March 23, 2025 • 40 mins
Dr. Galati starts with a program note on a webinar he is hosting Tuesday about cooking at home. He also has Registered Dietician Lauren Mahesri join to talk about the mediterranean diet and how we can adopt a healthier look at what we eat. Dr. Galati wraps up the show spending some time explaining drug and alcohol awareness week.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Initialized sequencing coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home
to the world's largest medical.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Center, and the approach phrase everything looking to you.
Speaker 1 (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 prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Galotti.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well the good Sunday to everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti. Every
Sunday between seven and eight pm, we are here bringing
you all the best in health and wellness. It is
clear and concise information. It is actionable information. It is
info that you can use right now tonight Sunday evening
(01:04):
and put into action right away tonight or tomorrow. Next
time you go to the doctor, you will be that
much smarter as a patient, as a consumer, as a husband,
as a wife, as a son or daughter. The whole
idea is to raise your health IQ and that is
what we do Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. That is
(01:25):
our mission. It's our passion now to be part of
the program. Our website doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R
J O E G A L A t I dot
com is our website and with all the different social
media sites that we have. That website really takes you
to everything you need to know. Our Facebook page, Instagram,
(01:47):
our or our YouTube page. You could communicate with me.
You can get a copy of my book there, send
me a message, make an appointment to see me. It
is all there, doctor Joegalotti dot com. All right, in
a little while, we're going to have one of our
registered dietitians on to talk about the Mediterranean diet. There
(02:09):
seems to be from time to time some misunderstanding about
what the Mediterranean diet is, but we will try to
clarify that for you, so stay tuned. Lauren will be
coming on shortly. The other item is I guess we
could call it a program note. On Tuesday evening at
(02:32):
seven o'clock seven pm Central time, a couple of days
from now, we are hosting a free webinar. It's going
to be a live webinar. I will be sharing it.
I will be sharing the time with Elizabeth Pope, who
is a pediatric resident and her husband, Henry Burgess, and
(03:00):
we are going to be talking about cooking at home
skills that you need in the kitchen, what gadgets do
you need, and really I'm going to approach it. What
is the minimum amount of kitchen gear that you need.
You need a knife, you need a cutting board, you
(03:22):
need some sort of a skillet. My favorite is a
cast iron skillet or frying pan. Really, it's very versatile.
You can do all kinds of things. You could cooking it,
you could bacon it, you could throw it on your barbecue,
you can throw it into the oven, you could broil
in it. But Elizabeth and her husband, Henry, are newlyweds
(03:46):
and she is a pediatric resident at University of Texas,
and they are committed and very vocal about it to
cooking at home, eating properly, and they do a marvelous job.
And when you look at having not hope for the
(04:09):
next generation, you look at this couple and there's many
others that are like them that they are cooking at home.
They take their nutrition in a serious fashion. They realize
that it is far more inexpensive to cook at home
and eat a healthful meal. So they're both going to
(04:29):
be on the webinar with me on Tuesday at seven
pm really talking about how to navigate the kitchen, how
to set up your kitchen. We'll be sharing some easy
recipes that require minimal skill for those of you that
feel a little overwhelmed running around in the kitchen. And
(04:51):
that's one of the issues that I find when I
talk to my patients, because we are always talking about
good nutrition, a healthful meal, because we are surrounded by diabetes, obesity, hypertension,
cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, kidney disease, cancer, And I simply
(05:17):
want to reinforce to all of you that this is
a theme we talk about an awful lot and the
root of the problem, the root of your misery or
somebody that is ill, is due to much of it.
The lifestyle decisions we make, the food we eat, and
(05:40):
our inactivity. Now we are all, in some way or another,
genetically predisposed to having a disease or predisposed not to
have a disease. We are somehow genetically protected, but I
would say the vast majority of us are predisposed to disease.
(06:04):
And you just have to look at the numbers I
deal with fatty liver. You all know that eighty to
one hundred million people with fatty liver. That is like
a third of the population, one third of everybody you
see that you work with, that you're on a plane
with that's in your family has a fatty liver as
(06:25):
a result of obesity, the food we eat, diabetes, cholesterol,
lack of exercise, too much stress, sleep, apnea, and so
we really do have to address these problems that we're
going to tackle the enormity of chronic disease that we see.
(06:47):
And I would say, if you're listening to this program
tonight or any other night, you have to be somewhat
interested in health and wellness and you're trying to get
a nugget of infamation that can can help you. So
the webinar is Tuesday night, seven pm. It's free. The
(07:08):
link to register is on our Facebook page. So if
the the the address for Facebook for me, it is
at doctor Joe Galotti d R J O E G
A L A T I, and you'll come up to
the Facebook page and there is a post there with
(07:30):
the link to register. The other is if you're having
a problem with the registration, you can send me an email.
Send it to me directly. The email is radio at
doctor Joegalotti dot com. Radio at doctor Joe Galotti dot com.
So we'll be having the webinar. Doctor Elizabeth Pope and
(07:55):
her husband will be on young couple, really dynamic. We'll
be having a lot of fun and so register and
there'll be other giveaway information and handouts that you'll get
by participating in the webinar. All right, So that.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So Lauren is a a registered dietitian is going to
be coming on talking about Mediterranean diet. And I would
say if there was now I generally don't like to
talk about patients going on a diet to lose weight.
It is more a lifestyle, and so I would say
(08:35):
Mediterranean diet has been studied the most with regard to
heart disease, cancer, longevity, reduction in dementia, other neurodegenerative type complications.
And it's very straightforward. It is lots of fruits and vegetables, citrus,
(09:00):
olive oil, nuts, beans, and then at the very end
you'll get a little bit of meat and or fish.
So it's very heavy on the nuts, the beans, the
fruits and the vegetables and a little bit of protein
(09:21):
and meat at the bottom. Really not much red meat.
It's going to be more poultry and fish. And so
as I like to say, you want to be on
a whole food, plant based diet that is the winning
ticket without a doubt. All right, we're going to take
a quick break buckle in for Mediterranean diet. I'm doctor
(09:42):
Joe Glotti. It's always always a pleasure to be here
on Sunday evening. Hopefully you're getting ready for a good, productive,
healthy week for yourselves and your family. And don't forget
our website, which is where all the information is at
doctor Joethalotti dot com. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
(10:02):
Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Thanks for following us
along on this Sunday evening. Don't forget our website, doctor
Joegalotti dot com. And as I mentioned earlier, this Tuesday
evening at seven pm, there is going to be a
free webinar talking about food, nutrition, cooking, kitchen gadgets, how
to raise your confidence level in the kitchen so that
(10:26):
you can cook better for yourself and your family. It
really addressed the underlying nutrition issues that we all face.
Trust me, cooking at home is cheaper and you get
a far better product out of it. All right, as
we were saying earlier, we are going to be spending
a little bit of time talking with Lauren Mahestory a
registered dietitian about the Mediterranean diet. It's very common there
(10:52):
is some misunderstanding from time to time about the Mediterranean diet,
but Lauren always has a way of shedding some light
on it, and we welcome her to your Health First tonight.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I'm good as always. Thank you so much for having me.
I love talking on this all right.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, people are probably sitting there tonight at home. Mediterranean diet.
I've heard about it. I'm not quite sure. I think
I read a book on it. Coming from an expert, Lauren,
tell everybody what the Mediterranean diet is. What does it include?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, it definitely is everywhere on social media, on the news,
and I'm happy that it's getting a lot of attention.
But yeah, we do want to get really clear on
what the definition is so that you know kind of
what directions to take first. So the Mediterranean diet is
kind of a way of eating traditionally based out of
the Mediterranean area, so that's where it gets its name from.
(11:51):
But the diet really does include mostly whole foods, right,
So it really focuses on a variety of fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, olive, oil like you
mentioned earlier, and then of course a lot of seasoning
herbs and spices are highly encouraged. So there's really no
one definition. But it's a mainly whole food, unprocessed diet
(12:13):
made out of those types of foods I just said.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Right now, it tends to be a little heavier on
fish versus red meat. What's your take on.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
That, correct, Yeah, So it mainly relies on healthy types
of fats. And when I say healthy types of fats,
that's just unsaturated fats, right. You might have heard about
you know, fish has an omega three, which omega threes
are incredible for our cardiovascular health, liver health, brain health.
So it really does rely on these types of proteins
(12:45):
either being low fat so low fat dairy or just
low fat meats, but making sure that those meats have
healthy forms of fats in them, like the fish. So
it really does put in moderation those.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Red meats right right now, both of us and many
people in the food, nutrition and health space, we'd rather
not tell a patient or the community to eat a
particular diet. And over the last twenty five years or
so or more, we've been blasted with the atkins diet, keto, etc.
(13:23):
And some may be saying, oh, now it's you know,
we have to eat the Mediterranean diet. But I would
say from a scientific standpoint, there is pretty good research
that shows you'll have a healthier heart, reduce certain cancers,
your mood, and lower risk of depression, lower risk of
(13:44):
neuro degenerative disease, lower type two diabetes. And so while
it by definition we're using the word diet, clinically, it
staves off a lot of chrome problems that we have
to deal.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
With, right, And I'm so glad you brought that point
up of you know, I would write on the same
page of usually I recommend patients against doing some sort
of trend or a diet, because there's the implication there
that there's one day I'm not going to do this
said diet or trend, right, right, But I really do
think the Mediterranean diet it's not there's kind of think
(14:23):
some things that set it apart. It's not restrictive, that's one.
But then also there it's not this one little gotcha
element that they're changing. I think that the other diets
in the past, there's one macro that we're changing. It's
either low fat or low carb or there's kind of
one thing that they're promising you. If you do this
one thing with your diet intermittent fasting, the list goes on,
(14:44):
then all of these wonderful health treasures will be unlocked
for you. But that's why I love the Mediterranean diet.
It's because it's not like this, you know, one thing
that they're adjusting. It really is saying the key is moderation.
The key is a variety of whole food. It's not
super restrictive. And you're right, and we're seeing some really
(15:04):
really promising data on this. I mean, some of the
studies are looking at especially a lot of the studies
are studying women, which is awesome because there's not a
lot of really great data on diet and women and
what diet is affecting women the most. But we're seeing
almost twenty five percent reduction in cardiovascular disease. Sure, so
pretty incredible stuff for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah. And as my cousin Lauren, I almost like drew
a blank there. I said, wait, is Lauren, But Lauren's
coming on? But Lauren's my cousin. But anyway, as she noted,
and it was more, you know, she's a bright woman,
and it wasn't as if this was a revelation for her,
(15:45):
I don't believe, but it was like, they don't eat
processed food there. And we have all become so programmed
to think that a very big chunk of our diet
is processed. But when you look at this Mediterranean approach,
(16:06):
there's nothing processed here. It is that whole food, plant
based with some fish some meat on the side. And
so the fact that you are subtracting or eliminating all
of that processed food makes it all the.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
More healthier, right, And I think when people hear that too,
it can be a little bit overwhelming at first of
you know, if I'm starting with a mainly processed meal
or diet in general, it's like, Okay, how do I
start this thing? What do I eat now? Because you've
just taken away my main food groups. Yeah, So I
think simplifying a little bit and saying, okay, some steps,
(16:44):
some really really easy things that I can try one
at a time to ease my way into the Mediterranean diet.
For example, just making sure there's a fruit or vegetable
at every single one of your meals, don't skip a
snack or a meal, where there's not a fruit or vegetable.
Second is, you know, anytime you were choosing it carbohydrate,
try to make that a whole grain or a high
fiber version of that carbohydrate. Basically, switching cooking oils is
(17:07):
a huge easy one. Just switch from irregular oil butter
to something like olive oil or avocado oil. Rotating in
seafood throughout the week is a really easy one. You know,
have seafood two to three times a week, and then
making sure all of your proteins are are lower fat
as well. So there's some easy steps that doesn't have
to be like quite an elimination diet. That's the point.
(17:28):
It's a little bit easier to go into the mediterrane diet.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Right right, and so other you know. Just as a
side note, I mentioned this Blue Zone show on Netflix,
which I would highly highly recommend if you're taking a
little bit of time off over Thanksgiving you family, and
this would be a great show to watch with your family.
But in particular, they study the Okinawans in Japan. One
(17:56):
of their main foods is this purple sweet potato, and
sweet potatoes or potatoes in general have been sort of
given a bad name, and here they're saying that this
food is making up over sixty percent of their calories
(18:17):
and they're living to one hundred. How do you respond to.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That, right? I mean, we have to think about That's
why I always I hesitate to answer questions from patients
when they ask me, you know, is this food good
or bad? Right? They're wanting us to put a label
on a particular food, and I have to sit there
and say, okay, well, how much are we eating of
it and how are we preparing it?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This purple sweet potato that they're eating is much different
than the double fried oh of course fred that we
are eating, right, So we have to think of, you know,
how much and what type? Is huge. But also the
lifestyle parts of the Mediterranean diet are often underrated. I
mean people are wanting just a yes and noe food
list to think of the lifestyle things that are making
(19:02):
these foods so different. So, for example, community meals is
a huge part of the Mediterranean diet. Foods with your
family and friends, which I know you talk about quite
a bit. Regular exercise movement is just as a part
of Mediterranean diet, as is the foods we're talking about.
And then also this kind of idea just in general
of moderation that is a huge through line through the
(19:24):
entire diet. So I think it's quantity, I think it's quality,
but also these lifestyle things that we need to counter
in as as well.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
No, no, exactly, all right, Lauren, we're going to take
a quick break here for the news. We are talking
with Lauren Mahsri, our fine registered dietitian at Liver Specialists
of Texas, and I truly think that we have to
take steps to increase our understanding of this. All right,
(19:53):
news and weather coming up, Doctor Joe Glotti, Stay tuned,
we'll bright back. Welcome back everybody, Doctor jo Galotti, don't
forget this Tuesday evening at seventh pm, we are hosting
a free webinar on cooking food nutrition, how to be
a more confident cook in the kitchen so that you
can really make better meals for yourself. Go to our
(20:17):
website doctor Joeglotti dot com. Go to the Facebook page
and there is a link there, or you could go
directly to Facebook which is at doctor Joegalotti dot com.
Or better yet, just send me an email radio at
doctor Joegalotti dot com. Tell me you want the link
and I'll send it to you. We'll keep it easy.
(20:38):
And we're talking about Lauren Maheshri, our registered dietitian, catching
up on Mediterranean diet. Lauren, I would say, we both
see a lot of sick patients with liver disease and
it's always it's sad. It's sad to see them and
(20:58):
we try our best. But with your experience, what would
you share tonight with everybody on how we can adopt
a healthier look at what we eat. That's the million
dollar question, I think, But what's what's your gestault on that?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Right? I think you're absolutely right, that is a huge
thing that we want to tackle as the mindset. Ye right.
You know, we talk a lot with our patients and
with each other as the care team of what is
their readiness for change? Right? Because we know based off
of what's going on with you know, their body and
their condition and their illness, that there is a need
for change in their lifestyle. So I think what you
(21:38):
mentioned earlier is a huge component that is kind of
looked as a as a no brainer. But I think
I see people fall into this trap over and over
again of looking for something like a diet that is
going to be short term or you know, I'm giving
up sugar for thirty days or I'm doing fill in
the blank for thirty days. Right, And while that can
be a wonderful you know, jump start to a health journey,
(21:59):
don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think if
you are making a plan to do anything, it needs
to be something you can do for the rest of
your life, which is sure overwhelming in the beginning. But
I think to what you mentioned about. You know, the
reason we go to these processed foods is because they're
convenient and we don't want to sacrifice our time or
our money. But I take through patients all the time
(22:20):
this process of well, every time you make a decision,
especially with food, you know, we're sacrificing something. We are
either sacrificing our time, our money, or in a lot
of cases, our health. So if you're sitting through the
drive through thinking I don't want to sacrifice my time,
this is kind of what I have to do, then
think to yourself, there's still a sacrifice somewhere. You are
still sacrificing something, which is your health at the end
(22:43):
of the day. So just picking something different to sacrifice,
I think is a good way to think of it.
Of like, you know, today, I'm going to sacrifice thirty
minutes on a Sunday to meal prep my proteins for
the week. The sacrifices I can't you know, watch football
or whatever it is. But we've got to make a
sacrifice somewhere, I think is the mental shift we've got
to do right.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
And it again the biggest challenge. We see everybody that's
taking care of sick patients, and so much of what
we see is a nutrition and food related disease. It
is diabetes, it is heart disease, it is hypertension, kidney disease,
and of course fatty liver that we see. There is
(23:25):
a food component to all this. We cannot deny that,
the patients cannot deny that. The and again we're not
in the business of blame. But the diet people have
followed for many years is the reason they're sitting here
with you or me. And when we tell patients that
(23:48):
we have to, in a sense, wean people off or
almost detox them off of the processed food, the microwave
meals that they are used to. And you give them
an alternative to say Mediterranean, let's go to fresh fruits
and vegetables, olive oil, the nuts and the beans and fish.
They almost look at us as if that is an
(24:11):
insurmountable challenge for them. What do you say to them?
Or what do you say to everybody tonight that's listening
that may be saying yeah, I sort of fall in
that category.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Right, And I think it is a lot to educate
yourself about all of these things all at once, but
kind of like what we talked about, for I mean,
the Mediterranean diet can be a little bit overwhelming because
it's not that, oh, just cut this one thing out, right.
I think we go to those diets because the simplicity
of it all. But I think, like what we talked
about before, of trying to do one thing at a time, right,
(24:45):
maybe every week you set a new goal of Okay,
I'm going to switch all my oils this week, right,
and the next week I'm going to go to I'm
gonna eat fish, you know, three times a week. And
then the next week is I'm going to make sure
I have a half of my plate is vegetables for
all of my meals. Right, So having something a little
concrete and saying okay, step wise I'm going to make
(25:05):
my diet better and better. That's what is going to
create more of a lifestyle, and it's going to make
it this less of kind of this overwhelming eating healthy
cloud that's over there, that's far away, right, making these
kind of stepwise approaches, which is what's helpful about working
with the registered dietitian because they can look at your
lifestyle and kind of meet in the middle and say, Okay,
it's not just about knowing what to do, it's how
(25:25):
to get there is the whole battle. Right Getting there
was easy, I would not have a job every day,
so it is. It is the step wise approach of
let's try one thing at a time that I know
that I can do for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, and I look at it like any other condition.
You're not going to be able to turn around diabetes
in one visit. It's going to take right months, many
months to unravel that not and the same thing for
the food you you showed up here. Because of a
certain lifestyle and series of habits, we are are very
(26:00):
understanding that it's going to take a long time to
sort of rewire the circuitry. A couple of I'll say
rapid fire questions for you, how do we make people
better cooks or more comfortable in the kitchen, because it
breaks my heart when they say, yeah, I know I
(26:22):
should eat better. I'd like to eat vegetables, but I
don't know how to cook. What do you say to them?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's a great question. And I think the biggest thing
is simplify your meals, right. I think the thing that
gets really overwhelming is if you're telling people to eat
at home most nights of the week or every night,
and I have six different recipes that have twenty different ingredients,
and now I've just been a fortune at the grocery
store and there's this bottle of whatever ingredient that I
only use for this one recipe. You know, it can
(26:48):
get confusing when the recipes are so complex. So really, really,
when people are trying to start eating at home or
cooking a little bit more often, I tell them to
simplify their meals with the plate it so, although it's
kind of an oversimplification sometimes of what meals can look like,
having your meal and also your grocery cart reflect half
(27:09):
of it being a vegetable, right, quarter of it being
a low fat protein, a quarter of it being a
carbohydrate that has some fiber in it. So simplification is
also huge. And again start small. Start by learning how
to cook chicken. There is a million recipes and YouTube
videos and all those sorts of things taking you through
just chicken. Let's master chicken, and let's do it via
(27:30):
the plate method, and let's let's move on to shrimp
after that, you know. So I think simplifying it can
really really help us not get overwhelmed with like I
need to, you know, learn all these complex, complex cooking
methods and coke with a million ingredients at once.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
No, no, no, And I would say if you have a
good frying pan or skillet, a knife and the cutting board,
you could you could really master just about anything. So
Lauren in in the last minute last word on Mediterranean diet,
how to motivate our audience to think about the Mediterranean
(28:05):
diet and ease into it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, great question. And I think with the Mediterranean diet one,
it is very holistic. It is like we said, plant based,
it is whole food. And I think the main pushback
I get from patients and from people and talking about
this is, oh, I don't have time or I don't
have the resources to make this food. And I always
(28:28):
tell people if your feedback is I don't have time,
it's not that you don't have time that you're not
convinced it's worth your time yet. So really, with having
time to cook these meals, again, it's the sacrifice somewhere.
So knowing that we do have time, everything is a
choice with making those meals. And the research that we
have on this diet is kind of unbeatable and it's
(28:50):
a very very holistic, lifelong approach. But I don't think
we'll leave you in this yo yo kind of restrictive
dietary trend. So I think it's an incredible route to
go for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
All Right, Well, thanks very much, Lauren, and I do
hope that that raised your understanding of what Mediterranean diet
is and approaches the food approaches to nutrition. It's so
important and I say it a million times a week.
The chronic disease we see is related to lifestyle choices
(29:23):
we make every single day. So they're tough decisions and
they're tough habits to break, but we have to really
be reminded every single day. And that's why the webinar
on Tuesday evening at seven o'clock seven pm. Love to
see all of you there. It's going to be a
live event myself. I'm going to be with a young
(29:46):
pediatrician and her husband talking about how they navigate through
the kitchen. It really should be a lot of fun
and insightful. But go to Facebook, which is at doctor
Joe or the website doctor Joglotti dot com, And as
I said earlier, you can just send me an email directly.
It is in radio pardon me radio at doctor Joglotti
(30:10):
dot com. All right, final segment coming up. Stay tuned,
we will be right back. All right, final segment for
this week's Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti and
always a pleasure to be here. I want to thank
Lauren Maheshri for being on the program shedding some light
on nutrition in the Mediterranean diet. And as always, if
(30:33):
you have any questions topics that you'd like to hear about,
you can always go to our website, doctor Jogalotti dot com.
There's a tab there to contact us, and you could
send a message through the website which comes to me
and my team. We read all of them, we comment
on them, we'll get back to you. The other issue
is as a reminder. This Tuesday at seven pm, we're
(30:58):
hosting a I have webinar. To register, you can go
to our Facebook page, which is at doctor Joe Galotti.
You can go to the website doctor Joegalotti dot com,
then go to the Facebook page from there, or you
could email me directly radio at doctor Joe Galotti. Radio
(31:21):
at doctor Joe Galotti and I will send you the link,
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(31:43):
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(32:06):
dot com is where you can see all of that,
all right in the final few minutes here. The last
week of March is Drug and Alcohol Awareness Week, and
(32:27):
that certainly is a gigantic topic to talk about. So one,
there's been a little bit of recent news about marijuana
and there is let me just pull up my papers here.
There is no doubt that there has been a concerted
(32:50):
effort to further decriminalize the use of our availability of marijuaana.
And there are those that will say, and I'm sure
there are people listening tonight, and you may even send
me a message to say, hey, marijuana is far less
(33:11):
dangerous than alcohol. Alcohol is legal. Look, I understand that.
I understand that, but I would think that the complete
release of marijuana for having any culpability in a negative
(33:35):
health outcome is also less than sane. I would say
to think that marijuana is safe and just let everybody
smoke up is wrong. You talk to anybody in the
addiction space and they will talk about how marijuana is
(33:57):
a gateway drug where people will segmentally go from one
drug to another, starting with marijuana. Now, this has been
terminology that has been around for thirty forty years. And
it's not as if we're refusing to get off of
this post to say, yeah, marijuana smoking pots of gateway drug.
(34:20):
But here we are in twenty twenty five and some
of the most esteem experts are saying proceed with caution.
So there have been some there's really two articles I
want to talk about with regard to marijuana. One has
to do with governments, and you know, both local, state
(34:43):
federal are wondering whether or not with all of this
somewhat liberal marijuana laws and decriminalizing it, making it more legal,
we're going to see an increase in motive vehicle acts acids. Okay,
So you can say, well, again, hey, this is not alcohol,
(35:04):
these are not drunk drivers. Well you can only say
that until you start seeing the data. Okay, And there
is what appears to be some early signs that there
are what I would say, impair drivers on the road.
(35:25):
So according to the University of Washington, which is a
fine institution, what they have found see three separate things
laboratory studies which detect impairments which would directly affect a
user's ability to operate a motor vehicle. They found in
(35:47):
driving simulators suggests that marijuana use acts in a dose
dependent fashion to reduce the driver's average speed, so they're
driving slower and increased their lane position and steering wheel
variability and reaction time. So they're driving slower, their lane
(36:10):
position is changing, and their steering wheel and reaction time
is off. Field studies which found that although crash culpability
was not elevated for low concentrations of THHC, so lower
amounts in your system, risk of involvement in a traffic
crash increased and increased as driver's THHG levels increased and
(36:35):
became significant, up to six times greater than those for
drug free drivers compared to the higher concentration. So it
is associated with increased automobile accidents and as a result,
sort of the neurologic element of it shows that slower
(37:01):
decision making, reduced peripheral vision, which you certainly need for driving,
inability to multitask, and increased driver impairment. Okay, So, Columbia
University found that the use of marijuana alone increased the
chance of a fatal accident by eighty percent over those
who are not the subject of any type of substance impairment.
(37:27):
So I would say we have to really really proceed
with caution with regard to basically a cart blanche approval
for marijuana. Is it safe for than alcohol in the
long run, probably yes, But it is not a free
(37:49):
get out of jail cart Okay. Now, American Heart Association
new research this week marijuana used link to higher risk
of heart attack and stroke. Okay. So this is according
to the American Heart Association. Using cannabis, either smoking, eating,
or vaping it may raise the risk of heart disease,
(38:12):
heart attack, and stroke. Okay. They go on to say,
despite common use, little is known about the risk of
cannabis use, and in particular the cardiovascular disease risk. And
so you have to figure with all of the obesity
we're seeing, keep in mind, sixty five seventy percent of
(38:33):
the populations overweight or obese, and they're at risk for
a cardiovascular disease. There are a lot of people out
there that have underlying cardiac risk factors that may be
triggered when smoking marijuana. We certainly know smoking tobacco is
(38:54):
no good, and the data shows that among men under
fifty five and women on sixty five, using marijuana resulted
in a thirty six percent higher combine odds for Carnerie
heart disease, heart attack, or stroke, regardless of whether they
also used tobacco products. Cannabis smoke is not all that
(39:18):
different from tobacco smoke except for the psychoactive drug THC
versus nicotine. So here again we have young people, we
have middle aged people smoking pot thinking it's safer than alcohol,
but yet it may put the met risk for a
heart attack or stroke, something we just don't need to
(39:42):
deal with. So really, again, it is buyer beware. Consumers
have to be armed with information, and all of you
have to share this information with your family, friends, coworkers,
or those that you know maybe using marijuana. All right,
(40:05):
maybe we'll talk next week about alcohol, but we are
out of time. Thank you all again for tuning in
on this Sunday evening. It was a very nice day today.
I wish it was a little bit sunnier, but nonetheless
it's not snowing and I was able to go out
with his short sleeve shirt today, so that is good
in my eyes. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Doctor Joegalotti dot
(40:28):
com is our website. Hope to see you at the
webinar on Tuesday evening at seven pm. Again, register by
going to our Facebook page, which you get to see
on our website, or simply feel free to send me
an email tonight radio at doctor Jogalotti dot com. Have
a blessed week and we'll see you next Sunday Night
Initialized sequencing coming to you live from Houston, Texas, home
to the world's largest medical.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
Center, and the approach phrase everything looking to you.
Speaker 1 (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 prevention of disease.
Now here's your host, doctor Joe Galotti.
Speaker 3 (00:41):
Well the good Sunday to everybody, Doctor Joe Galotti. Every
Sunday between seven and eight pm, we are here bringing
you all the best in health and wellness. It is
clear and concise information. It is actionable information. It is
info that you can use right now tonight Sunday evening
(01:04):
and put into action right away tonight or tomorrow. Next
time you go to the doctor, you will be that
much smarter as a patient, as a consumer, as a husband,
as a wife, as a son or daughter. The whole
idea is to raise your health IQ and that is
what we do Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. That is
(01:25):
our mission. It's our passion now to be part of
the program. Our website doctor Joegalotti dot com, d R
J O E G A L A t I dot
com is our website and with all the different social
media sites that we have. That website really takes you
to everything you need to know. Our Facebook page, Instagram,
(01:47):
our or our YouTube page. You could communicate with me.
You can get a copy of my book there, send
me a message, make an appointment to see me. It
is all there, doctor Joegalotti dot com. All right, in
a little while, we're going to have one of our
registered dietitians on to talk about the Mediterranean diet. There
(02:09):
seems to be from time to time some misunderstanding about
what the Mediterranean diet is, but we will try to
clarify that for you, so stay tuned. Lauren will be
coming on shortly. The other item is I guess we
could call it a program note. On Tuesday evening at
(02:32):
seven o'clock seven pm Central time, a couple of days
from now, we are hosting a free webinar. It's going
to be a live webinar. I will be sharing it.
I will be sharing the time with Elizabeth Pope, who
is a pediatric resident and her husband, Henry Burgess, and
(03:00):
we are going to be talking about cooking at home
skills that you need in the kitchen, what gadgets do
you need, and really I'm going to approach it. What
is the minimum amount of kitchen gear that you need.
You need a knife, you need a cutting board, you
(03:22):
need some sort of a skillet. My favorite is a
cast iron skillet or frying pan. Really, it's very versatile.
You can do all kinds of things. You could cooking it,
you could bacon it, you could throw it on your barbecue,
you can throw it into the oven, you could broil
in it. But Elizabeth and her husband, Henry, are newlyweds
(03:46):
and she is a pediatric resident at University of Texas,
and they are committed and very vocal about it to
cooking at home, eating properly, and they do a marvelous job.
And when you look at having not hope for the
(04:09):
next generation, you look at this couple and there's many
others that are like them that they are cooking at home.
They take their nutrition in a serious fashion. They realize
that it is far more inexpensive to cook at home
and eat a healthful meal. So they're both going to
(04:29):
be on the webinar with me on Tuesday at seven
pm really talking about how to navigate the kitchen, how
to set up your kitchen. We'll be sharing some easy
recipes that require minimal skill for those of you that
feel a little overwhelmed running around in the kitchen. And
(04:51):
that's one of the issues that I find when I
talk to my patients, because we are always talking about
good nutrition, a healthful meal, because we are surrounded by diabetes, obesity, hypertension,
cardiovascular disease, high cholesterol, kidney disease, cancer, And I simply
(05:17):
want to reinforce to all of you that this is
a theme we talk about an awful lot and the
root of the problem, the root of your misery or
somebody that is ill, is due to much of it.
The lifestyle decisions we make, the food we eat, and
(05:40):
our inactivity. Now we are all, in some way or another,
genetically predisposed to having a disease or predisposed not to
have a disease. We are somehow genetically protected, but I
would say the vast majority of us are predisposed to disease.
(06:04):
And you just have to look at the numbers I
deal with fatty liver. You all know that eighty to
one hundred million people with fatty liver. That is like
a third of the population, one third of everybody you
see that you work with, that you're on a plane
with that's in your family has a fatty liver as
(06:25):
a result of obesity, the food we eat, diabetes, cholesterol,
lack of exercise, too much stress, sleep, apnea, and so
we really do have to address these problems that we're
going to tackle the enormity of chronic disease that we see.
(06:47):
And I would say, if you're listening to this program
tonight or any other night, you have to be somewhat
interested in health and wellness and you're trying to get
a nugget of infamation that can can help you. So
the webinar is Tuesday night, seven pm. It's free. The
(07:08):
link to register is on our Facebook page. So if
the the the address for Facebook for me, it is
at doctor Joe Galotti d R J O E G
A L A T I, and you'll come up to
the Facebook page and there is a post there with
(07:30):
the link to register. The other is if you're having
a problem with the registration, you can send me an email.
Send it to me directly. The email is radio at
doctor Joegalotti dot com. Radio at doctor Joe Galotti dot com.
So we'll be having the webinar. Doctor Elizabeth Pope and
(07:55):
her husband will be on young couple, really dynamic. We'll
be having a lot of fun and so register and
there'll be other giveaway information and handouts that you'll get
by participating in the webinar. All right, So that.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Is that.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
So Lauren is a a registered dietitian is going to
be coming on talking about Mediterranean diet. And I would
say if there was now I generally don't like to
talk about patients going on a diet to lose weight.
It is more a lifestyle, and so I would say
(08:35):
Mediterranean diet has been studied the most with regard to
heart disease, cancer, longevity, reduction in dementia, other neurodegenerative type complications.
And it's very straightforward. It is lots of fruits and vegetables, citrus,
(09:00):
olive oil, nuts, beans, and then at the very end
you'll get a little bit of meat and or fish.
So it's very heavy on the nuts, the beans, the
fruits and the vegetables and a little bit of protein
(09:21):
and meat at the bottom. Really not much red meat.
It's going to be more poultry and fish. And so
as I like to say, you want to be on
a whole food, plant based diet that is the winning
ticket without a doubt. All right, we're going to take
a quick break buckle in for Mediterranean diet. I'm doctor
(09:42):
Joe Glotti. It's always always a pleasure to be here
on Sunday evening. Hopefully you're getting ready for a good, productive,
healthy week for yourselves and your family. And don't forget
our website, which is where all the information is at
doctor Joethalotti dot com. Stay tuned, we will be right back.
(10:02):
Welcome back everybody, doctor Joe Galotti. Thanks for following us
along on this Sunday evening. Don't forget our website, doctor
Joegalotti dot com. And as I mentioned earlier, this Tuesday
evening at seven pm, there is going to be a
free webinar talking about food, nutrition, cooking, kitchen gadgets, how
to raise your confidence level in the kitchen so that
(10:26):
you can cook better for yourself and your family. It
really addressed the underlying nutrition issues that we all face.
Trust me, cooking at home is cheaper and you get
a far better product out of it. All right, as
we were saying earlier, we are going to be spending
a little bit of time talking with Lauren Mahestory a
registered dietitian about the Mediterranean diet. It's very common there
(10:52):
is some misunderstanding from time to time about the Mediterranean diet,
but Lauren always has a way of shedding some light
on it, and we welcome her to your Health First tonight.
Speaker 2 (11:06):
I'm good as always. Thank you so much for having me.
I love talking on this all right.
Speaker 3 (11:10):
Well, people are probably sitting there tonight at home. Mediterranean diet.
I've heard about it. I'm not quite sure. I think
I read a book on it. Coming from an expert, Lauren,
tell everybody what the Mediterranean diet is. What does it include?
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Yeah, it definitely is everywhere on social media, on the news,
and I'm happy that it's getting a lot of attention.
But yeah, we do want to get really clear on
what the definition is so that you know kind of
what directions to take first. So the Mediterranean diet is
kind of a way of eating traditionally based out of
the Mediterranean area, so that's where it gets its name from.
(11:51):
But the diet really does include mostly whole foods, right,
So it really focuses on a variety of fruits, vegetables,
whole grains, beans, nuts and seeds, olive, oil like you
mentioned earlier, and then of course a lot of seasoning
herbs and spices are highly encouraged. So there's really no
one definition. But it's a mainly whole food, unprocessed diet
(12:13):
made out of those types of foods I just said.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
Right now, it tends to be a little heavier on
fish versus red meat. What's your take on.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
That, correct, Yeah, So it mainly relies on healthy types
of fats. And when I say healthy types of fats,
that's just unsaturated fats, right. You might have heard about
you know, fish has an omega three, which omega threes
are incredible for our cardiovascular health, liver health, brain health.
So it really does rely on these types of proteins
(12:45):
either being low fat so low fat dairy or just
low fat meats, but making sure that those meats have
healthy forms of fats in them, like the fish. So
it really does put in moderation those.
Speaker 3 (12:57):
Red meats right right now, both of us and many
people in the food, nutrition and health space, we'd rather
not tell a patient or the community to eat a
particular diet. And over the last twenty five years or
so or more, we've been blasted with the atkins diet, keto, etc.
(13:23):
And some may be saying, oh, now it's you know,
we have to eat the Mediterranean diet. But I would
say from a scientific standpoint, there is pretty good research
that shows you'll have a healthier heart, reduce certain cancers,
your mood, and lower risk of depression, lower risk of
(13:44):
neuro degenerative disease, lower type two diabetes. And so while
it by definition we're using the word diet, clinically, it
staves off a lot of chrome problems that we have
to deal.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
With, right, And I'm so glad you brought that point
up of you know, I would write on the same
page of usually I recommend patients against doing some sort
of trend or a diet, because there's the implication there
that there's one day I'm not going to do this
said diet or trend, right, right, But I really do
think the Mediterranean diet it's not there's kind of think
(14:23):
some things that set it apart. It's not restrictive, that's one.
But then also there it's not this one little gotcha
element that they're changing. I think that the other diets
in the past, there's one macro that we're changing. It's
either low fat or low carb or there's kind of
one thing that they're promising you. If you do this
one thing with your diet intermittent fasting, the list goes on,
(14:44):
then all of these wonderful health treasures will be unlocked
for you. But that's why I love the Mediterranean diet.
It's because it's not like this, you know, one thing
that they're adjusting. It really is saying the key is moderation.
The key is a variety of whole food. It's not
super restrictive. And you're right, and we're seeing some really
(15:04):
really promising data on this. I mean, some of the
studies are looking at especially a lot of the studies
are studying women, which is awesome because there's not a
lot of really great data on diet and women and
what diet is affecting women the most. But we're seeing
almost twenty five percent reduction in cardiovascular disease. Sure, so
pretty incredible stuff for sure.
Speaker 3 (15:25):
Yeah. And as my cousin Lauren, I almost like drew
a blank there. I said, wait, is Lauren, But Lauren's
coming on? But Lauren's my cousin. But anyway, as she noted,
and it was more, you know, she's a bright woman,
and it wasn't as if this was a revelation for her,
(15:45):
I don't believe, but it was like, they don't eat
processed food there. And we have all become so programmed
to think that a very big chunk of our diet
is processed. But when you look at this Mediterranean approach,
(16:06):
there's nothing processed here. It is that whole food, plant
based with some fish some meat on the side. And
so the fact that you are subtracting or eliminating all
of that processed food makes it all the.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
More healthier, right, And I think when people hear that too,
it can be a little bit overwhelming at first of
you know, if I'm starting with a mainly processed meal
or diet in general, it's like, Okay, how do I
start this thing? What do I eat now? Because you've
just taken away my main food groups. Yeah, So I
think simplifying a little bit and saying, okay, some steps,
(16:44):
some really really easy things that I can try one
at a time to ease my way into the Mediterranean diet.
For example, just making sure there's a fruit or vegetable
at every single one of your meals, don't skip a
snack or a meal, where there's not a fruit or vegetable.
Second is, you know, anytime you were choosing it carbohydrate,
try to make that a whole grain or a high
fiber version of that carbohydrate. Basically, switching cooking oils is
(17:07):
a huge easy one. Just switch from irregular oil butter
to something like olive oil or avocado oil. Rotating in
seafood throughout the week is a really easy one. You know,
have seafood two to three times a week, and then
making sure all of your proteins are are lower fat
as well. So there's some easy steps that doesn't have
to be like quite an elimination diet. That's the point.
(17:28):
It's a little bit easier to go into the mediterrane diet.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
Right right, and so other you know. Just as a
side note, I mentioned this Blue Zone show on Netflix,
which I would highly highly recommend if you're taking a
little bit of time off over Thanksgiving you family, and
this would be a great show to watch with your family.
But in particular, they study the Okinawans in Japan. One
(17:56):
of their main foods is this purple sweet potato, and
sweet potatoes or potatoes in general have been sort of
given a bad name, and here they're saying that this
food is making up over sixty percent of their calories
(18:17):
and they're living to one hundred. How do you respond to.
Speaker 2 (18:21):
That, right? I mean, we have to think about That's
why I always I hesitate to answer questions from patients
when they ask me, you know, is this food good
or bad? Right? They're wanting us to put a label
on a particular food, and I have to sit there
and say, okay, well, how much are we eating of
it and how are we preparing it?
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Right?
Speaker 2 (18:40):
This purple sweet potato that they're eating is much different
than the double fried oh of course fred that we
are eating, right, So we have to think of, you know,
how much and what type? Is huge. But also the
lifestyle parts of the Mediterranean diet are often underrated. I
mean people are wanting just a yes and noe food
list to think of the lifestyle things that are making
(19:02):
these foods so different. So, for example, community meals is
a huge part of the Mediterranean diet. Foods with your
family and friends, which I know you talk about quite
a bit. Regular exercise movement is just as a part
of Mediterranean diet, as is the foods we're talking about.
And then also this kind of idea just in general
of moderation that is a huge through line through the
(19:24):
entire diet. So I think it's quantity, I think it's quality,
but also these lifestyle things that we need to counter
in as as well.
Speaker 3 (19:30):
No, no, exactly, all right, Lauren, we're going to take
a quick break here for the news. We are talking
with Lauren Mahsri, our fine registered dietitian at Liver Specialists
of Texas, and I truly think that we have to
take steps to increase our understanding of this. All right,
(19:53):
news and weather coming up, Doctor Joe Glotti, Stay tuned,
we'll bright back. Welcome back everybody, Doctor jo Galotti, don't
forget this Tuesday evening at seventh pm, we are hosting
a free webinar on cooking food nutrition, how to be
a more confident cook in the kitchen so that you
can really make better meals for yourself. Go to our
(20:17):
website doctor Joeglotti dot com. Go to the Facebook page
and there is a link there, or you could go
directly to Facebook which is at doctor Joegalotti dot com.
Or better yet, just send me an email radio at
doctor Joegalotti dot com. Tell me you want the link
and I'll send it to you. We'll keep it easy.
(20:38):
And we're talking about Lauren Maheshri, our registered dietitian, catching
up on Mediterranean diet. Lauren, I would say, we both
see a lot of sick patients with liver disease and
it's always it's sad. It's sad to see them and
(20:58):
we try our best. But with your experience, what would
you share tonight with everybody on how we can adopt
a healthier look at what we eat. That's the million
dollar question, I think, But what's what's your gestault on that?
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Right? I think you're absolutely right, that is a huge
thing that we want to tackle as the mindset. Ye right.
You know, we talk a lot with our patients and
with each other as the care team of what is
their readiness for change? Right? Because we know based off
of what's going on with you know, their body and
their condition and their illness, that there is a need
for change in their lifestyle. So I think what you
(21:38):
mentioned earlier is a huge component that is kind of
looked as a as a no brainer. But I think
I see people fall into this trap over and over
again of looking for something like a diet that is
going to be short term or you know, I'm giving
up sugar for thirty days or I'm doing fill in
the blank for thirty days. Right, And while that can
be a wonderful you know, jump start to a health journey,
(21:59):
don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think if
you are making a plan to do anything, it needs
to be something you can do for the rest of
your life, which is sure overwhelming in the beginning. But
I think to what you mentioned about. You know, the
reason we go to these processed foods is because they're
convenient and we don't want to sacrifice our time or
our money. But I take through patients all the time
(22:20):
this process of well, every time you make a decision,
especially with food, you know, we're sacrificing something. We are
either sacrificing our time, our money, or in a lot
of cases, our health. So if you're sitting through the
drive through thinking I don't want to sacrifice my time,
this is kind of what I have to do, then
think to yourself, there's still a sacrifice somewhere. You are
still sacrificing something, which is your health at the end
(22:43):
of the day. So just picking something different to sacrifice,
I think is a good way to think of it.
Of like, you know, today, I'm going to sacrifice thirty
minutes on a Sunday to meal prep my proteins for
the week. The sacrifices I can't you know, watch football
or whatever it is. But we've got to make a
sacrifice somewhere, I think is the mental shift we've got
to do right.
Speaker 3 (23:02):
And it again the biggest challenge. We see everybody that's
taking care of sick patients, and so much of what
we see is a nutrition and food related disease. It
is diabetes, it is heart disease, it is hypertension, kidney disease,
and of course fatty liver that we see. There is
(23:25):
a food component to all this. We cannot deny that,
the patients cannot deny that. The and again we're not
in the business of blame. But the diet people have
followed for many years is the reason they're sitting here
with you or me. And when we tell patients that
(23:48):
we have to, in a sense, wean people off or
almost detox them off of the processed food, the microwave
meals that they are used to. And you give them
an alternative to say Mediterranean, let's go to fresh fruits
and vegetables, olive oil, the nuts and the beans and fish.
They almost look at us as if that is an
(24:11):
insurmountable challenge for them. What do you say to them?
Or what do you say to everybody tonight that's listening
that may be saying yeah, I sort of fall in
that category.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Right, And I think it is a lot to educate
yourself about all of these things all at once, but
kind of like what we talked about, for I mean,
the Mediterranean diet can be a little bit overwhelming because
it's not that, oh, just cut this one thing out, right.
I think we go to those diets because the simplicity
of it all. But I think, like what we talked
about before, of trying to do one thing at a time, right,
(24:45):
maybe every week you set a new goal of Okay,
I'm going to switch all my oils this week, right,
and the next week I'm going to go to I'm
gonna eat fish, you know, three times a week. And
then the next week is I'm going to make sure
I have a half of my plate is vegetables for
all of my meals. Right, So having something a little
concrete and saying okay, step wise I'm going to make
(25:05):
my diet better and better. That's what is going to
create more of a lifestyle, and it's going to make
it this less of kind of this overwhelming eating healthy
cloud that's over there, that's far away, right, making these
kind of stepwise approaches, which is what's helpful about working
with the registered dietitian because they can look at your
lifestyle and kind of meet in the middle and say, Okay,
it's not just about knowing what to do, it's how
(25:25):
to get there is the whole battle. Right Getting there
was easy, I would not have a job every day,
so it is. It is the step wise approach of
let's try one thing at a time that I know
that I can do for the rest of my life.
Speaker 3 (25:38):
Right, and I look at it like any other condition.
You're not going to be able to turn around diabetes
in one visit. It's going to take right months, many
months to unravel that not and the same thing for
the food you you showed up here. Because of a
certain lifestyle and series of habits, we are are very
(26:00):
understanding that it's going to take a long time to
sort of rewire the circuitry. A couple of I'll say
rapid fire questions for you, how do we make people
better cooks or more comfortable in the kitchen, because it
breaks my heart when they say, yeah, I know I
(26:22):
should eat better. I'd like to eat vegetables, but I
don't know how to cook. What do you say to them?
Speaker 2 (26:27):
That's a great question. And I think the biggest thing
is simplify your meals, right. I think the thing that
gets really overwhelming is if you're telling people to eat
at home most nights of the week or every night,
and I have six different recipes that have twenty different ingredients,
and now I've just been a fortune at the grocery
store and there's this bottle of whatever ingredient that I
only use for this one recipe. You know, it can
(26:48):
get confusing when the recipes are so complex. So really, really,
when people are trying to start eating at home or
cooking a little bit more often, I tell them to
simplify their meals with the plate it so, although it's
kind of an oversimplification sometimes of what meals can look like,
having your meal and also your grocery cart reflect half
(27:09):
of it being a vegetable, right, quarter of it being
a low fat protein, a quarter of it being a
carbohydrate that has some fiber in it. So simplification is
also huge. And again start small. Start by learning how
to cook chicken. There is a million recipes and YouTube
videos and all those sorts of things taking you through
just chicken. Let's master chicken, and let's do it via
(27:30):
the plate method, and let's let's move on to shrimp
after that, you know. So I think simplifying it can
really really help us not get overwhelmed with like I
need to, you know, learn all these complex, complex cooking
methods and coke with a million ingredients at once.
Speaker 3 (27:44):
No, no, no, And I would say if you have a
good frying pan or skillet, a knife and the cutting board,
you could you could really master just about anything. So
Lauren in in the last minute last word on Mediterranean diet,
how to motivate our audience to think about the Mediterranean
(28:05):
diet and ease into it.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
Yeah, great question. And I think with the Mediterranean diet one,
it is very holistic. It is like we said, plant based,
it is whole food. And I think the main pushback
I get from patients and from people and talking about
this is, oh, I don't have time or I don't
have the resources to make this food. And I always
(28:28):
tell people if your feedback is I don't have time,
it's not that you don't have time that you're not
convinced it's worth your time yet. So really, with having
time to cook these meals, again, it's the sacrifice somewhere.
So knowing that we do have time, everything is a
choice with making those meals. And the research that we
have on this diet is kind of unbeatable and it's
(28:50):
a very very holistic, lifelong approach. But I don't think
we'll leave you in this yo yo kind of restrictive
dietary trend. So I think it's an incredible route to
go for sure.
Speaker 3 (29:02):
All Right, Well, thanks very much, Lauren, and I do
hope that that raised your understanding of what Mediterranean diet
is and approaches the food approaches to nutrition. It's so
important and I say it a million times a week.
The chronic disease we see is related to lifestyle choices
(29:23):
we make every single day. So they're tough decisions and
they're tough habits to break, but we have to really
be reminded every single day. And that's why the webinar
on Tuesday evening at seven o'clock seven pm. Love to
see all of you there. It's going to be a
live event myself. I'm going to be with a young
(29:46):
pediatrician and her husband talking about how they navigate through
the kitchen. It really should be a lot of fun
and insightful. But go to Facebook, which is at doctor
Joe or the website doctor Joglotti dot com, And as
I said earlier, you can just send me an email directly.
It is in radio pardon me radio at doctor Joglotti
(30:10):
dot com. All right, final segment coming up. Stay tuned,
we will be right back. All right, final segment for
this week's Your Health First. I'm doctor Joe Galotti and
always a pleasure to be here. I want to thank
Lauren Maheshri for being on the program shedding some light
on nutrition in the Mediterranean diet. And as always, if
(30:33):
you have any questions topics that you'd like to hear about,
you can always go to our website, doctor Jogalotti dot com.
There's a tab there to contact us, and you could
send a message through the website which comes to me
and my team. We read all of them, we comment
on them, we'll get back to you. The other issue
is as a reminder. This Tuesday at seven pm, we're
(30:58):
hosting a I have webinar. To register, you can go
to our Facebook page, which is at doctor Joe Galotti.
You can go to the website doctor Joegalotti dot com,
then go to the Facebook page from there, or you
could email me directly radio at doctor Joe Galotti. Radio
(31:21):
at doctor Joe Galotti and I will send you the link,
all right. Also sign up for our newsletter comes out
every weekend coast to coast around the country. We talk
about diet, nutrition, exercise, disease prevention, latest in research, latest
(31:43):
in what you need to be a good consumer of
healthcare and as we love to say, raise your health IQ.
That's what's all about. So to stay in on when
we're doing webinars and other talks and seminars. The website
really is the connectivity to everybody. Uh So, doctor Joeglati
(32:06):
dot com is where you can see all of that,
all right in the final few minutes here. The last
week of March is Drug and Alcohol Awareness Week, and
(32:27):
that certainly is a gigantic topic to talk about. So one,
there's been a little bit of recent news about marijuana
and there is let me just pull up my papers here.
There is no doubt that there has been a concerted
(32:50):
effort to further decriminalize the use of our availability of marijuaana.
And there are those that will say, and I'm sure
there are people listening tonight, and you may even send
me a message to say, hey, marijuana is far less
(33:11):
dangerous than alcohol. Alcohol is legal. Look, I understand that.
I understand that, but I would think that the complete
release of marijuana for having any culpability in a negative
(33:35):
health outcome is also less than sane. I would say
to think that marijuana is safe and just let everybody
smoke up is wrong. You talk to anybody in the
addiction space and they will talk about how marijuana is
(33:57):
a gateway drug where people will segmentally go from one
drug to another, starting with marijuana. Now, this has been
terminology that has been around for thirty forty years. And
it's not as if we're refusing to get off of
this post to say, yeah, marijuana smoking pots of gateway drug.
(34:20):
But here we are in twenty twenty five and some
of the most esteem experts are saying proceed with caution.
So there have been some there's really two articles I
want to talk about with regard to marijuana. One has
to do with governments, and you know, both local, state
(34:43):
federal are wondering whether or not with all of this
somewhat liberal marijuana laws and decriminalizing it, making it more legal,
we're going to see an increase in motive vehicle acts acids. Okay,
So you can say, well, again, hey, this is not alcohol,
(35:04):
these are not drunk drivers. Well you can only say
that until you start seeing the data. Okay, And there
is what appears to be some early signs that there
are what I would say, impair drivers on the road.
(35:25):
So according to the University of Washington, which is a
fine institution, what they have found see three separate things
laboratory studies which detect impairments which would directly affect a
user's ability to operate a motor vehicle. They found in
(35:47):
driving simulators suggests that marijuana use acts in a dose
dependent fashion to reduce the driver's average speed, so they're
driving slower and increased their lane position and steering wheel
variability and reaction time. So they're driving slower, their lane
(36:10):
position is changing, and their steering wheel and reaction time
is off. Field studies which found that although crash culpability
was not elevated for low concentrations of THHC, so lower
amounts in your system, risk of involvement in a traffic
crash increased and increased as driver's THHG levels increased and
(36:35):
became significant, up to six times greater than those for
drug free drivers compared to the higher concentration. So it
is associated with increased automobile accidents and as a result,
sort of the neurologic element of it shows that slower
(37:01):
decision making, reduced peripheral vision, which you certainly need for driving,
inability to multitask, and increased driver impairment. Okay, So, Columbia
University found that the use of marijuana alone increased the
chance of a fatal accident by eighty percent over those
who are not the subject of any type of substance impairment.
(37:27):
So I would say we have to really really proceed
with caution with regard to basically a cart blanche approval
for marijuana. Is it safe for than alcohol in the
long run, probably yes, But it is not a free
(37:49):
get out of jail cart Okay. Now, American Heart Association
new research this week marijuana used link to higher risk
of heart attack and stroke. Okay. So this is according
to the American Heart Association. Using cannabis, either smoking, eating,
or vaping it may raise the risk of heart disease,
(38:12):
heart attack, and stroke. Okay. They go on to say,
despite common use, little is known about the risk of
cannabis use, and in particular the cardiovascular disease risk. And
so you have to figure with all of the obesity
we're seeing, keep in mind, sixty five seventy percent of
(38:33):
the populations overweight or obese, and they're at risk for
a cardiovascular disease. There are a lot of people out
there that have underlying cardiac risk factors that may be
triggered when smoking marijuana. We certainly know smoking tobacco is
(38:54):
no good, and the data shows that among men under
fifty five and women on sixty five, using marijuana resulted
in a thirty six percent higher combine odds for Carnerie
heart disease, heart attack, or stroke, regardless of whether they
also used tobacco products. Cannabis smoke is not all that
(39:18):
different from tobacco smoke except for the psychoactive drug THC
versus nicotine. So here again we have young people, we
have middle aged people smoking pot thinking it's safer than alcohol,
but yet it may put the met risk for a
heart attack or stroke, something we just don't need to
(39:42):
deal with. So really, again, it is buyer beware. Consumers
have to be armed with information, and all of you
have to share this information with your family, friends, coworkers,
or those that you know maybe using marijuana. All right,
(40:05):
maybe we'll talk next week about alcohol, but we are
out of time. Thank you all again for tuning in
on this Sunday evening. It was a very nice day today.
I wish it was a little bit sunnier, but nonetheless
it's not snowing and I was able to go out
with his short sleeve shirt today, so that is good
in my eyes. I'm doctor Joe Galotti. Doctor Joegalotti dot
(40:28):
com is our website. Hope to see you at the
webinar on Tuesday evening at seven pm. Again, register by
going to our Facebook page, which you get to see
on our website, or simply feel free to send me
an email tonight radio at doctor Jogalotti dot com. Have
a blessed week and we'll see you next Sunday Night
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