December 1, 2024 • 41 mins
Dr. Galati starts the program by recapping his Thanksgiving and what he remembers from years past. He also takes a deep dive into the explanation on the cost of wellness and the dollars that go into it. Dr. Galati also talks about apathy on the part of the community at large.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initialized 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 the approach phrase everything looking.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At 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 prevention of disease.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti. Well a good
(00:59):
Sunday evening to everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti, you're tuned into
your Health First. We're here every Sunday between seven and
eight pm. And our soul mission is to make you
better consumers of healthcare, raising your health IQ so that
you are fully equipped to handle all of the health
(01:20):
and wellness and disease prevention issues that we all face.
Whether we are somebody in our teens and early twenties,
we're in that sort of midlife area, fifty to sixty
years old, or as we are all getting a bit older.
There are specific diseases, conditions, syndromes that affect us at
(01:44):
all these different stages of life, and you want to
be well equipped and you know, really five steps ahead
of the disease process that you could intervene early and
prevent problems. To follow along with us our website doctor
Joe Galotti dot com, Doctor Joe Galotti dot com. Galotti
(02:08):
is spelled g A l A t i dot com
Doctor Joe Galotti dot com, and that is where you
could sign up for our newsletter. There's a tab on
the top that says subscribe to newsletter, send me a message,
contact us and all of our social media and you know,
(02:30):
the social media sites and our links to old programs.
Our podcast is posted their Facebook, Instagram. All of our
YouTube videos are there, but you need to go to
doctor Joe Galotti dot com. So I hope all of
you had a marvelous Thanksgiving Day with your family and
loved ones whoever you were with. Hopefully you weren't tied
(02:53):
up traveling or having to work the day and miss
out on the camaraderie and love and family and thankfulness
that we want to celebrate on Thanksgiving. But for me,
I was with my family. My kids were in town.
We got together with some in laws and had a
very good time, more of a pot luck dinner the
(03:15):
days of you know, when I was growing up, you'd
go to grandma's house, you'd go to a particular family
member and they would cook everything a to z. It
was almost unheard of that somebody else would bring a dish.
I think this idea of shared meal preparation is a
(03:38):
more modern phenomena. I think people just don't like to
cook the way we used to in the good old days.
And I would say maybe if anybody was going to
bring anything, it was going to be the dessert and
the pastries. Growing up on Long Island there was this
absolutely marvelous Italian pastry shop or a bakery shop. It
(04:02):
was called Ridgies, r I g I Ridgies, and you
knew whoever was going to take the role of getting
the pastries from Ridgies had a great job and able
(04:22):
to select all of the canoles and the napoleons and
the cookies and the oh it was just unbelievable. But
that was about it. You know, if we were going
to my grandmother's house, my mother would not make a
vegetable dish, you would not make salad. You'd go to
Grandma's and everything was there just sort of somehow all materialized,
(04:47):
you know, from some older woman that would make all
the food, cooking for probably an entire week to get
it all set. But anyway, that is it and it's
for me. Last week, if you tuned in last week,
we had a best of segment and I gave a
little introduction. I was sick. I'd been in San Diego
(05:09):
at the Liver meetings and came home sick, and I
was pretty zonked out last weekend. But I am one
hundred percent back feeling okay. My voice and you know,
my head, it's not really a head cold, but my
voice is just a little bit off this weekend, so
(05:30):
part of me. But I think I am fully capable
to be here on this Sunday evening with everybody. It's
hard to imagine it's December one, twenty twenty four, and
Christmas is just a mere twenty five days away. And
you know, one of the you know issues every year
that we've been doing the program, starting Thanksgiving through Christmas,
(05:53):
we talk about what do we need to do for
the coming year, and we're going to make these proclamations
that this is the year I'm going to stop smoking,
This is the year I'm going to cut back on alcohol.
This is the year I promise I'm going to get
more sleep. This is the year I'm going to eat better,
stop going to fast foods. And you know, by the way,
(06:14):
I'm also going to exercise. Well, these New Year's resolutions,
as you all know, are a bit of a ruse.
By you know, two to three weeks into it, most
people have failed or given up on it. So instead
of putting the pressure on yourself to say, oh, man,
come January one, I am really shaping up this year.
(06:37):
And a lot of people come to me during the year.
They'll come to me, maybe say late summer or early fall,
and they will say, you know what, You're right, I
need to lose weight, I need to get my diabetes
out of control. I'm going to make it a New
Year's resolution. And I'll tell them. I'm like, look, you know, Bob,
(06:58):
it's August fifty. You still have a good four months,
five months to make an impact. Why don't you just
go home and start now. Go put on your tennis shoes,
get a new pair of sneakers, dust off your membership
to your twenty four hour fitness whatever. You have to
(07:20):
do it now. No, no, no, I want to do it,
you know, come January one. And I think that's just
you know, a bad attitude. I think it's really a
defense mechanism for all of us to say, yeah, I know,
I'm really not paying attention to my health and wellness
and I am really not taking care of myself. But
(07:42):
you know what, I'm gonna feel better because in four
and a half months from now, I'm going to really start.
You look, trust me, I am a man or a
woman of my word. I am going to do it
January one. Well, you know, by the time Valentine's Day
rolls around, these are laws, so we have to look
at it as a complete lifestyle change. It is not
(08:06):
something that just happens on a particular day and on
December one. If you say you're ready for this, well
go start tomorrow's Monday, December two. Why don't you just
do that? Or if you say, look, I have a
lot going on at work, I have a some sort
of business transaction, I have a promotion coming up, and
(08:28):
it's not going to be till say February one, where
I will be fully committed, then that is okay. But
for everybody to say January one, it really just sets
us up for failure. Now, the one thing I am
going to speak about tonight, which I really really believe
(08:50):
is more important than many realize, and that is what
I like to say the cost of well the cost
of wellness. Now, I'm going to give you my own
personal twist, and I think if you listen through to this,
(09:11):
at the end of the discussion here on the cost
of wellness, you will probably have a much better appreciation
of where Joe Gillotti is coming from and my approach.
And it's an approach that I hope all of you
can not only adopt but really have an appreciation for too.
(09:35):
In a sense, look at the mess we are all
in from a health and wellness disease and utter financial
catastrophe that we're in with regard to this big, big,
big term of health. Now, there has been and I've
talked about it here on the radio with RFK Junior
(09:59):
soon to be President Trump two point zero about make
America healthy again. I do believe that there are tremendous
opportunities for us to have a serious, serious dialogue and
having dialogues like this the cost of wellness? What do
you need to do to address the cost the lost
(10:24):
financial incentive that chronic disease creates. So anyway, stay tuned,
We're gonna take a quick break. Com Doctor Joe Galotti,
this is your health First, every Sunday between seven and
a pm. Don't forget. Doctor Joe Galotti dot com is
our website. Sign up, stay in touch with us at
I'm right back, all right, Welcome back everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti.
(10:46):
Hope you're doing well on this post Thanksgiving Sunday evening.
Don't forget go to doctor Joegalotti dot com. Find out
all about me. You're probably saying, who is this guy
on the radio? Twenty two plus years every Sunday, it's
been gracing the airwaves with all of you, originating from
(11:09):
our home radio station seven forty KPIH in Houston, Texas,
but around the country and around the globe on the
iHeartRadio app every Sunday between seven and eight pm Central Time.
And don't forget, there's a link to get a copy
(11:30):
of my book, Eating Yourself Sick. It's a great stocking stuffer,
won't set you back too much. Available on Amazon. It's
probably the best place to go. Eating Yourself Sick is
exactly what it is about how we are eating ourselves sick.
But there's a antidote in there and a strategy to
(11:52):
stay well. All right, So for as much time as
it takes for rest of this evening, we're going to
be talking about the cost of wellness, and I want
to have you all settle in and think about this
for a moment. The cost of wellness? What am I
(12:14):
talking about? Well? On the sheer dollars and cents cost
of this? How much does it cost to take care
of everybody? This is really no different than saying I
am going to have a few friends over tonight for
dinner or tomorrow, and how much is it going to
(12:36):
cost me to feed them? How much is it going
to cost for entertainment, for decorations. It is you're basically
setting up a budget to say I am going to
do it and something, and what is it going to
cost to pull this off? Again? Is this? Look, I
don't mean to belabor the point here, but we have
(12:58):
to think that the health care that we are getting,
or we are requesting, or we believe is somehow entitled
to us, is free. You want to buy a car,
how much is that going to cost? There is a
dollar amount that is assigned to that. So to take
(13:19):
care of all of America and their chronic diseases. Now,
this is the main or I should say, this is
the first number I want you to remember, ninety percent
of the four point five trillion dollars that we expend
(13:45):
on healthcare, ninety percent goes to the management of chronic
disease and mental health disease. Ninety percent of the annual
cost that is four point five trillion dollars. So percent
(14:10):
of four point five trillion dollars is an awful lot
of money. That is what the cost is. Now, let's
break it down into different major disease headings that you're
all probably familiar with, either personally or somebody you know.
(14:31):
Heart disease, carnary artery disease one. First of all, Now,
the cost of wellness is not so much how many
nickels and dimes it's going to cost us. What is
the human capital here? Well, heart disease takes roughly takes
(14:51):
the life of one million Americans die each year, which
is about one third of all deaths. One third of
all deaths are related to heart disease. The cost of
heart disease is two hundred and fifty four billion dollars
(15:15):
a year. Now that cost is going to be the
cost of medication, the cost of procedures, the cost of hospitalization,
the cost of surgery, the cost of all of these
devices that are being implanted. The other number here, separate number,
(15:41):
one hundred and sixty eight billion dollars of lost productivity. So,
because people are saddled with chronic heart disease and that
may be carnary artery disease, heart attack, congest of heart fail, stroke,
(16:02):
disease of your limbs that we call that peripheral arterial disease,
one hundred and sixty eight billion dollars is lost due
to decrease productivity, so you're not showing up to work.
A company cannot make money, you cannot get paid lost productivity.
(16:23):
So heart disease two hundred and fifty four billion dollars
of lost of cost and one hundred and sixty eight
billion of lost productivity. Those are no minor numbers to
look at. Now, what about cancer. One point seven million
(16:47):
people are diagnosed with cancer every year, six hundred thousand
people die of cancer, which is the number two cause,
and the cost of cancer two hundred and forty billion,
just slightly less than the cost of heart disease. So
right there, between heart and cancer, it's almost half of
(17:12):
a billion dollars. It's a lot of money. So here again,
we're talking about procedures, office visits, chemotherapy, hospitalizations, the complications
of chemotherapy, all of the X rays, the MRIs, the
(17:33):
cat scans, the biopsies, the pathology, the chemistries that need
to be done. Again, this is very costly. Last thing
before the break. Let's talk about diabetes. Now. This every time,
every single time I mention this number, this statistic, my
(17:55):
head spins. So we know that there are roughly thirty
eight million people that have diabetes. They are walking around,
they are card carrying diabetics. Thirty eight million. There are
ninety eight million, almost three times twice, two and a half,
(18:19):
two and a half the amount of time of people
ninety eight million with pre diabetes. So this is diabetes
on deck. These people statistically will eventually develop diabetes and
or the complications of diabetes. So when you are told, hey,
(18:39):
you're just pre diabetic, WHOA, you are off the hook, bull,
You're not off the hook. You are very likely you
are on a collision course with developing diabetes. So thirty
eight million people definitely have diabetes. Ninety eight million or
pre diabetes. These are people on debck. They're in the
(19:01):
waiting room, they're in the green room ready to come on.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Of course, diabetes leads to carnariutery disease, renal disease, people
go blind. And the cost of diabetes four one hundred
and thirteen billion dollars. That's almost twice the cost of
heart disease and cancer. So again I want to leave
with you as we take the break right now, the
(19:26):
immense cost in dollars and cents, dollars and cents to
pay for all this. And with diabetes, you're talking about
the cost of insulin, the cost of all the complications,
the blood work, the devices, the procedures that people have
to go for, the amputations that people are going for
(19:48):
to chop off their toes and legs and feet because
of the complications of diabetes. And so this in a
sense is the cost now all of these diseases, heart disease, cancer, diabets.
Now you may say cancer, what the heck does? How
can I prevent cancer? Yeah? You can prevent cancer when
(20:09):
you look at the lifestyle choices that we are making
that make you more prone to cancer. The hint here
is obesity. All right, all right, we're gonna take a
quick break. Doctor Joe Galotti always such a pleasure to
be here on Sunday evening with all of you. Stay tuned,
I'll wright back, Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much
(20:30):
for joining me and for your health First team on
this glorious Sunday evening, giving you the motivation the aspiration
to really take a very serious look at your own
health and wellness and the health and wellness of the
people around you. Think about everybody that you were at,
(20:55):
sharing a meal with, sharing a football game with, sharing
just conversation and catch up time with the people this
past Thursday on Thanksgiving? Do you not wish them the
best in health and wellness. We don't like to see
our friends and loved ones sick or chronically ill or
(21:18):
not feeling well. And you must believe me in that
you have the power in your fingertips to significantly reduce
the amount of chronic illness, chronic disease misery that so
many of us face. And the cost of this misery
(21:41):
is almost to the point where you cannot understand how
big these numbers are and the cost and the waste
of money, the waste of money that could be plowed
into so many other more beneficial areas within healthcare and
wellness and our happiness and our prosperity and our ability
(22:04):
to really make an impact on the world and impact
the people around us. It is squandered opportunity, squandered money,
and we are paying for this more today than ever.
And again, when you sit there in twenty twenty four,
we're almost in twenty twenty five, and you sit there
(22:26):
and you say, Okay, what to me, John Q Public
what does wellness really mean to you? And I believe
we need to almost start there, because if we do not.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Have a.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Legitimate benchmark of what health and wellness should be, then
we're lost. We're totally lost. We have dumped down this
entire process, this entire conversation of wellness. For some people,
it just hey, instead of being on ten medicines, I
wish I was on five medicines. Okay, that's a start,
(23:06):
But how do you get to be on zero medicines?
I wish I could climb up five flights of stairs
without feeling like I have a piano on my back. Well,
that's not too big of a goal. Or wishing that
you could you ride a bicycle for twenty miles, or
you could walk five miles without having pain in your
(23:29):
knee or short of breath or palpitations, or that you
could get your weight down. So we have almost a
demented impression or a demented sense of what health and
wellness is. And this has evolved in the thirty plus
years that I've been practicing medicine. The goals and aspirations
(23:50):
have tremendously changed. And that's a whole other conversation. But
it's accept your body as it is. No, I don't
think you accept your body as it is. There is
a right way and a wrong way. Now there's a
little wiggle room on what is right and wrong. But
when you look at the cost of this, clearly something
(24:14):
is very very wrong. Okay. So in the segment before this,
we talked about ninety percent of the four point five
trillion dollars that we spend annually on healthcare is going
to chronic disease and mental health disease, heart disease two
hundred and fifty four billion, cancer two hundred and forty billion,
(24:35):
diabetes four hundred and thirteen billion dollars. Let's get into obesity.
So right now, something nobody, nobody on earth here should
be happy about or proud of. Twenty percent of our
kids are obese. Forty two percent of adults are overweight.
If you do the mass, that's over sixty two percent
(24:55):
are overweight or obese. One in three. One in three
young adults are unfit to be in the military. Unfit
to be in the military. Could you imagine nineteen sixty
if that was the number, it was probably ninety five
percent of the people were fit to be in the military.
(25:18):
But we have just gone absolutely downhill with our eyes
wide open, we have witnessed this, and we're all just
shrugging our shoulders, like, what the hell. That's the way
life is. And the cost of obesity is one hundred
and seventy three billion dollars a year. One hundred and
seventy three billion. So we got two point five billion,
(25:40):
heart disease, cancer two hundred and forty billion, diabetes four
hundred and thirteen billion. Let's sa add almost another two
hundred billion dollars in obesity. And again, all of these
issues are intertwined. Where there is obesity, there is diabetes.
Where there's diabetes's heart disease. Where there is obesity and diabetes,
(26:01):
there's cancer. There are roughly eleven cancers that are directly
related to obesity, directly related to obesity. And just think,
if we could get obesity under control, the number of
cancer cases will go down, the cost of cancer to
cost of obesity. Now, the one thing that I deal
(26:23):
with every single day within this obesity, diabetes, heart disease
realm is something called fatty livery. You've heard me talking
about this for years, and with fatty liver disease, you
are now introducing the risk of developing chronic liver disease,
the risk of cirrhosis, liver cancer, the need for liver transplant.
(26:46):
None of these therapies, none of these care plans are cheap.
We have to resort to a liver transplant for somebody
that is obese their entire life, with poorly controlled diabetes,
and now they got heart disease. It's it's absolutely amazing. Worldwide,
(27:11):
if you want to take a globalist look at this,
there is the cost of obesity worldwide, forty seven trillion dollars.
Forty seven trillion dollars worldwide. And again there are you know,
obesity in a lot of these countries adds up and
it is devastating to their economy. Okay, now let me
(27:34):
take a slight twist here, because so far we've been
talking about the cost of taking care of care of something.
It's like the cost of putting new brakes on your
car two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, the cost of
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity is mind boggling. Now
(27:55):
let us look at lost income because really, when you
look at it, for many, hey, I pay my insurance.
I pay my insurance premiums, which by the way, are
just too damn much. And so if I need to
have insulin, if I need to go for a cat scan,
(28:16):
you know, damn it, I'm getting it done because I
paid for it. But let's look at lost income. So
people that are chronically ill and the chronic disease if
you haven't gathered by now, we're talking about high blood pressure,
(28:37):
cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and all of its complications, kidney disease,
mental health issues, renal disease, kidney disease, orthopedic issues. Right,
these are chronic diseases and cancer. You could throw in
(29:00):
their chronic lung disease, COPD, bronchitis, asthma, all of the
rheumatologic problems. But these are the chronic diseases. So lost income. Now,
this one particular study, which was a number of years ago,
but it was two thousand and one through two thousand
and three, there were cumulatively three point six billion days
(29:24):
lost of work, three point six billion days lost of
work annually. Annually, people with chronic disease lost one hundred
and twenty seven billion dollars worth of lost income. One
hundred and twenty seven dollars right up in smoke. So
(29:48):
these were people that, because they were chronically ill, did
not show up to work, and depending on your pay structure,
a pay strategy, you may have not gotten paid. And
so this is an awful lot of lost wages. Just
think one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars that could
(30:10):
be redivided if these individuals were healthy. So that is
the first number. I've got a whole bunch other to
talk about. We're going to take a break right now,
But one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars lost annually
because of driving disease. All right, that is the number
(30:32):
I think we could all relate to. All Right, coming
up final segment, we're going to be talking more about
lost wages and how it definitely affects you. I'm doctor
Joe Glotti. Stay tuned, we'll break back all right, final
segment of this week's Your Health First. Every Sunday, we're
here between seven and eight pm. I wish we had
more time, but that is all the radio gods a
(30:56):
lot of seven to eight pm Central time. But keep
in mind, if you like what you are hearing here,
this will be repackaged into a podcast. And if you
sign up around newsletter, which you get by going to
doctor Joegalotti dot com, you will be alerted to all
of the new podcast postings that you can re listen
(31:20):
to and share and reflect on. Don't forget go to
doctor Joegalotti dot com sign up for the newsletter. The
newsletter is the portal to stay in touch with all
that I do, all that the Your Health First team
does through the week, and really gives you some connection
(31:42):
with all of us and all of our social media
is posted at the doctor Joe Galotti dot com pod
Doctor Joglotti website and don't forget my book Eating Yourself Sick.
If you'd like to pick up a stocking stuffer, you
can check it out on Amazon. Doctor Joegalotti dot com
is where you could get a link. All right, So
(32:03):
just a few moments left talking about the cost of wellness,
and no doubt we will be discussing more of this.
There is really an entire seminar I believe we could
do on the cost of wellness. It is that important.
The other thing I would say, and this is where
I not that I rub people wrong, but people are like,
(32:25):
what are you talking about? There is tremendous apathy that
we have to overcome. So I don't think you could
have a discussion of the cost of wellness and apathy
and include both of these at the same time. It
really is there's apathy on the part of the community
at large that we become apathetic to the point that, yeah, well,
(32:50):
I'll just tolerate a certain level of obesity. I will
tolerate a blood sugar that is, you know, it's not perfect,
because nobody is perfect, and I have just a touch
of hypertension and all this other stuff. We are not
realizing that to maintain health and wellness you have to
get certain parameters, certain metrics, certain measurements in the right zone. Okay,
(33:16):
the normal blood pressure according to the American Heart Association.
I am not making this up one twenty over seventy.
The top numbers should be one twenty. So I go
and see patients and I'm like, hey, how's your blood
pressure been? It's about one sixty five. Well that's a
lot better than one eighty. And they are willing to
stop there at one sixty five, realizing that one sixty
(33:40):
five is going to put you at risk for stroke,
cart attack, heart failure, and kidney disease. But they're like, hey,
I'm trying, You're not trying hard enough. There is the apathy, Hey,
you know, what do you want me to do? How
much can I do? And then the other part is
on the doctors and the healthcares and the nurse practitioners
in the pas, this apathy that they are allowing patients
(34:03):
to tolerate this because, believe it or not, the responsibility
we have as doctors and nurses and other providers is
tremendous because they follow our lead. If my doctor is
not excited and freaking out about something, then why the
hell should I get all bent out of shape? And
(34:24):
so it's just a vicious cycle, So look out for apathy. Now,
thirty four percent of adults have one chronic disease which
is about fifty eight million people. There's nineteen people nineteen
million people, or eleven percent that have two or more
chronic diseases. So this is an awful lot of people.
We're talking fifty eight nineteen sixties, almost eighty million people
(34:49):
have at least one to two chronic diseases. Now, the
other thing about the cost of wellness that we do
not take into consideration is the strain cost of caretakers.
So if if you may not you yourself are not
chronically ill. You don't have diabetes, you don't have hypertension,
(35:11):
you're you know, you're just on let's say one medication
for your thyroid. But you are the caretaker of a
husband or a wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, mother, father, sibling, child.
The effect of that chronic disease on you is unbelievable.
(35:37):
It will potentially force you to leave the workforce. You
leave the workforce. I don't know about you, no tickie,
no shirty, You're not going to get paid, okay when
people are the care taker of somebody with chronic disease. Now,
(35:58):
I see this every single day because the patients I
take care of have chronic liver disease. They have sorosis,
they have liver failure, they are waiting for a liver transplant,
or they went for a liver transplant. And one of
the most important things that we look for is who's
the caretaker. So the studies have shown that people that
(36:22):
are care takers of people with chronic disease, they are
passed up for job opportunities, They're unable to acquire new
job skills. They are passed up either they're passed up
by their boss, or they have to basically opt out
(36:46):
for opportunities to transfer or relocate. In most cases, this
is for a step up that work ladder because they
are caring for somebody with chronic disease. They can't just
simply walk out. You are tied at the hip to
(37:07):
this person with chronic disease. So as a result of this,
you're passed up on job opportunities, unable to acquire new
skills so that maybe you could make more money and
you could have a better life, get out of poverty,
or passed up on opportunities to transfer or relocate because
(37:28):
you're taking care of somebody. All of this impacts on
reduced wages and with chronic disease, on the patient side.
You have chronic disease, you have chronic diabetes, you have
chronic heart disease. That leads to absenteeism. Again, this ties
into lost wages for you, but also decrease productivity for
(37:50):
the person that you're working for. This all leads to
something called medical debt, adverse financial impact, and decrease in
your credit score. This is all clearly documented. Now. The
one thing that I would say here I'm going to
leave you with I had mentioned to you earlier the
(38:13):
staggering amount of money we are spending here in America
four point five trillion dollars on healthcare. Ninety percent of
it is on chronic disease, which the vast majority of
these chronic diseases could be reversed or modified with lifestyle intervention.
(38:34):
Lifestyle intervention eating better, exercising, taking control of your weight,
taking control of your blood pressure, losing weight, eating better, etc. Now,
the sad thing here is that the insurance companies are
absolutely willing. Now, occasionally you have to fight for the coverage,
(38:59):
but they're absolutely willing to pay hundreds of thousands of
dollars for you to get a cardiac workup and get
let's say cardiac stents or open heart surgery, hundreds of
thousand dollars for the testing, the cardiac CAF, the cost
of the stent, the procedure time, the hospitalization, the new medications.
(39:21):
That is what we're geared for. You have insurance to
pay for this, but what I'm going to leave you with.
The insurance companies will not pay fifty dollars one hundred
dollars for you to see a registered dietitian to learn
how to eat better, how to cut down on the salt,
(39:43):
how to cut down on the processed foods, how to
prepare a healthful diet for the week for yourself and
your family, which will have a tremendous windfall effect on
your health and wellness. And may maybe if you get
your weight down, maybe if you get your blood pressure down,
(40:04):
maybe if you get your blood sugar down, you'll be
at a lower risk for heart disease, kidney failure, amputations,
heart failure, cancer, et cetera, et cetera. They will pay
hundreds of thousands of dollars for you, but not fifty
or one hundred bucks for a dietitian to tell you
how to make a lifestyle change. And so the little
(40:28):
thing I sat here with a calculator earlier this afternoon.
There are approximately eighty million families in the United States,
seven million which live in or below the poverty level.
So let's just say fifteen million family households. If we
bought them all a three hundred and fifty dollars piece
(40:50):
of exercise equipment, or we spend three hundred and fifty
dollars a year on health coaching or on how to
cook better, how to understand food labels. Buy them a
stationary bicycle so that they get exercise. That would cost
about a little over five billion dollars. See five billion dollars,
(41:14):
Joe Galotti, you're out of your mind. But when it's
costing billions of dollars on heart disease, five billion versus
the four hundred and thirteen billion in diabetes, I say
that is an investment where you will have a pretty
damn good return on investment. All right, there will be
(41:36):
more to talk about this whole cost of wellness. I
hope this was able to inspire you and open a
few eyes and think about yourselves, or think about the
massive problems we have here. But that is it for tonight.
Don't forget go to doctor Joegalotti dot com, have a
blessed week and we'll see you next Sunday evening
Initialized 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 the approach phrase everything looking.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
At 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 prevention of disease.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Bellotti. Well a good
(00:59):
Sunday evening to everybody. Doctor Joe Galotti, you're tuned into
your Health First. We're here every Sunday between seven and
eight pm. And our soul mission is to make you
better consumers of healthcare, raising your health IQ so that
you are fully equipped to handle all of the health
(01:20):
and wellness and disease prevention issues that we all face.
Whether we are somebody in our teens and early twenties,
we're in that sort of midlife area, fifty to sixty
years old, or as we are all getting a bit older.
There are specific diseases, conditions, syndromes that affect us at
(01:44):
all these different stages of life, and you want to
be well equipped and you know, really five steps ahead
of the disease process that you could intervene early and
prevent problems. To follow along with us our website doctor
Joe Galotti dot com, Doctor Joe Galotti dot com. Galotti
(02:08):
is spelled g A l A t i dot com
Doctor Joe Galotti dot com, and that is where you
could sign up for our newsletter. There's a tab on
the top that says subscribe to newsletter, send me a message,
contact us and all of our social media and you know,
(02:30):
the social media sites and our links to old programs.
Our podcast is posted their Facebook, Instagram. All of our
YouTube videos are there, but you need to go to
doctor Joe Galotti dot com. So I hope all of
you had a marvelous Thanksgiving Day with your family and
loved ones whoever you were with. Hopefully you weren't tied
(02:53):
up traveling or having to work the day and miss
out on the camaraderie and love and family and thankfulness
that we want to celebrate on Thanksgiving. But for me,
I was with my family. My kids were in town.
We got together with some in laws and had a
very good time, more of a pot luck dinner the
(03:15):
days of you know, when I was growing up, you'd
go to grandma's house, you'd go to a particular family
member and they would cook everything a to z. It
was almost unheard of that somebody else would bring a dish.
I think this idea of shared meal preparation is a
(03:38):
more modern phenomena. I think people just don't like to
cook the way we used to in the good old days.
And I would say maybe if anybody was going to
bring anything, it was going to be the dessert and
the pastries. Growing up on Long Island there was this
absolutely marvelous Italian pastry shop or a bakery shop. It
(04:02):
was called Ridgies, r I g I Ridgies, and you
knew whoever was going to take the role of getting
the pastries from Ridgies had a great job and able
(04:22):
to select all of the canoles and the napoleons and
the cookies and the oh it was just unbelievable. But
that was about it. You know, if we were going
to my grandmother's house, my mother would not make a
vegetable dish, you would not make salad. You'd go to
Grandma's and everything was there just sort of somehow all materialized,
(04:47):
you know, from some older woman that would make all
the food, cooking for probably an entire week to get
it all set. But anyway, that is it and it's
for me. Last week, if you tuned in last week,
we had a best of segment and I gave a
little introduction. I was sick. I'd been in San Diego
(05:09):
at the Liver meetings and came home sick, and I
was pretty zonked out last weekend. But I am one
hundred percent back feeling okay. My voice and you know,
my head, it's not really a head cold, but my
voice is just a little bit off this weekend, so
(05:30):
part of me. But I think I am fully capable
to be here on this Sunday evening with everybody. It's
hard to imagine it's December one, twenty twenty four, and
Christmas is just a mere twenty five days away. And
you know, one of the you know issues every year
that we've been doing the program, starting Thanksgiving through Christmas,
(05:53):
we talk about what do we need to do for
the coming year, and we're going to make these proclamations
that this is the year I'm going to stop smoking,
This is the year I'm going to cut back on alcohol.
This is the year I promise I'm going to get
more sleep. This is the year I'm going to eat better,
stop going to fast foods. And you know, by the way,
(06:14):
I'm also going to exercise. Well, these New Year's resolutions,
as you all know, are a bit of a ruse.
By you know, two to three weeks into it, most
people have failed or given up on it. So instead
of putting the pressure on yourself to say, oh, man,
come January one, I am really shaping up this year.
(06:37):
And a lot of people come to me during the year.
They'll come to me, maybe say late summer or early fall,
and they will say, you know what, You're right, I
need to lose weight, I need to get my diabetes
out of control. I'm going to make it a New
Year's resolution. And I'll tell them. I'm like, look, you know, Bob,
(06:58):
it's August fifty. You still have a good four months,
five months to make an impact. Why don't you just
go home and start now. Go put on your tennis shoes,
get a new pair of sneakers, dust off your membership
to your twenty four hour fitness whatever. You have to
(07:20):
do it now. No, no, no, I want to do it,
you know, come January one. And I think that's just
you know, a bad attitude. I think it's really a
defense mechanism for all of us to say, yeah, I know,
I'm really not paying attention to my health and wellness
and I am really not taking care of myself. But
(07:42):
you know what, I'm gonna feel better because in four
and a half months from now, I'm going to really start.
You look, trust me, I am a man or a
woman of my word. I am going to do it
January one. Well, you know, by the time Valentine's Day
rolls around, these are laws, so we have to look
at it as a complete lifestyle change. It is not
(08:06):
something that just happens on a particular day and on
December one. If you say you're ready for this, well
go start tomorrow's Monday, December two. Why don't you just
do that? Or if you say, look, I have a
lot going on at work, I have a some sort
of business transaction, I have a promotion coming up, and
(08:28):
it's not going to be till say February one, where
I will be fully committed, then that is okay. But
for everybody to say January one, it really just sets
us up for failure. Now, the one thing I am
going to speak about tonight, which I really really believe
(08:50):
is more important than many realize, and that is what
I like to say the cost of well the cost
of wellness. Now, I'm going to give you my own
personal twist, and I think if you listen through to this,
(09:11):
at the end of the discussion here on the cost
of wellness, you will probably have a much better appreciation
of where Joe Gillotti is coming from and my approach.
And it's an approach that I hope all of you
can not only adopt but really have an appreciation for too.
(09:35):
In a sense, look at the mess we are all
in from a health and wellness disease and utter financial
catastrophe that we're in with regard to this big, big,
big term of health. Now, there has been and I've
talked about it here on the radio with RFK Junior
(09:59):
soon to be President Trump two point zero about make
America healthy again. I do believe that there are tremendous
opportunities for us to have a serious, serious dialogue and
having dialogues like this the cost of wellness? What do
you need to do to address the cost the lost
(10:24):
financial incentive that chronic disease creates. So anyway, stay tuned,
We're gonna take a quick break. Com Doctor Joe Galotti,
this is your health First, every Sunday between seven and
a pm. Don't forget. Doctor Joe Galotti dot com is
our website. Sign up, stay in touch with us at
I'm right back, all right, Welcome back everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti.
(10:46):
Hope you're doing well on this post Thanksgiving Sunday evening.
Don't forget go to doctor Joegalotti dot com. Find out
all about me. You're probably saying, who is this guy
on the radio? Twenty two plus years every Sunday, it's
been gracing the airwaves with all of you, originating from
(11:09):
our home radio station seven forty KPIH in Houston, Texas,
but around the country and around the globe on the
iHeartRadio app every Sunday between seven and eight pm Central Time.
And don't forget, there's a link to get a copy
(11:30):
of my book, Eating Yourself Sick. It's a great stocking stuffer,
won't set you back too much. Available on Amazon. It's
probably the best place to go. Eating Yourself Sick is
exactly what it is about how we are eating ourselves sick.
But there's a antidote in there and a strategy to
(11:52):
stay well. All right, So for as much time as
it takes for rest of this evening, we're going to
be talking about the cost of wellness, and I want
to have you all settle in and think about this
for a moment. The cost of wellness? What am I
(12:14):
talking about? Well? On the sheer dollars and cents cost
of this? How much does it cost to take care
of everybody? This is really no different than saying I
am going to have a few friends over tonight for
dinner or tomorrow, and how much is it going to
(12:36):
cost me to feed them? How much is it going
to cost for entertainment, for decorations. It is you're basically
setting up a budget to say I am going to
do it and something, and what is it going to
cost to pull this off? Again? Is this? Look, I
don't mean to belabor the point here, but we have
(12:58):
to think that the health care that we are getting,
or we are requesting, or we believe is somehow entitled
to us, is free. You want to buy a car,
how much is that going to cost? There is a
dollar amount that is assigned to that. So to take
(13:19):
care of all of America and their chronic diseases. Now,
this is the main or I should say, this is
the first number I want you to remember, ninety percent
of the four point five trillion dollars that we expend
(13:45):
on healthcare, ninety percent goes to the management of chronic
disease and mental health disease. Ninety percent of the annual
cost that is four point five trillion dollars. So percent
(14:10):
of four point five trillion dollars is an awful lot
of money. That is what the cost is. Now, let's
break it down into different major disease headings that you're
all probably familiar with, either personally or somebody you know.
(14:31):
Heart disease, carnary artery disease one. First of all, Now,
the cost of wellness is not so much how many
nickels and dimes it's going to cost us. What is
the human capital here? Well, heart disease takes roughly takes
(14:51):
the life of one million Americans die each year, which
is about one third of all deaths. One third of
all deaths are related to heart disease. The cost of
heart disease is two hundred and fifty four billion dollars
(15:15):
a year. Now that cost is going to be the
cost of medication, the cost of procedures, the cost of hospitalization,
the cost of surgery, the cost of all of these
devices that are being implanted. The other number here, separate number,
(15:41):
one hundred and sixty eight billion dollars of lost productivity. So,
because people are saddled with chronic heart disease and that
may be carnary artery disease, heart attack, congest of heart fail, stroke,
(16:02):
disease of your limbs that we call that peripheral arterial disease,
one hundred and sixty eight billion dollars is lost due
to decrease productivity, so you're not showing up to work.
A company cannot make money, you cannot get paid lost productivity.
(16:23):
So heart disease two hundred and fifty four billion dollars
of lost of cost and one hundred and sixty eight
billion of lost productivity. Those are no minor numbers to
look at. Now, what about cancer. One point seven million
(16:47):
people are diagnosed with cancer every year, six hundred thousand
people die of cancer, which is the number two cause,
and the cost of cancer two hundred and forty billion,
just slightly less than the cost of heart disease. So
right there, between heart and cancer, it's almost half of
(17:12):
a billion dollars. It's a lot of money. So here again,
we're talking about procedures, office visits, chemotherapy, hospitalizations, the complications
of chemotherapy, all of the X rays, the MRIs, the
(17:33):
cat scans, the biopsies, the pathology, the chemistries that need
to be done. Again, this is very costly. Last thing
before the break. Let's talk about diabetes. Now. This every time,
every single time I mention this number, this statistic, my
(17:55):
head spins. So we know that there are roughly thirty
eight million people that have diabetes. They are walking around,
they are card carrying diabetics. Thirty eight million. There are
ninety eight million, almost three times twice, two and a half,
(18:19):
two and a half the amount of time of people
ninety eight million with pre diabetes. So this is diabetes
on deck. These people statistically will eventually develop diabetes and
or the complications of diabetes. So when you are told, hey,
(18:39):
you're just pre diabetic, WHOA, you are off the hook, bull,
You're not off the hook. You are very likely you
are on a collision course with developing diabetes. So thirty
eight million people definitely have diabetes. Ninety eight million or
pre diabetes. These are people on debck. They're in the
(19:01):
waiting room, they're in the green room ready to come on.
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Now.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
Of course, diabetes leads to carnariutery disease, renal disease, people
go blind. And the cost of diabetes four one hundred
and thirteen billion dollars. That's almost twice the cost of
heart disease and cancer. So again I want to leave
with you as we take the break right now, the
(19:26):
immense cost in dollars and cents, dollars and cents to
pay for all this. And with diabetes, you're talking about
the cost of insulin, the cost of all the complications,
the blood work, the devices, the procedures that people have
to go for, the amputations that people are going for
(19:48):
to chop off their toes and legs and feet because
of the complications of diabetes. And so this in a
sense is the cost now all of these diseases, heart disease, cancer, diabets.
Now you may say cancer, what the heck does? How
can I prevent cancer? Yeah? You can prevent cancer when
(20:09):
you look at the lifestyle choices that we are making
that make you more prone to cancer. The hint here
is obesity. All right, all right, we're gonna take a
quick break. Doctor Joe Galotti always such a pleasure to
be here on Sunday evening with all of you. Stay tuned,
I'll wright back, Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much
(20:30):
for joining me and for your health First team on
this glorious Sunday evening, giving you the motivation the aspiration
to really take a very serious look at your own
health and wellness and the health and wellness of the
people around you. Think about everybody that you were at,
(20:55):
sharing a meal with, sharing a football game with, sharing
just conversation and catch up time with the people this
past Thursday on Thanksgiving? Do you not wish them the
best in health and wellness. We don't like to see
our friends and loved ones sick or chronically ill or
(21:18):
not feeling well. And you must believe me in that
you have the power in your fingertips to significantly reduce
the amount of chronic illness, chronic disease misery that so
many of us face. And the cost of this misery
(21:41):
is almost to the point where you cannot understand how
big these numbers are and the cost and the waste
of money, the waste of money that could be plowed
into so many other more beneficial areas within healthcare and
wellness and our happiness and our prosperity and our ability
(22:04):
to really make an impact on the world and impact
the people around us. It is squandered opportunity, squandered money,
and we are paying for this more today than ever.
And again, when you sit there in twenty twenty four,
we're almost in twenty twenty five, and you sit there
(22:26):
and you say, Okay, what to me, John Q Public
what does wellness really mean to you? And I believe
we need to almost start there, because if we do not.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Have a.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Legitimate benchmark of what health and wellness should be, then
we're lost. We're totally lost. We have dumped down this
entire process, this entire conversation of wellness. For some people,
it just hey, instead of being on ten medicines, I
wish I was on five medicines. Okay, that's a start,
(23:06):
But how do you get to be on zero medicines?
I wish I could climb up five flights of stairs
without feeling like I have a piano on my back. Well,
that's not too big of a goal. Or wishing that
you could you ride a bicycle for twenty miles, or
you could walk five miles without having pain in your
(23:29):
knee or short of breath or palpitations, or that you
could get your weight down. So we have almost a
demented impression or a demented sense of what health and
wellness is. And this has evolved in the thirty plus
years that I've been practicing medicine. The goals and aspirations
(23:50):
have tremendously changed. And that's a whole other conversation. But
it's accept your body as it is. No, I don't
think you accept your body as it is. There is
a right way and a wrong way. Now there's a
little wiggle room on what is right and wrong. But
when you look at the cost of this, clearly something
(24:14):
is very very wrong. Okay. So in the segment before this,
we talked about ninety percent of the four point five
trillion dollars that we spend annually on healthcare is going
to chronic disease and mental health disease, heart disease two
hundred and fifty four billion, cancer two hundred and forty billion,
(24:35):
diabetes four hundred and thirteen billion dollars. Let's get into obesity.
So right now, something nobody, nobody on earth here should
be happy about or proud of. Twenty percent of our
kids are obese. Forty two percent of adults are overweight.
If you do the mass, that's over sixty two percent
(24:55):
are overweight or obese. One in three. One in three
young adults are unfit to be in the military. Unfit
to be in the military. Could you imagine nineteen sixty
if that was the number, it was probably ninety five
percent of the people were fit to be in the military.
(25:18):
But we have just gone absolutely downhill with our eyes
wide open, we have witnessed this, and we're all just
shrugging our shoulders, like, what the hell. That's the way
life is. And the cost of obesity is one hundred
and seventy three billion dollars a year. One hundred and
seventy three billion. So we got two point five billion,
(25:40):
heart disease, cancer two hundred and forty billion, diabetes four
hundred and thirteen billion. Let's sa add almost another two
hundred billion dollars in obesity. And again, all of these
issues are intertwined. Where there is obesity, there is diabetes.
Where there's diabetes's heart disease. Where there is obesity and diabetes,
(26:01):
there's cancer. There are roughly eleven cancers that are directly
related to obesity, directly related to obesity. And just think,
if we could get obesity under control, the number of
cancer cases will go down, the cost of cancer to
cost of obesity. Now, the one thing that I deal
(26:23):
with every single day within this obesity, diabetes, heart disease
realm is something called fatty livery. You've heard me talking
about this for years, and with fatty liver disease, you
are now introducing the risk of developing chronic liver disease,
the risk of cirrhosis, liver cancer, the need for liver transplant.
(26:46):
None of these therapies, none of these care plans are cheap.
We have to resort to a liver transplant for somebody
that is obese their entire life, with poorly controlled diabetes,
and now they got heart disease. It's it's absolutely amazing. Worldwide,
(27:11):
if you want to take a globalist look at this,
there is the cost of obesity worldwide, forty seven trillion dollars.
Forty seven trillion dollars worldwide. And again there are you know,
obesity in a lot of these countries adds up and
it is devastating to their economy. Okay, now let me
(27:34):
take a slight twist here, because so far we've been
talking about the cost of taking care of care of something.
It's like the cost of putting new brakes on your
car two hundred and fifty dollars. Okay, the cost of
heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and obesity is mind boggling. Now
(27:55):
let us look at lost income because really, when you
look at it, for many, hey, I pay my insurance.
I pay my insurance premiums, which by the way, are
just too damn much. And so if I need to
have insulin, if I need to go for a cat scan,
(28:16):
you know, damn it, I'm getting it done because I
paid for it. But let's look at lost income. So
people that are chronically ill and the chronic disease if
you haven't gathered by now, we're talking about high blood pressure,
(28:37):
cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes and all of its complications, kidney disease,
mental health issues, renal disease, kidney disease, orthopedic issues. Right,
these are chronic diseases and cancer. You could throw in
(29:00):
their chronic lung disease, COPD, bronchitis, asthma, all of the
rheumatologic problems. But these are the chronic diseases. So lost income. Now,
this one particular study, which was a number of years ago,
but it was two thousand and one through two thousand
and three, there were cumulatively three point six billion days
(29:24):
lost of work, three point six billion days lost of
work annually. Annually, people with chronic disease lost one hundred
and twenty seven billion dollars worth of lost income. One
hundred and twenty seven dollars right up in smoke. So
(29:48):
these were people that, because they were chronically ill, did
not show up to work, and depending on your pay structure,
a pay strategy, you may have not gotten paid. And
so this is an awful lot of lost wages. Just
think one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars that could
(30:10):
be redivided if these individuals were healthy. So that is
the first number. I've got a whole bunch other to
talk about. We're going to take a break right now,
But one hundred and twenty seven billion dollars lost annually
because of driving disease. All right, that is the number
(30:32):
I think we could all relate to. All Right, coming
up final segment, we're going to be talking more about
lost wages and how it definitely affects you. I'm doctor
Joe Glotti. Stay tuned, we'll break back all right, final
segment of this week's Your Health First. Every Sunday, we're
here between seven and eight pm. I wish we had
more time, but that is all the radio gods a
(30:56):
lot of seven to eight pm Central time. But keep
in mind, if you like what you are hearing here,
this will be repackaged into a podcast. And if you
sign up around newsletter, which you get by going to
doctor Joegalotti dot com, you will be alerted to all
of the new podcast postings that you can re listen
(31:20):
to and share and reflect on. Don't forget go to
doctor Joegalotti dot com sign up for the newsletter. The
newsletter is the portal to stay in touch with all
that I do, all that the Your Health First team
does through the week, and really gives you some connection
(31:42):
with all of us and all of our social media
is posted at the doctor Joe Galotti dot com pod
Doctor Joglotti website and don't forget my book Eating Yourself Sick.
If you'd like to pick up a stocking stuffer, you
can check it out on Amazon. Doctor Joegalotti dot com
is where you could get a link. All right, So
(32:03):
just a few moments left talking about the cost of wellness,
and no doubt we will be discussing more of this.
There is really an entire seminar I believe we could
do on the cost of wellness. It is that important.
The other thing I would say, and this is where
I not that I rub people wrong, but people are like,
(32:25):
what are you talking about? There is tremendous apathy that
we have to overcome. So I don't think you could
have a discussion of the cost of wellness and apathy
and include both of these at the same time. It
really is there's apathy on the part of the community
at large that we become apathetic to the point that, yeah, well,
(32:50):
I'll just tolerate a certain level of obesity. I will
tolerate a blood sugar that is, you know, it's not perfect,
because nobody is perfect, and I have just a touch
of hypertension and all this other stuff. We are not
realizing that to maintain health and wellness you have to
get certain parameters, certain metrics, certain measurements in the right zone. Okay,
(33:16):
the normal blood pressure according to the American Heart Association.
I am not making this up one twenty over seventy.
The top numbers should be one twenty. So I go
and see patients and I'm like, hey, how's your blood
pressure been? It's about one sixty five. Well that's a
lot better than one eighty. And they are willing to
stop there at one sixty five, realizing that one sixty
(33:40):
five is going to put you at risk for stroke,
cart attack, heart failure, and kidney disease. But they're like, hey,
I'm trying, You're not trying hard enough. There is the apathy, Hey,
you know, what do you want me to do? How
much can I do? And then the other part is
on the doctors and the healthcares and the nurse practitioners
in the pas, this apathy that they are allowing patients
(34:03):
to tolerate this because, believe it or not, the responsibility
we have as doctors and nurses and other providers is
tremendous because they follow our lead. If my doctor is
not excited and freaking out about something, then why the
hell should I get all bent out of shape? And
(34:24):
so it's just a vicious cycle, So look out for apathy. Now,
thirty four percent of adults have one chronic disease which
is about fifty eight million people. There's nineteen people nineteen
million people, or eleven percent that have two or more
chronic diseases. So this is an awful lot of people.
We're talking fifty eight nineteen sixties, almost eighty million people
(34:49):
have at least one to two chronic diseases. Now, the
other thing about the cost of wellness that we do
not take into consideration is the strain cost of caretakers.
So if if you may not you yourself are not
chronically ill. You don't have diabetes, you don't have hypertension,
(35:11):
you're you know, you're just on let's say one medication
for your thyroid. But you are the caretaker of a
husband or a wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, mother, father, sibling, child.
The effect of that chronic disease on you is unbelievable.
(35:37):
It will potentially force you to leave the workforce. You
leave the workforce. I don't know about you, no tickie,
no shirty, You're not going to get paid, okay when
people are the care taker of somebody with chronic disease. Now,
(35:58):
I see this every single day because the patients I
take care of have chronic liver disease. They have sorosis,
they have liver failure, they are waiting for a liver transplant,
or they went for a liver transplant. And one of
the most important things that we look for is who's
the caretaker. So the studies have shown that people that
(36:22):
are care takers of people with chronic disease, they are
passed up for job opportunities, They're unable to acquire new
job skills. They are passed up either they're passed up
by their boss, or they have to basically opt out
(36:46):
for opportunities to transfer or relocate. In most cases, this
is for a step up that work ladder because they
are caring for somebody with chronic disease. They can't just
simply walk out. You are tied at the hip to
(37:07):
this person with chronic disease. So as a result of this,
you're passed up on job opportunities, unable to acquire new
skills so that maybe you could make more money and
you could have a better life, get out of poverty,
or passed up on opportunities to transfer or relocate because
(37:28):
you're taking care of somebody. All of this impacts on
reduced wages and with chronic disease, on the patient side.
You have chronic disease, you have chronic diabetes, you have
chronic heart disease. That leads to absenteeism. Again, this ties
into lost wages for you, but also decrease productivity for
(37:50):
the person that you're working for. This all leads to
something called medical debt, adverse financial impact, and decrease in
your credit score. This is all clearly documented. Now. The
one thing that I would say here I'm going to
leave you with I had mentioned to you earlier the
(38:13):
staggering amount of money we are spending here in America
four point five trillion dollars on healthcare. Ninety percent of
it is on chronic disease, which the vast majority of
these chronic diseases could be reversed or modified with lifestyle intervention.
(38:34):
Lifestyle intervention eating better, exercising, taking control of your weight,
taking control of your blood pressure, losing weight, eating better, etc. Now,
the sad thing here is that the insurance companies are
absolutely willing. Now, occasionally you have to fight for the coverage,
(38:59):
but they're absolutely willing to pay hundreds of thousands of
dollars for you to get a cardiac workup and get
let's say cardiac stents or open heart surgery, hundreds of
thousand dollars for the testing, the cardiac CAF, the cost
of the stent, the procedure time, the hospitalization, the new medications.
(39:21):
That is what we're geared for. You have insurance to
pay for this, but what I'm going to leave you with.
The insurance companies will not pay fifty dollars one hundred
dollars for you to see a registered dietitian to learn
how to eat better, how to cut down on the salt,
(39:43):
how to cut down on the processed foods, how to
prepare a healthful diet for the week for yourself and
your family, which will have a tremendous windfall effect on
your health and wellness. And may maybe if you get
your weight down, maybe if you get your blood pressure down,
(40:04):
maybe if you get your blood sugar down, you'll be
at a lower risk for heart disease, kidney failure, amputations,
heart failure, cancer, et cetera, et cetera. They will pay
hundreds of thousands of dollars for you, but not fifty
or one hundred bucks for a dietitian to tell you
how to make a lifestyle change. And so the little
(40:28):
thing I sat here with a calculator earlier this afternoon.
There are approximately eighty million families in the United States,
seven million which live in or below the poverty level.
So let's just say fifteen million family households. If we
bought them all a three hundred and fifty dollars piece
(40:50):
of exercise equipment, or we spend three hundred and fifty
dollars a year on health coaching or on how to
cook better, how to understand food labels. Buy them a
stationary bicycle so that they get exercise. That would cost
about a little over five billion dollars. See five billion dollars,
(41:14):
Joe Galotti, you're out of your mind. But when it's
costing billions of dollars on heart disease, five billion versus
the four hundred and thirteen billion in diabetes, I say
that is an investment where you will have a pretty
damn good return on investment. All right, there will be
(41:36):
more to talk about this whole cost of wellness. I
hope this was able to inspire you and open a
few eyes and think about yourselves, or think about the
massive problems we have here. But that is it for tonight.
Don't forget go to doctor Joegalotti dot com, have a
blessed week and we'll see you next Sunday evening
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