It Starts With the Plate: Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee Discuss the Importance of Lifestyle and Nutrition in Head-to-Toe Health

Speaker 1: 

Welcome back to the Armor Men’s Health Hour with Dr. Mistry and Donna Lee.

Dr. Mistry: 

Hello and welcome back to the Armor Men’s Health Hour. I’m Dr. Mistry, your host, here with my wonderfully effervescent co-host, Donna Lee,

Donna Lee: 

Hello everybody! Happy day to everybody!

Dr. Mistry: 

You know, Donna Lee is my cohost on this show, but she’s also my office manager and her husband’s one of my best friends. So yeah, we get to see each other quite a bit. And so it’s funny because we have to deal with numbers, we have to deal with ratings, we’ve got to deal with patient complaints, we got to deal with employee issues all the time. And I think that we’re, we’re doing pretty good. We have a pretty well-run machine here at NAU Urology Specialists.

Donna Lee: 

Or over there, because we’re in the studio.

Dr. Mistry: 

And then we have of course, the award winning…

Donna Lee: 

Podcast.

Dr. Mistry: 

…radio show and podcast. You have a career in its fledgling that is going to become an amazing comedienne career. You’re going to be the old Asian lady they cast.

Donna Lee: 

Oh, you’ve put me in “old.”

Dr. Mistry: 

In one day. One day you’re going to be the Betty White of our time.

Donna Lee: 

Oh my goodness. We went there. Ouch. I’m only half the age of Betty White. She’s like, what? 97. Oh, this still stings. Well I feel 25 on the inside. Does that count?

Dr. Mistry: 

Yeah. Well it was your birthday this week, so happy birthday! Happy 24th birthday.

Donna Lee: 

Thank you. Thank you for all the insults. I appreciate that. But yeah, we’re together quite often. Quite a bit.

Dr. Mistry: 

One thing that you’ve taught me since we’ve been working together for these, I don’t know…?

Donna Lee: 

Three years.

Dr. Mistry: 

…three years…

Donna Lee: 

How to be nicer to me?

Dr. Mistry: 

…is, you know, you’ve always been very particular about your diet and I like that, except for Corona carbohydrate parade.

Donna Lee: 

Exactly. I’ve always been low carb, keto friendly, keto minded. Not anymore.

Dr. Mistry: 

But it’s good to note. And you came from a practice over there at Victory Medical, a great primary care practice who does some great medicine. And they also, you know, I think try to create a program that was more holistically kind of attuned to the needs of their patients.

Donna Lee: 

Oh yeah. Totally. Dr. Franklin was very similar minded to you. Very holistic approach, entrepreneurial with the growth of the clinic and all the different factors and departments.

Dr. Mistry: 

That’s right. You know, he didn’t let, he didn’t let traditional, he doesn’t, he does not, he didn’t, he does not let traditional views of what a primary care physician is or should be limit what he thinks that they could be, just like I don’t let what a traditional view of a urologic surgeon limit the kind of practice that we try to have. But it really makes me think a lot about how what we put into our body affects kind of what can be our outcomes as individuals. I think people kind of know on an instinctual sense that if they have a bad diet, they could have bad heart health. I mean, we’ve told people that by now. And over the years, people have had confusion on, you know, what really is a healthy diet to the point where people are probably like really confused.

Donna Lee: 

Mhmm. It’s so much information.

Dr. Mistry: 

I mean, one day rice is good for you. One day rice is bad for you.

Donna Lee: 

One day, Paleo…

Dr. Mistry: 

One day, meat is good for you. One day, meat is bad for you.

Donna Lee: 

I know. It’s confusing.

Dr. Mistry: 

And then you know, you ultimately, you know, ultimately concluded the same statement, which is that you probably should have a balanced diet.

Donna Lee: 

That’s right.

Dr. Mistry: 

I thought it was interesting this last week there was an article that was released that showed that men with a bad diet have poor semen parameters. Did you know that?

Donna Lee: 

I didn’t know that, but that makes sense.

Dr. Mistry: 

If you’re trying to get pregnant and you’re not eating healthy, then your sperm may not be good.

Donna Lee: 

That makes sense. But you never think about that.

Dr. Mistry: 

Well you don’t, and another reason you don’t think about it is because like in your mind, you know, these, these kids who were in their young 20’s chomping on Cheetos and you know, drinking Mountain Dew while they’re gaming are probably pretty fertile. That’s really a function of age. You know? So maybe when you’re 22 I guess eat whatever you want, you’ll be just fine. But if you’re trying to get pregnant or getting married around, you know, nowadays people are getting married and trying to have kids much later. The average age for men is closer to 32 to 35 nowadays for trying to have a child. Now you’re starting to get the impact of aging, hormonal factors, and now you don’t want to add one more thing, which is a bad diet. And this is absolutely not just some scare technique from some overly zealous doctor. I mean, it is absolutely the case that if you have a better diet and you control your high blood pressure and cholesterol, your sperm counts will be better. And that goes to other things in the urinary tract. You’ll pee better, your testosterone will be better. And so that’s why, that’s why we do nutritional counseling for men with low testosterone and fertility issues.

Donna Lee: 

That’s right. And you don’t think it correlates until you explain it really well, but I think a lot of patients are like, “What? You want to test my diet? I’m seeing a urologist. What does it have to do with anything?”

Dr. Mistry: 

I agree. I think that there’s this, I call it this credibility gap. When you try to promote a lifestyle or a treatment that the patient doesn’t know, that you should know about or doesn’t feel like they’re going to, they’re going to expect it when you get to that office, that you have to overcome that credibility gap. Years ago I initiated a program on women’s sexual dysfunction, and although I think it was one of the most innovative and forward thinking programs in the city, you always had to overcome the fact that you were a male provider trying to provide that service. I think we’ve done a great job and have a wonderful philosophy, but it certainly helps having, you know, Leonora and Stacy on here to do some of that too. You know, maybe that credibility gaps a little easier to climb. But the diet, nutrition credibility gap is really hard.

Donna Lee: 

Right? Totally.

Dr. Mistry: 

Because those guys are not expecting it. You know, they get drug in here by their wife because the couple’s having a hard time getting pregnant, they certainly don’t want to hear that their nighttime eating of, you know, 4 beers, 3 Dr. Peppers and a cheeseburger maybe kind of contributing to their problem.

Donna Lee: 

That’s why we have our registered dietitian on site.

Dr. Mistry: 

That’s right. And so that’s why we’re very thankful for Robert and the wonderful program he’s putting together. We work with functional medicine medical providers to create amazing programs that include both nutritional recommendations as well as supplement recommendations. You’re not going to be sold necessarily a diet in a box or some kind of one size fits all philosophy. If your problem is inflammatory, you may be offered elimination diets. If we think weight loss prior to surgery is important, you’re going to be offered a different kind of scenario. If we think that your cancer diagnosis will be best suited by, you know, a meat-limiting diet, we’re going to offer that, too. And you know that’s what you want to come to somebody for. You don’t want to have to go look for these answers on your own.

Donna Lee: 

Right. Well that’s why we also have a sleep study coordinator on site with Austin Sleep Solutions.

Dr. Mistry: 

That’s right.

Donna Lee: 

We haven’t talked about that in a minute.

Dr. Mistry: 

We have not.

Donna Lee: 

We’re going to test you for your sleep apnea, because that’s going to help your testosterone or fertility.

Dr. Mistry: 

And your weight and your sleep. And if you’re getting up at night to pee frequently, you may not know that your sleep apnea may be contributing substantially to those symptoms. And once we test you and we know how severe your sleep apnea problems may be, then weight loss and non C-PAP directed interventions may be the right thing for you. So, we really appreciate all the feedback we got from you guys and all the questions we have. And we had a great question on cortisol.

Donna Lee: 

We do have a good question. Remember, send your questions to armormenshealth@gmail.com. This patient sent in, or person sent in: “Dr. Mistry, do y’all test for high cortisol levels and treat it? Thanks.”

Dr. Mistry: 

That’s a great question. So, there’s a condition that’s fairly well known amongst medical professionals called Cushing Syndrome, which is an elevation of this hormone made by the adrenal glands called cortisol. And this, that condition, Cushing Syndrome, leads to abnormalities in the way that blood sugar is metabolized in the body, leads to diabetes, other metabolic issues. The classic physical symptom is a hump on the back, a humped back is kind of the classic symptom, but I think this listener is not looking for the medical conversation about Cushing Syndrome, which is something that usually causes pretty obvious symptoms. Most people will test for it if they think you have these symptoms. Usually abnormal blood sugar will identify that you’re at risk. Really, we’re talking about those people that have subclinical Cushing Syndrome, or higher than normal cortisol levels. And one of the most potent causes of high cholesterol is stress–it is the stress hormone. It is released by the body when your body is stressed either physically or even many times psychologically. And this cortisol hormone helps us kind of build up reserves in our body so that we can handle tough times, right? It’s like a savings account, it causes. But too much of that cortisol or stress response can affect a lot of your bodily organs and it can lead to metabolic problems like high blood pressure, it can lead to symptoms of preclinical diabetes. And it is something that we test for, and if your cortisol level is very high, then you’re going to need other tests. You’re going to need tests of your adrenal glands, sometimes tests of your pituitary gland, tests of your overall metabolism. And a lot of our interventions are actually intended on reducing stress. And I don’t mean yoga and meditation, although that may be a part of it. We’re talking about what could be stressing your body? Being overweight is a big one. Working too hard, could be a big one. Not sleeping well could be a big one.

Donna Lee: 

Working at Urology Specialists?

Dr. Mistry: 

Come on, you’re done. We use inflammatory, it’s also considered an inflammatory marker. So we look very significantly at dietary factors or other factors that could be increasing inflammation in your body, and then giving you supplements, dietary recommendations, lifestyle recommendations, overall nutrition and supplement recommendations that can reduce the stress in your body. And I think that’s a great question. And we would love to see you and help you take care of that.

Donna Lee: 

That’s right. And you know how to get ahold of us?

Dr. Mistry: 

No, how do you get ahold of us?

Donna Lee: 

You can call us at (512) 238-0762. During the week, you can ask for me. Our website is armormenshealth.com. Our email address is armormenshealth@gmail.com. You can send us your questions that we’ll answer anonymously every weekend on the radio. I have news radio KLBJ. Give us a call during the week again and we love your question. Thank you so much for listening!

: 

Dr. Mistry wants to hear from you. Email questions to armormenshealth@gmail.com. We’ll be right back with the Armor Men’s Health Hour.