The 3 Keys to Naturally Getting Well and Staying Well! With Dr. Joe Esposito

How important is your health to you? You know, it's hard to do anything when you're sick. I believe in having a good attitude. I believe in working hard. I believe in enjoying life. But when you're sick, it's just challenging to try to do anything. Well. Today we have a solution for you that will help 2024 be a way for you to have a brand new outlook on life. Today our guest is Dr. Joe Esposito. He is a board certified chiropractor and he's going to be sharing with us three keys to naturally getting well and staying well.

Welcome to becoming wiser with Dr. Robert A Rome author and world renowned public speaker as he shares stories involving his experiences and lessons learned in a good spirited, positive and fun way. Here's Dr. Robert A. Rome.

So as a brand new year has approached, I've decided I need to lose some weight. I am just a little bit too heavy and I enjoyed the Christmas holidays and several of my trips to Cancun too much. So I've decided to cut back on food so much that I am in the fourth day of a juice fast. Now, a juice fast means youth fast. While you are juicing, we juice. My wife and I have been juicing.

Vegetables and fruits and no food, just vegetables and fruits. We're bombarding our bodies with minerals and vitamins and we both feel great. And I know that the human body can only handle and deal with what you put in it. So I, I'm always looking for someone who is an expert in the field of health to help me. I'm 74 years old. I'm in great health. I'm in great shape, except I eat too much and I enjoy sweets. So we've invited Dr. Joe Esposito, a board certified chiropractor to help us. Dr. Joe, thank you so much for being our guest. Help us to get well and stay well.

That's my job. Thanks so much for having me here. I'm just so excited to be here. So what we're going to talk about today, the three things you have to have in order to obtain and maintain good health. I've been in practice 38 years now and I've seen thousands, tens of thousands of patients. And so I know I've narrowed it down to make it real simple because I know some people have a tough time and say, well, it's too complicated, I don't want to do anything. So three things you have to have normally functioning nervous system, normally functioning digestive system, and good nutrition. So the juice Fast. Brilliant. Love it. It gives the body a chance to rest. It gives the colon a chance to rest, and you're giving your body concentrated nutrients. So when I talk about the nervous system, this is something that oftentimes is ignored by all doctors. Most doctors say, yeah, you got to eat, right? Maybe you should take some supplements. You should have a good digestive system. But the way the body works is the brain, which sits up here, in most cases, sends messages down the spine, out the nerves, to every cell in the body. So there's a nerve that makes your heartbeat, your lungs, breathe, your eyes see your colon digest food, your toenails wiggle. Everything happens because the brain tells it what to do. And two things can interfere with this flow of energy, chemical or physical. Now, chemical would be food, drugs, alcohol, environmental toxins. So that's why I push so hard with my patients about nutrition, because that's the one thing you have control over. You might not have control over the fact that you got a car accident, you hurt your neck, or you fell and injured your low back, but you do have control of what's on the end of that fork. And so with the nervous system, if you have pinched nerves, of course, that's chiropractic care. That's the most effective, least expensive treatment for back pain. And it blows my mind why the world doesn't start with chiropractic care when it comes to pain. And then if you need to, go to other doctors. But many times you go to the surgeon and you get surgery. Well, maybe you didn't need the surgery. Maybe there's a way around it. Without the surgery. I always say, let's do the most effective, least expensive treatment first, and then we can expand if we need to. So the nervous system is key, the digestive system. I always say it's not what you intake, it's what. It's not what you ingest, it's what you digest. And so if you're eating the best food in the world and you have acid reflux, heartburn, burping gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation, you're not absorbing your nutrients properly. And if we can fix the digestive system, we would solve so many health issues. I'll give you an example. Your stomach. Your stomach is supposed to sit below the diaphragm. If the stomach pushes up into the diaphragm, you might have heartburn, burping, acid reflux, even sinus problems. The acid can come up into your sinuses. And a simple fix for that is we can Take the stomach and massage it and pull. Pull it down, away from the diaphragm. Physically adjust or move the stomach. The number one reason we see patients, I have four offices, six doctors. The number one reason we see patients is pain. The number two reason we see patients is exactly what I just explained to you, digestive problems. And many times the digestive problem is physical, not chemical. And so what do we do? Oftentimes we try to treat it chemically. We might give you medication to calm down that acid reflux. Well, if you read the directions on that medication, it usually says don't take for more than, let's say, six days. Six days? How many people are taking for six years, 10 years, 20 years? You're shutting down your stomach acid, and then you don't have the acid reflux, but you need stomach acid to break down proteins. Now everything has protein except water. Proteins look like a little ball of yarn. And if you take a ball of yarn and unravel it, that's what your stomach does and then chops it up into something called amino acids. There's 20amino acids in the human diet. The amino acid named tryptophan becomes serotonin in your brain. Serotonin makes you happy, helps you focus. Serotonin becomes melatonin, which helps you sleep.

So many people that have anxiety, depression, add, adhd, even bipolar, I've had suicidal patients. The digestive system isn't breaking proteins into amino acids to produce neurotransmitters to make your brain work. So when it comes to emotional issues, always consider the fact that it may be the stomach that's involved, maybe not causing it, but certainly contributing to it. So if you have any of those symptoms, heartburn, acid reflux, burping gas, bloating, diarrhea, constipation. You may want to consider looking at your stomach. If you do have the acid reflux, pulling the stomach down many times solves the problem. So if we can get the digestive system working. I've had people want to name their kids after us because they're so excited that for the first time in their lives, their bad breath goes away, their stomach flattens out, they have bowel normal bowel function instead of diarrhea or constipation. And they just get so excited because the brain reboots. Amino acid named tyrosine becomes dopamine. Dopamine gives you pleasure. How many people go through life? So sad. Nothing's good. I don't enjoy life anymore. Could be a dopamine issue, and it could be a Tyrosine issue, which could be a digestive issue. People tired all the time. Amino acid. And glutamine becomes norepinephrine. Norepinephrine gives you energy. It's a. It's adrenaline for your brain, basically. And so we fix the gut. We're amazed at what happens to so many other health problems. So many other health problems go away. So again, get the spine lined up to open up the nerve supply to the organs. Fix the stomach so you can absorb nutrients, and then we got to get you on a good diet. Now, the first two, you may not have control over diet. You do. You decide what's on the other end of that fork. So I talk about something called the seven deadly sins of nutrition. These are the seven foods you want to cut back or ultimately cut out of your diet if your goal is to achieve and obtain perfect health. So the seven deadly sins. You're going to get mad at me when I say this. Seven deadly sins are alcohol, meat, sugar, dairy, coffee, soda, and artificial sweetener. Now, if you've never heard my radio shows, my podcast, the books I've written, the first thing everybody says is, wait a minute. Alcohol, be sugar, dairy, coffee, soda, artificial sweetener. That's my whole diet. I'm going to starve if I can't eat those foods. What do you eat? So let's talk about that. Alcohol destroys brain cells. We know that. Brain controls everything. We talked about that earlier. Sugar weakens the immune system. It affects the way the body uses insulin and utilizes sugar. Too much sugar, too much insulin, Too much insulin, the cells can't absorb sugar anymore. So the way this works, you take sugar and it goes in your body, your pancreas releases insulin and says, okay, go to the cells. Insulin, go to the cell. And it's, it's a key. Insulin goes in like a key, opens up the cell and allows sugar to go in. Glucose to be used as fuel. So insulin really is a key. If you eat too much sugar, the cells say, I can't keep opening up and letting more sugar. And you're going to go up the works. I'm going to resist that. I'm going to resist you from opening me up. That's called insulin resistance. It's called type 2 diabetes as well. And about 60% of the people right now in this country are pre diabetic or diabetic. And it's projected to go much higher than that in the next five years. And if you can't allow the cells to utilize glucose, the cells can't function. It's like cutting off the, with the fuel supply, the cells start to die or certainly malfunction. So sugar, not good.

Dairy products. Get mad at me for this one too.

We're not designed to digest cow's milk. We don't have an enzyme called lactase which breaks down lactose, which is the sugar, and we don't have an enzyme called renin to break down the protein called casein. So dairy products are the number one food allergen in the world. So the less dairy products we eat, the better we're going to be. And also, many times the dairy products have things like steroids, chemicals, antibiotics, pesticides, genetically modified food that they fed the cows that now get into the body, weed killer that they sprayed onto plants that they fed the cow. So dairy products are a lot different than they were even 20 and 30 years ago. I mean, I'm in my 60s, so I remember when dairy products had cream on the top and the milkman would come and deliver it early in the morning. So it's a different world today. And there's a great line from a band called Emerson, Lake and Palmer. And the line is, you don't have to be well to be wealthy, but you've got to be whole to be holy. And I just love that line. And so many people are sick and they're not able to serve whoever they serve. Higher power, their family, their friends, their children, their church, their co workers. And I've been practiced 38 years. I've missed a half a day of working 38 years. And I see this all the time. And people come in and say, I miss my husband, I miss my father and my child is, is gone. Gone awry. They, they've gotten in Trouble. They have ADD, they have ADHD. When we were kids, nobody had ADD yet. One wise guy was a class clown. Now 50%, 60% of the kids have ADD. They're on the autism spectrum. We're messing with chemistry. If you're old enough, you remember the commercial, it's not nice to fool mother Nature. And that we're doing with our food supply now. So as far as dairy goes, there's soy milk, almond milk, cashew milk, coconut milk. There's so many options for butter, for cheese, for ice cream, for yogurt. So you don't have to do dairy anymore. Same thing with meat. Meat is really hard to digest. So the more meat you put in your body, the more stress you're putting on your digestive system. And it's not just the meat, it's the Steroids, chemicals, hormones, antibiotics, pesticide, genetically modified food glyphosate. So it's a very different meat, different world. And if you grill meat, those grill marks that taste so good, those are called heterocyclic amines, known carcinogens when you smell the meat that's roasting. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, also known carcinogens. So the people that live the longest life with the least amount of medical problems are people that eat more toward a plant based diet and stay away from the animal proteins.

Let me ask you a question there, is there a big difference between I, I love fish, I'm a fish eater, I eat fish first, chicken second and red meat last. I, I just can't. I probably have a steak maybe once every couple of months, but my meat of choice is fish. Is that, is that an old wives tale or is that better fish better for you than anything else?

It used to be better for us, but what's happened now is in fact I just saw a study out of Australia. They couldn't find one fish in all of Australia that didn't have mercury in it.

Oh my goodness.

So if you're going to eat fish, I'm going to recommend wild caught only. I would never do farm raised fish.

Okay, so you mentioned alcohol, sugar, dairy products, and those are three of the deadly seven. What are the other four? Right, quick, so I'm writing these down. Oh, coffee.

Yeah, coffee is the most highly sprayed food we have as far as pesticides and chemicals. Because when coffee beans are picked, they're stored, they grow mold. So we put anti mold and anti fungus, fungus on there pesticides. So if you're going to drink coffee, I'll negotiate with you. If you're gonna drink coffee, it's gotta be organic only. Okay, Reasonable to go patient, Right. Ultimately I'd like to see you get off the coffee because the caffeine, the acids and everything, but organic, only organic decaf is really a better choice.

So okay, all right, the number five.

All right, now I'll say we did alcohol, meat, sugar, dairy, coffee, soda.

Soda is just high fructose corn syrup. Now when you and I were kids, doc, we didn't have high fructose corn syrup. Everything was sugar.

Right?

High fructose corn syrup is so much worse than regular sugar because fructose has to be converted into glucose in our liver. And when fructose converts into glucose to form a sugar that we can use, you create something called uric acid. Uric acid gets in your joints and it hurts as a Pain management doctor. I'm board certified in pain manager. I'm board certified in orthopedics, board certified in chiropractic, double board certified in nutrition. As a pain management expert, I want to have you have less pain, not more pain, Right? So high fructose corn syrup is worse than sugar because in the process of converting fructose into glucose, we create uric acid. That's not the worst thing. Uric acid slows down the body's production of something called nitric oxide. Nitric oxide opens up your blood vessels, increases circulation to your heart, your lungs, your sex organs, your brain, lowers blood pressure. It's so important on so many different levels. And as we get older, our nitric oxide levels plummet. That's why old people have high blood pressure. One of the main reasons. But also, if you're doing fructose, you're making the problem worse. And then artificial sweeteners. If I have to get you off one of the seven deadly sins, it's.

Artificial sweetener, aspiration, alcohol, sugar, dairy products, coffee, meat, sodas, and the artificial. Artificial sweeteners, right? Well, pretty much. I'm gonna have a glass of water tonight.

Perfect.

That's great. I have been juice fasting off and on for many, many years. Sometimes my wife and I'll do a one day, sometimes we do three day, sometimes 10 day. This time it's 21 day. And it honestly, it makes me feel so much better. I sleep so much better and bombard my body with nutrition, with vitamins and minerals from the juice. I'm not talking about. If anyone's listening today thinking, well, I'm going to go to the grocery store and buy a bottle of orange juice. Or I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about using a juicer to juice carrots and beets and celery and tomatoes and oranges and other things that you drink the juice directly from. Joe, as we. Dr. Joe, as we wrap this up, I so much appreciate and value your wisdom. This whole podcast is called becoming wiser. I'm 74 years old. I'm in pretty good health, I think. I'm not on any kind of meds of any kind at all. What would you say if you just kind of broad stroke for all of us Today, looking into 2024, I realize that health is a funny issue that everyone feels and has strong opinions about. What would you say if you only had just a minute or so to tell us what's the very best thing we can do to stay healthy this year other than Watch out for those seven deadly sins.

Read Genesis. It says right there at first page, I give to you the fruits and the herbs and the seeds, and this shall be to you as food. Go to a plant based diet. Eat more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. And if you don't know what to eat, if you go to my website, drjoe.com just type in, so, what can I eat? And I give you 45 minutes of nothing but what you should eat. And it's very, very simple. It's absolutely free.

Man, that's great. I hope everyone will write that down. It's very simple. Drjoe.com that's-r j o e.com and you'll have over 4,000 thousand hours of content on that website and you'll be able to learn more, be healthier, and live a more productive life. Dr. Joe, thank you so much. I really, really respect you. I have been a big fan of chiropractic my whole life. I've always gone to chiropractors and they have always helped me. When I was in high school, I hurt my neck, hurt my lower back. And I'm just so grateful that there are people like you in the world who don't think, well, first of all, let's do surgery. You think, first of all, let's see if we can get this person well. So maybe we can do this again sometime. But we respect you and love you and appreciate your time on our call today.

Doc. I would be honored to be back. Anything I could do for you? If you have any questions, just send them through my website. Dr. Joe.com and health care. I'm happy to answer for you and everybody else.

That's great. Well, as we continue to learn to get wiser in 2024, you it does begin with our health because if you're sick, you don't feel like doing anything. And Dr. Joe has given us some great wisdom and advice in how to be wiser in this coming year. I pray and trust and hope that you'll take some of these ideas. I know I'm going to. I wrote as fast as I could. This podcast is recorded. You're able to listen to it again, take some further notes, but again, let me encourage you. Follow up Dr. Joe.com. follow him, listen to him. Yes, over a million people who follow him and you'll be able to be one of those as you add to his podcast and his content on his website this year. Thanks so much. I'm Dr. Robert Rome. I look forward to our next podcast together. Bye Bye.

For more information about this podcast, please visit www.becoming wiser podcast.com.