September 14, 2025 • 37 mins
Dr. Galati is back in studio for the show tonight with Dr. David Alfi. He talks about all he does specializing in oral, dental, and facial surgery. He also discusses how your jaw relates to your teeth and mouth breathing. He goes on to explain the causes of sleep apnea and alcohol.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initialize sequence.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
In a bunch of bays on the day, We're lead Germy
Rode Connie.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is your Health First, the most beneficial health program
on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the next hour,
you'll learn about health, wellness and the provention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Alrighty, everybody, Doctor Joe Galatti. It's a marvelous Sunday evening
in Houston, Texas or anywhere around the United States that
you're tuning into our program. We're here live every Sunday
evening between seven and a pm, broadcasting from our home
station seven forty k t r H Houston, butt around
(01:02):
the globe on the iHeartRadio app. So no excuse not
to tune in every Sunday evening. Don't forget to get
in touch with us. Doctor Joeglotti. Dot com is our website.
When you're there, you could sign up for a newsletter,
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(01:25):
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to Amazon dot com and you can always message me
at doctor Joeglotti dot com. So uh, for everybody, thanks
for tuning in this Sunday evening and for the hour
(01:48):
we've got, I would like to say a very special guest,
a friend and a colleague, doctor David Alfie. He is well,
I'm gonna explain. Let him explain exactly what he does,
because he does a lot. To learn more about doctor Alfie,
it is alfioralsurgery dot com, alfioralsurgery dot com. David, Welcome
(02:09):
to the program, and we've been talking about getting you
on for a while and.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Here you are awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
Where else would I rather be on a Sunday than
my good friend.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I More people need to think about that. This is
the hot place to be. So family, food, friends, family, family, faith, friends, family,
faith and food. We got to add friends. We got
friends absolutely the for us. We're going to We're going
to modify that in the next book. So uh, for everybody,
A lot of people know who you are. You've been
(02:39):
in the Med Center and Houston here for quite a while,
but really give us that thirty thousand foot Who is
doctor David Alfie? Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Now I want to say number one biohacker. Yeah, all right,
because we have that solution.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
But I'm an oral maxillofacial surgeon. I've been in the
medical center in Houston for thirteen years now.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Bobin or not. Came from New York City. I trained
at Columbia.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
University hometown, Yes, and I came as an orthangatic surgeon,
an oral surgeon that practices in reconstructive jaw surgery. That
was my passion early ones. Of course, when I learned it,
it was a very difficult operation, you know, seven eight
hour operation, and we reserved it for people that had
really really rough deformities where that risk benefit weighed in
(03:21):
their favor of cor I would talk a lot of
patients out of the surgery. And being in the medical
center in Houston, you get exposed to a lot of technology,
amazing resources, so much talent, and you learn from each other.
And in doing that, I was exposed to know a
new technology in reconstructing faces with three D and then
(03:44):
printing titanium guides and plates, which really gave us options
to transform this operation. So I was able to transform
this operation from a seven eight hour operation to one
hour operation, yes, on average, and that changed a lot
of things, because is now is something where the recoveries
were a lot much We're a lot better, the outcomes
(04:04):
were a lot better, more predictable, and now we can
start to look at it in a different ways as
a solution where we can not only fix jaws that
were really really deformed, but we can actually bring the
jaws forward and help people breathe. And this is very
important because and we'll get into this, i'm sure in
the next hour, but the majority of people their jaws
(04:27):
are small, and there's reasons for that. You know, our
jaws are not as large as they were in ancient times.
Everybody's jaws are small, and because of that, they can't
breathe well. So most people end up with sleep apnea
and that contributes to almost every chronic illness known to man.
But for so much time this has been unnoticed, But
now we have a solution for it.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, you use the word orthogonatic. Orthonatic, break that word down,
what is it exactly? It's Latin and it'll be a
spelling test at the end. If you could there's a silent.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
G in there.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's Latin ortho I think, meaning shape or size or
form agnatic, which is jaw. Okay, it's a surgery to
fix the shape, size, and form of jaws.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you're saying that when you first broke into this
ten fifteen years ago, it was a more labor intensive
type of surgery. Absolutely, and you have taken it really
to the next level. What I know you mentioned it,
but say it again. What is the technology that you're using.
Is it robotics, is it AI? What is it?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
So yes, I mean this surgery and it's still done
like this in most parts of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
The way that I was the old way pot the
old way, the way we learned to do it.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Basically, we're taking the jaws, the upper jaw overjaw, cutting them,
moving them to a new position, fixating them. The way
it was done where we were planning on stone models initially,
and then from those stone models we would make acrylic
guides that would set the relationship of one jot to
the other. So with that technology, with that lack of technology,
(06:09):
really what happened was it was an imperfect operation, meaning
it took a long time because we had to wire
the mouth shut, we had to unwire the mouth shut,
we had to bend plates, and there was a.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Lot of room for error.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But it was a long operation that not only was
their room for error, but there were really difficult recoveries
and most people have to be wired shut. So it
wasn't something that I would even recommend today today, correct.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Under the old, under the old.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, But you know with three D virtual planning that
came about twelve years ago, and that was the first
step in the revolution. Is that instead of planning on
stone models and you know them. I don't know if
you remember getting impressions, Oh yeah, don of course, a
long time ago, we would take impressions and make them
to the stone and then cut the stone. That you know,
about twelve years ago, maybe a little more fourteen years ago,
(06:55):
we went to planning them on a computer, so we
would take a CT scan. Now we're doing them from
cone beam CT scans, which everyone has an idental office
these days. And you can reconstruct the skeleton in three
D so you can turn it around, look at it,
and then you can virtually do the operation on the computer.
You can make the cuts, put them in the ideal position,
(07:18):
and when you put them in the ideal position, then
you know for a long time and still yeah, you
could finish, finish up. In most places, the planning changed,
but the operation didn't change. They would take the plan
and then they would still make acrylic guides. Yeah, but
about five six years ago we were exposed to titanium
(07:40):
printed guides. So we can print titanium which is low profile,
so that way we print the plates instead of bending
them in the operatum and those acted.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
As the GPS. Yeah, it cut the operation half made.
I mean, it's it's amazing, it's amazing. I think I've
got to go in the ore and take a look
at it yourself. You all right, you're very welcome to
take an hour. Yeah, and now I gotta have a lunch.
All right, I'm with doctor David Alfie. This is your
Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Stay tuned, we'll be
right back. Welcome back, everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti. Your health first.
(08:12):
That's what it's all about. Putting your health first, and
we're trying to raise your health IQ one listener at
a time. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com is our website.
Everything you need to know about me and my team
is at your health First dot com and in the
studio tonight, doctor David Alfie Alfioralsurgery dot com is how
(08:36):
you find out about him and his team. And you know,
during the commercial break, we were talking about how evolutionarily
our mouths and our skulls have shrunk.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yes, and why is that screwing so many people up? Yeah,
for your health i Q. I think everybody's gonna find
this groundbreaking. Okay, this is really interesting and everybody can
relate to this. And not only can everyone relate to this,
the jaw size which has been decreasing for many years.
And I'm going to get into that in a sec
(09:10):
We have a problem right now where probably ninety five
percent or more of the population their jaws are too
small for their potential, smaller than they should be. And
it goes beyond just crowded teeth and impact the teeth.
This affects almost every chronic illness and quality of life.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So farre Away tell me, you know, it's it's interesting
to hear that, but it's connecting the dots. It's really
connecting the dots here.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, So if you think about, you know, our genetic potential.
There's no doubt that the environment has a lot to
do with that, right, And there's no doubt that environment
has not only changed since since we were brought up,
but significantly in time periods. We're talking about industrial revolution,
agricultural revolution, and back before then hunter gatherers time. But
(09:58):
if you go to you know, if you're in Houston,
in here, but any major city that you're in, you
can go to a natural history museum and there's this
you'll find a box somewhere where they have ancient skulls, right,
and it's fascinating. What you'll notice when you look at
the ancient skulls is that the upper jaws are much wider,
the palettes are much wider, the roof of the mouth,
the lower jaws are much larger and wider. And these
(10:20):
skulls have thirty two straight.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Teeth in them.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Wow, how many people do you know that have still
thirty two straight teeth? What I mean by that is
that they didn't need their wisdom teeth out and they
didn't need braces. Right right now, most people need their
wisdom teeth out, and most people need braces for crowding.
The reason for that is not that we have too
many teeth, we have too little jaws.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Right, enough room, not enough room.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But if you think about what's happened environmentally, you know
in one hundred gatherer times, not only was the nutrition different, right,
the living was completely different, and the means of getting
food and the way we ate in time, we ate
was completely different. So there was no bottle feeding, there
was no breast pump pumps, you know, there was no formula,
(11:04):
there was no Gerber's puraid food, there was no Vitam mix.
So what that means is that kids breast fed much longer.
And then I'm not talking about just having breast milk.
I'm talking about breast.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
The actual ass using your lips and your jaws exactly,
and your tongue most of all.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And that work, especially in that critical time period, the
first year of life, is where a lot of that
growth potential is influenced, so critical, so important. Another thing
that happens is a chewing. Because we have these pureaid foods,
it's almost part of our culture now that we pure
our foods for our children. But that wasn't a thing
they had to chew early. So the mechanical process of
(11:45):
chewing breastfeeding that's that's not there anymore, and there's no
doubt that that's affecting the potential for the job growth.
It goes beyond that. There's obviously many many things. Another
big thing in it is mouth breathing versus nasal breathing.
Mouth breathing will narrow the jaws and put them backwards.
So a lot of adults, if you're listening out there,
(12:05):
you may notice that if you look at your pictures
from your high school, senior year of high school, you
had a nice chin and nice jaw, and now you're
forty fifty years old and your face is longer, narrower,
your jaws set back. That's from improper tongue poster tongue parision.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean you could see that in a person
in a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
In definitely a few decades. Yeah, even into adulthood, it
can get worse. And you probably noticed, I know you've
taken care of a lot of sick people in the ICU. Yeah,
you'll notice that someone that's intubated for an extended period
of time and their mouth is wide open, their teeth
will start to collapse and become narrower, really and longer. Yeah,
I mean if you pay attention to this, now you
(12:44):
won't miss it. But what happens is things will change.
You know, if you think about the nose, we should
be breathing through our nose all the time. The issue
is now we talk a lot, so our mouths are
always open. But it goes beyond that. Right, we have allergens,
you know, hunter gatherer time, there were no homes that
we were stationed at with heaters and mold and pets.
(13:08):
So now we have all these allergens. And people have allergies,
they get ryan ititis, they get colds. From going to
forces them to mouth breathe. And what happens is when
your mouth breathe, your mouth essentially turns into a nose.
It becomes narrow, it becomes long, like the inside of
a nose. And there's issues with that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That's that's you know in the next four or five minutes.
So what so you're a mouth breather, You've got a
crowded mouth, your teeth are on top of each other,
your tongue is messed up. What are either the the
symptoms that somebody you know and I guess you're sitting
(13:47):
at home. You may be saying, well, wow, that sounds
like me symptoms or the long term effects. That's really
what I want to hear. So just at the.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Basics, if you think about you know, if you look
at any animal in the wild, one hundred percent of
them are nasal breathers. The only animals of ammals that
you'll see that our mouth breathers may be domesticated pugs
in humans. So the nose has a really important function
because it takes dirty air. If we look at the
(14:16):
air microscopically, there's dust, mites, there's there's allergens in there,
and the nose is supposed to humidify it but also
filter all this all this dirt. So if we go
bypass that system breathe through our mouth, we're taking unfiltered
air and getting right into our lungs where there's this
dense network of capillaries which basically takes it right into
(14:38):
the bloodstream. So when you're when your bloodstream encounters andigens
that haven't been filtered or you know, yeah cleaned up, yeah,
you're gonna you're gonna become in an inflammatory state. So
just the nasal breathing versus mouth breathing can change your
inflammatory state, simple as that amazing. Another thing that that
happens is nitric oxide reduction. I don't know if you're
(15:01):
aware of it or not, is stimulated also in the
respiratory mucosa. Nitric oxide is really important for lowering blood pressure,
so blood pressure can be affected by that.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So the mouth breathers stuffy nose, which probably is going
to lead I'm thinking to some sort of obstructive sleep
apnea exactly, and you're headed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The one thing that we see, certainly people that snore
sleep apnea. They're hypertensive. Yeah, absolutely, and they gain weight.
We've got We've got two minutes here, so let's just
give me your high level evaluation of sleep apnea. Where
are we at with that? How endemic is?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
It's unbelievable, Actually, I forget the numbers. Are maybe twenty
two million diagnosed people in America with instructive sleep avenia,
but about ninety percent of the populations is not diagnosed, right,
So I think it's endemic. I think that most people
have sleep apnea unless proven otherwise. The issue is that
(16:01):
nobody's testing for it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
A sleep avene is going to affect your blood pressure,
It's going to increase all cause mortality, increase, risk of stroke,
heart attack, and dementia.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Those are known things, right, well, none of these are
any good, correct.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, none of these are. And I think it'll shape
ten to fifteen years on average from a lifespan. The
other things that it does is psychiatric illnesses, conditions, mood disorders, concentration, irritability, depression.
All these things are affected by sleep abnea, but nobody's
looking at them. If you go to a psychiatrist, or
(16:39):
actually any patient that sees a psychiatrist, they're giving medications.
None of those patients have ever screened for sleep ATNA,
but they're given medications for it.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Or any other sleep disturbance. I mean, sleep apnea probably
is the biggest thing, but no other sleep disturbance.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You know, right, yes, And it's so important, so important.
I mean we know that above all else. You know,
before before exercise, before any of it, sleep is more important, right,
you know it's it's pivotal for hormone regulation, it's pivotal
for your immune system, right. So I mean it might
be crazy to say that if you don't sleep well,
or if you do sleep well, you'll offset the risk
(17:14):
of cancer, right, or you'll decrease source risk of scancer.
I don't think that's controversial. I think that that that
that's a known thing, that's that is so true.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
All right, We're getting deeper and deeper into this, Doctor
David Alfie. All right, we're gonna take a break news, weather, traffic.
Maybe we'll hear about the astros in a minute, Doctor
Joe Galotti, this is your health first. Don't forget. Doctor
Joeglotti dot com is our website. Don't leave. We will
be right back of healthcare every Sunday between seven and
(17:44):
eight pm. I'm doctor Joe Galotti, and this is your
health first. Go to doctor Joeglotti dot com. Sign a
for our newsletter, follow us along on social media, and
our our whole goal. And we've been here twenty two
plus years. I say it every week to raise your
(18:04):
health ATQ, to make you a better consumer. Because so
much of the chronic disease, the heart disease, the diabete is,
the obesity, the liver disease, the hypertension, the strokes are
directly related to the decisions we make with or without knowledge.
And so if we could enlighten one person tonight, right,
(18:28):
doctor Alphie, one person, we just need to sort of
say mission accomplished. We helped one person and win. For
Sunday Night it is and doctor David Alfie is my
special guest alphioralsurgery dot com to find out more about him,
and he truly, you know, without pandering or patronizing you,
(18:53):
I think the reason we sort of click is that
you are a fantastic surgeon. You do really great work.
Patients really enjoy you. But you're really outside. You're doing
all kinds of other things. You've got a great podcast,
and you travel and you're innovative, and at the core
(19:17):
of it is you're just trying to spread the word,
spread the gospel along good health and a lot of
what you talk about and guess that you have on
your program and not necessarily talking about air away and
the shrinking mouth syndrome that we're talking about. It's just
how do you you know, what's the effect of alcohol
on sleep, what's the effect of obesity on sleep, apnea
(19:39):
and nutrition and you know things like that. So it's
really it's really a pleasure and we need more doctor
Alfie's I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
You know, we all went to physicians, we all go
to medical school. We had this dream of making people healthier, right, right,
and somewhere in that when you learn, you know you
have there's so much to learn pharmacology, physiology, there's a
whole Latin language of anatomy that you have to learn,
and then there's all these drugs and side effects and
contraindications and indications. By the time someone gets through the
(20:11):
medical system, you kind of lose touch of what happens
to make people healthier, right, and what's happened as a result,
And not a knock on anybody in particular, but just
a reality I think of what's happened of what I
experience is that medicine today, at least in this country
but also in large parts of the world, has become
a symptom management issue. Right, someone has high blood pressure,
(20:33):
we're gonna throw them a pill. If they have anxiety,
we throw them a pill. And we become pill pushers, right.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The pill mentality is what I write about.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yes, absolutely, And none of those things are really making
people healthier. They're just you know, we have a if
you think about a car with a check engine light.
What we're doing by treating the symptom is we're just
turning off the check engine light without even looking at
the engine right, right, We're not looking at the problem.
We're not going to fix it, right And you know,
I mean how many people you know?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
One of the things I like to say, and a
little bit of tongue in cheek, patients have been telling
me if you, oh, I just have a touch of
diabetes or a touch of high blood pressure, Bobby, cholesterol's up.
What's that now? No, no, no, I just have a touch.
And now again I'm not saying everybody has to be
(21:22):
on a stanton, but you know, the doctor should look
at them in the eye and say, look, yes, your
cholesterol is ten points or fifty points above normal. This
is what may happen if you don't do something now,
and we're going to intervene instead of waiting for you
to show up with a stroke. And it's like, ah, absolutely,
(21:42):
you know what, Bob, we should have done something. And
so it's too bad. So getting back to you know,
the shrinking airway and mouth breathing. People would sleep apnea.
You talked about it very clearly. Everything from hypertension to
emotional disorder is waking and increased inflammation. Most people are
(22:03):
going to go for a sleep study test to say, yes,
you check the box. You've got sleep app obstructive sleep app.
Now you're probably going to be sent to somebody for
a SEAPAP machine, right, and lots of people are doing that.
Where does the surgeries that you do fit in within
(22:23):
the spectrum of you have a touch of sleep APNA
too enough that you need a seapap machine to the
point that you know what, you really need to go
for surgery and fix your anatomy. Yeah, how much time
I got? I can do this for an hour. I'm
gonna allot you three and a half minutes. Okay, let
me let me try because there's so much more to
talk about, you know much. We're just going to commandeer
(22:44):
the radio show tonight the radio station. Yeah, totally, I'm
gonna try to.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I'm gonna try to pack that into three minutes and
get into what we just talked about before, because first
and foremost I wish everybody was getting a sleep test
there was the reality is that most physicians are bypassing
sleep even as a thought. Right, if you think about
we're sleep, We're supposed to sleep at least eight hours
a day. There's twenty four hours in the day, we
(23:08):
should be asleep a third of our life. So if
we look to one hundred, we should be sleep thirty
three years of our life. And you think about how
important that is. If that's If that's the case, that
says at all, right, but we don't focus on that,
so everybody should get a sleep study. You're also right
that we look at end stage disease. So it's not
only that we're pill happy, but we also have either
(23:28):
end stage disease or we're not looking at disease at all.
The reality is in health, you know there's an entire spectrum.
You don't just become end stage overnight, right at all.
You gradually get there. So we should be looking at
health optimization. So if someone is fortunate enough to be
steered in the direction of getting a sleep study and
(23:48):
they get a diagnosis. Now, if you snored, most likely
have sleep aatnea or somewhere airway disordered breathing. Most sleep
bataneas are obstructive right at least nine to one, and
most substructive sleepatanya is the obstruction is in the upper airway,
meaning behind the tongue, nose, or mouth. And this always
comes back to the jaws.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
But what do you do?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
You have to First of all, people do have to
take accountability for their own health. Right, we become a
sedentary culture. We binge, watch TV, We sit in traffic.
We're not supposed to. We're not built that way. We're
designed to run. Right, we should be up and moving.
So everybody's sitting at home right now, do me a favorite.
Get up and do tense squats while you listen, right,
as simple as that. Do push ups, some squats in
(24:31):
the morning if you can, If you can't, do a
variation of something that you can do, because we should
be moving all the time. But really, you know, a
ten percent increase in weight, six fold increase in obstructive
sleep bat right, it's that significant. So if you get
that diagnosis. First of all, we lose weight that is
low hanging fruit. It's going to change your life substantially.
(24:54):
And we're talking about you know, this affects everything. You
can erect aw dysfunction this you know, I know it's
Sunday night, but this affects everything. Right, that's important to us.
So first of all, lose weight. That's going to have
a huge impact on you. You know, be less inflamed,
So learn what causes inflammation in your body, whether that's
foods or allergens or whatever those are. Let's inflate exercise.
(25:17):
You know, you got to optimize the entire health. That
alone is going to increase sleep. The other thing that
people don't think about is sleep hygiene. Right now, we
have phones and we're checking emails at MPM and TV.
It's impossible to get eight hours of sleep. But even
if you do, you're not setting up for sleep. You know,
don't eat three hours at least for bedtime.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, I mean I tell that to people because it reflocks. Yes, right,
just read on the on the gi and liver side.
They look at me like three hours, Yeah, you mean
how about like one hour? No, three to four hours? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I mean what time do we meet here today? Six
forty five?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah? I eat dinner at five o'clock. Yeah, I'm done
for the day. Right all right? So so really, okay,
we're gonna we're gonna hold that point. Final segment coming up.
But I think your role for surgery is who is
it the top worst.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think it's everyone that is healthy enough to undergo surgery. Nowadays,
the surgery is good enough where we can open the
airways and instantly make.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
People better breathers. Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I think the surgery is at that level now where
it's predictable enough, safe enough that if you're healthy, this
will help your life.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, all right, great, all right, final segment coming up.
I could almost say we're going to have you back
on next week, but anyway, I'm here. All right, Doctor
Joe Galotti, this is your health first final segment coming up.
Don't move and as doctor Alfie said, do some sit
up squats or jump and jack something. I'll right back
seven o'clock Central time. We're here. If you're on the run,
(26:50):
you're traveling out of town, you have a friend in
Spokane that thinks may benefit from this. We're on the
iHeart radio app all over the place. Doctor David Alfie
is in the studio Alfioralsurgery dot Com. All right, we've
(27:12):
unpacked a lot here tonight. One topic that you talk
about a fair amount is alcohol, on how alcohol is
a trigger for a lot of these airway issues. Now,
for me, as as a liver specialist, alcohol certainly is
a big part of the patients that I see and
(27:33):
both treatment and prevention. But for you, here's a guy
an oral surgeon. Right, what is alcohol? That head up?
You're nowhere near the liver at least you shouldn't go
near the liver, right, you know, unless you're you know trained.
But anyway, what's the story with alcohol?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, so you know, it's amazing. Alcohol is such a
part of our society and culture, right, you know as
a physician, even as physicians, they meet up and have
these fancy wine tastings and everyone's a connoisseur. But what
happens is alcohol is a sedative, right, and it's a
severe disruptor of sleep. So when people sleep and they
(28:09):
have alcohol, and you hear a lot of people say like, oh,
alcohol puts me to sleep, or I need alcohol to
fall asleep, what's happening is same with ambient same with trasitoon,
same with a lot of sedatives, which are actually prescribed
for people that have insomnia. It'll make you feel like
you're asleep, but there are stages of sleep, and there's
quality of sleep. And what happens with a sedative relaxing
(28:30):
drug like alcohol, which it is, is when you lay down,
your tongue is already going to fall back. If you're sedated,
your tongue will collapse even more, and that alone will
cause obstructions and worse, an obstructive sleep ABNA. If you're
listening out there, you may have been told when you drink,
you snore more. That's an example of that, right, And
(28:51):
then you may notice when you wake up the next
day after drinking, you don't feel well. You didn't get
good sleep, and that's true. The other thing that happens
is it also disrupts the sleep waves. So when people drink,
they do not go into rem and deep sleep, restorative sleep.
They may be light sleepers, they may be waking up
(29:12):
twenty times a day. So you may think your sleep
for right eight hours, ten hours you crashed out after binging. Yeah,
but it totally disrupted your quality of sleep. And that's
going to disrupt not only your day and feel groggy
and have a headache, but it'll actually set you back
physiologically in terms of your health. And if you're doing
this chronically, it's legalized poison.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Two other major things I want to
talk about hostage tape. Yes, when I first heard about
this several years ago, I thought it was insane. Is
this something that came out of TikTok, and you've got
a bunch of people going to the hardware store buying
duct tape.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yes, as the expert set me right or wrong. Yeah, So,
first of all, be careful. If you can't breatherough your
don't tape your mouth right, because that's dangerous. But there
is utility in mouth taping and nasal dilation like breathe
the right strips or these hostage tape. That company has
a nasal strip equivalent where you put on your nose.
(30:16):
The goal is to promote nasal breathing because a lot
of people, especially when they lay down and they relax,
their tongue posture is not great and that has a
lot to do with the jaw size and then mouth breathing.
We talked earlier on the show about how detrimental mouth
breathing could be not only to the face form and physiology,
but right but actual to the quality of breathing and sleep. So,
(30:37):
if you do have the ability to breathe through your
nose and you need some assistance, people have found a
lot of benefits using something like hostage tape to promote
nasal breathing.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, so I look at it as the danger part.
If you've got trouble with your nose, deviate except them
you're chronically correct. Sign side is you got mucus coming
out of your nose? Yes, you have a cold. Things
that don't do it, all right? That could be dangerous,
all right. The other the other thing is we now
with all the technology, everybody has an Apple Watch, yes,
(31:11):
an iPhone. We have fitbits or a rings whoop that
is giving us constant feedback. What your heart rate is,
your recovery from exercise, heart rate variability, your respiration rate, oxygen.
We're soon going to be getting into glucose monitoring. I okay,
(31:34):
it's cool. I look at my I watch my Apple
Watch all through the day, see what's going on. But
I don't know if it's making us healthy at the
wholesale level. What what do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I think the reality of it is that, you know,
a tool in the wrong hands is just dead weight, right,
and a sharp sword, you know, and a swordsman's hands
versus a fool right, has a lot of different utility.
These technologies like an ORR ring. For example, I wear
an oral ring. I used to wear a whoop. If
(32:10):
you're not in the mindset of biohacking and paying attention
to what you eat exercising. It's not going to do
any good because you don't even know how to use
it in the first place. But if you're an elite
athlete and you're using HRV to increase your training, that's
an amazing tool.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
If you're.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
You know, number one biohacking surgeon and you're looking at
thinking about airway and sleep all the time, and you
have an orrer ring to measure you know, you know
what made you sleep better that night and keep yourself accountable,
it's an amazing tool. But the reality is for most
people there's a lot of work to do before they
get there.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Right right, And I think if you're going to track
heart rate variability and your sleep cycle, right, you have
to look at it to say something was wrong last
night or the past correct. I have to do. I
have to eat better. I want to get on a
full stomach. I had, you know, kaeso and chips for
(33:08):
dinner three nights in a row, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I mean if you're if you're eating a big meal
at ten o'clock trying to go to sleep at eleven
or twelve after a glass of wine, forget the sleep tracker.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, you know, forget it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
You got to do all the other things right first,
and then then when you're able to in a position
to measure things, that's when I think it's a yeah,
it's good to measure.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah. All right, well, doctor Alfie, we've got a minute
and a half or so left. Try to summarize, you know,
your health beliefs. What do you want to leave everybody
with tonight? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I think that you know, God's blessed us our beautiful souls,
with these beautiful bodies, and I think that we really
do have to take about accountability. This is my belief
in respecting these bodies as much as we can. You know,
some are more gifted than others, no doubt, but what
we can do to respect our bodies maintain them, and
(34:04):
I think we should do everything we can to respect Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Do you you know I see patients that have a
host of problems, and I'm sure you see the same,
and you try to inspire them to make these changes,
and people are resistant. They don't want to eat better,
they don't want to give up something, and I you know,
sort of tell patients you have to think everything you
(34:30):
do today, how may it affect your health. I'm making
a decision not to exercise today, what's the downfall? I'm
deciding to eat out today and or drink today. What's
the impact? And is it me?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Is it you?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
How do we get people to sort of follow this along? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I think continuing to be a good example spread the message.
I think the problem is culturally, you know, we're used
to pill pushing, We're used to ifting blame, and it's
there's a denial part to our human behavior that you know,
we're going to go for things that are convenient. But
I think that the more people like you and I
(35:11):
talk about, you know, maintaining health and trying to optimize
it and normalizing that, it'll get rid of some of
that denial that's just a macro societal norm.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah. And I think that you know, there's there's a
saying that I've been using for a very long time.
Misery is optional. Yea, misery is optional. I mean I
like that you see the misery of patients that are ill,
they're disabled, their livelihood, their happiness is upside down. And
(35:45):
you do look back and you say, they were warning
signs a year ago, five years.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Ago, totally all right, And I'm going to end it
with something that my good friend Ben Azzotti, who wrote
a book called Metabolic Freedom, so that his number one
supplement that he believes in is called vitamin G. And
the vitamin G is gratitude.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yes, we need plenty of that. Yes, all right, Doctor
David Alfie Alphioralsurgery dot com is where to find him. David,
it really has been a pleasure having you tonight, pleasure
being here. Thank you so much for having me all right,
and for everybody, Doctor Joeglotti dot com. This episode will
be up hopefully on YouTube and podcast within a couple
(36:29):
of days, but until next Sunday night, be well. Take
care of your airway, that's the main thing. Good night, everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, 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.
Initialize sequence.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home to the
world's largest medical center.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
In a bunch of bays on the day, We're lead Germy
Rode Connie.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is your Health First, the most beneficial health program
on radio with doctor Joe Bellotti. During the next hour,
you'll learn about health, wellness and the provention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Alrighty, everybody, Doctor Joe Galatti. It's a marvelous Sunday evening
in Houston, Texas or anywhere around the United States that
you're tuning into our program. We're here live every Sunday
evening between seven and a pm, broadcasting from our home
station seven forty k t r H Houston, butt around
(01:02):
the globe on the iHeartRadio app. So no excuse not
to tune in every Sunday evening. Don't forget to get
in touch with us. Doctor Joeglotti. Dot com is our website.
When you're there, you could sign up for a newsletter,
our all of our social media podcasting, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok,
(01:25):
Yes I am on TikTok, and of course, get a
copy of my book Getting Yourself Sick which is now
in paperback version. If you're a fan of paperbacks, go
to Amazon dot com and you can always message me
at doctor Joeglotti dot com. So uh, for everybody, thanks
for tuning in this Sunday evening and for the hour
(01:48):
we've got, I would like to say a very special guest,
a friend and a colleague, doctor David Alfie. He is well,
I'm gonna explain. Let him explain exactly what he does,
because he does a lot. To learn more about doctor Alfie,
it is alfioralsurgery dot com, alfioralsurgery dot com. David, Welcome
(02:09):
to the program, and we've been talking about getting you
on for a while and.
Speaker 3 (02:12):
Here you are awesome. Thank you so much for having me.
Where else would I rather be on a Sunday than
my good friend.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
I More people need to think about that. This is
the hot place to be. So family, food, friends, family, family, faith, friends, family,
faith and food. We got to add friends. We got
friends absolutely the for us. We're going to We're going
to modify that in the next book. So uh, for everybody,
A lot of people know who you are. You've been
(02:39):
in the Med Center and Houston here for quite a while,
but really give us that thirty thousand foot Who is
doctor David Alfie? Sure?
Speaker 3 (02:46):
Now I want to say number one biohacker. Yeah, all right,
because we have that solution.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (02:51):
But I'm an oral maxillofacial surgeon. I've been in the
medical center in Houston for thirteen years now.
Speaker 1 (02:56):
Bobin or not. Came from New York City. I trained
at Columbia.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
University hometown, Yes, and I came as an orthangatic surgeon,
an oral surgeon that practices in reconstructive jaw surgery. That
was my passion early ones. Of course, when I learned it,
it was a very difficult operation, you know, seven eight
hour operation, and we reserved it for people that had
really really rough deformities where that risk benefit weighed in
(03:21):
their favor of cor I would talk a lot of
patients out of the surgery. And being in the medical
center in Houston, you get exposed to a lot of technology,
amazing resources, so much talent, and you learn from each other.
And in doing that, I was exposed to know a
new technology in reconstructing faces with three D and then
(03:44):
printing titanium guides and plates, which really gave us options
to transform this operation. So I was able to transform
this operation from a seven eight hour operation to one
hour operation, yes, on average, and that changed a lot
of things, because is now is something where the recoveries
were a lot much We're a lot better, the outcomes
(04:04):
were a lot better, more predictable, and now we can
start to look at it in a different ways as
a solution where we can not only fix jaws that
were really really deformed, but we can actually bring the
jaws forward and help people breathe. And this is very
important because and we'll get into this, i'm sure in
the next hour, but the majority of people their jaws
(04:27):
are small, and there's reasons for that. You know, our
jaws are not as large as they were in ancient times.
Everybody's jaws are small, and because of that, they can't
breathe well. So most people end up with sleep apnea
and that contributes to almost every chronic illness known to man.
But for so much time this has been unnoticed, But
now we have a solution for it.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
Yeah, you use the word orthogonatic. Orthonatic, break that word down,
what is it exactly? It's Latin and it'll be a
spelling test at the end. If you could there's a silent.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
G in there.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
It's Latin ortho I think, meaning shape or size or
form agnatic, which is jaw. Okay, it's a surgery to
fix the shape, size, and form of jaws.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
So you're saying that when you first broke into this
ten fifteen years ago, it was a more labor intensive
type of surgery. Absolutely, and you have taken it really
to the next level. What I know you mentioned it,
but say it again. What is the technology that you're using.
Is it robotics, is it AI? What is it?
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Great question.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
So yes, I mean this surgery and it's still done
like this in most parts of the world.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
The way that I was the old way pot the
old way, the way we learned to do it.
Speaker 3 (05:45):
Basically, we're taking the jaws, the upper jaw overjaw, cutting them,
moving them to a new position, fixating them. The way
it was done where we were planning on stone models initially,
and then from those stone models we would make acrylic
guides that would set the relationship of one jot to
the other. So with that technology, with that lack of technology,
(06:09):
really what happened was it was an imperfect operation, meaning
it took a long time because we had to wire
the mouth shut, we had to unwire the mouth shut,
we had to bend plates, and there was a.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Lot of room for error.
Speaker 3 (06:20):
But it was a long operation that not only was
their room for error, but there were really difficult recoveries
and most people have to be wired shut. So it
wasn't something that I would even recommend today today, correct.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Under the old, under the old.
Speaker 3 (06:34):
Yeah, But you know with three D virtual planning that
came about twelve years ago, and that was the first
step in the revolution. Is that instead of planning on
stone models and you know them. I don't know if
you remember getting impressions, Oh yeah, don of course, a
long time ago, we would take impressions and make them
to the stone and then cut the stone. That you know,
about twelve years ago, maybe a little more fourteen years ago,
(06:55):
we went to planning them on a computer, so we
would take a CT scan. Now we're doing them from
cone beam CT scans, which everyone has an idental office
these days. And you can reconstruct the skeleton in three
D so you can turn it around, look at it,
and then you can virtually do the operation on the computer.
You can make the cuts, put them in the ideal position,
(07:18):
and when you put them in the ideal position, then
you know for a long time and still yeah, you
could finish, finish up. In most places, the planning changed,
but the operation didn't change. They would take the plan
and then they would still make acrylic guides. Yeah, but
about five six years ago we were exposed to titanium
(07:40):
printed guides. So we can print titanium which is low profile,
so that way we print the plates instead of bending
them in the operatum and those acted.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
As the GPS. Yeah, it cut the operation half made.
I mean, it's it's amazing, it's amazing. I think I've
got to go in the ore and take a look
at it yourself. You all right, you're very welcome to
take an hour. Yeah, and now I gotta have a lunch.
All right, I'm with doctor David Alfie. This is your
Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Stay tuned, we'll be
right back. Welcome back, everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti. Your health first.
(08:12):
That's what it's all about. Putting your health first, and
we're trying to raise your health IQ one listener at
a time. Don't forget doctor Joegalotti dot com is our website.
Everything you need to know about me and my team
is at your health First dot com and in the
studio tonight, doctor David Alfie Alfioralsurgery dot com is how
(08:36):
you find out about him and his team. And you know,
during the commercial break, we were talking about how evolutionarily
our mouths and our skulls have shrunk.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Yes, and why is that screwing so many people up? Yeah,
for your health i Q. I think everybody's gonna find
this groundbreaking. Okay, this is really interesting and everybody can
relate to this. And not only can everyone relate to this,
the jaw size which has been decreasing for many years.
And I'm going to get into that in a sec
(09:10):
We have a problem right now where probably ninety five
percent or more of the population their jaws are too
small for their potential, smaller than they should be. And
it goes beyond just crowded teeth and impact the teeth.
This affects almost every chronic illness and quality of life.
Speaker 1 (09:25):
So farre Away tell me, you know, it's it's interesting
to hear that, but it's connecting the dots. It's really
connecting the dots here.
Speaker 3 (09:35):
Yeah, So if you think about, you know, our genetic potential.
There's no doubt that the environment has a lot to
do with that, right, And there's no doubt that environment
has not only changed since since we were brought up,
but significantly in time periods. We're talking about industrial revolution,
agricultural revolution, and back before then hunter gatherers time. But
(09:58):
if you go to you know, if you're in Houston,
in here, but any major city that you're in, you
can go to a natural history museum and there's this
you'll find a box somewhere where they have ancient skulls, right,
and it's fascinating. What you'll notice when you look at
the ancient skulls is that the upper jaws are much wider,
the palettes are much wider, the roof of the mouth,
the lower jaws are much larger and wider. And these
(10:20):
skulls have thirty two straight.
Speaker 1 (10:22):
Teeth in them.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Wow, how many people do you know that have still
thirty two straight teeth? What I mean by that is
that they didn't need their wisdom teeth out and they
didn't need braces. Right right now, most people need their
wisdom teeth out, and most people need braces for crowding.
The reason for that is not that we have too
many teeth, we have too little jaws.
Speaker 1 (10:40):
Right, enough room, not enough room.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
But if you think about what's happened environmentally, you know
in one hundred gatherer times, not only was the nutrition different, right,
the living was completely different, and the means of getting
food and the way we ate in time, we ate
was completely different. So there was no bottle feeding, there
was no breast pump pumps, you know, there was no formula,
(11:04):
there was no Gerber's puraid food, there was no Vitam mix.
So what that means is that kids breast fed much longer.
And then I'm not talking about just having breast milk.
I'm talking about breast.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
The actual ass using your lips and your jaws exactly,
and your tongue most of all.
Speaker 3 (11:25):
And that work, especially in that critical time period, the
first year of life, is where a lot of that
growth potential is influenced, so critical, so important. Another thing
that happens is a chewing. Because we have these pureaid foods,
it's almost part of our culture now that we pure
our foods for our children. But that wasn't a thing
they had to chew early. So the mechanical process of
(11:45):
chewing breastfeeding that's that's not there anymore, and there's no
doubt that that's affecting the potential for the job growth.
It goes beyond that. There's obviously many many things. Another
big thing in it is mouth breathing versus nasal breathing.
Mouth breathing will narrow the jaws and put them backwards.
So a lot of adults, if you're listening out there,
(12:05):
you may notice that if you look at your pictures
from your high school, senior year of high school, you
had a nice chin and nice jaw, and now you're
forty fifty years old and your face is longer, narrower,
your jaws set back. That's from improper tongue poster tongue parision.
Speaker 1 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean you could see that in a person
in a lifetime.
Speaker 3 (12:24):
In definitely a few decades. Yeah, even into adulthood, it
can get worse. And you probably noticed, I know you've
taken care of a lot of sick people in the ICU. Yeah,
you'll notice that someone that's intubated for an extended period
of time and their mouth is wide open, their teeth
will start to collapse and become narrower, really and longer. Yeah,
I mean if you pay attention to this, now you
(12:44):
won't miss it. But what happens is things will change.
You know, if you think about the nose, we should
be breathing through our nose all the time. The issue
is now we talk a lot, so our mouths are
always open. But it goes beyond that. Right, we have allergens,
you know, hunter gatherer time, there were no homes that
we were stationed at with heaters and mold and pets.
(13:08):
So now we have all these allergens. And people have allergies,
they get ryan ititis, they get colds. From going to
forces them to mouth breathe. And what happens is when
your mouth breathe, your mouth essentially turns into a nose.
It becomes narrow, it becomes long, like the inside of
a nose. And there's issues with that.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
That's that's you know in the next four or five minutes.
So what so you're a mouth breather, You've got a
crowded mouth, your teeth are on top of each other,
your tongue is messed up. What are either the the
symptoms that somebody you know and I guess you're sitting
(13:47):
at home. You may be saying, well, wow, that sounds
like me symptoms or the long term effects. That's really
what I want to hear. So just at the.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
Basics, if you think about you know, if you look
at any animal in the wild, one hundred percent of
them are nasal breathers. The only animals of ammals that
you'll see that our mouth breathers may be domesticated pugs
in humans. So the nose has a really important function
because it takes dirty air. If we look at the
(14:16):
air microscopically, there's dust, mites, there's there's allergens in there,
and the nose is supposed to humidify it but also
filter all this all this dirt. So if we go
bypass that system breathe through our mouth, we're taking unfiltered
air and getting right into our lungs where there's this
dense network of capillaries which basically takes it right into
(14:38):
the bloodstream. So when you're when your bloodstream encounters andigens
that haven't been filtered or you know, yeah cleaned up, yeah,
you're gonna you're gonna become in an inflammatory state. So
just the nasal breathing versus mouth breathing can change your
inflammatory state, simple as that amazing. Another thing that that
happens is nitric oxide reduction. I don't know if you're
(15:01):
aware of it or not, is stimulated also in the
respiratory mucosa. Nitric oxide is really important for lowering blood pressure,
so blood pressure can be affected by that.
Speaker 1 (15:11):
So the mouth breathers stuffy nose, which probably is going
to lead I'm thinking to some sort of obstructive sleep
apnea exactly, and you're headed.
Speaker 2 (15:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
The one thing that we see, certainly people that snore
sleep apnea. They're hypertensive. Yeah, absolutely, and they gain weight.
We've got We've got two minutes here, so let's just
give me your high level evaluation of sleep apnea. Where
are we at with that? How endemic is?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
It's unbelievable, Actually, I forget the numbers. Are maybe twenty
two million diagnosed people in America with instructive sleep avenia,
but about ninety percent of the populations is not diagnosed, right,
So I think it's endemic. I think that most people
have sleep apnea unless proven otherwise. The issue is that
(16:01):
nobody's testing for it.
Speaker 1 (16:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
A sleep avene is going to affect your blood pressure,
It's going to increase all cause mortality, increase, risk of stroke,
heart attack, and dementia.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Those are known things, right, well, none of these are
any good, correct.
Speaker 3 (16:17):
Yeah, none of these are. And I think it'll shape
ten to fifteen years on average from a lifespan. The
other things that it does is psychiatric illnesses, conditions, mood disorders, concentration, irritability, depression.
All these things are affected by sleep abnea, but nobody's
looking at them. If you go to a psychiatrist, or
(16:39):
actually any patient that sees a psychiatrist, they're giving medications.
None of those patients have ever screened for sleep ATNA,
but they're given medications for it.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
Or any other sleep disturbance. I mean, sleep apnea probably
is the biggest thing, but no other sleep disturbance.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You know, right, yes, And it's so important, so important.
I mean we know that above all else. You know,
before before exercise, before any of it, sleep is more important, right,
you know it's it's pivotal for hormone regulation, it's pivotal
for your immune system, right. So I mean it might
be crazy to say that if you don't sleep well,
or if you do sleep well, you'll offset the risk
(17:14):
of cancer, right, or you'll decrease source risk of scancer.
I don't think that's controversial. I think that that that
that's a known thing, that's that is so true.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
All right, We're getting deeper and deeper into this, Doctor
David Alfie. All right, we're gonna take a break news, weather, traffic.
Maybe we'll hear about the astros in a minute, Doctor
Joe Galotti, this is your health first. Don't forget. Doctor
Joeglotti dot com is our website. Don't leave. We will
be right back of healthcare every Sunday between seven and
(17:44):
eight pm. I'm doctor Joe Galotti, and this is your
health first. Go to doctor Joeglotti dot com. Sign a
for our newsletter, follow us along on social media, and
our our whole goal. And we've been here twenty two
plus years. I say it every week to raise your
(18:04):
health ATQ, to make you a better consumer. Because so
much of the chronic disease, the heart disease, the diabete is,
the obesity, the liver disease, the hypertension, the strokes are
directly related to the decisions we make with or without knowledge.
And so if we could enlighten one person tonight, right,
(18:28):
doctor Alphie, one person, we just need to sort of
say mission accomplished. We helped one person and win. For
Sunday Night it is and doctor David Alfie is my
special guest alphioralsurgery dot com to find out more about him,
and he truly, you know, without pandering or patronizing you,
(18:53):
I think the reason we sort of click is that
you are a fantastic surgeon. You do really great work.
Patients really enjoy you. But you're really outside. You're doing
all kinds of other things. You've got a great podcast,
and you travel and you're innovative, and at the core
(19:17):
of it is you're just trying to spread the word,
spread the gospel along good health and a lot of
what you talk about and guess that you have on
your program and not necessarily talking about air away and
the shrinking mouth syndrome that we're talking about. It's just
how do you you know, what's the effect of alcohol
on sleep, what's the effect of obesity on sleep, apnea
(19:39):
and nutrition and you know things like that. So it's
really it's really a pleasure and we need more doctor
Alfie's I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
You know, we all went to physicians, we all go
to medical school. We had this dream of making people healthier, right, right,
and somewhere in that when you learn, you know you
have there's so much to learn pharmacology, physiology, there's a
whole Latin language of anatomy that you have to learn,
and then there's all these drugs and side effects and
contraindications and indications. By the time someone gets through the
(20:11):
medical system, you kind of lose touch of what happens
to make people healthier, right, and what's happened as a result,
And not a knock on anybody in particular, but just
a reality I think of what's happened of what I
experience is that medicine today, at least in this country
but also in large parts of the world, has become
a symptom management issue. Right, someone has high blood pressure,
(20:33):
we're gonna throw them a pill. If they have anxiety,
we throw them a pill. And we become pill pushers, right.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
The pill mentality is what I write about.
Speaker 3 (20:40):
Yes, absolutely, And none of those things are really making
people healthier. They're just you know, we have a if
you think about a car with a check engine light.
What we're doing by treating the symptom is we're just
turning off the check engine light without even looking at
the engine right, right, We're not looking at the problem.
We're not going to fix it, right And you know,
I mean how many people you know?
Speaker 1 (21:00):
One of the things I like to say, and a
little bit of tongue in cheek, patients have been telling
me if you, oh, I just have a touch of
diabetes or a touch of high blood pressure, Bobby, cholesterol's up.
What's that now? No, no, no, I just have a touch.
And now again I'm not saying everybody has to be
(21:22):
on a stanton, but you know, the doctor should look
at them in the eye and say, look, yes, your
cholesterol is ten points or fifty points above normal. This
is what may happen if you don't do something now,
and we're going to intervene instead of waiting for you
to show up with a stroke. And it's like, ah, absolutely,
(21:42):
you know what, Bob, we should have done something. And
so it's too bad. So getting back to you know,
the shrinking airway and mouth breathing. People would sleep apnea.
You talked about it very clearly. Everything from hypertension to
emotional disorder is waking and increased inflammation. Most people are
(22:03):
going to go for a sleep study test to say, yes,
you check the box. You've got sleep app obstructive sleep app.
Now you're probably going to be sent to somebody for
a SEAPAP machine, right, and lots of people are doing that.
Where does the surgeries that you do fit in within
(22:23):
the spectrum of you have a touch of sleep APNA
too enough that you need a seapap machine to the
point that you know what, you really need to go
for surgery and fix your anatomy. Yeah, how much time
I got? I can do this for an hour. I'm
gonna allot you three and a half minutes. Okay, let
me let me try because there's so much more to
talk about, you know much. We're just going to commandeer
(22:44):
the radio show tonight the radio station. Yeah, totally, I'm
gonna try to.
Speaker 3 (22:48):
I'm gonna try to pack that into three minutes and
get into what we just talked about before, because first
and foremost I wish everybody was getting a sleep test
there was the reality is that most physicians are bypassing
sleep even as a thought. Right, if you think about
we're sleep, We're supposed to sleep at least eight hours
a day. There's twenty four hours in the day, we
(23:08):
should be asleep a third of our life. So if
we look to one hundred, we should be sleep thirty
three years of our life. And you think about how
important that is. If that's If that's the case, that
says at all, right, but we don't focus on that,
so everybody should get a sleep study. You're also right
that we look at end stage disease. So it's not
only that we're pill happy, but we also have either
(23:28):
end stage disease or we're not looking at disease at all.
The reality is in health, you know there's an entire spectrum.
You don't just become end stage overnight, right at all.
You gradually get there. So we should be looking at
health optimization. So if someone is fortunate enough to be
steered in the direction of getting a sleep study and
(23:48):
they get a diagnosis. Now, if you snored, most likely
have sleep aatnea or somewhere airway disordered breathing. Most sleep
bataneas are obstructive right at least nine to one, and
most substructive sleepatanya is the obstruction is in the upper airway,
meaning behind the tongue, nose, or mouth. And this always
comes back to the jaws.
Speaker 1 (24:09):
But what do you do?
Speaker 3 (24:10):
You have to First of all, people do have to
take accountability for their own health. Right, we become a
sedentary culture. We binge, watch TV, We sit in traffic.
We're not supposed to. We're not built that way. We're
designed to run. Right, we should be up and moving.
So everybody's sitting at home right now, do me a favorite.
Get up and do tense squats while you listen, right,
as simple as that. Do push ups, some squats in
(24:31):
the morning if you can, If you can't, do a
variation of something that you can do, because we should
be moving all the time. But really, you know, a
ten percent increase in weight, six fold increase in obstructive
sleep bat right, it's that significant. So if you get
that diagnosis. First of all, we lose weight that is
low hanging fruit. It's going to change your life substantially.
(24:54):
And we're talking about you know, this affects everything. You
can erect aw dysfunction this you know, I know it's
Sunday night, but this affects everything. Right, that's important to us.
So first of all, lose weight. That's going to have
a huge impact on you. You know, be less inflamed,
So learn what causes inflammation in your body, whether that's
foods or allergens or whatever those are. Let's inflate exercise.
(25:17):
You know, you got to optimize the entire health. That
alone is going to increase sleep. The other thing that
people don't think about is sleep hygiene. Right now, we
have phones and we're checking emails at MPM and TV.
It's impossible to get eight hours of sleep. But even
if you do, you're not setting up for sleep. You know,
don't eat three hours at least for bedtime.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, I mean I tell that to people because it reflocks. Yes, right,
just read on the on the gi and liver side.
They look at me like three hours, Yeah, you mean
how about like one hour? No, three to four hours? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (25:48):
I mean what time do we meet here today? Six
forty five?
Speaker 1 (25:50):
Yeah? I eat dinner at five o'clock. Yeah, I'm done
for the day. Right all right? So so really, okay,
we're gonna we're gonna hold that point. Final segment coming up.
But I think your role for surgery is who is
it the top worst.
Speaker 3 (26:07):
I think it's everyone that is healthy enough to undergo surgery. Nowadays,
the surgery is good enough where we can open the
airways and instantly make.
Speaker 1 (26:17):
People better breathers. Okay, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:19):
I think the surgery is at that level now where
it's predictable enough, safe enough that if you're healthy, this
will help your life.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Yeah, all right, great, all right, final segment coming up.
I could almost say we're going to have you back
on next week, but anyway, I'm here. All right, Doctor
Joe Galotti, this is your health first final segment coming up.
Don't move and as doctor Alfie said, do some sit
up squats or jump and jack something. I'll right back
seven o'clock Central time. We're here. If you're on the run,
(26:50):
you're traveling out of town, you have a friend in
Spokane that thinks may benefit from this. We're on the
iHeart radio app all over the place. Doctor David Alfie
is in the studio Alfioralsurgery dot Com. All right, we've
(27:12):
unpacked a lot here tonight. One topic that you talk
about a fair amount is alcohol, on how alcohol is
a trigger for a lot of these airway issues. Now,
for me, as as a liver specialist, alcohol certainly is
a big part of the patients that I see and
(27:33):
both treatment and prevention. But for you, here's a guy
an oral surgeon. Right, what is alcohol? That head up?
You're nowhere near the liver at least you shouldn't go
near the liver, right, you know, unless you're you know trained.
But anyway, what's the story with alcohol?
Speaker 3 (27:47):
Yeah, so you know, it's amazing. Alcohol is such a
part of our society and culture, right, you know as
a physician, even as physicians, they meet up and have
these fancy wine tastings and everyone's a connoisseur. But what
happens is alcohol is a sedative, right, and it's a
severe disruptor of sleep. So when people sleep and they
(28:09):
have alcohol, and you hear a lot of people say like, oh,
alcohol puts me to sleep, or I need alcohol to
fall asleep, what's happening is same with ambient same with trasitoon,
same with a lot of sedatives, which are actually prescribed
for people that have insomnia. It'll make you feel like
you're asleep, but there are stages of sleep, and there's
quality of sleep. And what happens with a sedative relaxing
(28:30):
drug like alcohol, which it is, is when you lay down,
your tongue is already going to fall back. If you're sedated,
your tongue will collapse even more, and that alone will
cause obstructions and worse, an obstructive sleep ABNA. If you're
listening out there, you may have been told when you drink,
you snore more. That's an example of that, right, And
(28:51):
then you may notice when you wake up the next
day after drinking, you don't feel well. You didn't get
good sleep, and that's true. The other thing that happens
is it also disrupts the sleep waves. So when people drink,
they do not go into rem and deep sleep, restorative sleep.
They may be light sleepers, they may be waking up
(29:12):
twenty times a day. So you may think your sleep
for right eight hours, ten hours you crashed out after binging. Yeah,
but it totally disrupted your quality of sleep. And that's
going to disrupt not only your day and feel groggy
and have a headache, but it'll actually set you back
physiologically in terms of your health. And if you're doing
this chronically, it's legalized poison.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Two other major things I want to
talk about hostage tape. Yes, when I first heard about
this several years ago, I thought it was insane. Is
this something that came out of TikTok, and you've got
a bunch of people going to the hardware store buying
duct tape.
Speaker 3 (29:53):
Yes, as the expert set me right or wrong. Yeah, So,
first of all, be careful. If you can't breatherough your
don't tape your mouth right, because that's dangerous. But there
is utility in mouth taping and nasal dilation like breathe
the right strips or these hostage tape. That company has
a nasal strip equivalent where you put on your nose.
(30:16):
The goal is to promote nasal breathing because a lot
of people, especially when they lay down and they relax,
their tongue posture is not great and that has a
lot to do with the jaw size and then mouth breathing.
We talked earlier on the show about how detrimental mouth
breathing could be not only to the face form and physiology,
but right but actual to the quality of breathing and sleep. So,
(30:37):
if you do have the ability to breathe through your
nose and you need some assistance, people have found a
lot of benefits using something like hostage tape to promote
nasal breathing.
Speaker 1 (30:47):
Okay, so I look at it as the danger part.
If you've got trouble with your nose, deviate except them
you're chronically correct. Sign side is you got mucus coming
out of your nose? Yes, you have a cold. Things
that don't do it, all right? That could be dangerous,
all right. The other the other thing is we now
with all the technology, everybody has an Apple Watch, yes,
(31:11):
an iPhone. We have fitbits or a rings whoop that
is giving us constant feedback. What your heart rate is,
your recovery from exercise, heart rate variability, your respiration rate, oxygen.
We're soon going to be getting into glucose monitoring. I okay,
(31:34):
it's cool. I look at my I watch my Apple
Watch all through the day, see what's going on. But
I don't know if it's making us healthy at the
wholesale level. What what do you think? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (31:50):
I think the reality of it is that, you know,
a tool in the wrong hands is just dead weight, right,
and a sharp sword, you know, and a swordsman's hands
versus a fool right, has a lot of different utility.
These technologies like an ORR ring. For example, I wear
an oral ring. I used to wear a whoop. If
(32:10):
you're not in the mindset of biohacking and paying attention
to what you eat exercising. It's not going to do
any good because you don't even know how to use
it in the first place. But if you're an elite
athlete and you're using HRV to increase your training, that's
an amazing tool.
Speaker 1 (32:27):
If you're.
Speaker 3 (32:29):
You know, number one biohacking surgeon and you're looking at
thinking about airway and sleep all the time, and you
have an orrer ring to measure you know, you know
what made you sleep better that night and keep yourself accountable,
it's an amazing tool. But the reality is for most
people there's a lot of work to do before they
get there.
Speaker 1 (32:47):
Right right, And I think if you're going to track
heart rate variability and your sleep cycle, right, you have
to look at it to say something was wrong last
night or the past correct. I have to do. I
have to eat better. I want to get on a
full stomach. I had, you know, kaeso and chips for
(33:08):
dinner three nights in a row, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (33:10):
I mean if you're if you're eating a big meal
at ten o'clock trying to go to sleep at eleven
or twelve after a glass of wine, forget the sleep tracker.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Yeah, you know, forget it.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
You got to do all the other things right first,
and then then when you're able to in a position
to measure things, that's when I think it's a yeah,
it's good to measure.
Speaker 1 (33:28):
Yeah. All right, well, doctor Alfie, we've got a minute
and a half or so left. Try to summarize, you know,
your health beliefs. What do you want to leave everybody
with tonight? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (33:43):
I think that you know, God's blessed us our beautiful souls,
with these beautiful bodies, and I think that we really
do have to take about accountability. This is my belief
in respecting these bodies as much as we can. You know,
some are more gifted than others, no doubt, but what
we can do to respect our bodies maintain them, and
(34:04):
I think we should do everything we can to respect Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Do you you know I see patients that have a
host of problems, and I'm sure you see the same,
and you try to inspire them to make these changes,
and people are resistant. They don't want to eat better,
they don't want to give up something, and I you know,
sort of tell patients you have to think everything you
(34:30):
do today, how may it affect your health. I'm making
a decision not to exercise today, what's the downfall? I'm
deciding to eat out today and or drink today. What's
the impact? And is it me?
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Is it you?
Speaker 1 (34:47):
How do we get people to sort of follow this along? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (34:50):
I think continuing to be a good example spread the message.
I think the problem is culturally, you know, we're used
to pill pushing, We're used to ifting blame, and it's
there's a denial part to our human behavior that you know,
we're going to go for things that are convenient. But
I think that the more people like you and I
(35:11):
talk about, you know, maintaining health and trying to optimize
it and normalizing that, it'll get rid of some of
that denial that's just a macro societal norm.
Speaker 1 (35:22):
Yeah. And I think that you know, there's there's a
saying that I've been using for a very long time.
Misery is optional. Yea, misery is optional. I mean I
like that you see the misery of patients that are ill,
they're disabled, their livelihood, their happiness is upside down. And
(35:45):
you do look back and you say, they were warning
signs a year ago, five years.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Ago, totally all right, And I'm going to end it
with something that my good friend Ben Azzotti, who wrote
a book called Metabolic Freedom, so that his number one
supplement that he believes in is called vitamin G. And
the vitamin G is gratitude.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Yes, we need plenty of that. Yes, all right, Doctor
David Alfie Alphioralsurgery dot com is where to find him. David,
it really has been a pleasure having you tonight, pleasure
being here. Thank you so much for having me all right,
and for everybody, Doctor Joeglotti dot com. This episode will
be up hopefully on YouTube and podcast within a couple
(36:29):
of days, but until next Sunday night, be well. Take
care of your airway, that's the main thing. Good night, everybody.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
Yeah, 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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