Living Your Best Life Before and After Prostate Cancer with Dr. Geo Espinosa

***Intro***

Dr. Cates: Hi there, I’m Dr. Trevor Cates. Welcome to the Spa Doctor Podcast. Today, we’re talking about men’s health and the prostate. Whether you’re a man or a woman, what we’re talking about today very likely impacts your life.

My guest today is Dr. Geo Espinosa, a renowned naturopathic and functional mess doctor recognized as an authority in neurology and men’s health. Dr. Geo is the founder and director of the Integrative Functional Neurology Center at New York University, Langone, Medical Center and measures internationally on the application of integrative neurology and clinical settings.

He’s been recognized as one of the top ten health makers for men’s health by a sharecare.com created by a Dr. Oz and WebMD. Dr. Geo is the author of the new book Thrive, Don’t Only Survive—Dr. Geo’s Guide To Living Your Best Life Before and After Prostate Cancer. Prostate cancer affects one in seven men.

On today’s show, we talk about how prostate cancer may impact your life more than you realize, similarities with breast cancer and specific dietary lifestyle factors and supplements for prostate cancer prevention and co-management. I hope you enjoy this interview with Dr. Geo.

***Interview***

Dr. Geo, it’s great to have you on my podcast.

Dr. Espinosa: It’s such a pleasure to be on your podcast. I think the last time I did a summit with you, right, not a podcast. This is our first podcast.

Dr. Cates: Yeah. I’ve interviewed you before, but this is a first time we’ve been on the podcast.

Dr. Espinosa: It’s a pleasure.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. We’re talking about something a little bit different. This is a topic we have not covered on the show. That is we’re talking about prostate and prostate cancer. Let’s start off by most of my audience are women and then we definitely have men that watch and listen to the podcast too. Why do women in particular, what do women need to know about prostate cancer and why is it—you and I were just talking before we started about why it’s so important. Why do women care about this?

Dr. Espinosa: Listen, the first thing that I think your women audience should know is that if they read my prostate cancer book, I can 100% guarantee them that they’ll never develop prostate cancer. That’s the first thing I think your audience should know.

Let me say this. Women don’t have a prostate. You would think every woman knows that, but I remember teaching way back when I taught at a college. We’re talking about urinary systems and urinary problems, and prostate problems that are associated with urinary systems. Young lady raises a hand, she says, “Dr. Espinosa, I have those problems, urinary problems, I think I have a prostate problem.”

From that point on, I just took nothing for granted. I just want to let women know who are listening that women don’t have a prostate, so that’s why they’ll never develop prostate cancer. Even if they just read my book, they don’t even have to apply anything. Anyway, we’ll go right into the question. What was the question?

Dr. Cates: Why would women care about this then? Women don’t have prostates, why is this so important?

Dr. Espinosa: Alright, here is the deal. Number one, your man is getting up two, three, four, five times a night to go urinate. You’re a light sleeper. Every time he gets up, you get woken up. That’s a common complaint that I see from women. Why is he getting up three, four, five times a night to go urinate?

Number two, sexual dysfunction associated within a large prostate. There’s many reasons why some men suffer from sexual dysfunction or erectile dysfunction. This affect women also, this just doesn’t affect men. I think we get lost in this thing that oh, it’s only affecting the men, men can’t get it up, they can’t perform. No, this is a quality of life issue also for women.

That can be a problem associated from an enlarged prostate because what happens? You have the dental nerves that come wraps around the prostate and goes right into the penis involving the process of erections. If that prostate is enlarged, it’s going to impinge and push up against these nerves where the man is not going to be able to get an erection.

The third thing is that men are diagnosed with prostate cancer at a certain time in their life, about 1 out of every 6 men will be diagnosed. There’s somebody in your audience who has a loved one, whether it’s their partner, a father, or a brother that’s had prostate cancer. I can almost guarantee it.

What happens is that women play such a critical role throughout this process whether it has to do with screening, or decision making as to what do we do as a treatment.

Bottom line is this, I tell all my patients, all my male patients if you have a woman in your life and most do, even if it’s just a partner, sister, mother, or what have you. They need to come in. Why? They ask better questions, they’re paying close attention to what I’m saying, and they just take better notes.

Men shut down. Once a man gets diagnosed with prostate cancer, that’s it. There’s just nothing else coming in. Women play a major role because they’re more attentive, sometimes even more stooped in once again asking better questions.

Prostate problems, prostate cancer affects almost every woman in the world.

Dr. Cates: Absolutely. For men that are watching and listening too, it’s certainly something that you want to be aware of. Let’s back up now, now that we know why we’re covering this on the podcast. Let’s back up and talk about the prostate, where it is, what its role is, and yeah, let’s start with that.

Dr. Espinosa: The prostate, the pesky prostate is right underneath a man’s bladder. First, you have the bladder, then right beneath the bladder you have the prostate. There’s a tube that goes from the bladder through the prostate called urethra and the purpose of that tube is to bring out urine and semen out of the urethra. Women have a urethra much shorter than men.

The problem is that that urethra is found in the middle of the prostate, right smack in the middle, give or take an inch or two. What happens when the prostate gets inflamed, something called BPH or Benign Prostatic Hyperplasia where there’s a lot of cells going, or even prostate cancer, it closes in on the urethra causing urinary problems.

The primary function of the prostate is for conception and fertility. That’s it, that’s what it does. Not that’s it, there would be no life as we know it without that important function, but that’s what it does. It produces about 65% of the semen. Prostate glands produce about 65% of the semen, and once again, of that urethra that brings on the urine semen, it’s enclosed by the prostate. Anything that encloses the urethra will indeed cause any type of urinary problems, urinary frequency, urgency, getting up at night to urinate, etcetera, etcetera.

Dr. Cates: Okay, great. So then when does it become a problem? What are some warning signs, some screening things that people should be aware of whether you’re a man or a woman? If you’re a woman, it’s for your man.

Dr. Espinosa: Absolutely.

Dr. Cates: Or if you’re a man, what are the things that you want to be looking for and screening?

Dr. Espinosa: Absolutely, great question because the other thing—I think we got really screwed up with the white [00:08:32] to be honest with you because we men just kind of fight through. They don’t pay attention to certain things, they just fight through. We’re kind of survivors, we’re the hunters, we go and we bring back the food. Nothing else matters, so we fight through things.

A man can get up three to four, five times a night to go urinate and they may ignore these symptoms, just ignore them. Oh, it’s just life, or it’s just the fact that I’m getting older. Getting up at night to urinate more than once is okay, particularly if they’re older than 50 or 60, and / or they’ve had numerous drinks the night before. Getting up one time a night is fine, to urinate twice is okay, more than two times a night, that’s a problem. That’s either overactive bladder going on, or there’s either a prostate problem.

The other thing is blood in the urine. Blood in the urine can mean many things, sometimes it means absolutely nothing but it can also mean prostate cancer, kidney stones, and / or bladder cancer. An erection—I always say that the penis is a barometer to a man’s health. Sometimes, couples are not intimate, or sometimes they are. Even if there is no intimacy, that question of if they feel really comfortable with each other, can he get an erection.

This is not to say that a couple go into the bedroom and he can’t perform. He’s going to have a [00:10:12]. That’s not the case. There’s many reasons why men can’t perform once or twice. Psychological, mostly. If it happens consistently three, four times in a row, then there’s something there. It can still be psychological, it can still be the dynamic between a woman and a man, or it can be physiological, plots in the arteries that are being clogged up where if there’s clogged up plots in the arteries of the penis, where else are there plaques in arteries? Is it the heart or anywhere else? It’s a health issue.

For a long erectile dysfunction, it can mean there’s some sort of cardiovascular issue going on.

Dr. Cates: Right. Okay. These are some of the warning signs to look for. If you have these issues, you want to go talk to a doctor.

Dr. Espinosa: A naturopathic functional medicine doctor. That’s very important.

It’s important because most conventional doctors have a conventional mindset. By the way, I don’t discourage conventional doctors, throughout my career as a naturopathic doctor, I’ve worked with neurologist and medical doctors. You gotta see it for what it is.

Most conventional doctors will prescribe viagra, cyalis, levitra, and then call me in the morning kind of deal and see how that works. That’s a band-aid approach. We are masking by doing that a bigger problem. Whether it’s cardiovascular, diabetes setting in or something. While I’m not completely against these drugs, you have to always look for the cause first. I would say that that’s why it’s important to seek the help of somebody, a naturopathic functional doctor. They look up the whole picture.

I can’t tell you how my pieces love the fact that I’m looking at the whole picture, I’m not just looking—there’s a wonderful idea that the lower half of the body is connected to the upper half of the body. Oh my god, what a concept? I think people in general appreciate that and certainly men do as well in their partner’s level. They love the fact that men are seeking out these kind of holistic approaches.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. How common is prostate cancer?

Dr. Espinosa: How common is prostate cancer, let’s see, about 220,000 men are diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States, about 31,000 men die from prostate cancer in the US, about a million men die from prostate cancer worldwide. It’s the most common cancer in men, and it’s the second most deadly in men. It’s very common. It’s analogous to breast cancer in women. This is why I said earlier that yeah, most women know of a loved one who have had it, or they will know of a loved one who have had it or have it.

Dr. Cates: What age does this usually become a problem? Is this something that happens at a certain age?

Dr. Espinosa: Good question, another great question. Why is that a great question is because you can’t really go by what the United States preventive task force suggests because they would suggest over 50 old man’s disease, no PSA test.

PSA is the blood marker associated with prostate health and/or prostate cancer. What we know is that the PSA is a very poor marker for prostate cancer specifically. I get that. It’s still pretty good, it’s okay. It’s not a matter of shall we test or not, what you should focus on is what do you do with that information once you get it.

All that’s to say that if there’s a first degree family member with prostate cancer and/or breast cancer in women, there’s a higher risk of men developing prostate cancer in those that have a first degree family member with breast cancer as well. If they have a first degree family member which means a brother, a father, or a mother, then they should start screening at the age of 40, very important.

I just had a patient the other day who is 44 years old. Not only with prostate cancer, but really with the type of prostate cancer that should be treated surgically.

This the same guy would’ve had—why is that important? Because most 44 year olds don’t screen. The United States Preventative Task Force would say why screen? His father had aggressive prostate cancer, he has aggressive prostate cancer at 44, if he would’ve ignored it by the age of 49 and 50, he would’ve had metastatic prostate cancer disease and he would’ve been in very deep trouble. Now, we still have a chance of curing him from surgery and aggressive lifestyle interventions.

Dr. Cates: The PSA is a blood marker that people should start testing, men should start testing at around 40 years old then.

Dr. Espinosa: Particularly men that have a first degree family member of either prostate cancer or breast cancer. If there’s no family history of cancer, I would start it on 50 years old. That means a PSA test and the good old finger test which is the prostate exam that most men of course try to avoid.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, but it is an important exam because it will give you a lot of information and gives us a lot of information about the health of the prostate.

Dr. Espinosa: It’s old school.

Dr. Cates: I remember this test.

Dr. Espinosa: Exactly.

Dr. Cates: I remember this from medical school. This is what a healthy prostate looks like.

Dr. Espinosa: That’s right, this is prostatitis, this is BPH. Well, this is more like DPH and your knuckle actually, your knuckle is like a nodule, that’s prostate cancer. Those are the things we’re looking for.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, that’s when you have a doctor feeling your prostate exam, that’s what they’re kind of feeling for, those difference and the feel of it. The digital exam, that is usually done starting at 50 or do you recommend people start before then also?

Dr. Espinosa: First degree family history of prostate cancer or of breast cancer, that starts at 40. If there’s no family history, you start at 50.

Dr. Cates: Okay.

Dr. Espinosa: All things being equal, this is specifically for prostate cancer. Every now and then, you have the 28 year old with prostatitis, so you have to do the exam. For prostate cancer, you start it with 50 or 40 if there’s a family history.

Dr. Cates: I know the PSA test on the blood work, they’re different ones on the labs. There’s screening versus diagnostic, do you want to say anything about the difference between those?

Dr. Espinosa: Yeah, there’s total PSA and there’s free PSA. Free PSA, if the percentage of the PSA is low, let’s say lower than 20%, that can indicate it’s not an error, there’s a lot of false positives, but that can indicate that there’s some prostate cancer if it’s less than 24% of the PSA is free.

The total is a number, a total number that people typically look at between 0 to 4. You could be at a 4.2 and if you’re 62, that’s not that high. What you really want to look at is how does it change within time. Not just that one number, but how does the PSA change three months, six months, 12 months later. That can be more indicative. The rate of change can be more indicative of some problem going on in the prostate. If it’s beyond 10 total let’s say, 15, 20, then there’s a higher likelihood of there being prostate cancer there than just growth of the prostate.

Dr. Cates: Okay.Say someone has been diagnosed with prostate cancer, what are some things that people should realize when they are diagnosed with prostate cancer. From a more functional medicine naturopathic medicine approach, what do you usually recommend?

Dr. Espinosa: Here’s the first thing. The first thing is that you have time to make a decision as to what you need to do in terms of if you need a conventional therapy, whether it’s surgery, removal or the prostate, or radiation, I think there are 8 other treatments out there in this day and age. There’s jai-fu, there’s cyberknife, there’s proton beam radiation, there’s tons of things out there.

Bottom line is don’t make a fast decision just to get it over with. You may make those kind of get it over with decisions in other aspects of your life, but this is not one of those areas that you should do that because this is a lifelong process.

The other thing is that some individuals, some men are a candidate for active surveillance meaning that [00:20:40] low grey cancer that they may not need any conventional treatments at all and they’re followed closely by their practitioner. That’s the first thing, should I get it teated or should I not, and then not to make a quick decision and you do need to get it treated conventionally to visit with at least three doctors before they make a decision.

Either way, whether they’re on active surveillance or they need aggressive conventional treatment, they still should follow an aggressive lifestyle intervention that we call at the office the The CaPLESS Method. CaP is for carcinoma prostate, L is for lifestyle, E is for exercise and eating, one S is for sleep and stress management, the other S is for supplementation. The CaPLESS method is a focused lifestyle prescriptive type of lifestyle plan for men with prostate cancer. Either way, particularly they go on active surveillance is no brainer.

Once again, sometimes men are a little bit hard headed. I don’t know if you notice that, Dr. Cates. Men can be a little hard headed. What happens sometimes is that they get it treated. If they get it treated with a prostate detect let’s say, that’s it, my prostate is out, the cancer is out, I don’t have to worry about anything, I could just live my reckless lifestyle again.

The answer is no because men who get prostate cancer conventionally treated with surgery or radiation have a 40% to 50% chance of a recurrence within 5 to 10 years. I’ll repeat that, because actually that’s very important. You get diagnosed with prostate cancer, and you say wow, my goodness, I have to go through surgery and possibly be increment and have urinary continents. But you know what, it’s worth it. It’s worth it because the cancer will be out. Not necessarily. There’s a 40% to 50% chance that it comes back within 5 to 10 years.

More so do one has to pay more attention to their specific lifestyle which now we can create a microenvironment that’s hostile to cancer cells. It’s not just the prostate, it’s the body, the whole body that’s cancer-ing.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, that’s so important. Again, I think this is another reason why it becomes important that the involvement of women or husbands, it’s like a family thing because when we’re talking about lifestyle changes, something has to happen within the family. A lot of times women are the ones maybe being involved in the food preparation or the shopping. Lifestyle changes are a family thing.

Dr. Espinosa: That’s right.

Dr. Cates: Let’s talk about some of those lifestyle changes that are so important for people with prostate cancer and really they’re probably good for all of us, but particularly for prostate cancer is what we’re talking about.

Dr. Espinosa: I have good news. The good news is that the CaPLESS method actually works well for women because 95% of the stuff that we’re going to discuss that work for men with prostate cancer works for women and breast cancer and prevention of breast cancer and co-management of breast cancer.

Breast cancer and prostate cancer are cousins, how they function, how they develop, how they progress are very similar. Often times, I have to look at the breast cancer literature to extrapolate from there and then apply some of these concepts to prostate cancer and they work really well. Absolutely, it should be a family type of lifestyle change.

In saying that, we’ll kind of run through it very quickly the type of things—they’re more in detail in the book and in other places, but we’ll kind of touch on the different elements of the CaPLESS method.

Diet, what do you eat and what don’t you eat? Well, what you don’t eat is refined carbohydrates and simple sugars. I think your audience kind of heard this before with regards to inflammation and aging and so on. It plays a critical role with regards to cancer. Sugar does feed cancer, many people have heard that. I don’t think that many people think that’s just theatric or an exaggeration, it’s not. When you do a PET scan, you feed your body with a sugar solution and the areas of cancer cells, they light up where you can see it on the screen. When they gobble up all the sugar in a PET scan. Refined carbohydrates I tell you, and it’s addictive but it has to be something that needs to be eliminated.

The next questions becomes wait a minute, paleo and ketogenesis, what do we do with that? Does that mean no whole grains? Does that mean no fruit? Here’s the deal. I like to think that I’m pretty abreast with the literature with regards to diet and cancer, and there’s a lot of talk on ketogenesis which means eating almost no carbohydrates at all and using ketones for energy, not glucose. Ketones is what your body makes from fat to create energy as opposed to using glucose.

The paleo folks are saying no, paleo. Okay, what do you do? What’s the bottom line, what’s the truth? With regards to prostate cancer and breast cancer, the ketogenesis diet, they’ve looked at brain cancer mostly and they’ve seen very good results with brain cancer. Not all cancers are created equal, so prostate cancer and breast cancer are much different than colon cancer and brain cancer.

So then if you’re going to put some audio on a program, I’m sorry to jump around but this is very important. The diet that’s good but sustainable is better than the perfect diet that’s not sustainable. If it’s a good diet but you can’t keep it up, if ketogenesis becomes too hard, then it doesn’t do any good.

In the CaPLESS eating program, because I try not to use the word diet too much, I really don’t like that word. The eating program requires very low glycemic index foods, foods that don’t go into your system too quickly, that causes a huge surge of insulin. Low glycemic index, no refined carbohydrates, some whole grains, blueberries and berries which have shows anti cancer properties, apples show to have had anti cancer properties, meat are actually fine.

Most people say no meat, no meat. Meat are fine most, what matters is how you prepare them. If it’s charred or overly cooked, high temperature, it’s not good. Organic grass fed is absolutely better, there’s no question about that. Cold cuts are not good, they show that cold cuts and processed meats actually promote cancer. If you’re going to have meats, have grass fed organic cooked in a low temperature.

Fish is number one, I think you and I both know, our friends from Vital Choice. I’m like a poster child from Vital Choice, I love their fish. They’re wonderful. Good quality fish is very good.

The number one vegetable which all vegetables are good, there’s not one that are bad, not even carrots which have some sugar, carrot juice I would not suggest, even if it’s freshly squeezed. Carrots are fine.

They’re the cruciferous vegetables from the Brassicaceae family. Things like cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and broccoli. They create this chemical called isocyanates that actually have anti cancer properties. They’re the number one food, they should be cooked. The reason why I’m saying that is because the raw food people would say oh my god, no, only raw because the enzymes, they’re going to kill of the enzymes.

These cruciferous vegetables need to be cooked because in order to free up these chemicals called sulforaphanes so that your body creates good things from these sulforaphanes that are anti cancer. You need to release—I don’t want to be overly scientific here, but a [00:30:19] type of enzyme that converts the sulforaphanes into isocyanates which have the good things, the anti cancer properties. They should be cooked, not burnt, but cooked.

The other thing is that uncooked cruciferous vegetables can mess up the thyroid because there’s this called goitrogens, so it can cause hypothyroid. I’ve seen that happen clinically, which is pretty interesting. The cruciferous vegetables are number one and they should be cooked. That’s diet.

Exercise, three hours a week of moderate intensity and no less than 3 hours a week of moderate intensity. Four hours is better, five is great, more than five you might be overdoing it. People who like to run marathons and things and ultra marathons, excessive skiing maybe, I don’t know. Is there such a thing as excessive skiing? I’m such a New Yorker, I just made that up. Can you ski excessively? I don’t know, probably not. I don’t know.

Dr. Cates: I believe it’s all perspective. I’ve never had a patient come in from excessive skiing.

Dr. Espinosa: Three hours a week of moderate intensity, audience can look up what moderate intensity mean, I don’t want to get into that. Moderate intensity means sweating, meaning heart rate up, etcetera.

If they’re on androgen deprivation therapy, also called hormone therapy which means the patient gets chemically castrated, they need to do weight resistance three days a week.

Very important because you deplete the body of testosterone, what goes up? The risk of osteoporosis or weakening of the bones. What goes up? Metabolic syndrome. What goes up? Fat all over the waist which now there are a risk of other things.

Weight resistant exercise is incredibly important if they are chemically castrated with hormone therapy.

With regards to supplements, I know quite a few supplements that create this micro environment that’s hostile to cancer. Everything that I do is pretty much evidence based and science based.

Grape seed extract, curcumin which comes from turmeric, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer. EGCG from green tea, green tea extract, Vitamin D3. Anywhere between 2,000 units or 5,000 units a day.

With a lot of our colleagues, I sometimes disagree. Sometimes they think more is better, so the blood test ranges between 30 and 100 nanogram per milliliter, some people like to have them on 100, I’m not quite sure that’s the right thing to do. I think that if a little bit is good, more doesn’t mean better. You look at the literature, people with around 30 to 40 degrees and show

Dr. Cates: Vitamin D, right?

Dr. Espinosa: A Vitamin D3 levels. That dosage is typically about between 2,000 to 5,000 units a day depending on the size of the patient. I know it’s used for joint, osteoarthritis and things like that. It’s an excellent anti-cancer herb. I use pomegranate extract, selenium from Seleno cells specifically.

There was a study in 1996 showing that 63%—the study was published in the Journal of The American Medical Association or JAMA. Very conservative, very well known. They showed that those that consume this particular type of Selenium had a 63% reduction rate of prostate cancer. I could go on and on, but that’s a good start.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, absolutely. Okay, so just a recap on that. You talked about diet and I think that everything you talked about sounds absolutely fantastic. Just for clarification though, do you think that ketosis is helpful with prostate cancer or is it just that you think that it’s not sustainable, you think that it is beneficial but it’s not sustainable.

Dr. Espinosa: Here’s the deal. There’s no literature on Ketosis and prostate cancer, not in animals, not in humans. Obviously, you and I are in the trenches. Doctors are in the trenches. We can’t wait for the 15 year study to say hey, yeah, ketosis. Often times, we have to extrapolate from the research that does exist and see how that works with our patients. I’m not opposed to ketosis, in fact here’s another part of the dietary part that I failed to mention.

Another part of the CaPLESS method is intermittent fasting. What does that mean? That means you eat for a certain period of the day and you don’t eat or just drink water for another part of the day. I typically do 12 hour fasting a day. Let’s say 8PM to 8AM or something like that. Sometimes I ask them to do 16 hours every other day. Well, that can potentially induce ketosis, potentially, depending on what else they eat.

And then I have some other patients who go to doctor Google and say ketosis is good, I’m going to do ketosis. Great. Do ketosis. I could do the ketogenic diet, I’m following them closely.

For the person that’s used to living the sad lifestyle which is the standard American diet lifestyle who just got diagnosed, I have to put him on a program that’s science based, beating prostate cancer, I think that’s important. When you look at the literature, you see American lifestyle on prostate cancer and it says it’s a plant based diet with very low fat which I don’t think no different components and variables in it. You can’t just say it’s from the diet, but you cannot ignore it either.

When you look at literature, you have to kind of—it’s not just ketosis. Once again, those patients that are in a ketogenic diet, I leave them on it.

Dr. Cates: Great. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on ketosis, I know some people might be wondering what is this. You can certainly find out more about that, we’re not going to delve into that a lot. Do you think it’s interesting to look at what the research shows and what science is out there right now, what people’s experience are? That’s why I wanted to ask about that clarification on that.

It sounds like in general what you’re talking about is eating more fish, when you choose meat to choose grass fed, free range kinds of meats, the Brassicaceae vegetables that are so important and also things like berries that are full of antioxidants. Those are some of the big things with diet and then exercise three hours a week of cardio, and then adding in three hours of weight or resistance exercise if you want to boost your testosterone levels.

Dr. Espinosa: Not necessarily to boost testosterone, but one of the therapies for prostate cancer, particularly aggressive prostate cancer is castration, chemical castration. You get the testosterone balance to zero. In order to protect your body from metabolic syndrome and weak bones, then what’s required is weight resistance. It’s not going to boost testosterone levels necessarily.

Dr. Cates: Okay. You talked about some supplements. I think those are all really fantastic components to help people with prostate cancer and anything else that you would add into that that you have in your book, or that you wanted to point out.

Dr. Espinosa: Yeah. Sleep 12 hours a night, which no one in New York does. Come on, I only say that. I say that with tongue and cheek because you remember naturopathic school, you always have straight to sleep groups and they so well. 12 hours, that’s what you need. Who does that? Are you going to get anything done if you sleep 12—you got to be holistic but realistic.

Seven hours a night is the dosage, give or take. Life is hard, I know. I get seven hours a night maybe three times a week. Other times, I just get five hours. Life is hard. Then, is 10 minutes of either meditation or mindfulness or deep breathing exercises, just 10 minutes a day. Would you know that’s digestible for most people, metaphorically speaking, they can do that. Those are the main things.

We talk about the 21 day CaPLESS reset program where for 21 days you’re very clean with your diet, with your lifestyle, just 21 days. That kind of is a jump start if you will on getting on the program.

Dr. Cates: Great. And then of course with any type of cancer, it’s important for people to not try and treat themselves, treat cancer on their own, or even just—I think we need to look at it as an integrative approach. You need to talk to your oncologist, you need to work with a naturopathic doctor, functional medicine together, it’s part of a teamwork. I think it’s important to have a whole team of people that help you. Your family is part of your team, and I think that’s how people are most successful in beating cancer and keeping—

Dr. Espinosa: That’s the only way. It’s really a multidisciplinary approach. I have to tell your audience right now with almost 100% certainty that if their loved one—just assuming there are very little men listening to this show right now—with 100% certainty almost, that if they just take the conventional route, they are short changing themselves and they’re not going to be able to really heal, really cure themselves, and really live their best life moving forward. They’re just not.

They need to include a naturopathic doctor, they have the ONCAMP. They have the Oncological Fellowship Association for Naturopathic Physicians. Go to the oncamp.com and you can find a doctor that’s naturopathically inclined.

Dr. Cates: Yeah, that’s a good point. It is important to go to a functional medicine doctor that specializes in this. Not all naturopathic doctors or functional medicine doctors are going to know exactly what you’re talking about.

Certainly, you’ve got this book now that’s a great resource for people. Tell us a bit about your book, how this came to be and how people can find it.

Dr. Espinosa: I do feel like I gave birth around two and a half weeks ago. It feels like that. Certainly, the funny feelings in my gut are very similar to when my kids were born. It’s called Thrive, Don’t Only Survive. Dr. Geo’s Guide To Living Your Best Life Before And After Prostate Cancer.

It’s really a culmination about eight, nine years of experience. Actually, I have about 12 years of experience dealing a lot with prostate cancer. I’m at NYU here in New York as Director of the Integrative Functional Neurology Center, so I see a lot of guys with prostate cancer. In depth research, world research on what is it that we really need to do. There’s a lot of misinformation out there, there’s a lot of confusion as to what to do.

I wanted to make it as dummy proof as possible, and it’s really a prescription. There’s a minimum, that’s why we call it the lowest therapeutic dose of what to do with exercise, that lowest therapeutic dose is three hours a week. The literature is very clear, the scientific literature that those that exercise with moderate intensity for three hours a week don’t die as often from prostate cancer compared to those that don’t.

Thrive, Don’t Only Survive, there’s a website. We’re developing an amazing community of CaPLESS thrivers. These are people that are not looking at life as a survival thing. I have a hard time with that word, I have a hard time because yes of course you want to survive, of course you have to survive first. Words are powerful, words have an effect on your nervous system inside of your body. Survivor implies kind of just making it, I’m just hanging in there, barely just hanging in there.

Thriver means no, as a result of this diagnosis, I’m going to actually live a better life. I’m going to live my best life as a result of prostate cancer. Prostate cancer is an opportunity to live your best life. That’s what this book is about, that’s what the community is about, and I’m very excited about it. It’s really changing lives.

Dr. Cates: Excellent, I’m so excited for you. If you’re listening and your man and you’re over 40, especially if you have family history of prostate cancer, you’re having any symptoms, something to consider is this book. Or if you’re a woman and you have someone in your life that you’re concerned about with their prostate health, I think this is a book you wanna get because there aren’t many things out there like this. I don’t know where else you can find this information.

Dr. Espinosa: Thank you. I agree, but I wrote the book, so I’m a little bit biased.

Dr. Cates: Absolutely. Alright, thank you so much Dr. Geo for your information and coming out for your interview. Really appreciate it.

Dr. Espinosa: It’s totally my pleasure, let’s do it again sometime.

Dr. Cates: I hope you enjoyed this interview today with Dr. Geo Espinosa. To learn more about Dr. Geo and his new book, you can visit my website thespadr.com. Go to the podcast page with his interview and you’ll see all of the information and links there.

Also, I invite you to join the Spa Doctor community on my website or subscribe to the podcast on iTunes so you don’t miss any of our upcoming shows. If you haven’t done so already, I highly recommend you get your customized skin report at theskinquiz.com. It’s free and based upon answer to just a few questions, you’ll get your own customized skin profile.

Also, don’t miss out on the latest tips for glowing skin and vibrant health. Join us on social media on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, and Instagram. Join the conversation, I hope to see you there. Thank you and I’ll see you next time.