner? Dinner is
more varied than lunch and breakfast. She goes on to say,
I usually have salmon once a week, shrimp once a week,
(31:04):
and chicken once a week. The other meals she eats
lagomes and tofu I eat salad and different types of vegetables.
I always eat some kind of green vegetable like broccoli,
Brussels sprouts, and asparagus. I love to eat butternut squash too.
Vegetables are high in polyphenolic compounds and they're good for
(31:24):
your microbiome and good for your sleep. So don't don't
don't ignore what you eat. Too important. All right, final
segment coming up, Doctor Joe Gilatti. A few more articles
(31:46):
in the news, something about eating certain foods and longevity.
And while we were talking about sleep, there was an
article article melatonin versus magnesium, which is better for your sleep.
I'll al right back, doctor Joe Galotti, see you in
a few minutes. Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Thanks
(32:10):
for tuning in on this Sunday. We're here every Sunday
between seven and a pm Central. Don't forget even if
you are traveling vacation, holiday well, you have other family
and friends out of the greater Houston area, you could
always hear your health first on the iHeart app the
(32:32):
iHeart radio network anywhere in the country seven o'clock Central.
We'll be here streaming live broadcasting from our Houston World headquarters.
KTRH great radio station. And don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com, newsletter,
(32:53):
all of our social media send me a message, podcasts,
a lot of health and wellness information for you, but
you have to go to doctor Joglotti dot com. All right,
So we were talking about some articles in the news
and this one I found interesting and this has been
(33:15):
talked about before and the name of the article is
eating this food regularly can lead to greater longevity and
of all things, eating hot peppers. Okay, so when so
(33:38):
they looked at in twenty fifteen a major study in
the British Medical Journal. They found that that when you
eat you eat spicy foods, you live longer. And more recently,
they looked at several million Chinese and they tracked their
(34:00):
health over several years. But the surprising part was, even
after you control for multiple other cofactors like who smoked,
physical activity, how much red meat did you have, did
you have a lot of fruits and vegetables, what they
found is adults who had spicy food averaged six or
(34:28):
seven times a week had a fourteen percent lower risk
of dying than those whose intake was less than one
a week. Eating spicy foods was associated with a reduction
in death from cancer, heart and lung disease. So here
(34:50):
again getting down to the you are what you eat
cannot be denied. So here we're saying increasing spicy food
has a positive effect. Now, after that study was released,
(35:15):
a similar study was done in the United States which
corroborated those findings. Americans who consumed red I should say
hot red chili peppers were about thirteen less likely to
die than compared to those that did not. And the
thinking is, it's the capsaicin, the main active component of
(35:36):
chili peppers. We should all know that maybe what is
beneficial because of the effect on the receptors and our
nerve cells that perceive heat, known as the TRPV one receptor.
These nerves are throughout the body and many many are
(35:59):
in the system. And so it has been shown that
when you eat high amounts of these spicy foods, less
heart disease, less stroke than not quite clear the mechanism,
but talking about cholesterol, like we were earlier, capsation increases
HDL cholesterol, which is a known factor in reducing heart attack,
(36:29):
reduces blood pressure. So again I think, do you go
out of your way and say I'm going to eat
spicy food to lower my chance of dying. Well, I've
never been a fan of saying eat this food to
cure a certain disease. That is not the way I
(36:50):
would say approach it. But if you are cooking at home,
which I applaud all of you to do, take a
look at and start experimenting with chili peppers, other hot peppers.
And again some are mildly hot, some are super hot.
(37:10):
I'm sort of a middle of the road kind of
a guy with with my spicy food. I've learned that
lesson the hard way of eating food that is just
unpalatable for me. Now, maybe I haven't given it enough try,
but you do get used to it after a while.
But I think this is the value of cooking at home.
(37:31):
You could introduce these different sort of compounds to your
diet and it's important. And so that's that, you know,
that's something to think about, all right. The last topic
(37:52):
really another story melatonin versus magnesium, which is better for
your sleep, And they talk about people that have trouble
falling asleep, jet lag, muscle tension, and more. Now, I
had some personal experience with melatonin and when I had
my knee surgery earlier in the year. I could not sleep.
(38:14):
That is an accepted part of having knee replacement surgery.
You have trouble sleeping for the first four to eight weeks.
And I would say I was not getting overly anxious
about it, not being able to sleep, but it was annoying.
But I was able to get through the day and
still do my exercise, and I recovered pretty nicely. But
(38:35):
at the recommendation of everybody, why don't you get some melotonin.
So I got melotonin. I bought the extra strength melatonin.
It did nothing. It did nothing for me. I tried magnesium.
It did nothing for me. Now there are lots of
(39:01):
stories and anecdotal stories, a lot of it's online how
melatonin magnesium may help. Neither acts as a sedative, so
it's not going to put you to sleep. But I
would say, you could try melatonin, you could try magnesium.
(39:26):
But I am a bit pessimistic that it's going to work.
I think there is a lot of hype. Now there
are people listeners that swear that melatonin is the one
thing that allows them to sleep better. That is fine,
if that works for you, terrific, But I think at
the wholesale level. It has limited value. That is just
(39:55):
my you know my point. All right, Well we're going
to close out. Hope you had a good evening. Learned
at least one thing tonight that you could do, if anything,
I think the most important thing is get your LDL
cholesterol checked. Look look at your my chart and see
if your LDL cholesterol is there. All right, don't forget
(40:16):
doctor Joeglotti dot com. We'll see you next Sunday evening.
Have a really really great week.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You've been listening to your Health First with doctor Joe Glotti.
For more information on this program or the content of
this program, go to your Health First dot com.
Initial life Sequence.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center and Corunch pays everything looking at
This is Your Health First, the most beneficial health program
on radio with doctor Joe Galotti. During the next hour,
(00:26):
you'll learn about health, wellness and the prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, a good Sunday night to everybody. Doctor Joe Glotti,
thanks for tuning in. The name of the program is
Your Health First. Every Sunday evening, seven o'clock Central Time,
broadcasting out of our flagship station here in Houston, Texas,
(01:11):
seven k TRH and beaming around the world on the
iHeartRadio app. Our website is doctor Jogalotti dot com. And
as I say every Sunday, our goal is to make
you a better consumer of healthcare. That's it. You have
(01:33):
to be in the know. Like I said our website
Doctor Joegalotti dot com. Sign for a newsletter every Sunday,
not every Sunday, every Saturday. Every Saturday goes out. You
can send me a message. All of our social media
channels is there if you want to learn more about
our liver disease practice. Liver Specialists of Texas. It is there.
(01:57):
Texasliver dot Com is the website. But go to doctor
Joe you get a copy of my book. It is
all there. It is all there, all right. For the
program tonight, a few things about heart disease. There are
a handful of news articles that we'll be doing every
(02:22):
once in a while. I like to have a run
of the you know, probably the most popular medical health
wellness stories that are in the news or online or
TV that you may have seen, and I'll try to
shed the light to say, look, is this really important
(02:46):
for me to know or is it bs? But that
is important and so just as a side personal note,
So my son, Joe Joe Junior as we like to
call him, he bought a leather couch at Gallery Furniture
(03:12):
on Friday. So he had lived out in California. He
worked for the San Diego Padres for eight years, came
back to Austin, received his MBA. He is now working
for a financial investment company here in Houston. We're all
very proud of him. But with his new apartment, he
(03:35):
needed some updated furniture. So we love gallery furniture, so
he went to Gallery Furniture. It picked up a nice
leather couch. Had it delivered. Well, He's driving back to
Austin yesterday to meet some friends and he gets a
phone call, thinking it was some sort of a robo
call or an AI call, and the person on the
(04:01):
other end says it's Mattress Mac. And for those in
the greater Houston area, Mattress Mac is synonymous with gallery furniture.
But Mac has done so much for Houston and surrounding
communities it's there's nobody else like them. But anyway, Mattress
(04:21):
Mac and my son is thinking, oh, this is a joke.
Mattress Mac is not calling me to see how my
leather couch was, but lo and behold it was. Now
this is important for a couple of things. This is
a business man that is probably looking through who he
(04:42):
did business with yesterday. And I'm sure at all of
the gallery furniture locations there are hundreds of people that
bought a piece of furniture. But yet he's looking at
it to say, all right, where does this guy live
and who's this guy? Now that's impressive on its own
that he does that. But number two, he thought he
(05:06):
was calling me doctor Galotti, and my son had to say, no,
that's my father, and he then said I love listening
to him on the radio or something along those lines.
So Mac, if you're listening, thank you. Hope we could
(05:27):
help you out. Thank you for all you do here
in Houston. Gallery Furniture. Amazing staff, the sales staff that
we had on Friday when I actually stopped in for
a little while to sort of oversee give my two cents,
but really was him and my wife, you know, wonderful
staff and Mac is the real deal. So support Gallery Furniture.
(05:53):
That's what I would say. All right, first topic of
the night.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
I have.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Chatted about this before in a couple of different venues
in a sense, and it has to do with heart disease,
dying from heart disease, heart attack, etc. And cholesterol. So
(06:24):
I'm going to say several years ago, the American Heart
Association and various professional medical bodies have brought attention to
the LDL cholesterol low density lipoprotein. Now the guideline or
(06:48):
guidelines are that the LDL cholesterol has to be lower
than what has currently or has been in acceptable in
the past. Now a day does not go by where
I am not looking at cholesterol or the lipid panel
(07:09):
in my patients because many of my patients have fatty
liver disease. So with fatty livid disease, there is obesity,
there's high blood pressure, type two diabetes, and high cholesterol.
And so you may look at the total cholesterol and
it may be close to normal and they will say,
(07:33):
doctor Galotti, my doctor says, my cholesterol is nearly normal
or it's below two hundred. I don't need to do anything.
I'm fine. But then I will look down and look
at the LDL cholesterol and it is sky high, sort
of just standing out there on its own, no good.
(07:59):
And so so the American College of Cardiology, American Heart Association,
they call it this Multi society dyslipidemia guideline have come
up and they're basically saying that and this is the
number to remember. And if you write anything down, grab
(08:19):
a pencil. And we're talking about the LDL cholesterol. It
is on your cholesterol profile when you have your lab done.
And there's a several different categories of patients, but I'm
going to keep it simple. So for individuals living with
(08:42):
clinical athrosclerotic vascular disease, people that are high risk, you've
had a heart attack, you've had a stroke. Your LDL
cholesterol should be fifty five or less. For people with
some sort of athrosclerotic cardiovascular disease that are not at
(09:08):
high risk, it should be less than seventy. So, no
matter how you cut it, high risk or low risk,
and I'm using a broad stroke here, your LDL cholesterol
should be less than seventy. Okay. So then the second
(09:29):
category individuals not living with clinical heart disease, and this
would be more primary prevention. Individuals with LDL greater than
one ninety. It should be less than one hundred, which
I do not see many patients with LDLs less than
(09:52):
one hundred. Okay, So what about individuals with LDL cholesterol
between seventy and a one hundred and eighty. You then
get into various risk assessment scores, and again it should
be less than seventy. If you've had a carninary calcium
(10:16):
scan right now, we'll talk about that probably after the break.
For individuals with subclinical athrosclerosis, meaning they are not having
chest pain, they're not in heart failure, they're not having angina,
they could still exercise, it should be less than one hundred.
(10:37):
The LDL cholesterol less than one hundred for individuals with
a carnary calcium score between one and ninety nine. If
your caronary calcium score is between one hundred and two
hundred and ninety nine, it should be less than seventy.
(11:00):
If you have a calcium score greater than a thousand,
it should be less than fifty five. So again, that
seventy to fifty five range is the sweet spot where
it needs to be, and the data shows that it
will reduce the risk of carnary artery disease, heart attack, stroke,
(11:23):
and death. So I'm going to get into a little
bit more with cholesterol, and I do think it is
important that we're not sort of beating a dead horse here,
But I would challenge all of you we're taking a
break now, in a moment at least and look at
(11:44):
your blood work. Many of you have it on my
chart some sort of electronic medical records. Look up your
lipid profile, and we tend to focus on the cholesterol
total cholesterol, but look at that LDL cholesterol and I
(12:09):
would bet you half of you it's too high, and
if you have risk factors, it's even higher. I'll be
back in a minute, doctor, Joeglotti dot COM's our website.
Stay tuned, we'll bright back. Welcome back everybody, Doctor Joe
Galotti always a joy to be here on Sunday evening
spending part of your weekend festivities together. For those of
(12:35):
you in Houston or greater region, it is hot, it
is humid, but if you had a pool, it would
probably be a good idea to jump in, which is
what I did today. Make sure you put your suntan
lotion on.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Uh.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Let's see our website, doctor Joeglotti dot com newsletter, send
me a message. All of our social media is there.
And take a look at my book Eating Yourself Sick.
Get it on Amazon other online sources. And I am
(13:19):
anticipating that in I'm going to say October one, my
new book should be out, so stay tuned for that.
But go to doctor Joegladty dot com. All right. Continuing
with cholesterol, So the guidelines that came out recently number
one the LDL cholesterol. And again, if you don't have it,
(13:43):
now you have it. You know in your file cabinet somewhere,
maybe at work or at home. You want to look
at your LDL cholesterol and make sure you are in
the right zone for you, and the troubling data. The
troubling information is that one only one in three people
(14:09):
have their LDL cholesterol in that right value, So two
thirds of everybody, two thirds of everybody is out of range,
putting you at risk for heart attack, stroke, premature death,
something bad happening. And so here again, your health first,
(14:29):
that's the name of the program. We are putting your
health first. You want to put your health first, make
it a priority. Now, the challenge with cholesterol elevation is
that you're having no symptoms unless you're having chest pain
and short breath and palpitations and all that other bad stuff.
(14:51):
But most people are going to be milling around having
no care in the world that their cholesterol is until
you have that sentinel event where you're found dead in
the bathroom and everybody at your funeral is, oh, Bob,
(15:15):
Bob looked good. Well, you look good on the outside,
but on the inside his cholesterol was a mess. So
you're able to take action. That is that is the
message here all right now. The other recommendation, and this
you may not have heard about, is to check your
(15:39):
It's called LiPo protein, A little a l ipo protein
LiPo protein little A. So the guidelines are that you
should get this checked once to see if it's high, normal,
(16:00):
or low. Now, if you have a high level of
lipoprotein A, you're more likely to have a heart attack
of stroke something called aortic stenosis, especially if you have
a family of high cholesterol or signs of carnary artery disease.
And it tends to run in families and it's more
genetically driven. And if you have a high lipoprotein A,
(16:25):
you are at extra extra high risk. So this is
the cholesterol similar to the LDL cholesterol that builds up
in the walls of your blood vessels. And you have
this cholesterol deposit, it's called plaque and decreases the blood
(16:50):
flow to really all parts of the body heart, brain, kidney's, lungs,
your legs. If the plaque ruptures, that's when you have
a heart attack or stroke. And the lipoprotein A in
the in the blood vessels, it really it creates inflammation
(17:12):
in the artery. Now, the tricky thing here and why
it is important, is that the lipoprotein A levels cannot
be controlled by healthy eating or exercise. Typically you're going
(17:33):
to have to get on medication, and it's recommended that
you get on a PCSK nine inhibitor, which is a
medicine called rapatha, which is very very effective. All right, So,
(17:55):
knowing that you have the lipoprotein A and you say, well,
I'm on A, I'm safe. No, you have to really
see if this lipoprotein A is elevated. And again we
encourage exercise, we encourage a Mediterranean diet. It's not going
to help this type of protein elevation, this type of
(18:18):
cholesterol elevation. The third recommendation, So get your LDL cholesterol.
Know that typically it's going to be less than seventy,
less than fifty in most people. Number two, know your
lipoprotein A. It's a separate blood test. Your family doctor
most likely is not doing it. So a lot of
(18:38):
patients will say, well, if there was something wrong, my
doctor would have told me. Well, that could be true
if they have the information. You don't have the information,
how could you comment on it? So you want that
lipoprotein A in your file, in your hand. You want
to look at it. Lastly, carnary calcium scan. This is
(19:01):
a non contrast cat scan. It takes about ten minutes.
Usually insurance does not cover it, but most hospitals, clinics,
radiology centers around the country will do it for anywhere between.
I've seen as low as fifty dollars. I've seen as
high as two hundred and fifty dollars, most likely one
(19:24):
twenty five to one fifty. And so you may say, well,
it's not covered by insurance, Well, I would say we
spend one hundred dollars or two hundred dollars on less
important things. This is a one shot deal. And if
you have an increased cardinary calcium scan or calcium score,
(19:45):
that tells us that you are at increased risk for
having complications. And then you can make sure is my
LDL cholesterol in the right zone? Is my lipoprotein A low?
Do I need a stanton? How do I I adjust
my lifestyle? Do I have pre diabetes? Knowledge is golden people,
(20:09):
That's why you're here listening to your health first. All right,
let's take a break news, weather, traffic. We'll see if
the astros were up to I'm doctor Joe Galati. Doctor
Joglotti dot com is our website. Stay tuned. I'll be
right back. Welcome back, everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Every Sunday
between seven seven and eight pm. We're here raising your
(20:35):
health IQ, making you better consumers of healthcare. Our website
doctor Jogalotti dot com probably the only place you need
to go to learn about me and my team and
all that we do to push forward the health and
wellness narrative, Doctor Joegalotti dot com. And of course for
(21:00):
our newsletter every weekend, it goes out talking about food, exercise,
nutrition preventative strategies. So doctor Joeglotti dot com. All right,
so every once in a while, every few weeks, I
like to grab a few news articles, things that are
(21:22):
topical and talk with you about them. So the month
of August is Breastfeeding Awareness month, and I would say
most healthcare providers are going to be very supportive of
(21:45):
mothers breastfeeding their children. And there are multiple benefits that
come from this. And it is the emotional attachment to
the child. It is good for the mother following pregnancy
(22:09):
and delivery, It is protective to the child, giving the
child a health advantage, and it is free and the
other thing, really, have you ever looked at baby formula?
Now everyone's going to start sending me nasty grams about
(22:32):
bashing baby formula, But I would say it's a processed food,
and the very things we don't want our children to eat,
you know, five six seven year old school children or
our adults to eat, we are readily feeding our children.
(22:53):
And so the longer you could go before introducing that
to the to the child, I would say, all the better.
So you may not be in healthcare, but you may
have a daughter, a granddaughter, a niece, friend of the
family that you could encourage breastfeeding. Be a supportive voice.
(23:20):
So what is the research show the benefit for the baby?
So it lowers the baby's risk of a handful of
conditions and builds a strong immune system. Breast Fed babies
have lower risks of diarrhea, necrotizing enterocolitis, infections like pneumonia,
(23:49):
respiratory sensicial virus, whooping cough, ear infections, bacterial meningitis, asthma,
sudden infant death syndrome, childhood ob city ezema, type two
diabetes later in life, leukemia, cavities, and celiac disease. Now
(24:12):
on top of this, studies show that breastfed infants have
lower hospitalization rates and tend to be in better health.
This leads to fewer visits to the pediatrician for sickness.
Now they nutritional benefit of breast milk. It supports the
baby's health by it's easy for their intestines to digest it.
(24:40):
It was made for children. It contains antibodies to prevent
infections and boost immunity. It has the right amount of fat, sugar, water, proteins,
vitamins for the baby's development, promotes healthy weight gain, and
contains substances that naturally soothe your baby. So the benefits
(25:06):
for the mom lowers the risk of postpartum depression, reduces
breast cancer, ovarian cancer and ametrial cancer, thyroid cancer, osteoporosis,
type two diabetes, cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol.
So in this month of breast feeding awareness, be supportive,
(25:29):
Be supportive of these young moms. And from a personal standpoint,
my daughter, we talked about this before a couple months ago,
gave birth and she is breastfeeding, and I know it
is an adjustment. I know it is challenging, but I
believe she and the baby and her husband are all
are all doing well, which is good. So I'll keep
(25:51):
you posted on that. All right, m Let's see, I
got another one here, all right, So, speaking of pregnancy breastfeeding,
a recent article that came out that high rates of
high blood pressure arising in pregnant women. So this is alarming.
(26:12):
High pertension during pregnancy is associated with stillborn, heart disease
amongst mother and other serious complications. So the rates of
high blood pressure among pregnant women nationwise rose significantly between
the years twenty sixteen and twenty twenty four. According to
a new report published this past week by the Centers
for Disease Control, one in ten pregnant women in the
(26:34):
United States had high blood pressure in twenty twenty four,
up from about one in seventeen, a thirty seven percent increase.
Now I'd have to be sitting here saying, okay, what
is it that's going on? Why are women having more
high blood pressure. Keep in mind that maternal mortality rates
(27:03):
in the United States exceeds that of other wealthy nations
and high pretensive disorders. The high blood pressure during pregnancy
or among the leading causes of pregnancy related death and disease.
So it's important because high blood pressure during pregnancy increases
the risk of serious complications, including preterm birth, low birth weight,
(27:24):
still born placental abruption and organ failure. So we see
in liver disease people going into liver failure from this.
It's called aclampsia preeclampsia. So it's not really clear why
this is though, what do you think it may be? Obesity? Okay?
(28:03):
The possible health issues that are at play include obesity,
which is closely linked to hypertension. So the report found
that the hire a woman's body mass index or weight
before pregnancy, the more likely they're going to develop hypertension.
So I think here for the young women, your weight,
(28:26):
being overweight or obese is going to you know, certainly
impact your pregnancy if you are to follow that path.
So again, be very very careful. So bit concerning Okay,
another article, What a sleep expert eats in a day
(28:46):
for better rest at night. Now, so many people have
trouble sleeping. They spend time in bed, they're tossing, they're turning,
they're waking up exhausted. A lot of it may be
obstructive sleep apnea, which again is a big problem. And
(29:08):
so this one person that was a sleep apnea doctor,
Saint Ounge. She's over at Columbia University Irving Medical Center.
She's looked at all kinds of studies and it's really
(29:29):
no surprise. Foods like fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds, beans,
whole grain, lean meat, poultry, and seafood, the foods that
resemble the Mediterranean diet have the best impact on sleep.
Eating more of these nutrients and fewer highly processed foods
(29:53):
without added sugar saturated fat benefits your sleep in many ways.
It gives your body the nutrition it needs to produce
sleep regulating hormones like melatonin. It helps keep your blood
sugar stable while you sleep, potentially prevents you from waking
up through the night. So we talk with our patients
(30:21):
all the time about diet. I wrote a book Eating
Yourself Sick, touching on this, and so the food you
eat not only will keep your weight down, control high
(30:42):
blood pressure diabet us, it's going to make you sleep
better in the evening. Now. The one question in the
article here what do you eat for dinner? Dinner is
more varied than lunch and breakfast. She goes on to say,
I usually have salmon once a week, shrimp once a week,
(31:04):
and chicken once a week. The other meals she eats
lagomes and tofu I eat salad and different types of vegetables.
I always eat some kind of green vegetable like broccoli,
Brussels sprouts, and asparagus. I love to eat butternut squash too.
Vegetables are high in polyphenolic compounds and they're good for
(31:24):
your microbiome and good for your sleep. So don't don't
don't ignore what you eat. Too important. All right, final
segment coming up, Doctor Joe Gilatti. A few more articles
(31:46):
in the news, something about eating certain foods and longevity.
And while we were talking about sleep, there was an
article article melatonin versus magnesium, which is better for your sleep.
I'll al right back, doctor Joe Galotti, see you in
a few minutes. Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Thanks
(32:10):
for tuning in on this Sunday. We're here every Sunday
between seven and a pm Central. Don't forget even if
you are traveling vacation, holiday well, you have other family
and friends out of the greater Houston area, you could
always hear your health first on the iHeart app the
(32:32):
iHeart radio network anywhere in the country seven o'clock Central.
We'll be here streaming live broadcasting from our Houston World headquarters.
KTRH great radio station. And don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com, newsletter,
(32:53):
all of our social media send me a message, podcasts,
a lot of health and wellness information for you, but
you have to go to doctor Joglotti dot com. All right,
So we were talking about some articles in the news
and this one I found interesting and this has been
(33:15):
talked about before and the name of the article is
eating this food regularly can lead to greater longevity and
of all things, eating hot peppers. Okay, so when so
(33:38):
they looked at in twenty fifteen a major study in
the British Medical Journal. They found that that when you
eat you eat spicy foods, you live longer. And more recently,
they looked at several million Chinese and they tracked their
(34:00):
health over several years. But the surprising part was, even
after you control for multiple other cofactors like who smoked,
physical activity, how much red meat did you have, did
you have a lot of fruits and vegetables, what they
found is adults who had spicy food averaged six or
(34:28):
seven times a week had a fourteen percent lower risk
of dying than those whose intake was less than one
a week. Eating spicy foods was associated with a reduction
in death from cancer, heart and lung disease. So here
(34:50):
again getting down to the you are what you eat
cannot be denied. So here we're saying increasing spicy food
has a positive effect. Now, after that study was released,
(35:15):
a similar study was done in the United States which
corroborated those findings. Americans who consumed red I should say
hot red chili peppers were about thirteen less likely to
die than compared to those that did not. And the
thinking is, it's the capsaicin, the main active component of
(35:36):
chili peppers. We should all know that maybe what is
beneficial because of the effect on the receptors and our
nerve cells that perceive heat, known as the TRPV one receptor.
These nerves are throughout the body and many many are
(35:59):
in the system. And so it has been shown that
when you eat high amounts of these spicy foods, less
heart disease, less stroke than not quite clear the mechanism,
but talking about cholesterol, like we were earlier, capsation increases
HDL cholesterol, which is a known factor in reducing heart attack,
(36:29):
reduces blood pressure. So again I think, do you go
out of your way and say I'm going to eat
spicy food to lower my chance of dying. Well, I've
never been a fan of saying eat this food to
cure a certain disease. That is not the way I
(36:50):
would say approach it. But if you are cooking at home,
which I applaud all of you to do, take a
look at and start experimenting with chili peppers, other hot peppers.
And again some are mildly hot, some are super hot.
(37:10):
I'm sort of a middle of the road kind of
a guy with with my spicy food. I've learned that
lesson the hard way of eating food that is just
unpalatable for me. Now, maybe I haven't given it enough try,
but you do get used to it after a while.
But I think this is the value of cooking at home.
(37:31):
You could introduce these different sort of compounds to your
diet and it's important. And so that's that, you know,
that's something to think about, all right. The last topic
(37:52):
really another story melatonin versus magnesium, which is better for
your sleep, And they talk about people that have trouble
falling asleep, jet lag, muscle tension, and more. Now, I
had some personal experience with melatonin and when I had
my knee surgery earlier in the year. I could not sleep.
(38:14):
That is an accepted part of having knee replacement surgery.
You have trouble sleeping for the first four to eight weeks.
And I would say I was not getting overly anxious
about it, not being able to sleep, but it was annoying.
But I was able to get through the day and
still do my exercise, and I recovered pretty nicely. But
(38:35):
at the recommendation of everybody, why don't you get some melotonin.
So I got melotonin. I bought the extra strength melatonin.
It did nothing. It did nothing for me. I tried magnesium.
It did nothing for me. Now there are lots of
(39:01):
stories and anecdotal stories, a lot of it's online how
melatonin magnesium may help. Neither acts as a sedative, so
it's not going to put you to sleep. But I
would say, you could try melatonin, you could try magnesium.
(39:26):
But I am a bit pessimistic that it's going to work.
I think there is a lot of hype. Now there
are people listeners that swear that melatonin is the one
thing that allows them to sleep better. That is fine,
if that works for you, terrific, But I think at
the wholesale level. It has limited value. That is just
(39:55):
my you know my point. All right, Well we're going
to close out. Hope you had a good evening. Learned
at least one thing tonight that you could do, if anything,
I think the most important thing is get your LDL
cholesterol checked. Look look at your my chart and see
if your LDL cholesterol is there. All right, don't forget
(40:16):
doctor Joeglotti dot com. We'll see you next Sunday evening.
Have a really really great week.
Speaker 2 (40:22):
You've been listening to your Health First with doctor Joe Glotti.
For more information on this program or the content of
this program, go to your Health First dot com.
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