Looking after our men’s health is just as important as our health, am I right, girlfriends? Men’s health specialist, Dr. Anthony Capasso, joins me to talk about the issues facing men’s health care, how we can support our guys, and what they can do to naturally boost their testosterone.
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About Dr. Anthony Capasso
Dr. Anthony Capasso helps men reclaim their youthful and energetic bodies by lowering their weight, blood pressure, cholesterol, and risk for Diabetes. He specializes in functional men’s health, using a natural approach to medicine with preventative care, age management, and bioidentical hormone treatment.
In this episode of The Girlfriend Doctor, we’re talking about the biggest issues facing men’s health right now. Do you know how resilient men’s bodies are? When men make changes in their diet and exercise routine, the positive changes to their health are almost immediate.
Anthony explains that taking statins can lower a man’s testosterone. This is why he prescribes them as a last resort. He shares a few other reasons why men’s testosterone might be lower than our ancestors, including environmental factors and the standard American diet.
For Anthony, focusing on rebuilding the mitochondria is a vital aspect of his approach to healthcare. He talks about how men can stimulate theirs to start improving their health. Anthony also explains why maintaining a regular strength-training routine is important for men as they age.
Finally, Anthony shares some of the ways men can naturally boost their testosterone levels. He believes that diet and exercise changes should have immediate weight-loss results to encourage sustained behavior.
What motivates you to make a lifestyle change? Ask me anything and let me hear your thoughts in the comments below. If you have questions, email team@drannacabeca.com.
In This Episode
- What some of the biggest issues facing male health are
- How quickly making changes in their diet and exercise can impact men’s health
- Why testosterone levels drop when a man takes statins
- What the impact of environmental toxicity has on men’s fertile health
- How you can stimulate you mitochondria
- Why building your muscles is so important
- How to naturally boost testosterone
Subscribe to The Girlfriend Doctor Podcast w/ Dr. Anna Cabeca on Youtube
Quotes
“One of the best ways of slowing your aging down is to focus on mitochondrial health. Diet plays a huge role. I think one of the biggest drivers of mitochondrial dysfunction I see is the SAD - standard American diet.” (17:34)
“As we age, our muscles become very important because they release things called myokines which are these little message regulator hormones that allow our bodies to run the way they should run.” (21:38)
“Healthy guts and healthy diets are the two things I focus on in most of my patients.” (27:37)
Links
Pre-Order Keto-Green 16 to get a sneak peek and free gifts!
Find Dr. Anthony Capasso and Thin MD Med Spa Online
Call Dr. Anthony Capasso on (904) 694-0992
Transcript
Dr. Anthony:
Wouldn't it be great to be able to kind of crank up that mitochondria with a good diet, a little bit of exercise, and a whole school of nutrients? And that's kind of been my focus for my patients is I always look at that because I know if I can get their cells health good, their body just feels better, it runs better. And that's been the approach that I've used, I think, which is much different than a lot of physicians. And it was something that I kind of backed into a long time ago when I was in residency, having some issues with my own fatigue from working way too many hours.
Dr. Anna:
Hello everyone. I'm Dr. Anna Cabeca. I am here with my colleague and friend, Dr. Anthony Capasso, who has a clinic down south of me here in Florida in Jacksonville Beach. Right, Anthony? Are you a Ponte Beach or a Jack's Beach?
Dr. Anthony:
Jack's Beach.
Dr. Anna:
And he just has an amazing practice. Him and I sat on a scientific medical advisory board for years. Again, with some of the most brilliant people and I loved Dr. Anthony Capasso because he combines functional medicine, age management medicine, holistic medicine, plus just that great clinical skill. He's the doctor you want to talk to. They call me the girlfriend doctor because people feel comfortable talking with me about anything. Same with Anthony. He's like the, I'm going to be the boyfriend doctor. I don't know. It just doesn't have the same ring.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah. I don't know if that one will work.
Dr. Anna:
I don't know if that'll work.
Dr. Anthony:
Especially since I'm married. I don't want to be the boyfriend doctor.
Dr. Anna:
Everyone's boyfriend, everyone's boyfriend.
Dr. Anthony:
There you go, there you go.
Dr. Anna:
Anthony, so many times I'm able to help women through and I know in my practice they would bring in their husband and say, "Okay, now I'm feeling better. What can you do for my husband? Help me, or what can you do for my man?? Or what are the health aspects that men are struggling with that you see most commonly right now that are... Let's hit the quick fix, but really what some of the struggles that men are having right now, especially when they're our age, we're both 53 y'all. We're rocking 53.
Dr. Anthony:
Exactly, exactly. The two main things that I see with the men is number one, low testosterone is pretty much at an epidemic in the men that I see. Even at a young age, much, much younger. When I first started 26 years ago and I was looking at hormone levels in guys, the levels were much, much higher than they are now. And I think a lot of the environment plays a role, especially the xenoestrogens in our environment, which are the chemicals that kind of act like estrogen and really disrupt. But it's amazing how low testosterone is one of the major kind of clinical things hormonally wise that I'll see in guys. Because it'll affect sleep. So they'll come in and they'll have weight gain, they'll have poor sleep, they'll have decreased focus, decreased endurance, and then obviously you know, libido and erectile issues if it gets really, really low. So that's one of the main things that I'll see. And a lot of times it can be corrected with just diet, exercise, and some resistance training without having to go on replacement therapy.
Dr. Anthony:
And then the other big thing that I see is just because of the, what I call the SAD, the standard American diet, the effect metabolically that it has. So the metabolic syndromes that I see is just through the roof. And again, it's just lifestyle and diet in our country. Eating really poor nutrient content foods, high calories, high sugars and the effect it has metabolically on their bodies is... there a lot of early-type two diabetes, a lot of horrible cholesterol, dyslipidemia patients that I see. And all that inflammation in their body makes them feel exhausted, tired. Then they end up having gut issues. And most of the guys coming in aren't going to complain at all of any of these things, other than the fact that they've gained a little bit of weight and yeah, they know they need to exercise more and reduce their calories. But in general, the metabolic disorders and the hormone disorders that I see it's pretty rampant.
Dr. Anna:
It's pretty rampant and you know what, let's call it what it is, what we're seeing more of are the fat, sad dad, right? The fat, sad, dad.
Dr. Anthony:
Fat, sad, dad.
Dr. Anna:
It's true. It's true and it's heartbreaking because I see testimonials within our community when they shift out of that, right. They thought this is what was destiny for them. And so they shift out of that and they're feeling stronger, they're feeling better, they lose the excess weight. And it's really a big deal because in Keto Green 16 I put a whole men's chapter in because we cannot leave our men behind. They're struggling too. And as women are taking control and getting healthy, we really want our guys to as well. You know something, Anthony, that you see this in clinical practice I'm sure is that when guys, when they're on board, when they buy-in, they make those changes and we see results quickly. Right?
Dr. Anthony:
Absolutely. Yeah. In fact, I have a gentleman that I saw today in fact. He lost 30 pounds. He actually lives in Tennessee and he comes and visits me. And an incredible change in regards to, there are some people and guys I think are a little more, you have to pretty much tell them what to do and they'll do it. I would say a lot more than my female patients, but it varies. Just remarkable when they start changing what they did, and their diet, how they feel and exercising. And then you start looking at all their metabolic markers, and their inflammation markers, they all go down. Cholesterol goes down, blood pressure goes down. In fact, today was a great day because I was able to take him off all of his meds. So he was on a blood pressure medication, lost all the weight, doesn't need to be on it. That's a great day for me.
Dr. Anna:
That's a great day.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, very, very proud that I mean I'm changing people's lives without putting them on medications, because unfortunately insurance companies, they like patients being on meds. I mean it's kind of mandated if you've got cholesterol issues you have to put everyone on a statin which I think is just the worst thing in the world for us to be doing.
Dr. Anna:
I agree 100%. In fact, I was at the medical conference, a family physician's medical conference when they were saying the so-called rules that are being put in place. If your cholesterol is above this on the second, third visit, and they're not on a statin we're going to call that malpractice. And in fact, instead of asking, "Okay, look, how do we need to look at this cholesterol? Why is it high? Is it heavy metals? Is it a thyroid issue. Is this an estrogen dominance?" I mean, why ask the question why.
Dr. Anthony:
I agree 100% and we're graded on it. In fact, not only graded but if we don't do it, we get dinged in regards to... Because of how the rules changed in insurance-based medicine that's financial in the ACO world, which is, has to do with unfortunately how primary care is getting paid now, you have to do this and you're considered a good doctor if you put everyone on a statin. Well, those are potentially super toxic drugs and I don't think everyone needs to be on it, especially not for primary prevention. Secondary prevention, if you've had a heart attack if you've had type two diabetes, and you're very, very high risk and we can't get it below the levels that we need to with natural things and lifestyle changes, then I think it's okay as long as we're mitigating the side effects with things like CoQ10 and vitamin D and really watching that. Because statins are, they affect mitochondrial function, which as you know, is one of my main focuses for my patients is getting their mitochondria back into a good place.
Dr. Anna:
Well, and that's because it's blocking the production of CoQ10, an enzyme we need for cardiac health, for brain health, for everything. Let's talk about that a minute because statins also in an earlier study in 2010 in a heart publication was the study looking at, I think it was over 2,000 men who were on statin medications and they had a significantly reduced number of testosterone. They were hypogonadal, they had low testosterone levels. Anyone on a statin, their testosterone levels are now pretty much expected to drop.
Dr. Anthony:
Right. And the reason is is that statins, as you said, affect CoQ10 and `CoQ10 is involved with ATP production and mitochondria. And when you injure your mitochondria, mitochondria are involved with not only the energy production, they're your metabolism centers, but they're involved with estrogen and testosterone synthesis in your body. So if you're affecting the main organelle in your cells that are involved with how your cells work, especially with hormones, yeah, you're going to expect to see a dip in testosterone. And then of course, vitality.
Dr. Anna:
I think too, one thing that I've seen happening more is just more treating with testosterone versus getting to the underlying cause of why the testosterone's low to begin with. And I think that's a really big problem that I'm seeing now because we're going to affect total testosterone production for the rest of that man's life. And we're seeing it younger, and younger, and younger. Right. So can you talk a little bit about that? That's critical.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, it's important always to understand the why. As you mentioned, there's a lot of reasons that testosterone can be low. And one of the things is just hormone imbalances like high cortisol. If you've got high cortisol, it kind of affects every hormone downstream from thyroid, to estrogen, to testosterone. And so being super stressed, being always stressed, kind of that wired and tired person, you're going to see dips in those hormones. And in regards to hormone levels, what's the right level, this and that. I was always trained and I think appropriately that it's really based on symptoms, right? If you don't really have symptoms and your hormones are in a low to normal range, I don't necessarily think that you need to be on replacement therapy. But I think you need to look at diet because diet plays a big role with hormones. And if you lower for instance cholesterol too low, I mean testosterone is derived from cholesterol. The other thing is just environmental toxicities I think have played a huge role. Plastics in the environment I think are probably one of the big contributors to why I'm seeing such low testosterone.
Dr. Anna:
So the number one reason you're seeing low testosterone is from dietary changes?
Dr. Anthony:
Well, I think so. I think diet plays a huge role and I think environmental toxicities. I think that the amount of plastics that we get exposed to really play, and the xenoestrogens. All the chemicals that are in products that we lather on our body, and drink out of, heat up, whatever the case may be definitely affects it. I mean that's the only thing that I think has... We know that chemicals have increased every year. I mean it's crazy when you look at that in our exposures and I think it's just the ability of our bodies to handle that load and, but it definitely affects. I mean there's no doubt in my mind it affects it.
Dr. Anthony:
And like I said, there's a lot more guys that I see now with super low levels and it's crazy because I've got some elderly patients in their mid-sixties that have natural testosterone levels in the 1200 range. And I'm like, "So, okay, what are you guys doing?" And the thing that I see in all of them, they all exercise on a regular basis. They do a little bit of weight lifting, a little bit of aerobics exercise, and their diets are typically lower in carbohydrates and high in healthy fats.
Dr. Anthony:
And I think that seems to be the best for how to keep that testosterone elevated. And then sleep. If you're not sleeping, and that's the other big thing that we'll see, lack of sleep will drop your T down. And then the other thing I tell guys is, "Look, this is a pulsatile thing. It's going to pop up and pop down and you can't just go by one number and say, 'Oh, it's low all the time.'" Again, it's clinically. And how do you feel? Are your symptoms, do they correlate with your blood levels? And then also understanding total testosterone and free testosterone. So you need to understand that total's bound to protein, which isn't necessarily as active as your free testosterone is. And then there's this hormone, there's this protein that kind of runs around called sex hormone-binding globulin or SHBG that if that's really, really high, it will make your bioavailable testosterone really, really low.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. But lets we've had sex hormone-binding globulin because that is really a fascinating hormone to look at when we're measuring. And it's often not a test that I've seen people have when they bring in labs for me to review.
Dr. Anthony:
Okay, [crosstalk 00:13:29].
Dr. Anna:
And so let's talk, and it's really important because we're only getting a part of the picture if we don't look at it. Plus if we're able to follow it over time, any shifts in it can tell us something else is going on. So let's talk about sex hormone-binding globulin in a little bit.
Dr. Anthony:
That's something that I routinely check. When I'm doing the hormone evaluation I want to know everything. I want the full picture in front of me because it's important to understand what's happening, right? So I want to know what the brain hormones are saying. For instance, LH, that's one of the hormones that pituitary will kick out to tell the testes to make testosterone. If that's low and your testosterone is low, then it tells me, okay, so maybe there's something going on in the brain that's suppressing that hormone. Maybe you've had a head injury, concussions, common, we don't think about it, but that could be a reason why a guy's testosterone is low or maybe they've got a pituitary adenoma that's pushing and so I'll measure another hormone called prolactin. And so if that's really, really high and the testosterone is low, then it lets me know that this is something central, centrally mediated. If the LH is high and the testosterone is low, then it tells me it's more testicular dysfunction. Again, just it just helps to identify the area that may not be working as well. And there are ways of kind of kick-starting that system sometimes that you don't need to be on long-term hormone replacement and you can use different things for that.
Dr. Anthony:
But that SHBG as you mentioned, it's interesting because if it's elevated then a lot of times they'll... And I've had guys that have had relatively normal total testosterone, low normal free testosterone, but elevated S, the sex hormone-binding globulin and they have all the symptoms because their bioavailable's super low. What causes that? I think, gosh, I think, the xenoestrogens probably being one of the more common things. I don't know what you see, I see it elevated in women much more that have been on hormone replacement.
Dr. Anna:
On hormone or with a PCOS.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. And I do xenoestrogens, estrogen dominance will oftentimes cause that sex hormone-binding globulin to increase.
Dr. Anthony:
100%, yes.
Dr. Anna:
And then if there's thyroid dysfunction, that can also affect our sex hormone-binding globulin as well. So let's talk about, okay, so we're, before we call, essentially say, "Okay, we need to get testosterone on board." Let's talk about the resuscitation of the man. We've got Keto Greens and we're going to get them Keto Green, we're going to get them intermittent fasting. We're definitely getting them doing high-intensity exercises and getting a good night's sleep. And then so we're going to tweak this because we just can't get well without this part, right? We just can't get well without those things.
Dr. Anna:
And so now the part that you love is that mitochondrial resuscitation, right? Is that right? [inaudible 00:16:31] resuscitation. And which is important, our ovaries are full of mitochondria, right? Our testes are full of mitochondria. Our heart is full. I mean our body, that's the powerhouse of our cells. And so for us to have energy function appropriately, have hormone balance, this is a big part of fine-tuning our health.
Dr. Anthony:
Absolutely. So what most people don't realize how important it is, and I see it. I mean it is, if you're taking medications, if you're fatigued, if you're tired, you've got some form of mitochondrial dysfunction. And I kind of call it exhausted mitochondrial syndrome because it's not the genetic mitochondrial issues that you'll read about, but it's the fact that statins affect it, blood pressure medicines like beta-blockers, anxiety, antidepressant medicines, all affect mitochondria. And when the mitochondria aren't kicking out energy, you're going to feel tired, you're going to feel weak, and you start slowly gaining weight and the body just ages a whole lot quicker. So, to me one of the best ways of slowing your aging down is to focus on mitochondrial health.
Dr. Anthony:
And diet plays a huge role. I think one of the biggest drivers of mitochondrial dysfunction that I see is, as I mentioned, the SAD, standard American diet. Because what we know is, is that as your body takes in carbohydrates and the mitochondria burn those carbohydrates, the byproducts that are produced, we call these reactive oxygen species. What they do is they injure the mitochondria. So over time you start to injure the mitochondria. And normally as we age, you get into your 30s and 40s, there is a five to 10% drop in mitochondrial number. What we know is is to be healthy you want higher numbers and higher function. And we can do that through a lot of the things that you said, which are huge. The intermittent fasting, eating more healthy fats, low carbohydrates, exercising with higher intensity, kind of short burst type exercise. So those are all the strategies that we use to kind of stimulate that mitochondria.
Dr. Anthony:
And then there's a whole slew of nutrients that do too. And this is kind of one of the areas that I absolutely love is nutrigenomics, how nutrients affect our genes. Which is, to me, the coolest thing. It's like, okay, we can turn a gene on and affect how it functions based on how we eat and nutrients. And unfortunately with most nutrients, you have to eat way more. Most of the clinical studies that show how to turn these genes on, you have to take in way too much of this nutrient to get that clinical effect. So it's a lot easier to take a really high-quality supplement for certain things. So certain nutrients like green tea are great for mitochondria function. There's a notion called carnitine, which is great. Arginine, great. Resveratrol, which comes from grapes and blueberries another really, really awesome. CoQ10, as you mentioned before. There's a nutrient called PQQ, routine quercetin, alpha-lipoic acid. So there's all these really cool nutrients that act like exercise in your body and they turn the gene on that makes more of these mitochondria.
Dr. Anthony:
So wouldn't it be great to be able to kind of crank up that mitochondria with a good diet, a little bit of exercise and a whole slew of nutrients? And that's kind of been my focus for my patients is I always look at that because I know if I can get their cells health good, their body just feels better, it runs better. And that's been the approach that I've used, I think, which is much different than a lot of physicians. And it was something that I kind of backed into a long time ago when I was in residency, having some issues with my own fatigue from working way too many hours. So.
Dr. Anna:
And you're not alone and too, especially in midlife, we feel like there's that rat race, and burning the candle at both ends, and trying to stay ahead of the curve in so many ways. And we do what we shouldn't be doing. We start sleeping less, working more, right, stressing more. And that affects our hormones and runs us down. Same for men as it is for women. And that's really creating this mitochondrial stress. Kind of like the starvation, right? Because we're not getting the nutrients into the most important part of ourselves. It's not just cell nutrition. It's mitochondrial powerhouse cell nutrition, right. That makes a difference. And I like what Dr. Gabrielle Lyon's said, she says, "We talk about obesity, whether it's women or men." She says, "not that you have too much fat, it's not a fat problem. It's too little muscle. It's the fact that you don't have enough muscle. That's the problem." And that's where we need the mitochondria to build the muscle. Right? So it's like that chicken and the egg phenomena. But we have to build muscle. We are designed for times of adversity.
Dr. Anthony:
Yes, as we age, your muscles become very, very important because they release things called myokines, which are these little messenger regulators, hormones that really allow our bodies to run the way that it should run. You don't have it, not a good thing. So sarcopenia is not good as you get older. So I tell my patients, especially my older patients, that the most important thing is just getting out and do something. If you can get to the gym, do a little bit of weights, little resistance training, great. But exercise and keeping the muscles are huge, especially as we age.
Dr. Anna:
And then can you give an example of a patient coming in say a 55, a gentleman in the 50s that you see. You mentioned at the beginning, the one you were able to get off his blood pressure medicine and have him, help him lose weight because I know that's a really, that's beautiful. And we can do more of that. Right? So can you give another example?
Dr. Anthony:
So one of the things, when a patient comes in I, and what I see a lot of is overweight males. I mean the majority of the males that come in that don't regularly see doctors, which is a lot because again, guys just don't have a tendency to come in unless they're, and the significant other pushes them through that door. So a lot of them are overweight. A lot of them have these early metabolic syndromes and metabolic syndrome just means that they're an early type two diabetes. I don't like to use the term pre-diabetes because it means you don't have it. And as far as I'm concerned, if your sugar is not normal, it's abnormal. The disease process is the same. It just may not be as aggressive when your sugars are not as high as previous.
Dr. Anthony:
So I've got a lot of guys that are that way and if I can get them to understand and buy-in, allowing me to change a few things. Once they start feeling better, then we'll start seeing major changes. One of the things that really disturbed me a long time ago and this is the reason that I started doing weight loss in my practice over 24 years ago is when we were trained to treat diabetics, they really didn't train us the right way. It's we understood how to use the medications, but I could never understand the ADA diet because it's okay, we have a patient that doesn't handle or manage carbohydrates very well. Why would 60% of our calories be carbohydrates and expect them to do well?
Dr. Anthony:
And so what I saw was within the first couple of years during residency and when I got out is that I really wasn't helping any of my diabetic patients out. They're on this high carbohydrate diet. I was saying to see dieticians and they were putting them on the standard ADA diet. And low and behold, they're gaining more weight, and I'm increasing their medicines. And I didn't help. I'm like, "I'm not doing anything here." I'm just, I'm making this worse as far as I was concerned. So I started looking at things like Mediterranean diets and how to... And I thought to myself, well if you don't handle carbohydrates very well then, which are starches and sugars, because a lot of patients don't understand that. Why would I be giving you a ton of it? Because it increases insulin. And we know insulin is an anabolic hormone, which packs weighed on you. And it's also a very atherogenic hormone. So if you want to increase heart disease, have high insulin levels.
Dr. Anthony:
So I started looking at doing lower caloric intakes and lo and behold, I was able to get diabetics who've been on medications, two and three meds off meds after 70, 80 pounds of weight loss. So I was like, "Wow, this is awesome." This is really what we should be doing is helping guide, here's the roadmap to feeling better. Here's the roadmap to getting off medications because every time you're on a medicine, there's an interaction, there's nutrient depletion. And if you take nutrients out of your system your body can't heal, period. Right? And a lot of them affect vital organelles like your mitochondria. So to me, that was a huge eye-opener in why I kind of transitioned to doing more functional, more nutritional based medicine. Because to me it was I know I'm helping someone here. I'm helping them find that roadmap.
Dr. Anthony:
And I think with a lot of the guys that I see, there's a little bit of... You've got to get the trust, you've got to get them to feel better. If you get someone to feel better by doing some simple things, some simple strategies, then it's a much easier buy into transitioning them even more and to start looking at more things. So I like to do a full risk stratification when they come in and I do. I've been doing advanced lipid panels and inflammatory markers and hormones on all my patients for a long time. And so I review that with them. I get them engaged, understand what their risks are and then we come up with a good game plan. Try to get them to feel better in the process. And the ones that buy-in are the ones that are going to stay healthy. The ones that don't, unfortunately, are going to end up probably having diseases.
Dr. Anthony:
And you know this in medicine because I'm sure you've seen it, when you [inaudible 00:26:48] metabolic issues and you don't do anything, it's the snowball effect when something bad happens. To stop one thing, you admit them to the hospital for something minor and three things happened during that hospital stay. And I saw that so much as an internist that I realized wow, we have to catch them early. And so for me, I see these early diabetics, these early metabolic inflamed patients that come in and I look at it. And the other big thing is gut, there's so much gut disease out there right now and I understand it very, very well because I've personally had some leaky gut issues. Again, another reason I went into more functional medicine because I didn't want to take meds to fix something that I caused. But again, a big driver of inflammation and health, so healthy guts, healthy diets I think are the two things that I focus on a lot of those patients.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, no, that's absolutely correct. Another thing too, just in looking at men who are being diagnosed with low testosterone and they're only getting testosterone without and it's just we can't do it. I would tell my clients, "Before I do hormones or if I'm going to write you a prescription and renew your prescription for hormones, you have to do these lifestyle things because ultimately you're the CEO of your body. You are in charge of your body and you have to take actions so that you can have control. I will help you, but this is, there's some rules here."
Dr. Anna:
And for my guys that I put on testosterone, it's usually not just testosterone. We're doing everything else, right. We're encouraging HIT exercises, high-intensity interval training for men. We're encouraging that good night's sleep. We're encouraging mitochondrial support. CoQ10, omega-3 is, I put everyone on Mighty Maca Plus, right? It increases our nitric oxide and helps with adrenal support. So we want to do these things for our clients, but also if they're getting testosterone, do we need to add HCG? Do we need to add Clomid? Do we need to preserve their own testicular function as this is maybe a crutch before... And I see so many, even younger men in their 30s or 40s that are coming in on testosterone and these things haven't been addressed with them. And, or just hasn't been given as an option.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, I know. And I mean, and there's some natural things that'll boost it too. There's a lot of natural nutrients like Tongkat Ali, which is a long jack stinging nettle. There's a whole slew of combos that will boost it. And I've seen it clinically. Sometimes I'll use a short course of HCG just to see if I can't kind of reboot that system a little bit. And I've been able to do that. I had a, this was probably, got to be a solid 10 years ago, I had a young guy came in and had super low testosterone. He's like, "I'm trying to get pregnant and I haven't been able to do that." So we did just six weeks of HCG with him.
Dr. Anna:
Well, I imagine he was trying to get his wife pregnant. I just couldn't hold back. I couldn't miss that.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, it wasn't me, his wife. Exactly. So he was able to do that. It was really cool. They had tried for several years prior and then he came and he's like, and initially he said, "my T's low, I'm really, really tired and fatigued." And so there was kind of a combination problem that he presented with and I said, "Well testosterone is not the answer because that'll just shut it down." I said, "But maybe we can boost it up a little bit." And it rebooted his system where I haven't seen him since. Well, I should say I have seen him since and his levels were much, much higher after just a short course. So we were able to kind of reboot that back into place, which kind of a neat thing. Anytime that you're not stuck on a medicine long-term, is always a good thing as far as I'm concerned.
Dr. Anna:
Mm-hmm (affirmative) Mm-hmm (affirmative). That's very good. And for our listeners, I'm introducing you to a dear friend and colleague, Dr. Anthony Capasso, who has a fabulous clinic in Jacksonville, Florida. And Anthony, tell our audience about how people can get ahold of you, and go to your website, and go to your clinic because again, one of the few specialists in hormones and functional medicine, and taking a really holistic approach. You can see that he walks his talk.
Dr. Anthony:
Thank you. My office phone number if you want to make an appointment is area code (904) 694-0992 and our website is thin, T-H-I-N MD medspa.com so thinMDmedspa.com.
Dr. Anna:
Mm, I like that. ThinMDmedspa.com and say that phone number one more time, so-
Dr. Anthony:
Area code (904) 694-0992.
Dr. Anna:
Thank you. Thank you. What closing words do you have for our sad fat dads that are listening or, and for the women who love them?
Dr. Anthony:
I think the most important thing is figuring out what motivates you to make that lifestyle change and stick to it. And a lot of it's just doing simple strategies. I hear this a lot, "This is a lot easier than I thought it would be." So it's not about starving yourself, it's about just understanding what to eat, how to eat, and sometimes the amount to eat. So I think starting with small strategies, whether it's reducing portion size, reducing carbohydrates and portion size to start with. Once you start feeling better, it's a whole lot easier because you're like, "Wow, I do feel better when I've lost some weight and I'm putting better food into my body." It's just a matter of really what motivates you and try to focus on that motivation because that's going to be the key to keep things going.
Dr. Anthony:
I'm a big fan of really seeing results quickly because I think that helps keep patients motivated. It takes a while to have a transition, so if you see results quickly, you're more likely to stick to it. So I'm always looking to try to get the weight off quicker on the front end, but healthier. So I don't care about that slow weight loss thing. I think that you're going to lose people if it's too slow. And the studies are that it's not bad to lose quickly on the front end. It's just understanding not to lose your muscle mass while you're dieting. And that's why we do body compositions and weekly weigh-ins to make sure that that muscle mass isn't dropping because that's your primary determinate of metabolism and health.
Dr. Anna:
Exactly. Anthony in Keto Green 16 we've run it out of clinics, medical clinics in Florida, running cases, having clients go through. We started it through the holidays, maybe not best timing, but since then we've had a gentleman who went through two rounds of Keto Green 16 who lost 25 pounds, came off his blood pressure medicine, just is feeling great. So I'm looking forward to, I interview him on March 9th. I'm excited to see how what he's experienced with it.
Dr. Anna:
But you're absolutely right. And that's kind of, that was part of my push with Keto Green 16 is in 16 days we can see results. We see you symptom scores decrease and this whole concept of low carbohydrate, we have to break up with sugar, both men and women, especially over 40, over 50, over 60 and beyond. You've got to break up with the carbs. We need a certain high-quality carb but also healthy fat and good quality protein so we can maintain our muscle. And then I supplement with CoQ10 daily. I love your mitochondrial reset product. Can you talk about that just for a second and then let people know where to get that too.
Dr. Anthony:
When I was in residency, I was working really, really long hours and fatigued and so I started looking at natural things because I didn't drink coffee or caffeine during medical school or residency. I think I was pretty much an outlier. But being super fatigued, I start looking at clinical studies to look for natural energy and I started looking at things that support mitochondrial function like CoQ10. So I developed a product called Mitoblast 2. M-I-T-O- B-L-A-S-T and I've got several generations of it. Within two weeks of exercising, incredible how it helped improve my endurance. And then I saw some really cool things from that. I started losing weight and I really wasn't trying to, because I didn't really change my diet. And I noticed that my immune system was so much better. I wasn't getting sick. So I used to get one to two sinus infections a year. And for many, many years I haven't been sick in over 20, 22 years since I've been on it. So incredible product and it's part of kind of my core with all my patients. I mean everyone that's, I'm talking about it because it's one of those things that really changed how I practice medicine.
Dr. Anthony:
I wasn't trained on nutrients in medical school or` residency, but when I got out I did a lot of training, went to a lot of conferences and continued to do a lot of reading on nutrients because to me that's really where our health is. Is what can we put our systems to make it run better? Mitoblast was one of the things and so you can either go to my, you can go to the website, mitoblast.com, M-I-T-O-B-L-A-S-T.com and order directly off of there. It's also an Amazon or it's on my website, ThinMDmedspa.com also.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah. Perfect. All right, and then make an appointment with you in person to see you.
Dr. Anthony:
Yeah, exactly.
Dr. Anna:
Yeah, yeah, great. Well, thank you so much, Anthony. I truly enjoyed my discussion with Dr. Anthony Capasso on men's health as well as what we need to do to boost our immune system. I want to share with you a testimonial of one of my clients who have done Keto Green 16. He is part of the early test group that we've been running in north Florida, integrative medicine with Dr. Angela Akey. She's been doing group medical visits with the pre-released Keto Green 16 plan in her practice as one of my test sites. And we've been following several clients over the past several months. I mean several groups of clients. This most recent group had 30 clients in it. And one of them being male, the only male is named David. And he is 57 years old, on blood pressure medicine, and about 80 pounds overweight. He has tried many diets over the past. Him and his wife have done many different programs and he was struggling. He was also about to be put on a blood sugar medication called Metformin and really did not want to be. And so he joined the Keto Green 16 group medical visit with his wife.
Dr. Anna:
And let me tell you his results. In 16 days, he was feeling tremendous. A couple of days before the end of the program, he was feeling somewhat weak and he went to see Dr. Akey. He thought, "Well maybe I am getting the coronavirus." She evaluated him, checked his blood pressure and it was quite low. He needed to be weaned off of his blood pressure medicine. So the good news is that in 16 days, not only was he able to start weaning off his blood pressure medicine that he'd been on for years, but he'd also lost 30 pounds. He lost 30 pounds. Men tend to skew our data, but let me tell you, the average age of women in the study, 61.6 years, average age of weight loss, nine pounds and average improvement in symptoms over a 50% reduction in their symptom scores. And I haven't seen the needles move like this in forever. So having something really positive to focus on like your own health and that perfect plan like Keto Green 16 is really good for men and women. And that's what we want. Good news for David. Also, he didn't have to start his blood sugar medicine. So how great is that at age 57. So we want to encourage that, encourage men to join you on your Keto Green 16 journey. And remember, I am here for you. This is Dr. Anna Cabeca, the girlfriend doctor, and I will see you next week.
